Barefoot Bay: Wild on the Rocks (Kindle Worlds)

by Kiersten Hallie Krum

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.

  —Bette Davis

  “Could we get back to the incoming tangos?” Twist groused. “Or you kids wanna to snuggle some more first?”

  “Not tangos,” Jasper corrected. “Russian mafia.”

  Twist dropped into an office chair. “Fuck.”

  Jasper took the chair Quinn had abandoned, reaching out to tug her between his legs and down on one hard thigh, so she could relax against his shoulder.

  It was then she realized Luke had left the room, and only because he returned while talking into a cell phone. “Yeah, they’re back and in my office.” He hit a few buttons on the keyboard and the flat screen on the wall behind Twist flickered on to fill with a middle-aged man’s handsome face. “McQueen, Quinn, Twist, meet Grigori Nyekovic.”

  “Ah, Mrs. McQueen. It is very good indeed to see you looking so well.”

  The hint of a Russian accent made Quinn shoot upright on Jasper’s leg. “Do I know you?”

  “No, but I watched your very clever escape from the Borgata hotel. After the fact via security feed, of course, else I would have most assuredly lent you aid. Though you appeared quite resourceful for someone…untrained.”

  Jasper went solid under her hand. Danger! Danger! “I’m sure you’re making too much of it. I was only trying to stay alive.”

  “Nonsense. Using your heels as weapons was inspired. You left quite the wound on your assailant. Alas, he was murdered soon after, so losing the eye failed to be a long-term inconvenience.”

  “Assailant?” Jasper hissed while Quinn swallowed back shock. She’d taken out Thug Two’s eye? Those Jimmy Choos were worth every penny.

  “Don’t be rude. Mr. Nyekovic is trying to help,” she dodged.

  “Quinn,” he returned, undeterred.

  “You’d better get on with it, Gregg,” Luke suggested.

  “Of course. Luke and I share an acquaintance, a friend of mine who trains mixed martial arts fighters in Brighton Beach. My friend Alec had occasion to spend some time at Barefoot Bay when the previous Bratva commander attempted to kill him.” He waved one hand in dismissal when the room went on alert. “This is all now the past. Vlitnik is dead, and Alec and his lovely wife are living quite happily free of all threat. However, you, Mrs. McQueen—”

  “Quinn, please.”

  “How lovely. I am Gregg, of course. You, Quinn, are in extreme danger.”

  “Your turn,” Jasper ordered.

  He was right. It was time. Quinn lowered her hands to where his rested on her belly and took a deep breath before starting her tale. “I had a gig in Atlantic City…” She left nothing out, not the stilettos as make shift weapons, not bumping and grinding across the club dance floor, and most especially not how she’d first watched a man be shot in the head. “And that’s how I found Barefoot Bay,” she finished in a quiet voice. It was exhausting hashing through all that drama again. She’d managed to avoid focusing too closely on how close she’d come to losing her life, but not that threat was once again front and center, she could no longer suppress some extremely traumatic memories.

  Jasper’s jaw was so tight, she worried he’d crack a tooth before she finished. “You should have told me,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “These are some serious fucking bad guys after you.”

  “You think I don’t know that? A man’s brains were blown out before my eyes, Jasp! Do you know what that looks like?! How that feels?”

  She had one second to see Twist’s face pale to an alarming degree, and then Jasper was lifting her from his leg to set her away from him. “I know exactly how that looks and feels,” he snarled, lurching to his feet.

  The enormity of what she’d said suddenly became crystal clear. She reached for him, fingers locking onto the waistband of his trunks before he could turn fully away. Shit. “That was a horrible, bitchy thing to say.”

  “It’s all right, Quinn,” he said, flatly.

  She glanced at Twist. “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded by didn’t reply. Tense silence fell over the room. Quinn released Jasper and gave him space, dropping into the chair that was still warm from his body.

  Worse, he let her go.

  She kept her eyes fixed on the floor. Her yet wet bikini felt clammy on her skin. She shivered and tug the shirt down to try and stretch it past her knees.

