Caged: An Alpha Protector Romance

by Alaska Jones

  “You only need a first name. I already have a last name for us, just to keep it simple.”

  She raises her eyebrows, drawing back to stare at me. “Well, someone’s very confident. By the power vested in me by the Fake Passport community…”

  I shake my head. “Who cares, maybe we’re relatives? But in case it does happen at some point, it would save you the extra paperwork.”

  “My, my, don’t you have the perfect excuse to marry a woman without her consent…” She bites my lip when I kiss her, and I draw back with a smile. “Did you pick a new name for yourself?”

  “Mmm…” I pretend to think about it. “Malcolm.”

  “No-o-o, not Malcolm.” She frowns.

  “What’s wrong with Malcolm?”

  “Nothing. It’s just not you.”

  I chuckle. “Okay. Then I’ll be… Theodore.”

  “Malcolm it is,” she gives up with a grin.

  I smile and catch her bottom lip with my teeth, rubbing against her. With a small gasp, she slides a little lower, and I feel her press against me. Our lips melt together, and I break off only to kiss her neck, running my tongue over the old bruises while her fingers tangle in my hair.

  She lets out a throaty sigh and slides her hands down my back, making me thrust my hips upward when her fingers dig into my butt. I support her with my left arm as I slip my right hand in between us and guide my pulsing cock to her opening, then push inside, watching her face change as I inch my way deeper and deeper into her core.

  She moans, and I rush to swallow the sound, pushing her tongue with mine when she opens her lips for me. Moving back and forth in a perfect, slow rhythm, I keep kissing her until I’m breathless and my chest is heavy with pleasure and need. Her sweet scent and the hot water make me dizzy. I tuck my face into her neck, focusing on how she clenches around me every time I thrust into her, and I know I can’t hold it much longer, but I could just stay here for the rest of the day.

  “Harder,” she breathes out, as if reading my thoughts, and I slam into her with a grunt.

  Balancing on the edge like this is almost painful, but her expression is worth it, and I grow even harder just looking at her gasping for air with her eyes closed.

  “Harder, baby.”

  I pull almost all the way out before ramming my length into her, making her cry out. Her head falls back, and I finish her off with a few deep thrusts before letting my own release wash over me, the heat spreading through my veins like fire. My heart races in my chest, and I run my tongue up the length of her neck just to give myself something to do so I don’t fall apart.

  “Wow…” she whispers, bringing a smile to my lips.

  “Wow,” I whisper back and slide my hand down her chest, following the movement with my eyes. I memorize every inch of her while I can, while the rest of the world doesn’t exist for us, if just for a minute.

  “I think we should stay here forever,” she murmurs with her head thrown back.

  I smile, lifting her slightly so I can suck her nipple into my mouth. “I think we’ll need a hot tub at the new place.”

  She laughs quietly, shivering at my touch. “You have a solution for every problem, don’t you?”

  “Mm-hm,” I hum, too busy watching her body in the water.

  “Except one,” her whispered words make me pause.

  “Which one is that?” I draw back slightly, and she pulls up with a sigh. Untangling herself from my arms, she makes me sit down and stands before me, her hands on my shoulders.

  “I was talking to Charlie today…”

  “Oh Jesus, not now,” I laugh, pulling her closer, but she slips out of my grasp and brings her hands back to my neck.

  “Well, I have to tell you this eventually. I was talking to Charlie, and I realized something. Before, I thought I didn’t care what you did in the past, as long as you start over with me. But we’re together now, and you still have to deal with Anthony and Dwight. The situation has changed, but the solution stayed the same. I accepted the idea of you having to do your job before, but now that you don’t owe Dwight anything, why kill anyone?”

  I shake my head. “It’s not about Dwight or my job. I don’t make the rules, Jenna. If I fucked up, they’d take me out, too. It’s the only way to make sure there are no loose ends. I can’t let this follow me where we’re going.”

