by Joss Wood
“What if he’s killed her? What then?” Knox shouted, shoving his hand into his hair.
“She’s not dead.” Axl looked up at him. “I’d know it if she was.” That knowledge was all that was keeping him upright.
“Knox, honey, sit down.”
Axl looked at the petite woman on the couch and frowned. “Who the hell are you?”
“Marina Black. Knox and I are costarring in Mickey Kane’s movie.” An emotion he couldn’t identify passed through her eyes when she uttered the director’s name, and Axl frowned. His computer beeped and Axl shrugged his curiosity away. He had work to do and he couldn’t afford to be distracted.
Kai sat down, and Axl, his fingers flying across his keyboard, was vaguely aware that Sawyer was guiding Knox to a seat, with Bryn standing behind him, his face as hard as cast concrete.
“We’re missing something, Knox,” Sawyer said in his most persuasive voice. “I know it’s hard but you need to concentrate.”
Knox rested his hands on his knees and hauled in a deep breath. “I’ll try.”
“Let’s go back to the beginning,” Sawyer suggested, sitting on the arm of the sofa. “We know that he wants the drive, it’s the only thing that was hidden and hidden well.”
Axl happened to look at Marina’s face, and her lips were blue in her bone-white face. Oh, yeah, this woman knew something. To test her, he tossed a conversational grenade and lied through his teeth. “I managed to decode those files on the flash drive but I haven’t had a moment to look at them. Let’s do that now—”
He doubted he’d ever manage to view the video on the thumb drive, it was that corrupted.
“No!” Marina jumped to her feet, and every last vestige of color drained away from her face. Her hands started to shake and her eyes looked as big as UFOs. It took everything Axl had to stop himself from winding his big hands around her slender throat and shaking the truth out of her. He felt Sawyer’s cautionary hand on his shoulder again and he shrugged it off, annoyed. Before he could blast her, Marina turned to look at Knox. “I swear, I was going to tell you, warn you! That’s actually why I came. Before I could, we were distracted.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Knox demanded.
“The drive, what’s on the drive and why Mickey wants it,” Marina gabbled.
“Mickey? Mickey Kane?” Sawyer asked, and Marina nodded.
“What the hell does Mickey have to do with this?” Knox asked. Axl was desperate to know the answer as well. His attention on the conversation, he immediately accessed Knox’s phone and found a number for the famous Hollywood director. He plugged the number into his phenomenal but highly illegal tracking program, knowing that he would have his exact location in ten minutes or so. He could wait ten minutes if it meant finding Reagan, rescuing Reagan.
“It’s not easy to hear, Knox,” Marina warned.
Knox jumped up and lifted a finger to her face. “Nothing is harder than not knowing where my son is. Fucking tell me.”
“Sula, Mickey, me, and a girl named Michelle used to be in the . . . adult film business. It is, was, our biggest secret. Sula was terrified that you would find out.”
Knox whipped his hand across his mouth, and Axl felt a spurt of empathy for him.
“Mickey said that he’d managed to retrieve all the copies of the films made—”
“That’s impossible,” Kai interjected.
Marina shook her head. “Very few copies, made on demand according to the taste of the client. Not that many copies.”
“Holy shit,” Bryn murmured.
“I think that Sula managed to get hold of some footage, and that’s what Mickey wants. He’s obsessed with burying the past,” Marina said, wrapping her arms around her waist. “He’s respected now, and that’s very important to him.”
“What’s very important to me is getting my son back,” Knox shouted. “Do you think he has him?”
Marina shrugged. “Maybe.” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth.
Axl met Sawyer’s eyes, then Kai’s. “It’s the only solid lead we have, the only possibility that makes sense,” Kai said. He nodded at the screen. “Have you traced him yet?”
Axl flicked a look at his screen. Five minutes to go. “Soon.”
“How dangerous is he?” Sawyer asked Marina.
“I think he’s pretty dangerous,” Marina admitted. “The girl I mentioned earlier? Michelle?”
“What about her?” Kai asked when Marina stopped speaking.