  “These guys will do worse than that if they get hold of you,” he finally said. “Bratva enforcers, they have no soul.”

  She plucked at the soft cotton in her lap. “I can’t fixate on that. If I do, I won’t be able to breathe.”

  “You should’ve told me,” he repeated and finally, she got annoyed.

  “So, you could do what? Fix it all for me?” and Jasper lost it.

  “Yes!” he shouted, pacing the room again in short spurts of physical fury.

  “Get it together, man,” Luke warned.

  “Fuck, yes!” Jasper yelled again, ignoring him. “That’s what I do. That’s my job!”

  Quinn’s back went up. “As a SEAL or as my ex-husband?!”

  He whirled on her. “God damn it, Quinn!”

  She flung a hand out toward the flat screen. “You heard Gregg. I was clever. I was inspired. I took care of myself because, you, the great Jasper McQueen, badass extraordinaire. You. Weren’t. There.”

  “And whose fault was that?!”

  She jumped up and jabbed her finger into his chest. “Yours! It’s your fault. You said it yourself, you let me go!”

  He recoiled violently and she didn’t care. She was done taking the blame for everything. There were two people who’d screwed up their marriage, and it was damn well time both of them acknowledged it.

  She stopped, panting with exertion, mere feet between them. But it felt like miles they would never, could never, get over. Not if he expected her to pay for what were both their mistakes for the rest of whatever time they had together.

  Not like this.

  She’d love him till her last breath, but Quinn was suddenly very afraid there was a good chance she wouldn’t take that breath at his side.

  “I hate to interrupt,” Twist said, “especially when this is probably the most productive couples’ session I’ve ever witnessed, but we got a pretty frickin’ immediate situation on our hands here.”

  “What kind of immediate are we talking about?” Jasper asked, suddenly back from raging husband to on-point commander. Really, the speed of his transition was freaky.

  “I have an informant inside Sokolov’s organization,” Gregg informed them. “That is the Bratva commander who Quinn saw murder another commander to take over his territory. He tells me two enforcers have followed Quinn to Barefoot Bay.”

  Quinn had forgotten the man was even there via flat screen, so caught up had she been with her and Jasper’s latest drama. That meant he and Twist and Luke had she her lose her shit at Jasper. And Luke was married to Ariel, one of the wedding planners.

  Yippee. So much for her chances of working at Barefoot Bay for much longer.

  Though the Russian mob thing probably wouldn’t help employment opportunities either.

  It struck Quinn then that she was planning for the future, thinking beyond merely surviving the Russian mob. She’d never done that before, never looked beyond the next gig, the next paycheck. She left the commune with no family or friends and no education to speak of, not even a high school diploma. She’d made her own way, but she’d never planned for a future. She wanted to keep moving for as long as she could because she knew a life where your parents offered you up to a man twice your age, a life where she ran out on a man who was the best damn thing to happen to her ever, that was a life with a limit. When the Russian mob suddenly decided the clock on that life had run out, it felt right to Quinn. It felt like an appropriate, hell an expected, end.

  But all that had changed.

  Now sh
e had hope.

  And that hope was rooted in Jasper.

  Around her, the men discussed strategies for handling mob enforcers, but Quinn kept her eyes locked on her hope, on the man she would not mind not being alone with for the rest of their lives. On the man with whom she really, really wanted to build a future.

  She was going to make it through this. They were going to make it through this. She’d just found Jasper McQueen again.

  She’d take on the devil himself to keep him.

  * * *

  “One of the enforcers hunting Quinn is an assassin named Palach, which, loosely translated, means ‘the Hangman’,” McBain’s Russian friend informed them.

  “That can’t be good,” Twist understated.

  Jasper shot him a look. No shit.

  “You are not wrong,” Gregg agreed. “Palach’s preferred manner of assassination is hanging by rope. He stages his kills like suicides in order to invite the question.”

  “I can’t tell if it’s better or worse this guy brought a rope to a gun fight,” Twist muttered.

