by M. A. Grant
He pulled on his pants, forgoing the shirt to avoid getting another one dirty. Kai wouldn’t give a shit either way. He cast one final glance at her. “Put your hair up.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to be the only man who knows what it looks like down.”
Her eyes widened, but a small smile graced her lips as she followed his order.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
She nodded.
His hand was on the door when he turned and warned, “He probably suspects something already.”
“Did you say anything about us?”
“No. But I did show up to the door naked.”
The reddening of her cheeks was adorable. “Oh. Well then...”
They headed to the living room.
To his credit, Kai didn’t make a single comment that was out of line. Instead, he focused on handing over the credits, eating two boxes of take out and asking Peirce for advice about a small-time job that would require his services for a week. Peirce cleared him for the week and gave Kai the contacts for a few reliable techies who could run the necessary checks at a reasonable price. Half an hour later, Kai was gone and Peirce and Emmaline were left in the relative quiet of the apartment.
“What now?” she asked, fingers lingering on the stack of credits Kai had counted out on the coffee table. She’d gone from aristocrat to penniless runaway and back to comfortably wealthy in a few short hours. It was more than a little intimidating to have those life changes occurring in such rapid succession.
“You should get out of Monterrey for a little while.”
“Where will we go?”
“There won’t be a we.”
She instantly panicked. “I’m not leaving without you!”
He sat her down beside him on the couch and wrapped her in a tight embrace. “Honey, I don’t know what the hell your dad did to get Stone on his back, but until I figure it out, I need to know you’re safe.”
She swallowed, but her voice was even as she asked, “So once it’s over, you’ll come for me?”
He didn’t respond immediately. Gods knew what he wanted to say, but would it be safe for her? For his men? His responsibilities weighed heavily on his shoulders.
She swallowed. “In the books, the man she loves always comes to find her.”
He froze. She wouldn’t look at him, but that soft comment hung in the air between them.
There was no good response. He ignored her confession, choosing instead to kiss her until she crawled on top of him and her hair hung around his face like a curtain. They lay like that, making out like a couple of teenagers, until the suns began setting, casting the room with shadows.
She finally shifted against him. “You said you needed to know what my father did to upset Stone.”
“The more data I can gather, the sooner this will end.”
“It might have to do with the mine.”
Peirce perked up. “The mine?”
She rubbed her arms, as if suddenly cold. To his surprise, she lifted her chin and looked him square in the eyes. “Yes. Plymouth’s iron mine. The accident was my father’s fault.”
Chapter 8
Peirce was watching her with wary caution. “Explain?”
She leaned back from him, curling up on the opposite end of the couch. “The mine was my father’s latest investment venture. He was trying to make back the money he lost from my mother’s treatments.”
“Treatments?”
“Gamma poisoning.”
Peirce winced and her heart swelled from his compassion. “How long?” he asked quietly.
“She fought it for three years.”
Emmaline tried to brush past those memories. The stream of doctors in and out, her father’s increasingly erratic behaviour since there was no woman keeping him in check, the constant hum and beep of equipment in her mother’s normally peaceful room.
“I’m sorry,” Peirce murmured. “I’ve heard it’s hell.”
“It is.” She looked down at her hands. Her fingers were knotted together, but she continued, focusing on the information that might help. “Her treatments drained most of the family fortune, not that my father had ever spent carefully before that point. He put together a pool of investors to fund the mining project. The day of the accident we were all visiting to see the progress that was being made.”
“It was a methane explosion, right?” Peirce was up off the couch, moving toward the coffee table and picking up a tablet.
“That’s what the authorities claimed.”
He gestured at the tablet, already on. “Do you mind?”
She shook her head. Maybe if he was focused on something else, it would be easier to explain what had happened down there.
“You say they claimed...”
“My father had taken a lot of shortcuts. He may not have personally ignited the methane pocket, but he was just as responsible for the consequences of the accident.”
“The workers weren’t prepared for it?”
Her laugh was still too brittle, even a year later. “They knew it was bound to happen. My father didn’t see the point in wasting money on safety features. If he’d spent some of the money installing blast doors like the engineers suggested, the explosion would have been contained to one tunnel. Instead, the blast radiated out, taking out supports in six different tunnels.”
“You were in one of them?”
“Half the touring group was. Aristocrats, servants, mine workers. The beam above us went. Three people were crushed when the ceiling fell.”
“Who was in your group?”
She appreciated his even tone. If he was feeling anything as she relayed the details, she wasn’t seeing any signs.
“There were eight of us. Three were injured in the blast and died from their wounds within the first day.”
“That’s how you were injured?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else hurt?”
“Not seriously. I got the worst of it.”
“Tell me who was there.”
The faces flashed before her. She recited, just as she had for the Lawmen who investigated, “Me, two young girls who had been visiting to deliver their father his meal, a young boy who was there to train for a position and...”
