Freed (Bad Boy Hitman Romance)

by Terry Towers

  Tanner looked from me, to Kyle, to me again – the gun unwavering.

  “So you won’t care if I just fire a warning shot?” He lowered the gun, and a whoosh sound came from the gun, the sound being supressed by the silencer. A split second later, I felt my left leg burn as a searing pain shot up my thigh and sent a tremble through my entire body.

  I crumpled to the floor, my hands going to my bleeding leg.

  Someone grunted, and there was a crash, but I didn’t look up.

  Pulling the leg of my jeans up, I inspected the bleeding surface wound. The bullet had grazed me, but it didn’t go through. Anger rushed through me. How dare that mother fucker!

  Looking up, I saw the men on the floor. Tanner was on top of Kyle, his fist slamming into Kyle’s face over and over. A glint of silver caught my eye. The gun. Stumbling to my feet, I grabbed the gun, and leaning against the wall, all weight on my good leg, I pointed the gun with the hand from the uninjured arm and leveled it at Tanner. Between my two injuries I was in a world of hurt, but I did my best to ignore the pain as adrenaline shot through me.

  “Get off of him!” I growled. I actually kinda surprised myself with how forceful my voice was. Both men froze, and two sets of eyes peered up at me. Once I had their attention, I motioned with the gun for Tanner to rise. “NOW! Or I’ll fucking shoot you and then who will be around to protect Emily?”

  That seemed to do the trick; Tanner rose, and once off his opponent, Kyle stood as well, hauling off and slamming his fist into Tanners midsection. Tanner grunted and doubled over. Kyle was about to land another punch, but I stopped him, standing in his path, the barrel of the gun against Tanner’s chest.

  “Back up into the apartment, before someone comes.”

  Tanner’s jaw clenched, and he looked down at me with raw fury. His lip was beginning to swell where Kyle had landed the initial punch. I couldn’t chance a look over my shoulder at Kyle. Tanner wasn’t someone I could let my guard down for, not for a second. He’d kill us both if he felt it would help – I knew this as surely as I knew my next breath was coming.

  Without a word, he began to slowly back into the apartment. Once a safe distance was between us, I hobbled after him, trying not to wince with each step. Fuck my life – seriously. A gunshot wound to both my leg and my shoulder. I seriously needed to consider getting a frequent visitor card for the hospital. Treat 4 gunshot wounds, get medical attention for the 5th free.

  Kyle followed behind me and closed the door once we were all in the apartment. “Just head to the sofa and sit down. We all need to talk.”

  His jaw clenched again, but he did as told. As he was sitting, Kyle grabbed the gun from me and I let him. I held back snapping that a little thanks for saving his ass would have been nice. I examined him as he walked to the front of the sofa, and while keeping the gun aimed at Tanner, sat down across from him.

  As much as I wanted to stay in the room and witness what was being said, the bleeding was beginning to saturate the denim. I needed to do a quick bandage job.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “You going to be all right, babe?”

  “Yeah.” I was feeling a little light headed, but other than that, I was fine. Some sugar and a bandage was just what the doctor ordered, but with one hand, it was going to be a pain in the ass.

  * TT *

  Kyle

  The great Tanner. The man sitting on my sofa and glowering at me had been the son my father had always wanted. I was never hard enough. He never said that to my face, but I knew. It had pissed me off. My father thought so much of this man, but I didn’t see what he saw. The man was a flesh peddler, as reformed as he may claim to be. Sure, maybe I wasn’t all that much better, but still.

  I could easily fire a bullet into his head and end this. Flynn preferred him alive so he could do it himself, but I could make it seem like it had to be done, and I had no choice in the matter.

  But I wouldn’t – no, couldn’t. Because of Rebecca.

  “How are you, Rebecca?” I called out to her. It hadn’t looked like a serious wound, but you never knew. It was not like I was in the position to go check on her at the moment – not with Tanner waiting for an opportunity where he could spring into action and overpower me.