“Shortly before we broke into the mainstream film industry, Michelle disappeared. Mickey suddenly had a lot of cash he was flashing. When I say a lot, I mean a bundle. I think he made a film and . . .” Marina shuddered, dropping her had. “He’d had requests before for, you know . . .”
Axl blew out his breath. “Snuff films?”
Marina nodded, and Axl tasted bile in the back of his throat. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“We did. We reported her missing.” Marina shrugged. “Mickey said that she’d had enough of the business, that she’d probably gone home. We were about to start filming Surf Style—”
“That was the movie that launched both of your careers,” Knox said, his eyes flashing anger and betrayal and soul-deep hurt. “I bet neither of you wanted to rock the boat.”
“We were young—” Marina protested.
Knox dropped down to the sofa and stared at the floor. “Please, get her out of here. I can’t . . . she’s . . . Bryn?”
Axl watched as Bryn jerked his head in Marina’s direction. “Let’s go.”
Axl returned his glance to his computer, and when it sounded a notification, he punched the air with his fist. “Map, I need a map.”
He logged into another program and swiftly plugged in the coordinates of the cell phone tower Kane’s phone pinged off. “Sawyer, where the hell is this?”
Sawyer looked over his shoulder. “About twenty miles from here, there are a couple of remote cabins that are rented out for people looking for solitude or privacy.”
“That’s where they are,” Axl said, standing up. “Let’s rock and roll.”
“Bag’s in the car,” Sawyer said, referring to their rescue kit, which included weapons and stun guns, flashes, and cuffs. Axl gripped Knox’s shoulder. “You need to stay here with Bryn. We’ll call you as soon as we’ve got them.”
Knox started to protest but stopped when Axl interrupted him. “Knox, we rescue people, this is what we do. Let us do it, okay?”
The doorbell pealed and Axl frowned. Together with Sawyer and Kai, they approached the door, hands on their weapons. They weren’t expecting trouble to rock up on their doorstep, but one never knew.
Sawyer pulled the door open and Axl flew into the open space, his gun raised.
Reagan, her face white and drawn, looked back at him, a sleeping Coe in her arms. She pushed the barrel of his pistol out of her face. “Seriously, Rhodes, I’ve had enough guns pointed at me for one day.”
***
“I nailed him in the balls, coldcocked him with a kick to the temple, and tied him up,” Reagan said, her voice shaky. “Then I grabbed Coe and drove out of there in my truck.”
“You could’ve called us and we would’ve come and gotten you,” Kai stated.
“I just wanted to put as much distance as possible between him and us,” Reagan said, taking a sip from the hot cup of coffee in her hands. She looked a little pale, Axl thought, but she was holding up well, even managing to crack a joke now and then.
Axl felt like he’d had his heart shoved through a meat grinder.
He desperately wanted to hold her, needed to feel that she was alive and well, but he knew that if he touched her he’d break down and bawl like a baby. So he kept his distance from her, standing across the room from her, utterly silent but conscious of every movement s
he made, every word she uttered.
Axl, feeling like his knees were buckling, wrenched his eyes off her face and turned to look out of the huge windows onto the darkness out there. Struggling to find his composure, he blinked away the burning sensation in his eyes—he didn’t cry, ever!—and hauled in a couple of deep breaths, willing his heart to slow the hell down.
“Is Coe going to be okay?” Reagan asked, and he heard the fear in her voice.
“He’s upstairs with Knox. Bryn, who was a combat medic, is checking him out. Any idea what Kane gave him?”
“No,” Reagan replied.
“Bryn will evaluate Coe and see if he needs to go to the ER. Obviously we’d like to try and avoid that if we can. If we don’t, by morning everyone in the world will know that Knox Callow’s son was in the ER with too many drugs in his system, and that’s a story we don’t need in the public domain,” Sawyer said.
“What are we going to do about Mickey Kane?” Kai asked.
They’d sent Mac and Oz, Sawyer’s right-hand man, to the remote cabin, and they’d reported that they’d found Kane tied up like a human pretzel and in the most uncomfortable position possible. Good for her, Axl thought.