  Jasper heard Quinn muffled a comment half formed. He shifted his glare her way, but she threw him off balance when she crossed her eyes and playfully stuck out her wet, very pink tongue.

  Only Quinn could make him this hot for her minutes after he’d wanted to wring her neck in frustration.

  A second before, she’d been righteously pissed at him, holding her corner for all she was worth. Now she silently teased him when they were in the middle of a serious clusterfuck that, at the moment, he had no idea how to get her out from under. To say she was mercurial would be seriously low-balling it.

  That was one of the many reasons he loved her, fucked as it sounded right now. She kept him on his toes, that was for sure, and most of the time, made him want to laugh out loud because of it. One thing was for sure: life with Quinn was never boring.

  His face filled with a different heat, silently promising her better and much naughtier uses for that tongue the moment he sorted this mess. Quinn swallowed and the corners of his mouth curved up.

  Message received.

  He went back to listening to the Russian and picked his way through the bits of intel he offered. She had really hit the mother lode with this latest caper. Witnessing a Russian mob hit. Jesus, only Quinn.

  Good thing his naval career was already in the toilet or this would’ve deep-sixed it for sure. Hard to command an elite team of Special Forces operators when your wife is a material witness against the Russian mob.

  Jesus.

  How she could get in so much trouble in so little time never ceased to amaze him. He’d seen how crazy that curiosity streak of hers could make her act. Hell, it was how he got her to marry him in the first place. He got it now; growing up locked away in that crazy cult for half her life made Quinn desperate to take chances and jump at every experience no matter how wild. The wilder, the better. Just because she could. It was more than being an adrenaline junkie or getting off on risk. Quinn wanted to live.

  And Jasper wanted to be there to watch her do it.

  “The last message I received from my informant said the enforcers have already reached Florida,” Gregg informed them. “Unlike Quinn, they took a flight out of LaGuardia to Southwest International this morning. They should be there within the hour.”

  “How did they find her?” Twist asked.

  “Good question,” Quinn put in, “especially after all the effort I made to stay off the grid.”

  “Unfortunately, your efforts were not successful. A comment was posted on your website by a woman named Willow touting your considerable professional talents at a wedding at Casa Blanca.”

  “But when did she…how did she…?” Quinn trailed off, lost in thought until she blanched with revelation. “I gave her a business card for In the Mix. I wanted her to check my credentials so she’d give me the gig. I didn’t think she’d put anything on the site.”

  “She probably thought she was helping you,” Luke said, protectively. “Willow’s like that.”

  “I didn’t think she was trying to put me in their sights,” Quinn replied with a thread of annoyance.

  Gregg spoke, drawing Jasper’s attention back to the flat screen. “I’ll get back in touch the moment I hear anything more.” With a curt goodbye, he disconnected. The flat screen went blank reflecting their pensive images back at them.

  “Fuck me, swinging,” Twist said finally, echoing Jasper’s feeling exactly.

  “You’re quiet,” he pointed out to McBain. “Any ideas?”

  “A week ago, would’ve hooked you up with my friend Gabe Rossi’s private WITSEC program. It’d mean stashing you here in Barefoot Bay under false names while he sets up your new life somewhere else. But you two are already here, and the bad guys know it, so it’d do fuck all for you now. Besides, Gabe’s off doing what he can to piss off the CIA.” He shrugged off the question implicit in Jasper’s raised brow. “Everyone has a hobby.”

  “Other than that?”

  “The way I see it, you’ve got three options. Get out before they corner you, head back to New York and offer Quinn’s testimony up to the DA in exchange for the real WITSEC program.”

  “I’d be a target for the rest of my life,” Quinn objected. “And it’s not much, but I’m not eager to leave my business or my life to start a new one in Mumblefuck, Montana, and be called CoraMae Walker.”

  Jasper noted she didn’t mention not wanting to leave him behind.

  “Maybe,” McBain agreed. “Probably. But it’s an option. Or you could run, spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder for the cops or the Bratva without the admittedly dubious protection of WITSEC. Toss up who’d get to you first.”