  “What if something happens there, how will you deal with it then? Kill again? Run all your life?”

  “Nothing’s gonna happen there. There are very few people who know what I do and what I look like, and none of them will find me there.”

  “Well, theoretically, it’s possible. So prove it, prove that you can solve this without killing anyone. Start now. There has to be another way.”

  I run my hands down her back with a sigh, too distracted to even be talking about this. “Too much could go wrong, and I don’t have the resources for that.”

  “You have Charlie’s help.”

  “That’s not the kind of resources I need.”

  “What about the police?”

  “The police?” I almost laugh. “Forget about them. They’re not your friends anymore, never have been.” I stop laughing as I remember that I’ve got one more loose end, Doug Miller. Shit.

  She sighs, running her fingers through my hair as she looks me in the eyes. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. Just promise me you’ll think about it.”

  “Fine. I will.” I don’t know if I mean it, but her troubled look has already found a way deep inside me and stirred up new worries.

  A few hours later, I stand on the big balcony on the second floor watching the moonlit courtyard. Giving Jenna and Tina some space so that one less person knows what I look like is only one reason. The other one is me being unable to get Jenna’s words out of my head. The crafty redhead knew what she was doing when she challenged me. Is there really no way to wrap it all up at once, without raising my number?

  I’ve got Hunt, who is a pain in the ass to everyone; Dwight, who will chase me to the gates of Hell if I cross him, and Miller, who can’t wait to get his retribution. There’s also the shitty sniper, the rest of the mob, and Mike, who’s the reason I’m here in the first place. Because of him, I can’t just disappear; I have to make sure Mike will be safe after I leave. With everything that’s happened, I wonder if Dwight set him up just so he could get to me, but it doesn’t really matter.

  Before, I had six different options that all led to Dwight and Hunt dead, whether by my hands or the mob’s. Now, I don’t have a single idea.

  I could offer Dwight a truce and simply alter his plan – clear him before the mob and feed Hunt to the jackals that have been after him. Dwight would still want my death though.

  I could appeal to Hunt’s greediness and take out Dwight for him, so he wouldn’t have to share at all. There’s plenty of dirt on Dwight in my laptop, a huge report that I started the day I did my first hit, just in case. The police needs facts to pin him down, and I’ve got enough to put him behind the bars for decades.

  But if I want to quit, making a deal with the Devil is not an option. I need to take out both of them, and simultaneously.

  “Here’s the new address.” Lincoln’s voice startles me. He’s standing right behind me, holding a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it.

  “Huh,” I grunt, taking the paper. Dwight has moved the load the day I brought it up. Now I have proof that he and Hunt are working together, and it wasn’t something else inside that building. “Anything interesting?”

  Lincoln nods his head, leaning on the railing beside me. “Both Dwight and Hunt were there, but Dwight left, and Hunt followed everyone to the new location. When he left, I followed him. He’s staying in an apartment building nearby.”

  “They didn’t see you?”

  “Well, I’m here, am I not?” he says.

  “Well, they could let you go on purpose and follow you here, couldn’t they?”

  “No one was following me.”
>
  “Fine. What else?”

  “The building is an old, small warehouse. There are two guards on the roof, armed with AKs. Plenty of vantage points all around. Three ways in and out. And Hunt looked like he was wearing a Kevlar vest.”

  “Really?” A smile tugs on my lips, and I cross my arms, fixing my gaze on Lincoln.

  “Either I’m right, or he gained twenty pounds in a week. It really showed.”

  “Interesting.” I scratch my chin, mulling it over. “Okay. Go get some sleep. We’re leaving early tomorrow. Meet me here at four thirty.”

  He raises a brow. “Just the two of us?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve got at least ten men here.”

  “I don’t need ten men, I need one, and you don’t even know where we’re going.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow.” He sighs and stalks off to the staircase without a word. “Good job,” I call after him, making him pause.

