Stripping Bare (Steele Ridge Book 7)

by Kelsey Browning

  How the hell did he know anything about Tessa’s attackers?

  “I already let it slip how you screwed over Shaw and paid for Tessa’s education. By the look on her face, she wasn’t all that happy about it.”

  “God, Tessa, I’m sorry—”

  “But I didn’t have time to go into all the details. Charlie Cartwright’s LSAT scores were questioned. Oops, there went law school and his political career. Some pictures of Johnson’s johnson accidentally ended up on MySpace back in the day. Levine—who was a 4.0 student—somehow flunked out of Davidson. Last I heard, he was selling used cars in Raleigh. Such a shame. And Bledsoe…the one Steele here lured into a couple of porn sites… Well, he couldn’t seem to shake his addiction to paying for pussy pics. That poor bastard blew his head off not too long ago.” Keith’s gruesome grin was sharp-edged. “Oh, I see neither of you knew about that one.”

  Jonah had wanted to make them pay, but he’d never intended for things to go this far. Shaw deserved prison and the others deserved to have their lives cut down to size. But death? No.

  “Keith,” Tessa said. “I don’t think this is about me. It’s about your brother, isn’t it? Why don’t you tell me about Steven?”

  “I told you every fucking thing about him at Steele Trap.”

  “How did he die?”

  For fuck’s sake, this guy was trying his best to kill her and she was getting down to a therapy session with him?

  “There’s something you’ve been holding on to, unwilling to tell anyone. Why don’t you share it now? If you don’t want Jonah to hear, you can just tell me. What will it hurt, Keith? I’m going to die anyway, so I’ll take the secret to my grave.”

  Her plea seemed to blow the guy’s composure in a way nothing else had. His gun hand was no longer steady, and he swung his arms in agitation.

  “You said something about killing your brother, but it was an accident,” she prompted. “You know that.”

  Benery hitched his gun in Jonah’s direction. “It was his fault.”

  “Okay,” Tessa soothed, which only made Benery turn the gun back in her direction. “Then tell me how Jonah was involved. I’m sure he wants to make it right.”

  “There is no making it right. Steven is dead. Dead, dead, dead.”

  When Tessa pushed her headless body to a sitting position, Jonah almost had a stroke. Benery didn’t need any excuse to ramp up his recent twitch-fest. She placed a hand on the guy’s knee. “Let it out, Keith. Maybe your gun went off accidentally while you were playing a silly game and—”

  “Not just any game,” he shouted, self-loathing dripping from every word. “We were playing Steele Survivor.”

  30

  It all made such horrible sense to her now. Keith felt as if she’d somehow betrayed him by being unable to purge his guilt about killing his brother. Going after her clients was a way to discredit her, and he wanted to devastate Jonah as he’d been devastated. When a person was unwilling to accept blame—even if his transgression was an accident—the mind demanded that he hold someone accountable.

  That’s what she and Jonah were for Keith. Conscience cleansers.

  Now all she had to do was figure out how to keep them both alive. This time, she wasn’t in danger by herself. It was two against one, and those were odds she liked. Except Keith wasn’t wearing sensors, and he had a gun.

  “Benery, why don’t you take Tessa’s controllers and goggles?” Jonah taunted. “We can play this out where you have all the power, all the control.”

  At first, Keith shook his head, a vague movement. Then his focus shifted to where Tessa’s gauntlets lay on the ground. “You’re right. I have the real weapon.”

  His laugh was low and secretive, as if he were sharing a joke with only himself. He yanked the goggles off Tessa’s head, and she felt as if she could breathe again for the first time since he’d forced her to put them on. Besides, she could now clearly see the other player was Jonah, the man she’d believed she loved and trusted.

  She still loved him, but could she trust him after what he’d done?

  “Tell you what,” Keith said to Jonah, “I’ll even give you a head start. Let’s see how long you can rabbit around these woods before I kill you.”

  “What proof do I have that you won’t hurt Tessa once I’m out of sight?”

  “None.”

  “Then no head start. You let Tessa walk away from here, and I’ll stand still and let you put a bullet directly through my heart.”

