by Jayne Rylon
“They’re okay?” Hopefully they hadn’t been in a car wreck or something like that. Lucas swallowed hard, preparing himself for bad news.
“Actually, yes.”
“Then what the hell?” He scratched his head.
“Turns out Ellie must have taken her lucky rabbit’s foot along.” JRad paused, as if he’d realized the absurdity of that mental image for Lucas.
Instead of getting pissed or being offended, he laughed. “Huh. Wonder if some bunny’s got my damn foot in its pocket.”
“Er—”
“Anyway, she’s up for the night? Beating the house? Are they partying to celebrate? Need a designated driver or something?” He steered them back to their discussion. Good for Ellie. He knew money was tight. Had contributed as much as he could manage as an anonymous donor to the fund he’d set up for her recovery, before handing it off to the Men in Blue to administer so she wouldn’t get suspicious.
“We’re not talking about a couple hundred bucks here, Lucas.” JRad sighed. “She won almost fifty grand on the fucking penny slots. Cash. They’re driving home with it right now.”
“Are you shitting me?” Call him cynical, but that seemed nearly impossible. In his world, that usually meant something was up. “That place isn’t going to be in business long if they’re handing out sacks of money like that. Why wouldn’t they have written her a check?”
“Lily says the claim form wasn’t clear and they didn’t feel like wading through the paperwork again to switch the payment type. Six smoking-hot women and a huge chunk of cash. You know every man in that place noticed them and they’re going to talk. Shit, it’s probably plastered all over social media by now. TV will be next. That’s a fuck ton of temptation. Maybe you could stay with Ellie tonight and escort her to make a deposit once the bank opens in the morning?” JRad cursed under his breath. “I know that’s not ideal for either of you, considering the circumstances…”
“Don’t worry about my end of things. It’s fine. She shouldn’t be alone with that much money on hand. People have done stupid things for less. Sleeping in my car, or her backyard, isn’t a problem either. I’ll just go over and let her know I’m out there, keeping an eye on her place.”
Lucas might have been avoiding Ellie, but only for their own good. He cared for her. A lot. If she was in danger, he would be there, regardless of their twisted personal relationship. He went to stand as if he still had two complete legs, nearly toppling. His cell tumbled from his grip in the process.
Sometimes he acted purely on instinct, forgetting his altered body completely. Like when the power went out and he still flipped the light switch when he entered a room. Unlearning ingrained actions was tough. He fished around until he reclaimed his phone, cursing violently the entire time. When he glanced at it, the screen was jumbled. Harsh static scratched from the speakers. “Sorry, dropped the damn phone.”
“Lucas?” JRad hesitated.
“Yeah?”
“You haven’t been drinking tonight, have you? Or taking your medicine? You don’t sound like it, but we’ll find someone else if you have. Maybe Ben and Ryan, though you’re definitely better qualified for the job. I don’t want you going if you—”
“Stone-cold sober, my friend.” His shoulders hunched as he realized that probably was a pretty rare occurrence lately. He didn’t feel it was necessary to admit he’d run out of whiskey yesterday. Or that he hadn’t had the energy to put his leg back on to hit up the liquor store after he’d come home from his marathon run earlier and cleaned out his sweaty liner. Only the smidge of resurging pride that JRad had considered him over Ellie’s brother and the guy’s partner pulled him from his funk.
“And you’re comfortable driving, even at night? Razor says I’m a dumbass and you don’t need a ride, but I figured I should offer anyway. We could send a patrol car over to pick you up if you want.”
“I’m missing some of my leg, not my eyeballs,” he sneered. A man could only take so many blows. “I’m not completely incompetent, you know?”
“Shit, sorry,” JRad muttered. “Especially for making things any more awkward between you and Ellie. Maybe this will be a good opportunity—”
“Let me worry about her. You go back to fighting crime and keeping the city safe, okay?” Lucas tried to act like everything was cool when his guts were churning at least as much as the time he’d been forced to eat partially spoiled fish to blend in while infiltrating terrorist camps in the Middle East.
“Good idea,” JRad replied, even as there was some commotion in the background.
“Hey, you think I’ve got time for a quick shower before heading out? How far are they from Ellie’s place?” Lucas didn’t give a shit about the sweat drying on his skin. If it had been anyone else he’d encounter, he’d have gone as is. He admitted, if only to himself, that he didn’t want Ellie to see him at anything less than his best. Hard enough, given his current condition.
“Sure. I’ve got Lily texting me every few minutes. Their ETA is about twenty-five minutes from now. Probably only takes you, what…less than ten minutes to get to Ellie’s neighborhood, I’d guess.” JRad couldn’t help but tease him like the guys always did about his house out in the woods. “Would be faster if there were a real road up by your place. She doesn’t live too far away as the crow flies.”
Three point six two miles.
Not that Lucas would admit to his friend that he knew that. Worse, he’d wished himself capable of his old habit of traipsing through the forest to relieve stress once he realized she’d been so damn close all that time. Creepy, sure, but he’d thought about how often he could have peeked from the branches he’d loved camouflaging himself in when on leave. He would have enjoyed watching the warm glow of her lights, knowing she was safe and happy inside, at least if he’d known she existed back then.