  “Wait, did you just compliment me?” He narrows his eyes in mock disbelief.

  “What, I didn’t say anything.” I hold back my smile. He scoffs and walks away, shaking his head.

  I wait a minute before turning around and fishing two cell phones out of my jeans pocket. One of them is my regular phone, which I’ll need to call Gia. The other is a prepaid phone I always have with me in case of an emergency. I unblock it and dial Doug Miller’s number, looking down at my watch.

  “Hello?” he grumbles after three long beeps.

  “Hi, Doug. Got a minute?” I emphasize the word, smiling at my own pun like a fool.

  “What do you want? It’s fucking midnight.”

  “All the beauty sleep in the world won’t help you, with the FBI riding you all day long.” I hear him suck in a surprised breath, and smile. “How badly do you want to get rid of them?”

  It only takes him two seconds to make up his mind.

  “I’m listening.”

  Chapter 32

  Cage

  We meet on the balcony in the morning, grab a quick breakfast, and race the sun across the city in companionable silence.

  Lincoln doesn’t seem too happy about the early trip, but I feel more chipper than ever after four hours of peaceful sleep next to Jenna. The nightmares still haven’t returned, and strange as it seems, I don’t feel like wasting my renewed energy on trying to understand it. I turn up the radio, thinking about the best route to avoid early traffic as I hit the highway.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Lincoln grumbles, suppressing a yawn. He’s wearing a gray sweatsuit, which is an improvement. I’m sticking to jeans and a black turtleneck that covers my scar.

  “We’re going to the warehouse, obviously.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that last night?”

  “I wasn’t sure last night.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Dunno yet.”

  At the edge of my sight, I can see him turn to stare at me. “You don’t have a plan, yet we’re going there at five o’clock.”

  “Oh, I have a plan. Two, in fact. I just don’t know which one is best. Don’t worry, you’ll just have to do what I say when the time comes. Here,” I reach into the glove compartment and toss him an earpiece. “You’ll need this.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about both plans so you don’t have to explain anything when you choose one?”

  “Nope. Don’t want it all mixed up in your head. Besides, it’s more fun for you. Don’t you like surprises?”

  “I hate surprises.”

  “Well, that’s too bad. You’ll only learn to deal with unexpected things without combusting if you practice it.”

  His short silence tells me he’s pissed. “Stop acting like you know anything about it,” he mutters through his teeth.

  “I know everything about it. I beat IED two years ago.” I glance at him, amused by his wide-eyed stare. “Of course, I only had it for a year as part of PTSD, and you’ve probably had it since you were a kid. But it doesn’t really matter. You’ll just have to dig deeper.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s written on your face. You’re miserable, been this way for a long time.”

  “You can’t compare one year to ten.”

  “Of course, I can. They’d be pretty far apart, but the only real difference is the willingness to work and deal with it.”

  “And how did you deal with it?” he asks snidely.

  I shrug. “I started killing people. I do not recommend this approach.”

  He lets out a sound that’s half-snort, half-laugh. “That’s your solution? I think you’ve got bigger issues than me, Doctor.”

  “Not the killing itself, dummy. It kept me busy, gave me something to do. In order to find someone, I had to learn all about them, think like them. It gave me purpose, seeing all the shitty things they did, knowing they’d never harm anyone again once I get to them. I had to be calm to do my job, and IED disappeared all by itself.”

  “Does this twisted logic help you sleep at night?”

  “Ouch.” I ignore his question, not feeling like telling him what does help me sleep at night, or who. “I know it’s twisted, but that’s how it is in my head. I can’t ignore the fact that the world became a slightly safer place every time I took out one of them.”

  “And you don’t regret it?”

  I shoot him an annoyed look. What do you think, genius? “Forget what I said. Do yoga. It won’t help you, but it’ll give me something to laugh at every now and then. And stop beating people up for a living.”

  He scoffs and looks out the window. “Turn right next intersection.” I blink, showing that I heard him. “Why did we have to ride in your car again?”