  Tessa pressed a hand against her chest to keep her heart from pushing its way past her ribcage. What was Jonah thinking?

  “What fun is that?” Keith’s tone was sulky.

  “You can’t have it both ways, Benery.”

  “Fine. I won’t hurt her until after I catch you.”

  “Tessa, do you know where my mom is? Is she okay?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Go to her and stay there.”

  “Please don’t do this,” she pleaded.

  He shoved his goggles to his forehead and stared at her, his face rigid with determination and desperation. “I don’t think you’re a helpless victim. But I need to handle this. Do you trust me?”

  “I trust that you think you know what you’re doing,” she said carefully, but by the way his body stiffened it was clear he’d heard what she hadn’t said. That she wasn’t sure if she trusted him.

  “That’s more than I deserve.” Before she could respond, he sprinted away and the trees swallowed him up.

  The last time he’d left Tessa to go for help, it had risked both their lives. Jonah prayed to every god he could think of that he hadn’t just made the same mistake again. Maybe he should’ve just risked it, grabbed Tessa and run like hell, hoping Benery’s aim wasn’t that good.

  But all he could picture was Tessa being shot in the back and falling to the ground. Curling in a fetal position never to get up again.

  That night ten years ago, when Harrison Shaw and his entourage of rich boys had lured Jonah to a white bedroom door in Shaw’s house, it had opened to reveal Tessa drawn in on herself, lying broken on a bed.

  “Game’s on, Steele,” Shaw said, a smug smile on his face. “But you gotta get your ass in here.”

  Jonah forced himself to take the steps. Once he made it through the doorway into the brightly lit room, the other guys parted so he could see the bed.

  Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

  Arms limp over her head and legs dangling off the side of the mattress, the girl was sprawled out on the bed like a doll a kid had carelessly tossed aside. But that was where the resemblance ended.

  Jonah tried to keep breathing, tried not to lose his shit.

  But her skin. It was showing in places it shouldn’t. Someone had ripped her pretty fluttery shirt down the middle and her bra was pushed up almost to her neck. Her jean skirt was bunched around her waist and a pair of pink panties dangled off her left ankle. She was still wearing a pair of high-heeled sandals.

  If all that wasn’t horrifying enough, there was blood on her golden-brown skin and in her dark curly hair.

  The only thing that kept him from losing his ever-loving shit was the fact that her chest was moving up and down. She was in bad shape, but she was alive.

  “Whatcha think? Want some of that?”

  Jonah turned his head—it felt like slow motion—to find Shaw grinning. Perfect teeth gleaming white. So happy with himself.

  What did he think? He thought he needed to get that girl the hell out of here. Jonah swallowed. Hard. “I think—”

  “Rock, paper, scissors.”

  “What?”

  “That’s how we decide who goes next.”

  An overwhelming pressure built inside Jonah. They were playing a kid’s game to determine who got the next chance to rape a girl. Jonah’s hand curled into a fist and he leaned toward Shaw. He would kill this doucheface.

  Shaw’s eyes narrowed and he darted a look at his buddies, who moved in. “You must be into
guys,” he sneered at Jonah, “if you don’t want that prime piece of pussy.”

  She wasn’t a piece. She was a person. A pretty teenage girl. Keep it together so you can get her out of here. “She’s not moving,” he said, his voice scratchy and hoarse. “What’s the fun in that?”

  “You get between her legs and she’s plenty of fun.” Shaw fisted his hand in his other palm like a rock. “You in or not, man?”

  Maybe he should run, just get himself and Micki out of here. Then they could call the police and…and it might be too late for this girl.

  “Yeah.”

  Jonah’s scissors cut Shaw’s paper.

  Then Shaw won rock over scissors.

  By now, Jonah was sweating like a hog in August, but he was relieved to see his hand wasn’t shaking as he faced off with Shaw the last time.

  “One, two…three.”

  Jonah’s glanced down and released a soundless breath of relief. He’d been right. Shaw wasn’t smart enough to change his strategy. “Paper covers rock,” Jonah sneered. “She’s mine.”

