On a curse, Will turned and sprinted for the door.
Chapter Eleven
He’d lost her.
He’d fucking lost her.
From the window of the fifth-floor walkup, Will had been able to track Cooper easily enough. But the second his feet had hit the pavement, he’d given up his bird’s-eye view and the city had swallowed Cooper whole.
Panic pushing him, he jogged another block, weaving through the oncoming crowd of pedestrians and ignoring the urban din of too much traffic squeezed onto too-narrow streets.
Nothing.
He couldn’t have passed her. She was easy enough to recognize and there was no way she was still ahead of him, not at the rate she’d been moving. So either she’d turned off on a side street, ducked into a store, or been pulled into a car.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He turned and doubled back, glancing down busy blocks and into darkened alleys as he went. If Coop had flagged down a cab—unlikely, given the drugs—or been forced into a car—a possibility he couldn’t bring himself to consider—then there was nothing he could do except hope she got herself out of whatever he’d so callously thrown her into.
Hope. Right. Because that had worked so well for him up until this point.
He could just kill Coop for this. For the drugs. For the lies. For the goddamned worry churning like a maelstrom in his gut.
But he’d have to find her first.
He slowed his pace to a jog and peered through shop windows and down alleyways, hoping like hell that he wouldn’t have to live the rest of his life wondering what had happened to Cooper Reed.
If she was okay.
If he’d thrown her out of his life and into something much worse. Something she couldn’t hope to handle on her own. Not when she was drugged and helpless and so fucking scared.
Because she had been scared. Terrified. It had flickered across her face, brief but so damn familiar that shame now crawled across his skin like a swarm of insects, biting and stinging and spreading a poison that grew like an aggressive rot.
Will knew what it was to be desperate.
Knew what it was to be beneath someone else’s mercy.
And as Cooper had stood there, a tear slipping down her cheek as she tried to explain, tried to make him understand, Will had seen himself. Seen the last year of his life splayed across the face of another.
And like a selfish coward, he’d turned away.
Anger had been so much easier to embrace than compassion or understanding. It had kept him alive. Kept him going. When there’d been nothing else in that godforsaken pit, Will had clung to his rage. Fed off it. Embraced it.
But now he wasn’t sure he knew how to let it go. Because even now that he was free, now that the men who’d hurt him were dead, the rage was right there. Just beneath the surface like a shark beneath the water. Ready and waiting, full of serrated teeth and a primal need to attack and destroy.
So he’d ignored Cooper’s anguish, her desperation—partly because he’d needed to put space between them, needed to get her out of sight, out of mind, and out of danger . . . but also because anger and betrayal and the spiteful desire to hurt those who’d hurt him were so damn inviting.
So damn comfortable.
Somewhere along the way, anger had become easy.
And he was angry, furious even. But he didn’t want to be.
Didn’t need to be. Not anymore.
And as he’d forced back the rage, questions had begun to bubble to the surface.
Will wasn’t sure he’d like the answers, but he’d figure out a way to deal with them.
But first he had to find Coop and fix this.
Please, God, let it not be too late to fix this.
He forced himself to slow down.
To study faces. To look through shadows and block out the noise of horns and music and the chatter of people on cell phones until the only thing he could hear was the echoing condemnation of his own desperate steps.
Like a ghost, Cooper had vanished.
Guilt twined with worry and regret as Will’s options withered.
He was already more than halfway back to the apartment when a cry caught Will’s attention. Thin and brief, it sounded as if it had been born of surprise rather than fear or pain or frustration. He glanced around, but there was nothing to see and nothing to find. Just an endless stretch of sidewalk and the determined throng of pedestrians.
Where had it come from?
He’d nearly dismissed it as a figment of his imagination when the clank and clatter of an overturned trash can caught his attention. Will backtracked a few paces and glanced to his left. He’d passed up this alley with little more than a dismissive look because of the huge, black, iron gate, heavily tagged with graffiti, that sealed it off from pedestrian and street traffic alike.
Will pushed against the right side of the gate, but it was firmly secured and did little more the rattle in protest. On a frustrated sigh, he tried the left, then put a little more of his weight behind it when it moved. Will turned and wedged his shoulders through the two-foot-wide opening—just far enough to glimpse down a narrow alley that stretched a full block between two towering buildings. Sunlight did little more than graze shadows. Dumpsters flanked the walls and smaller bins had been overturned, their contents spewed across pavement like a buffet for desperate scavengers.
It smelled like damp and warmed-over rot, but that wasn’t what snared the breath in his lungs.
Ten yards down, on her knees and still as stone, Cooper faced the crumbling wall of a cinder-block building and waited quietly, patiently, obediently as Cole, her fucking spotter, the man who was supposed to have her back no matter what, attached a suppressor to the barrel of his pistol.
Seconds, that was all she had left.
A new, far more basic anger eclipsed the complicated and fading fury that had carried Will down sidewalks and across busy streets. The blowback of Cole’s betrayal singed Will’s skin and reignited the rage he’d worked so hard to smother.