People like her were why he’d risked his life for so long.
Her cute house on the developed part of the mountain suited her with its earth-tone paint job and small, neat yard surrounded by beds of wild flowers.
“Hey, Lucas. We’ve got some action here. I better get off the phone.” JRad spoke in an urgent hush that had Lucas’s heart rate accelerating even though he wasn’t on the job. JRad might have said more, but the crispy sound snapping from Lucas’s phone obscured whatever he’d said.
“Okay. Go. Don’t worry. I’ve got this covered.”
“Thank you.” He hung up without saying goodbye.
When the phone went dark, it didn’t seem to want to turn on again. Lucas jabbed all the buttons and swiped his finger across the screen. Nothing. Damn. He’d have to stop by the mall after the bank tomorrow to grab a replacement. Thank God for insurance.
He scrubbed his hands over his face then prepared himself to move. He glared at the wheelchair across the room. It didn’t do him much good since his house had lots of stairs. A few here and there between the different living areas, plus the full flight to the upstairs bedroom He’d appreciated the unique flow of the house a lot more before he had to navigate its uneven surfaces one-legged.
Usually, he found it most expedient to traverse the rooms in an animalistic combination of hopping, crawling and scrambling that would humiliate him if anyone could see it. With a grunt, he pushed out of his chair to standing, balancing on his good foot.
Then he bent and put one palm on the coffee table and hopped. That got him halfway across the living room. Using the back of the sofa as a guide, he made it to the stairs to his bedroom. Lucas put his knee on the highest tread he could reach from the ground then planted his good foot beside it. Gripping the railing, he pulled himself upright then planted his knee once more.
It only took three repetitions before he’d made it to the top of the staircase. Much faster than relying on crutches. Probably safer too, since he wasn’t swinging all over the place with his center of gravity high up, threatening to pit
ch him to the hardwood floors below. Wouldn’t win him any beauty pageants, though.
Once upstairs, he grabbed the door handle and then hopped a few times until he could use the bed for leverage. Finally, he made it to the bathroom. It probably wasn’t wise to be so far from his prosthesis. Wearing it at night bothered him, though. Sometimes he just wanted to feel normal instead of carrying around a million extra things just to do something as simple as walk.
Lucas stripped off his jogging shorts then plopped onto the bench in his shower.
He reached forward to turn the water on and cursed when he realized he’d left the sprayer slightly out of reach. Levering himself up with a grip on the soap dish embedded in the tile wall, he snagged it then made sure he had his body wash and shampoo in place before settling in again.
What used to take him three minutes, tops, was now an ordeal, exactly like every other task he encountered. Even adapting his daily routine to his new body took more effort than he had expended in an entire week before.
Cursing, Lucas finished rinsing soap from his body then climbed from the shower, careful not to bust his ass…again. He hated to admit it, but he’d knocked himself unconscious not long after his surgery, when he slipped on the tile floor and tried to catch himself with a foot that was only a figment of his imagination.
Good thing he was hardheaded.
With a glance at the clock, Lucas realized he was later than he’d planned. If he didn’t hurry, Ellie would be home alone with her prize money. Unlike going out with wet hair, there were some things he couldn’t rush. He took the time to thoroughly dry his stump. Otherwise he’d have to worry about his skin getting irritated or developing sores that could keep him from being able to wear his prosthesis.
Nothing would be worse than having to rely on people if he was unable to be self-sufficient.
Hell, even getting dressed was a pain in the ass. He hopped to his dresser then tugged on a faded navy T-shirt with a black-and-gray drawing of a bald eagle, then a pair of boxer briefs. Tossing his jeans around his neck, he grabbed his liner off the drying rack, his prosthesis and a backpack with supplies.
Weighed down with more shit than he’d have needed for a weeklong excursion in the wild before his accident, Lucas sank onto his bed. Still feeling like he was doing everything backwards, he put his jeans on his prosthesis first, shoving until they pooled around the mechanical ankle. Then he turned the gel sleeve, called a liner, inside out and pressed the end against his residual limb.
Rolling it up his leg reminded him of all the times he’d watched super-sexy women putting on stockings. This kind of thigh-high was far less attractive to him, though. For a moment, he wondered if he’d ever let himself get laid again. At least with his clothes off and the lights on. Didn’t seem likely at this point.
The liner had a plastic strap attached to it. Lucas selected a few stump socks from the collection in his backpack then fed the strap through the slit in the side of them until he had rolled on a couple of varying ply cotton. Then, finally, he put his leg in the socket of his prosthesis, aligning the strap on his liner with the proximal lock. Standing and stomping a few times caused the plastic to ratchet down and bind his artificial foot to his real remaining leg.
Only then was he able to put his good foot into his jeans and pull them up over his legs.
Never again would he take putting his pants on for granted.
What a pain in the ass.
Sure, he could have made it easier by wearing shorts, but he liked that he could obscure his leg this way. After more work on diminishing his limp, he thought—maybe, someday—people wouldn’t be able to tell at all.