  “Because one car is easier to hide, and we’ll need the big trunk.”

  “If you’re planning to take out the guards, we would’ve had better chances at night.”

  “That’s what they think. They’re tired, and they’re about to finish their shift and come down. It’s our best shot.”

  “And then what?”

  I shake my head, turning right. “I told you, I haven’t decided yet.”

  Then what. Good question, that is. I got Doug geared up for an arrest, and luring Dwight and Hunt there won’t be a problem. And if whatever is in that warehouse is not enough, I’ve got a thick folder of incriminating documents, prepped to be sent off to LAPD.

  Or I could just shoot them both on the spot and be done with it.

  “Does Hunt know that Charlie has switched teams?” I ask, slowing down as more and more abandoned buildings disappear behind the Jeep’s windows.

  “No, it’s unlikely.”

  “Does he know you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would he try to shoot you if he saw you?”

  “Probably not, why?”

  “No reason…” I scratch my jaw, mulling it over under Lincoln’s incredulous stare.

  “There’s an abandoned building just across the road. That’s where I hid last night.”

  “Too close and too obvious.” I look at the GPS and turn right, then left, parking between two rundown warehouses. “You knock out one, I take care of the other, and keep it quiet.”

  “I know what to do,” he grumbles and gets out of the car.

  The warehouse is three buildings down the road, a low, square building of white brick with boarded-up windows and tall doors. We walk at a brisk pace, keeping close to the walls, until we see two dark figures outlined against the gray sky. We hide behind some dumpsters nearby, keeping our eyes on the ladder. The sky grows lighter by the minute, and finally, the guards start climbing down, their guns strapped across their backs.

  “The fat one’s mine,” I hear Lincoln whisper as the first guard steps on the ground.

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  They don’t even have the time to open their mouths as we knock them out and lower them to the ground. I search one man’s pockets until
I find his cell phone, then scroll through his call history, finding an unsaved number that he has called a few times every night. Bingo.

  “Go get the car and remember where I parked it. You’ll return there after you drop me off,” I say, tossing Lincoln the keys.

  He disappears around the corner, and I raise my eyes, searching for the best spot for myself. There’s one just across the road, a tall building of red brick with a clearly visible fire escape; and another one way behind it. I hear a car approach and hide just in case, but it’s Lincoln. It takes us a few minutes to tie up the guards and put them in the trunk, while the sun climbs higher and higher in the sky.

  “Dump them somewhere no one will see, but first, let’s go there,” I point at the second building, about two hundred yards away.

  Lincoln raises an eyebrow. “That one’s better,” he jerks his chin at the red brick building.

  “Yeah, I know that, genius. Do as I said.”

  He hops into the driver’s seat with a sigh and starts the engine.

  It takes me a few minutes to climb to the top of the concrete-and-glass monstrosity. I assemble the rifle and watch Lincoln return to the spot between the two warehouses before I take out the guard’s phone and lean up against a superstructure. Lying still on the cold concrete is not something I’m looking forward to, so I stretch my legs while I can.

  I dial the unsaved number from the man’s call history.

  “What is it?” a deep voice answers the call. Probably, one of Hunt’s men.

  “Good morning!” I put on an exaggeratedly polite tone. “May I speak to Mr. Hunt?”

  “Who’s calling??”

  “You don’t wanna know, trust me. Put your boss on the phone.”

  The man on the other end swears through his teeth, and I wait while he goes to wake up Hunt. The moment I hear his voice, all the hatred and contempt I have for him rises straight to the surface, blinding me for a second.

  “Who is this?” he snaps.

  “The guy you and Dwight set up at Marquez’s villa,” I reply, keeping one eye on the road to the warehouse. “In case you can’t think straight so early in the morning, I am calling you from your guard’s phone. They are tied up inside the warehouse. Seeing what you’ve got in here, I’m thinking you should’ve invested more in security.”