  Shaw crossed his arms and stepped back. “So do it.”

  Oh, hell. They planned to stand there and watch. “You staying because you can’t wait to get a good look at my dick?”

  Shaw’s mouth tightened and he hitched his chin at his friends. “Let’s give the guy a few minutes.”

  “I don’t blow as fast as your friends,” Jonah said. “I’ll need at least twenty, and I don’t want anyone hanging out in the hall.”

  “Whatever.” The guys filed out of the room.

  Jonah watched them go and close the door behind them, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn around and look at the unconscious girl. He waited a couple of minutes and then cracked the door. No one was in the hallway.

  He wanted to turn off the lights so he wouldn’t have to see how damaged, how broken, the girl was. But darkness might scare her.

  He darted for the one window in the room, so fucking relieved to find it could be opened. Because there was no way he could drag this girl through that party.

  Something rustled behind him and he swung around to find her stirring. She came to—just enough for terror to glaze her eyes. “D-don’t…” She tried to hold out a hand to ward him off, but her arm barely made it an inch off the mattress before it dropped back. “P-please…”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a low voice, walking forward slowly to kneel near the bed and keeping his gaze averted from anything but her feet. “Let me help you get dressed and then—”

  “No!” She lurched forward clumsily, and hit him in the side of the head with her fist. It barely hurt, as weak as she was, but it momentarily stunned him. Enough so that she was able to get in another blow and rake her fingernails down his cheek.

  He fell on his ass and crab-walked backward until he hit the wall. “I am not going to hurt you,” he repeated. “I need help to get you out of here. I’m going to get my sister. Then we’ll get you out of here. Can you stay here for five minutes? Can you do that?” He was babbling.

  “I… Where am I?”

  “You’re safe. I’ll lock you in when I leave.”

  Her eyes flared with fear again. “Lock me—”

  “Just for a few minutes. Then we’ll be back and get you to safety.”

  “Home. I wanna go home.”

  “Okay.” Jonah pushed himself from the floor with a jerky shove and wrenched open the door before he thought better of it. Thank Jesus, no one was out there. He locked the door. Just a flimsy bedroom lock, but it was all he had. It would have to do for now.

  Once he brought Micki back, it would take her all of ten seconds to pick the thing.

  He stumbled his way downstairs and rushed into the crowd of gyrating bodies that smelled of booze, sweat, and something else—desperate lust—that turned his stomach.

  “Micki,” he called. It felt like one of those nightmares where you were running down the hallway, but it just kept getting longer and longer and…

  There she was. Jonah shoved another guy aside and grabbed Micki’s arm. “Micki, I need your help. Right now.”

  “What have you done? Did you find their computers and—”

  Unable to control himself, he dragged her along behind him until they made it to the hallway. “She’s back here.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl Harrison Shaw and his friends have been gang-raping.”

  Jonah and Micki raced toward the wing of the house where he’d left the girl. The hallway was still empty and Jonah started to release the breath he’d been holding. But then the bedroom door opened.

  A guy came out, still doing his fly. Motherfucker. He must’ve jimmied the flimsy lock. Jonah lunged at him, but Micki clung to his arm.

  The guy looked up and Jonah recognized him as Andy Bledsoe. Son of a bitch had the balls to grin. “Guess you were supposed to be next, huh? Sorry ’bout that.” He scanned Micki up and down. “But since you brought another date, maybe we could both—”

  Jonah wrenched away from Micki’s hold and punched him in the nose. Blood gushed, and the guy tried to protect his face with his hands, but Jonah caught him again high on the cheekbone, knocking him into the hall wall. “I’m going to kill you.”

  Micki pulled Jonah off and nodded toward the open door. “We need to take care of her.”

  The guy scurried away.

  Inside the bedroom, the girl’s clothes were still rucked up around her body, but now she was curled in a fetal position. When she looked up to find him standing there with Micki, her eyes were dead. Flat as water in a stagnant pond.

  She whispered, “You promised.”

  Yeah. All those years ago, he’d made Tessa a promise he hadn’t kept.