She’d avoided saying his name for so long, afraid that saying it aloud would be like calling up the devil himself. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Peirce’s eyes narrowed and his fingers flew across the tablet. A moment later, “Charles Riecher?”
His eyes flicked to hers for confirmation. She nodded. The apartment fell silent but for the sound of his fingers tapping the surface. He finished whatever he was noting and said casually, “Only four made it out. Riecher wasn’t one of that group.”
“No.”
She couldn’t stay sitting. Pacing the length of the room helped a little, but her stomach continued to roil.
“They say he died from blunt force trauma sustained during the rescue operation.”
“Well, it was blunt force trauma.”
“From?”
She smiled at him weakly. “The rock I bludgeoned him with.”
He managed to keep his expression neutral, afraid that any sign of his inner turmoil would close her off from him completely. “You killed him?”
She was shaking but started to explain anyway. “Mr. Riecher was not a good man. Even my father warned me away from him. He had...a reputation...among the higher class for his rather selective tastes.”
Peirce could cut through that fine living bullshit. “He was a rapist?”
She nodded. “Underage girls. Servants especially. Women who wouldn’t be able to say no to him.”
“Bastard.”
“Oh, yes. I managed to keep the girls with me for the first two days. But the third day, one of them wandered off to find water for her sister.”
Emmaline breathed out deeply, sucked in another breath, pressed her hands to her face. Peirce caught himsel
f reaching for her and stopped. She didn’t need his comfort now. He knew that better than most; reliving a nightmare was only worse if others interfered and helped you forget for a brief moment. It made coming back to the memories even worse.
It killed him, but he sat there like a stone.
Her voice was shaky, but she’d stopped hiding her face. “I heard her screaming, Peirce. He had a knife to her throat. I tried to pull him off, but he turned and caught me—”
Her hand went involuntarily to her side and she winced like the pain was fresh.
He wanted to kill the man all over again. Slowly.
“I fell back. And you know what was worst about the entire thing? He just ignored me. He didn’t even pretend that he wasn’t doing that—,” she shuddered, “—unspeakable act.”
“There was a rock beside me. I didn’t know what else to do. He dropped the knife when I hit him the first time. I didn’t stop until he wasn’t moving anymore.”
Her eyes were haunted but her face composed. “I did the right thing. The girl, Chere, helped me arrange the body so no one would know and—” She looked at him defiantly. “And I’m proud of what I did!”
He couldn’t stay impartial any longer. “Good.”
“Good?”
“He needed to die. You saved that girl. You lived. Good.”
She was still pacing manically. He stepped in front of her. She almost ran into him, she was so focused on her inner debate. He caught her by the forearms and pressed one hand against his bare, scarred side. She’d just trusted him with her darkest secret. Time to return the favour.
“I can’t feel it. It was two years after Cordova. Our Eagle was attacked and we went down. Pilots dead, men wounded, insurgents closing in. We climbed to a defensible position in the mountains and called for evac. I was helping secure the LZ and we didn’t know it at the time, but we were in the middle of daiton territory during mating season.”
He saw her fingers press on the scars, heard the hiss of air between her teeth. She’d clearly heard of the oversized creatures, a legacy of the nuclear and biochemical warfare that had plagued the Republic in its infancy.
“It was a male. A huge, fucking male. He lunged for one of our men and I pushed him out of the way.”
“You were trying to save him?”
Her eyes were full of such hope.
He shook his head. “Nope. I was trying to die.”
He couldn’t read her face and for some reason that scared him.
“He was through my armour in one bite.”
He could still remember the crunch as the lizard’s teeth had gone through the plates, the sting from the venom, the brief terror followed by the peace of thinking that he’d finally be with Callie. Only to have the male reposition its jaws again and again before it was killed.
Before he was evacuated and put back together in a Lawmen medical facility. She didn’t need to know how bad it had been.
“They got me out and I spent the next six months in hospital.”
“The wounds were that bad?”
“No. They healed pretty quickly. The neurotoxin’s what fucked me up. They couldn’t release me for active duty after that. I suffered from...irreparable neurological decay,” he quoted. “Not safe to send a soldier into combat if he can’t feel himself getting shot in the side.”
“Good.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Good?”
“If they hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t be here now, keeping me safe and teaching me all sorts of new things,” she explained, running a finger down his chest, his stomach and stopping in the middle of his tattoo. “So, yes...good.”
Thank the gods he had an out now. No more crap about emotions and feelings. Sex was simple. They both needed simple right now.
His voice was husky and her eyes darkened in response to the lower timbre. “Well, you know what else is good?”
“What?”
“Us. Naked.”
He scooped her up and moved toward the bedroom.
“Aren’t I supposed to be getting out of town?” she laughed.
“A few more hours won’t kill anyone.”
Chapter 9
Emmaline reached over to curl into Peirce. But there was no one there. Instead there was a whisper of sound near the dresser, a quiet, metallic slide followed by an ominous click.