  “Fine. I’m okay,” she called back from the bathroom. It was stocked up, so she’d be able to make due. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable for her considering she was dealing with her injured shoulder, but she was a fighter, so she’d manage.

  So, back to Tanner.

  “Flynn wants you dead.”

  “I know. As I said, Emily and I are starting a life. We took off because we’re done with this world. Once Emily sees her sister is fine, we can disappear again. This only needs to be difficult if you make it that way, Kyle.”

  “Right.”

  He continued. “I figured this was a trap. Sensed it. But Emily insisted in coming to see that psychotic bitch of a sister of hers.”

  Rage filled me, and my finger tightened on the trigger. I forced it back. “I’d be very careful on how you talk to me about Rebecca. Your baby may end up being without a father, which may not be such aa bad thing, all things considered.”

  “Fuck Kyle, you must have it bad. We both know what I’m saying is true. I know she’s just like us. I knew it the moment I set eyes on her.”

  “Then why in the name of God would you bring a pregnant woman here?”

  “Because she’d come regardless. She doesn’t understand people like us – not really. She’s naïve, and I like it like that. She doesn’t know what her sister really is, and she’d never believe it. She’s under the illusion her sister is as pure and selfless as she is. But we both know she’s not.”

  Rebecca. Selfless. I mulled that around in my mind. Rebecca was a survivor. She took what she wanted, when she wanted it. Sure, there was a coldness to her, but at the same time, something had formed between us. I couldn’t explain it because I didn’t understand it myself, but the bond between us was solid.

  “So what about you?”

  He cocked his head to the side and eyed me a moment. “What about me?”

  “What about you and Emily? You were never the loving sort, but you left the life you had for her.”

  The mask he wore fell a moment, and I saw something there – affection? Love? The last person I could have ever dreamed of falling in love was Tanner. He was a cold, sick bastard, but there it was. The mask he wore dropped, and he was exposed. Emily was his kryptonite.

  “Emily can love, and she’s shown me a way to share those feelings. There’s a difference.”

  I was getting angry again. Was he implying he could find a way to access those emotions, but I couldn’t? Fucking prick. The urge to shoot him here and now became almost undeniable.

  Tanner continued. “You and Rebecca.” He laughed. “It’s infatuation. How can a person learn how to love and give and receive affection if neither person is capable of the emotion or has ever felt it?”

  “You’re being pretty presumptuous and cocky for someone who has a gun to his head.” The fucker was saying he was better than me. He was able to find love, but I couldn’t, and Rebecca couldn’t. In his mind, that made him superior.

  “I’m just speaking the truth.”

  Fuck this shit. Tanner was going to my father in a body bag. I began to pull the trigger. My mind was blanking out and rage consumed me. How dare he look at me with that smug grin, thinking he was better than me!

  “Kyle!”

  I released the trigger and looked over at Rebecca as she hobbled into the living room. I felt something. Regret. She was in pain. Sure the leg hadn’t been my fault, but the shoulder was.

  But it had been the only way. And it had worked.

  That was only a minor consolation.

  As she drew closer, I could see how pale she’d become. Her complexion, which was normally sun-kissed, looked ashen. She wobbled on her feet. “I’m fine.” She attempted to smile, but at the moment she began to s
mile, the life seemed to drain from her, and she fell to the floor.

  Tanner wasn’t even a consideration at that moment. My mind was on one and only one person, Rebecca. Maybe the wound wasn’t superficial like I’d thought. Maybe he’d hit an artery?

  I silently prayed she was fine. If she wasn’t, I’d rip Tanner and his world apart – be damned the consequences.

  It was at that moment I realized something. My entire world, my entire being was all connected to Rebecca. Was it love? I wasn’t quite sure, but I knew I couldn’t live without her.

  Chapter 26

  Rebecca

  My head hurt. There was an ungodly throbbing at my temples, and my mouth was so damned dry, it tasted like ass. Gross.

  I groaned out load.

  Slowly, I opened my eyes to see Kyle staring down at me. He looked worried and then the worry gave way to a look of relief. “What’s going on?”