  This Quinn did not immediately take off the table.

  “Quinn,” Jasper warned. She was not bailing on him again.

  “It’s an option,” she repeated, quietly. “What’s the third one?”

  McBain looked from her to Jasper. An unholy look of pleasure spread over his face. “Feel like a hunt?”

  Jasper’s slow smile held more than a hint of wicked. He didn’t need a mirror to tell him it matched Twist’s. “Hoorah.”

  “Oh, no no no no no.” Quinn shook her head to back up her fervent objection. “Let’s go back to the running option. I like that option. No one gets shot on my behalf with that option.”

  “No one’s getting shot,” Jasper promised. “Not any of us, at least.”

  “This isn’t some military mission! The guy is called the Hangman, for cryin’ out loud, and not because he likes word games!”

  Jasper reached out, grabbed the back of her neck, and yanked her to him, bending his head to put them nose to nose. “You’re done running,” he told her. “You’re done dealing with shit without me. You are done.” He held her in place when he lifted his gaze to McBain’s alert and assessing one. “We’ll need weapons, a map, and intel.”

  McBain dug a set of keys out of his pocket. “I’ll get some boys in,” he agreed, tossing the keys to Jasper before reaching for the phone to activate his men.

  He caught the keys one-handed and immediately lobbed them to Twist. “Get an inventory. Down to the last clip. I’ll get Quinn sorted.”

  “I need to go back to my apartment.”

  “Not a chance.”

  She yanked uselessly against his hold. When she clued in to the fact that he wasn’t letting her go, she snapped, “I’ll remind you, again, that I am not one of your soldiers you can order around. I can’t stay in this suit and t-shirt. Besides being cold and clammy, it’s starting to chafe.”

  “I can get one of the girls to bring you something dry,” McBain offered.

  “That won’t be necessary. I can get my own clothes if Bad Ass Poster Boy here would let me go back to my apartment.”

  “You won’t last five minutes in that place.” Jasper’s voice was deliberately brusque; he was already fixed on where first to look for the assholes after his woman and not on that wom
an making it worse for the sake of some clothes. “And there’s no time to take you.”

  “I’ll be fast.”

  “Not possible. Do you have some place she’ll be safe?” He directed this last to McBain who nodded.

  “Stash her at Rossi’s place. And if his Italian grandfather is there and offers to cook for you, take him up on it.”

  “I am not going to be ‘stashed’ anywhere!” Quinn yelled. “This is my fight and I’m going with you!”

  Jasper sighed. “Jesus save me from stubborn women,”

  “Jasper!”

  He shut her up in the only way proven to work. When he finally set her mouth free, her eyes were dazed and cloudy with desire.

  He waited for clarity to return to her face before he continued. “This is not your next adventure. This is a tactical excursion. We are going to arm up, head out, find these assholes, and eliminate the threat.”

  She searched his face. He knew what she’d see there: steely determination to successfully complete his mission. “Shit,” she whispered. “You’re going to kill them.”

  “I’m going to do whatever is required to ensure your safety. No one takes you from me again. Not you and definitely not them. Now, are you clear on the objective here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His fucking woman! “Quinn,” he growled.

  “Fine! I’m clear! I’m clear!” She looked past his shoulder to the hall behind him. “Can I at least pee first, hoss, or is that against the mission plan too?”

  Exasperated, he shook his head, but let her go with one last squeeze. She wasted no time scurrying off down the hall.

  “You’re pretty cute together,” Twist teased.

  “Shut up. What’ve we got?”

  Twist walked him through the ordinance. Basically, they had little more than their own weapons, but not by much. “That’s it?”

  “Sorry I don’t keep a fifty-caliber sniper rifle in stock for emergencies,” Luke gibed. “We’re a security and protection business, not an occupation force.”

  “You were foreign legion. And you just finished protecting some serious fucking people. Don’t bullshit me that you don’t stock more than a bunch of nine millimeters and some shotguns.”