“Don’t move,” Peirce said, his voice so hushed she almost couldn’t hear it over the nervous pounding of her heart.
Then, faintly, from the garage, she heard the door swinging open.
Someone was in the apartment.
Peirce moved silently toward the living room, the intermittent lighting through the blinds accenting the efficient play of his muscles. She followed him without thought, wrapping the sheet tightly around herself.
He made a quick check of the front door—still locked with no sign of tampering—then moved toward the kitchen. He paused for only a moment at the edge of the half-wall. His shoulders bunched, his gun rose and he turned sharply around the corner.
She heard the gunshot, saw the flash illuminate Peirce’s face in all its deadly rage. The other man had already knocked the gun to the side, his fingers curling on Peirce’s wrist. Peirce dropped the gun and went with the movement, freeing himself in a split-second.
Their bodies met with a meaty slap, air exploding from their lungs as punches, elbows, knees hit their marks. She couldn’t follow it all between the speed and the darkness.
One second, Peirce was ducking the man’s grab, the next he was grunting as he took an elbow to the side. They crashed through the kitchen table, hit a wall. Peirce got a hold and threw the man at the half-wall, landing one-two-three fast punches to the man’s kidneys.
A low kick to the knee stopped his assault, but he was back up before the man could gain a better position on him. Dip right, feint left, dodging punches and grabs. His body was coiled, ready to explode.
He was just waiting for the right moment.
The man’s punch was a half-second too slow. A swift jerk and the man was dragged close to Peirce, who wrapped a forearm around the thigh, the other forearm a band around the man’s chest. A quick lift, a quicker drop, a deep, wet crackling and the man gave a strangled wheeze. Peirce rolled the body forward off his knee, sinking to the side, taking up his gun again, expression blank, unruffled, as he rose.
Two shots.
The man wasn’t moving. Wasn’t twitching.
Calmly, Peirce stood over him.
One more shot to the head.
Her shoulders jerked at the sound.
Peirce looked at her, battle haze fading, face tautening, anger seeping into his features.
“I told you to stay in the bedroom.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, nauseous from the heavy scent of death.
He just glared at her and ejected the clip of the pistol. A quick check and it was returned to the gun. “Go pack.”
“Okay.”
But she couldn’t move, even when he brushed past her to prepare himself for their evacuation. She watched him from the doorway, unnerved at how quickly he got combat-ready. Seeing him in the body armour took her back to their first meeting. When he was wearing his gear, he was an untouchable, arrogant prick again. Until he looked back at her and she saw the corners of his mouth soften just a bit. That was new.
He helped her get dressed. Helped her pack. Made sure he was within touching distance at all times, reassuring her with his domineering presence, even if he was still so upset he didn’t speak.
It was a comfort despite his fresh cuts, livid bruises and almost electric anger.
He took her makeshift bag—formerly his Lawman’s standard issue duffel—and her hand and led her past the man lying in a pool of his own blood on the concrete floor. They moved through the part of the garage she was familiar with into another section, one where several different vehicles were parked. She could see where the garage door had been raised just a bit, enough for the man to slip through.
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“That cost a bit,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Bribing someone to look away on the expressway requires substantial cash.”
“Oh.” So even the Lawmen weren’t necessarily trustworthy.
He helped her up into a Brumby—a lighter, more agile version of the Stallion—took the driver’s seat.
It wasn’t until they were on the expressway that she started shaking. It started with her hands, travelling up her arms, until her entire body was afflicted. Peirce didn’t look away from the road. He just took her hand and began rubbing her knuckles with his thumb.
“Honey, it’s okay. It’s just the adrenaline wearing off. You’ll be fine.”
It took a while, but her body eventually calmed down, leaving her exhausted. Only then did she notice the familiar sights. “Where are we going?”
He was smirking, but wouldn’t turn to look at her. “A place I know your father won’t look.”
“Where’s that?”
“Your country estate.”
There were probably better ways he could have gone about it, Peirce thought to himself as he watched Emma sleeping beside him. It had taken a while to calm her down and convince her that her father wasn’t smart enough to look for her somewhere he’d already searched. In fact, with Emma’s stubborn streak, it took far longer than he’d wanted, especially since he still needed to give Douglass and Kai the new plan.
Getting out of the bed was hard and only partially because she’d cosied up to him in her sleep. It was strange after so many years alone, but feeling her warmth beside him, hearing her steady breathing...it seemed natural.
He shook his head. I’m turning into Douglass. Soon I’ll be painting pictures of kittens and butterflies and frigging daffodils.
He padded softly down the hall to one of several massive libraries. He had the tablet up and running in no time. Douglass picked up right away.
“Yessir?”
“We’re back at the Gregson estate,” Peirce began. Douglass wouldn’t care if he skipped the niceties.