  “You lost a lot of blood, and you fainted.”

  I groaned, closing my eyes again. “My head hurts. Where am I?”

  “Home.”

  “The dorms?”

  I laughed. “My place. You’re in my bedroom. I forcefed you some juice.”

  “Where’s Tanner and Emily?”

  “In the living room.”

  My eyes sprang open again. “Alone?” I struggled to get up, but my head began to get dizzy, and I felt nauseous, so I flopped back down onto the pillow until the nausea passed. “I’m missing some puzzle pieces here, Kyle.”

  He chuckled and brushed the hair back out of my face with his hand. “You’ve been out for a while. While you were out, I had a discussion with Tanner and Emily.”

  “Uh-huh.” Despite feeling as bad as I did, I needed to know what was going on. While I was out, there had to have been some truce called for them to be left alone. “Are they tied up somewhere or drugged?

  He chuckled. “No, I think they’re watching a Big Bang Theory marathon.”

  “Huh?” I crinkled my nose up at him and opened my eyes again, catching his gaze. There was something so intense in his eyes. I’d seen it before with other guys, but I had remained unaffected by the look coming from them. Coming from Kyle, however, it felt warming. The pain in my shoulder and leg seemed to pale in comparison to the surge of joy at seeing that look in his eyes.

  I was pretty out of it, having just regained consciousness. Maybe I was imagining the look. But then again, it didn’t go away. He looked at me as though he was in love with me. I shook myself out of that line of thought. We had other matters that took precedence.

  “What in the hell happened?”

  “They’re in love.”

  “And?”

  He grinned. “And they’re a non-issue.”

  “I don’t understand. Didn’t your father want Tanner’s head on a platter?”

  He nodded.

  “Wasn’t the whole point of them coming here for you to lure them out?”

  He nodded again. God, why was he making this so difficult? He knew what I wanted to know. Fuck him and his insistence on being difficult and making me work for everything!

  “What changed?”

  “You,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Me?” A frowned creased my forehead. “What did I have to do with it?”

  “Do you want them dead? I can make it happen.”

  “Emily, no. Tanner…” I shrugged and then winced. I didn’t really give a damned about Tanner. God, I needed to remember my shoulder, though how I kept forgetting was beyond me. Maybe I wasn’t as bright as I thought I was.

  “Emily wouldn’t be able to exist without him, Rebecca. She’s…”

  “Stockholm’s syndrome. Yeah, I know.”

  “No, I don’t think that’s it. But just watching them together, you can tell she’d perish without him. And he’s genuinely in love with her. To kill him would be to kill her too. And let’s be honest with each other, did you have any intention of letting me hand Emily over to Flynn to be put into the sex trade?”

  “No.” There was no point lying to him. For a while I was uncertain, but the more soul-searching I did on the matter, the more I realized, regardless of the circumstance of my father’s death, the bottom line was that he brought it onto himself. I was getting what I wanted. Emily was my family, and I’d be damned if she’d be taken by anyone without my say so. “So, what do we do?”

  “After a visit with you, Tanner and Emily are going to take off again. Tanner knows how to disappear, and once they’re gone, they’ll be gone forever, unless they want to come back up for air. I’ll set up a way for you to communicate with Emily.”

  “Will he hurt her?” His expression went stony blank for a moment, and my eyes narrowed at him. “Will he? If he gets bored with her what will he do?”

  “I really don’t know. From what I can tell, he’s smitten. It’s been a number of years, and she’s having his kid. They seem extremely tight. I think there’s something in her that makes him human. Somehow, she’s found a way to unlock the affection in him. There’s no guarantees, but it’s my honest opinion that she’s safe with him.”

  I nodded, letting out a loud huff. Could I unlock that within Kyle? He’d changed me whether I liked it or not. I felt better when I was around him, and I longed to be with him. It was a foreign and sometimes unsettling feeling, but that’s how it was. I was falling in love. Hell, maybe I was in love already.

  “I want to see her.”

  “Are you up for it?”