Will hit the gate with his shoulder, forcing it open, the bottom corner of the iron frame dragging along beat-up asphalt with the irritated wail of a dying wraith. The screech of metal provided the split-second distraction Cooper so desperately needed.
Cole’s head snapped up and around at the same time Will sprinted down the alley.
In the end, that damn suppressor saved both their lives. If it hadn’t been attached to the gun, Will would have taken a half-dozen rounds to the chest. If it had been attached to the gun, same, slightly less noisy, outcome.
But Will had caught Cole mid-action and found Cooper in the breath between life and death that hung suspended and glinting like a guillotine in the sun.
And that shadow of space? That split second that existed between one heartbeat and the next, separated one lifetime from the next? Will owned that sliver of time. Had lived in it, fought in it, survived in it. He knew how it could stretch like an eternity—how it could be the difference between life and death.
And that bought him the advantage and the seconds he needed to enter the fight with all the weighted force of his Delta training at his back.
“Cooper, down!” he shouted, praying that the drugs would give weight and force to his words. But he didn’t slow to see if she followed his orders.
He didn’t think. Didn’t strategize. Just went in hard and fast, relying on speed and strength and good old-fashioned muscle memory to do the job.
With his left hand, he caught Cole’s wrist just behind the pistol, then slid to the outside as his right hand caught the barrel of the gun and forced it up into a vicious one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc that forced all the pressure of the maneuver against Cole’s thumb.
Because it hurt like a bitch, the bastard dropped the weapon on a pained grunt.
And because Will had caught more of the half-attached suppressor than the barrel, so did he.
Fuck.
He hadn’t made a clean strip only to drop t
he damn weapon since his sister had come home a marine and summarily surprised the shit out of him.
One mind, any weapon.
Just one of the marine’s mottos, it rang through Will’s head with the smug sing-song cadence of Georgia’s amusement.
As usual, his sister was right, damn her. And training was the best weapon of all.
He brought his hands up and blocked the first punch to his face. It glanced off his forearm, and Will rolled with the strike, then stepped to the left. A hook came next, but a quick retreat killed it dead. Then a combination—easily read and easily defended.
Will was either being teased or tested. The latter, if he had to guess. Cole, all six-foot-two of rangy, compact muscle, was lethal with a gun, probably dangerous with a knife, but only proficient in hand-to-hand combat.
Will snorted. That was the problem with specialties. Guys got a chubby for one thing—guns, explosives, rifles, whatever—and got sloppy with the rest of it.
But not Will. He liked his training like he liked his vacations and his women. Constant change and constant challenge.
So yeah, keeping hold of the gun would have made things easier, but he could manage without it.
He sidestepped, putting himself between Cole and Cooper, who was on her hands and knees, her shoulders trembling. If it was because she was hurt or scared or just fighting against the prison of drugs that had forced her out of the fight, Will didn’t know.
“You even care that she trusted you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, Will slung his weight into the fight behind a right hook that he generated from his hips and pushed through his fist like a freight train.
And came up empty.
With an elbow up and a hand behind his head, Cole stepped in close, blocked the shot with one arm, and drove an open palm into Will’s face that he followed with a knee that mule-kicked the breath from Will’s lungs.
Instinct, more than thought, had Will sliding away and back on the defensive.
Fuck. Cole kept his hands up and hips squared as he stepped to the right, circling as Will matched each movement with a step to his left.
Any hope this prick was all trigger and no real training died a fast, violent death.
Will attacked again, a combination this time, only for each move to be countered, parried, or blocked.
Shit.
He’d always, always gone in aggressively. Been the first—and last—to strike. Spec ops didn’t train men in basic self-defense. It wasn’t about avoiding a fight or creating the room to walk away. In combat it was win or go home, and Will had been trained to win. Brutally. Efficiently. No mercy and no remorse.
But aggression required speed and as Will backstepped, ceding both ground and the offensive position, he faced the truth he’d momentarily forgotten.
He was a half second too slow. A fraction too weak.
Still, his body took the abuse. Training merged with desperation, and he blocked what hits he could, took the rest on places that would bruise but not break. And with each step and every blow, he slowed. A hundredth of a second here. A tenth of a second there.
And each one of them marched him one step closer to the blow he wouldn’t be able to block. The one he wouldn’t see coming . . . at least not until it was far too late.
He got his arms up in a high guard just in time to block a fist aimed at his jaw—but left himself open to the brutal sidekick to the ribs.
He wheezed and slid to the side, refusing to be backed into a wall or boxed into a corner.
Shit, that fucking hurt.
He had to think. Had to rely on more than instinct—which hadn’t lost its edge—and training—a long-stored promise his body remembered but couldn’t deliver on fast enough.
Against an unskilled opponent, even in Will’s current condition, he’d have won. Easily.
But Cole wasn’t unskilled. He’d been trained, maybe not as thoroughly, or ruthlessly, but it was stamped across his actions all the same. He wasn’t just versed in the basics, and he hadn’t simply stopped at proficient.
And as they fought and moved, blocked and charged, Cole was slowly stamping that painful realization into Will’s body, too.
And oh God, he was losing. Not because he was outmatched or outnumbered. But because he was slower. Because he was smaller.