Lucas was grateful that he’d been in good shape before his accident. Nimbleness and a fantastic sense of equilibrium came naturally to him. With his prosthesis, he was probably more able-bodied than the majority of adults, though he often got frustrated with the diminished capacity from his own personal peak performance.
He strapped on his watch, grimacing at how damn long that had taken, snatched his backpack off the bed, withdrew his gun from the top drawer of his dresser, loaded it and tucked it in the back pocket of his jeans, then jogged down the stairs and to the car. If his stump throbbed in protest, he ignored it.
Behind the wheel of his Volvo S60, Lucas revved the special-edition 450 hp engine a few times. Maybe now that he was less concerned with being inconspicuous, he could have his friend Rebel at the Hot Rods garage in Middletown help him find and fix up something more fun.
Lucas thought about that, and how the guy had helped his friend Dave overcome a critical injury of his own, as he drove to Ellie’s place. Anything to keep his mind off of the disaster that would await him when he got there and actually had to work this situation out with her.
He figured one of two things were likely to happen. Either she’d boot him out on his ass or they’d end up making out against her entryway wall. Option two sounded far more appealing until he considered what the next steps would be and where that would leave them after his responsibilities there were over.
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
Despite his better judgment, his lips had begun to curl as he imagined what the night might have in store and how much better it could be than getting drunk and zapping pixelated bad guys on his big screen.
Just before turning onto her street, he spotted an oncoming car that looked familiar. A short toot of their horn had him smiling and lifting four fingers from the wheel in a hello aimed at his friends’ ladies. Shit, he had hoped to be outside waiting so that Ellie didn’t have to face him alone if that wasn’t what she wanted. Or freak out when someone knocked at the door so damn late.
A couple of other vehicles lined the narrow street, including a black pickup with dark-tinted windows and no identifiable markings. His senses went on high alert. That seemed like exactly the kind of vehicle he might have driven himself on prior missions.
Stop making shit up.
It was hard to merge into a world of regular people after living hypersuspicious of his surroundings for so long. Lucas sighed and shook his head. The vehicle probably belonged to a teenager who thought it looked cool, or maybe someone messing around with selling weed on the side of their mostly average suburban life.
He rolled to a stop across the street from Ellie’s house. There weren’t any lights on. In the shadows of the side yard, he saw her ass and long, willowy legs framed by daisies. A much nicer sight than one of those painted wooden yard-art thingies of an old lady’s bum. What the hell was she doing messing around with the watering can at this time of night?
Distracted by her perfect body, he nearly missed it when she strode for the front door. He started to get out of the car, slightly delayed by his foot getting caught on the gas pedal. Shit, he wanted to catch her before she went inside.
As he opened his mouth to shout to her, something stopped him.
Her front door flew open and an arm encased in a black-leather jacket reached out, wrapping around Ellie’s face. Another banded around her slender waist. It happened in the blink of an eye.
Whoever had been waiting for Ellie snatched her out of view in an instant. If he hadn’t been staring at her, he would have missed the grab entirely.
“Fuck!” he hissed, then crouched down, in case anyone was watching the street.
Why hadn’t he rushed straight over? Why had he wasted time taking a shower as if she was going to let him within a square mile of her delectable body or give a shit if he smelled as bad as he’d treated her lately? His vanity had put her in danger.
Now it was up to him to get her out of it.
Lucas slipped his phone from his pocket to call for backup. And was met with the same dead screen as before. No help there.
Could a one-legged ex-superspy still kick ass? They were about to find out.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
C
hapter Three
Ellie ignored the fragment of her that was scared shitless. The steely grip around her jaw and abdomen hurt. Distinct and familiar, the pain of her teeth cutting into the inside of her upper lip could easily have slammed her into memories of her time in captivity, when men had touched a hell of a lot more than her face. More brutally too. Instead, she focused on the part of her that was pissed off. This was not about to happen to her again. Lax in her attacker’s hold, she let them think she might go down without a fight.
As if.
Mentally, she reviewed every single lesson on self-defense she’d learned from the Men in Blue. Especially the ones Lucas had taught her. He fought dirty, and she liked that.
Stay calm, think and keep looking for opportunity, she recited in her mind.
She allowed herself to be manhandled by the goon who’d grabbed her, getting a feel for his size while she listened carefully to see how many assailants there were in total. One chance might be all she had to escape and she wanted to make the most of it whenever it arose. Forcing herself to swallow back bile and concentrate, Ellie went limp.
“That was easier than I thought,” said a bastard, laughing.
“You’re gonna be a good girl and let us have what we came for, right?” the man holding her asked with a disgusting artificial sweetness to his tone.
The only thing she was about to give him was her knee to his nuts the moment he provided a glimmer of an opening.
Someone tried to rip the bag from her hand.
She clung to it, knowing it was her best chance at escaping this clusterfuck in one piece. Mostly. Already her mind tried to spiral into darkness, but she focused on her purpose and what she needed to do to break free.
Ellie crossed her arms over her chest, tucking the bag close to her body, as if she were protecting herself from their leers, which she swore she could feel raking her.
Playing along was the hardest thing she’d ever done. In Morselli’s dungeon, she’d fought until Sex Offender stole her will. Never willingly had she betrayed herself.