  Rolling my eyes at him, I nodded. “I’ve been shot twice in a week, and I’m still standing.” Laughing, I reconsidered my words. “Okay, perhaps not standing, but I’m alive, so I think seeing Emily will be fine.”

  Laughing, he got up from the bed. “Fine, I’ll bring her in. What about Tanner?”

  “I want to speak to them separately.”

  “Your wish, gorgeous.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m sure I look stunning right now. The lack of blood must do wonders for my complexion.”

  “If you’re feeling really bad, we can take you to the hospital.”

  “Sure, that won’t result in lots of questions.” I pulled up the blanket and took a look at my leg. He’d stitched it up. “Nice job on the stitches.”

  “Tanner did them.”

  “Uh-huh.” I cocked a brow up at him. “You two lovers now? You seem to have a man crush on him.”

  “It’s that evident? Damn, I was trying to keep it to myself.”

  I laughed and then groaned as the movement caused pain to run through me. “Enough talking, get me Emily. I’m feeling tired.” Wasn’t that the truth. I was feeling extremely tired at the moment. Closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep would have been sweet-assed sweet right now. But first thing was first.

  Kyle left, and a few minutes later, Emily appeared in the doorway of the bedroom.

  “Fuck, Emily. Can’t believe you’re pregnant.” She was always a slender girl, but the pregnancy gave her a good-sized round baby bump. She looked good though, her complexion glowed, and my comment made her smile.

  “You haven’t changed.” She took a hesitant step into the room and then another.

  “I’m trying on this new pasty white, near death look. Does it suit me?”

  Emily crinkled her nose up at me and shook her head. “How are you feeling?”

  “Been better, but your boyfriend shot me.”

  She glared at me. “You boyfriend also shot you. Which do you think is the greater sin?”

  Ouch, she was like a little Pitbull when it came to Tanner. I huffed, not answering that question. Emily wasn’t as soft and sweet as she once was. I gave her a close inspection as she entered the room and stepped closer to me. There was a hardness to her that was once soft – internally, I mean. You could see it in her eyes. I should have been happy. She’d always been so naive, but I wasn’t.

  “Kyle told us why he shot you,” she continued, coming up to the bed and sitting on the edge. “Why be with a man who would risk your life?”<
br />
  “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

  She shrugged. “I’m with a man who needs me. I’ve changed him for the good. I help exercise his demons.”

  Oh dear God, here we go with the God and demon shit. The Emily I knew was breaking out, ladies and gents – whether we liked it or not. “How exactly do you do that?”

  She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Does he hurt you?” Anger surged through me. I didn’t want him hurting her. She was my sister. She belonged to me.

  Emily smiled and shook her head, brushing a dark lock of hair back. “No, he doesn’t.”

  “There’s different types of abuse – physical, emotional…”

  She raised a hand, cutting me off. “I’m aware, Rebecca. I’m not here to talk about that. Just know that I’m safe, and Tanner will keep me that way.”

  “Then I want to talk about father.”

  She stiffened, and I noticed she shivered slightly. “What about him?” There was an edge to her voice, an edge I’d never heard before.

  “What happened? I want the whole story.”

  Taking a deep breath in, I watched her slowly release it, closing her eyes for a moment before answering. “Tanner took me. I was meant to be trained and sold. Before I met him, Tanner was a lost and damaged soul. But that changed when he met me.”

  I snorted. “Yeah.” But as I scoffed at her, I felt like a hypocrite, because I was feeling the change. As crazy as it seemed to me, I did.

  “Believe it or not. It’s true.”

  “Continue with the story.”

  “Well, we found a compromise that made it work for us. We tried to make it real. I took him to meet you, mom, and dad. But that was a mistake. He showed up one day when Tanner was out. He came right to the front door and rang the bell like he was there for a visit. When I opened the door, I was shocked to find out it was him, shocked and so excited.” She smiled, just a little bit, but her gaze turned dark again, and I saw her shudder. “But he wasn’t there for a visit. He was going to kill me.” She touched the middle of her chest. There was a nasty scar there of the number 31.