They left Kane as he was; neither Oz nor Mac felt the need to make him feel him comfortable.
Axl turned enough to see Sawyer rubbing his face. “As much as we’d like to, we can’t keep his arrest a secret. He kidnapped Reagan and Coe, he attempted to kill Coe—”
“I genuinely believe that he thought the trailer was empty. He was also the man who stayed with Coe in the parking lot, who handed him over to the authorities. He didn’t want to kill anyone,” Reagan pointed out.
“Maybe not recently, but we still don’t know what happened to the other girl,” Kai said.
“What other girl?” Reagan demanded.
Axl knew that she was looking at him, that she was silently asking him to talk to her. He couldn’t . . . He still felt too out of control, too raw.
Kai recounted Marina’s explanation about the third girl who went missing. Reagan nodded, thinking. “That makes sense, he mentioned something about losing his freedom.”
Sawyer stood up and pulled his phone from the back pocket of his pants. “I’m going to call Kelly . . .”
“Who?” Axl asked.
“Mercy chief of police,” Sawyer explained, meeting his eyes. Sawyer cut his glance to Reagan, and when his eyes met Axl’s again he knew that his friend was mentally telling him that he was acting like a dick, that Reagan needed him.
She didn’t, not really. Look at her; yeah, she was pale and tired, but her eyes were clear and her hands steady. She wasn’t crying and throwing herself on his chest. Reagan didn’t need him for anything. Not even to do what he did best, to rescue her from her kidnapper. She didn’t need anything from him.
And really, when he stepped thinking with his heart and kicked his brain into gear, he remembered that this was just about sex, that he wasn’t looking for a relationship, for any additional responsibility in his life. And he could walk away, at any time he wanted to.
Sawyer rolled his eyes at him as he lifted his phone to his ear. His back to Reagan, he raised a succinct middle finger as he started to speak. “Kelly, I have a situation here. It’s complicated, so listen up . . .”
Sawyer walked out of the room and Kai, after looking from Axl to Reagan and back again, stood up. “I’m going to check on Coe.”
When Axl was sure that his friends were out of earshot, Axl turned away from the window and jammed his hands into the pockets of his pants, knowing that if he didn’t keep them there, he’d reach for Reagan and never let her go again.
“It’s been a fairly shitty day, any chance of a hug?”
Axl shook his head and planted his feet. He stared down at the carpet and felt his heart lurch up into his throat. He couldn’t touch her . . . If he did, he’d never be able to walk away.
“What’s going on, Axe?” Reagan asked, scooting to the edge of the sofa. Axl couldn’t meet her eyes, so he looked at her legs, her hands, which were shaking. God, he wanted to reassure her, to take her to bed, to touch her to make sure that every inch of her body was unharmed.
“Are. You. Hurt.” Axl snapped the words out. “Anywhere?”
“No.”
That would have to do.
He had to end this. He couldn’t allow anyone to have this much power over him, this much control. Especially somebody who was as self-sufficient as Reagan. He had nothing to give her, nothing that she needed. Quick and clean, Axl thought. Get it done.
“I’ve made a decision.” He had to look her in the eye, she deserved that. Besides, it was what men did, wasn’t it?
Reagan cocked her head. “As I said, shitty day, Rhodes. Can this wait?”
Axl shook his head. No, if he delayed this then he didn’t know if he’d ever have the guts to let her go. “Firstly, you will never be part of my rescue missions, that’s for certain.”
“That’s not a huge surprise. That being said, I think I handled myself pretty well tonight.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t. Handle myself, that is. I couldn’t operate properly knowing you were in danger, and that puts me and the mission in danger. Not going to do that.” Axl snapped the words out. “Never going to do that.”
Reagan, to his surprise, didn’t argue. “Okay. What else? I can see there’s more, so spit it out.”
His woman wasn’t a fool. His woman? She wasn’t. “I’m walking away.”
“From me?”
“Yeah. From the sex, from your life.”