Because he was weaker.
Will blocked a haymaker with a helmet guard but took a double blow to his exposed ribs. He stumbled, but recovered fast, his ribs singing and his breath coming in short, painful bursts. Already, his muscles were screaming with fatigue. Sheer aggression wouldn’t work. But he couldn’t afford to play this like Ethan, either. To be patient. Calculating. He couldn’t win the long game. Wouldn’t last long enough to wear Cole down until he was frustrated and tired and stupid enough to stumble into a mistake.
Will had to end this.
Fast.
But how?
He glanced around for the gun, but it had skittered out of sight and disappeared amongst the rest of the garbage in the alley.
He blocked half of another combination and managed to keep his footing even as the skin along his eyebrow split beneath a glancing blow that sure as fuck felt like a direct hit.
How the hell was he supposed to win this fight?
“Please,” the plea left Cooper’s lips like a prayer: quiet, reverent, as if she weren’t even aware she’d given it voice. She struggled to her feet, one hand braced against the wall, and Will wondered if she had any idea where she was. What was happening around her.
What would happen if he failed.
He dodged a blow and landed one of his own that paid dividends with the satisfying clack of teeth.
The victory was short lived, and Cole came back twice as hard. Twice as fast. Twice as strong.
Shit.
Lean into what you are. Work with your weaknesses, make them strengths. Take his strengths and make them weaknesses.
He’d said the words before. To Georgia—who he’d taught to defend herself long before the marines had taken that training and honed it to a lethal edge. To Parker—who’d gotten sick and tired of Ethan knocking him on his ass day in and day out. To people who were smaller. Slower. Weaker. He’d taught them to fight. And taught them to win. Against people who were faster. People who were stronger. People who were better trained and better conditioned.
And only hours ago Cooper had said something similar. Reminded him that where some saw weakness, she’d cultivated strength.
Fight smart, Parker told him.
Fight like a girl, Georgia whispered.
Bring him in close and make him pay for the privilege, Cooper offered.
All good advice.
One good blow, and he could end this.
Just one.
Will needed an opening.
“Cole, please . . .” Cooper whispered, her voice hollow and thin, like the echo of thunder through a cloudless sky, the storm still harmlessly out of sight.
As if he was surprised to hear his own damn name, Cole paused, and Cooper gave Will his opening.
He struck.
He threw a straight-fingered jab to the left side of the face, aiming for the eye. On instinct, Cole turned, letting the blow slide past, taking his eyes off Will . . . and completely missed the fist Will drove against the soft target just beneath the ear and along the jaw.
For good measure, and because he was just that fucking pissed the man could kill his own partner, Will stepped in with a knee to the groin that took Cole to his knees.
The Georgia special. Half feint, half fearless follow-through and a hundred and ten percent brutal. It worked like a charm and hurt like a motherfucker.
Cole went down, and Will was on him, snaking his arm around the bastard’s throat, his hands ready to finish the job and snap the neck of the fucking shit who could so easily shoot a friend in the back.
But it was too quick. Too clean. Too easy an end for a man who deserved so much worse.
“She trusted you, assh
ole,” Will grunted, countering every move Cole made to slip his hold. “All so you could put a bullet in the back of her head like she was nothing and no one.”
Cole didn’t say anything, didn’t argue, just fought against the hold that was slowly stealing the breath from his lungs and the blood from his brain.
“You’d have done it, no questions, no hesitation, wouldn’t you?” Will grated against his ear. “Shot her in the head and left her here to rot like she was nothing to you.”
Left to die alone in some foreign pit. Discarded. Forgotten.
Rage had Will wishing for a knife. For a way to make it hurt. For the strength to beat his face in.
To make the end every bit as painful as the betrayal.
“Don’t . . .” Cooper slid down the wall, her legs simply folding beneath her weight. But for the bruises, still fresh and blooming, her face was chalk white and smooth as the frozen surface of a lake, the drugs trapping her just out of reach. But Will could see her fighting to surface, trying to crack the ice and take a breath.
As if he’d forgotten Will had him pinned, Cole lurched toward her, and Cooper simply stopped breathing. Panic, Will realized, pulled at her every bit as hard as the drugs. Pumping her system full of adrenaline and bringing her consciousness closer and closer to the surface.
Will thought he’d seen every shade, variation, and combination of fear a man could wear. Had worn most of them himself.
Anger. Tears. Hostility. Disbelief. All of them ugly and all of them honest in their own unique ways. Because fear brought everything to the surface. Carved the truth onto faces with such ruthless efficiency that even the most skilled of liars had trouble concealing it.
But Cooper’s expression didn’t so much as flicker with a shadow of change. And somehow, somehow that was so much worse to witness.
Her face remained slack and open, vulnerable and honest as her gaze moved from Cole’s to Will’s.
God damn it.
“Will, please,” she croaked as she struggled against the weight of everything keeping her down and out of this fight.
The drugs had stripped her of every lie and half-truth she owned—even the ones she’d told herself so often she’d probably begun to believe them.
Fearless (Somerton Security Book 3) Page 12