  And now, it could happen all over again.

  “Jonah, what the hell is going on out there?” Maggie’s voice boomed through his second earpiece, jolting him from the sickening memory of Tessa at her weakest, her most broken. “You haven’t checked in since you left your car.”

  He covered the mic attached to his goggles and spoke into the other mic. “Sorry,” he huffed as he ran. “Things got a little surreal there for a while.”

  “Did you get eyes on your mom and Tessa?”

  “Just Tessa.”

  “She’s with you?”

  That hesitant feeling about leaving her behind rocked through him again. “No, but Benery’s on my tail, so she’s safe.” He said it with confidence even though he’d heard no footsteps behind him. “Did Reid and Britt get the traps set up and clear out?”

  “They didn’t want to leave, but—”

  “If their asses aren’t out of these woods, I will stop running right now and let that fucker catch me.”

  “We’re with Maggie, you asswipe.” Reid’s gruff voice was loud and clear through the earpiece.

  “Then I’m headed in.” He yanked off his second mic because he needed all the focus he could muster.

  He used a few precious seconds to stop and listen. Leaves rustled off to the east, probably fifty yards out. He needed to let Benery catch sight of him for this to work.

  Jonah knew when he’d been spotted by the noise. Benery wasn’t even trying to be stealthy anymore. He was crashing through the underbrush like a drunken elephant.

  But Jonah had miscalculated the direction Benery would come from. He’d expected him to arrow in, but he’d circled around to the north. For the trap to work, he needed to lure Benery along an east-to-west trajectory.

  And if Jonah didn’t get some cover, Benery would be on top of him in seconds. His best option was a tall pine with a trio of branches a good ten feet over Jonah’s head. He jumped, getting a finger hold on the chunky bark. Using his knees and every ounce of his upper body strength, he clumsily shimmied up until he could grab two branches. His brothers would laugh their asses off if they could see his less than graceful ascent.

  He swung a leg up and straddled a branch, landing hard and racking himself in the process. Hugging th
e tree trunk, he huffed though the pain and prayed Benery wouldn’t look up.

  Benery darted out of a cluster of mountain laurel and paused long enough to scan the landscape before him. Jonah’s grip tightened on the pine, and the bark bit into his fingers, sticky with thick sap. It didn’t take long for Benery to move on, but he was still headed south. If he went too far in that direction, he’d hit the house’s backyard and likely spot Maggie and the others.

  Jonah quickly swung himself off the branch, hung for an instant before letting go and dropping to the ground in a knee-jarring crouch. He had to lure Benery to the east. He cut southeast to where a small stream ran through the property. The water was low, but there was enough for Jonah to splash through it. Not too loud, but just enough for Benery to hear.

  A couple minutes later, the sound of leaves cracking and sticks breaking made it clear the plan had worked. Jonah lunged out of the water and made no effort to be quiet as he ran, jumping over dead logs and dodging branches. One branch caught his sensor vest and it took precious seconds to break it off and get moving again.

  By that time, Benery had gained on him. His grin was fierce and gloating as he bulldozed his way through the woods. Damn it, Jonah had let him get too close.

  Expecting to feel the burn of a bullet to the back any second, he stumbled when Benery jumped him. Benery used Tessa’s gauntlets to jab and parry, getting in close, actually driving his fist into Jonah’s stomach. But that wasn’t where the pain came from. It was the feel of serrated hunting knives punching into his body and the ragged rips they cut from his flesh. The intensely real sensation of blood flowing out of his body momentarily distracted him.

  Why hadn’t Benery shot him and ended the whole thing?

  Jonah struck out at Benery, landing a glancing blow to his face. But a good old fistfight couldn’t compete with the pain of knife wounds, real or not. The slice of a virtual blade caught Jonah low in his abdomen.

  Benery came at him again, hitting the sensor directly over Jonah’s real-life knife scar. Finally, a benefit to dead nerve endings. That reprieve gave Jonah enough clarity to turn in the direction he needed to lure Benery and run like hell, expecting a bullet in the back at any second.