“Want to tell me why?” Reagan asked, and Axl ignored the devastation in her voice. He watched as tears rose to her eyes and slowly, God, so slowly rolled down her cheeks.
Jesus, Reagan didn’t cry. Fuck, he was making her cry.
He wanted to abandon this conversation, pull her into his arms, and wipe her tears away. But he knew that he’d just be delaying the inevitable. They wouldn’t work, long-term, it wasn’t possible. He tried to explain. “You don’t need me, Reagan. You never have. You’re the most independent, self-sufficient woman I know. You make good money, you can handle yourself in any situation, you can kick ass up and down the country. You’ve never needed me or my protection. I was a fool to think that you did.”
Reagan took a long time to answer him, and when she did, her words nearly dropped him to his knees. And, dammit, those tears just weren’t stopping. “I don’t need you to rescue me, Axl, but I sure wouldn’t mind you standing by my side as I rescue myself. Love is not a need, Axl. Love is . . .”
“Don’t tell me what love is,” Axl snapped. “You’re just looking for a guy to replace Mike, to replace your father.”
“I’m looking for a man who can love me, who I can love.” Reagan’s voice was steady and, beneath the tears and emotion, her eyes begged him to believe in her, in them. “You’ve always been that man. We’d be good for each other, Axe.”
Axl felt himself wavering, desperately wanting to say to hell with it and grab her and never let her go. It couldn’t last, nothing this good, this wonderful, ever did. No, it was better to walk away, to save themselves from devastating heartbreak down the road.
“Good-bye, Reags. Maybe, someday, we’ll manage to find our way back to being friends.”
“Don’t, Axl, please.” Reagan’s voice broke and she bent over, looking broken. God knew that he felt wrecked.
He stepped toward her and then, abruptly, spun on his heel. He took two steps, then another two, desperate for her to call him back, to ask him to stay. He actually felt his heart rip when he realized that no matter how long it took for him to go, no matter how many times he stopped then started again, Reagan would never, not ever, beg him to stay.
She didn’t need him enough to do that. She never would.
Chapter Twelve
KelbyKelly
: If Pippa can beat the Cas boys at pool, we can certainly beat a bunch of water boys on the 24-hour hell race.
JasonSturgiss: What language are you speaking? ’Cause it sounds like pure crap.
JoggerGirl: Hey, Chief Kelby, I run triathlons and I’m pretty fast. I’d love to join your team and help you kick a certain fire chief’s butt.
JasonSturgiss: Challenge accepted @JoggerGirl. If I beat you, you’ll have that drink with me.
JasonSturgiss: Warning, I like coming first.
JoggerGirl: Shocker.
KelbyKelly: Will someone please take Sturgiss’s computer away? He’s an embarrassment to men everywhere.
Reagan wanted Axl to be happy but, worse than that, she wanted to be his happiness. She wanted to be the person to put a smile on his face. The one he rolled over to kiss the first thing in the morning, the one she fell asleep with at night. She wanted to be his comfort, his support, his joy, his life.
She wanted to be his everything yet she was his nothing.
Being unwanted by the person you wanted the most was the worst feeling in the world.
Reagan, sitting on the porch of Pippa’s home, propped her feet up onto the railing and lifted her rapidly cooling coffee to her lips, trying to ignore the tears sliding down her face. She’d cried more in the past few days than she had since she was ten.
Thanks, Rhodes.
Since that night of the kidnapping, when she’d been stupid enough to rescue herself and Coe—not given Axl the chance to act as white knight and to ride to her rescue—she hadn’t seen Axl once. Sawyer mentioned that he’d returned to London to oversee a kidnapping case in Amsterdam.
Reagan knew that he used MKR business as a convenient and quick excuse to get the hell out of Dodge.
She’d broken her rules and now she was paying the price. Honestly, she’d never thought that a broken heart could hurt so much. She felt overwhelmed, like her heart and her spirit were empty, like there was little to live for and absolutely nothing to look forward to. She had work, sure, Sawyer had three assignments waiting for her, whenever she was ready to go back to private protection.