“She was putting up a good fight, man. I’ll have my deputy pull the GPS on that area and look for any other possible routes. I’m on my way.”
Riser gunned his nearly maxed-out bike, picking up speed, his heart pounding slow and steady in his chest. He was pumped full of grim determination. The thought of that bastard, laying his hands on Laney, made him want to strangle the life out of his worthless body.
“Riser, don’t kill him. With this evidence and the warrant, we’ll be able to lock him up.”
“Roger.” Riser ended the call so he wouldn’t have to lie to the sheriff. He had absolutely no intention of letting Laney’s ex live.
He used a voice command to quickly call Duke.
He answered on the first ring, “Go.”
Riser quickly rattled off the information from Bo and finished up with his own location.
“I’ll close in from the other direction. We should meet up fairly soon and trap that bastard between us, make sure he doesn’t see the light of day again.”
The roar of the road crowded the conversation, but Riser could hear Duke well enough to hear him say, “I’ve got all kinds of property where a body could disappear forever.”
“Just be careful; Laney is in the vehicle. If you accidentally hurt her—”
Duke interrupted, “I know, you’ll kill me too. I understand, brother. Believe me, if there’s any way to protect your girl, I’ll do it.”
Your girl. He was surprised by how much he liked the sound of that. “Thanks.”
“No big, bro. I’ve been itching for some action. If I catch them first, I’ll radio; you do the same.”
“Roger,” Riser disconnected the call and leaned into his bike. The wind whipped past him with a loud roar, muffled by his tight helmet. The black leather jacket hugged his shoulders and protected his arms. The wind whipped his knuckles as he gained speed, moving with his bike and taking turns at a breakneck pace.
Scenarios of finding Laney’s bruised and cold body made him sweat. Detachment usually came to him easily when he rode into battle, but the thought of anyone hurting his woman filled him with murderous rage.
Headlights appeared far on the horizon, too distant for him to make out the vehicle. Riser didn’t slow down. If it wasn’t Laney, he couldn’t afford to waste precious seconds.
###
Laney fought her way from the fog, head pounding. She smelled old leather and tried to lift her head, only to drop down instantly as the world tilted around her. What happened?
Mark.
Mark had happened. The hospital parking lot came back in a flash.
Lily.
A rush of adrenaline sparked in her veins. She had no idea how long she’d been out, but she couldn’t allow Mark to take her to his cabin. He’d kill her. There wasn’t a doubt left in her mind.
But not before he tortured her.
She had to fight. Careful not to move and alert Mark that she’d awoken, Laney looked around the interior of the SUV. Aside from a floor board full of trash and empty soda cans, there wasn’t a weapon in sight.
Mark reached for the radio and Laney instinctively flinched. How was she supposed to stop him without…
Her heart stopped. Her gun. Moving as subtly as possible she felt around her back for the pistol, fighting back the hiss of pain when her fingers brushed the exposed skin on her back from where Mark had tossed her on the pavement like a rag doll.
The pain didn’t pay off. She didn’t have her gun. Laney’s eyes slid shut, weighted down by dread. Mark had kicked it across the parking lot.
Right before he’d beat her and she’d been unable to stop him.
He was so much stonger. So much bigger. Just like before. He’d walked right up to her and smacked her in the face. He hadn’t bothered to sneak up on her or anything – he hadn’t needed to.
He was nearly two hundred pounds of packed muscle and she was nothing.
Despair clawed at her insides, dragging her down in defeat. Blood caked her mouth and agony pulsed through her body. He’d done that to her.
Tears pricked her eyes. Lily. She’d never see her baby again. Never get to hold her in her arms.
No! She wouldn’t let him get away with destroying her life. Not again. Not ever.
She’d gotten away from him before using the element of surprise. It had been her one hope and it was again today.
Adrenaline rushed through her veins and she tensed. She had to act now, before she second guessed her self and let the fear edging around her mind take control.
She would do what it took to protect her child. Even if it meant she had to kill them both. Laney launched from the back seat with a roar, fingers curled into claws and went straight for Mark’s eyes.
Mark screamed and yanked the wheel. Laney held on, ready to give up her life to take his.
###
The vehicle neared, and then swerved. Riser slowed, his heart rate picking up speed. It could just be a drunk driver or someone texting on their phone. The headlights cut to the right and then made a violent arc to the left—as if someone was fighting the driver for control of the vehicle. Riser was less than a hundred feet away when the tires caught, shrieked on the pavement, and sent the vehicle tumbling down the highway.
The loud crash of metal on road pierced through the thick protection of his helmet. Riser slammed on his brakes, as the vehicle rolled to a stop, landing on its hood. The engine smoked and shattered glass littered the street. Riser was off his bike in an instant, racing toward the green SUV.
Shit. Shit. Shit. “Laney!” Not many people could survive a crash like that. The whole front top half of the SUV was crushed. Riser dove to his knees and slid on his side, going for the back-passenger window, which was half crumpled, the glass gone.
He saw Laney splayed flat on the hood inside of the vehicle, bloody and unmoving, his heart stopped. “Laney?”
Suddenly, she coughed and then groaned, “Riser?”
“Laney, be still. I think I can pull you out.”
There was a second cough from inside the vehicle, this time not from Laney, and the sound seemed to spur her to life. She scrambled toward him, her arms coming out of the window first, scraping across the glass-encrusted frame of the window.
He slid his hands underneath her shoulders and her torso, using himself to protect her from any further harm. “Stop before you hurt yourself more.”
“He’s in there.” Her ragged, out-of-breath voice was anxious and fearful, but he forced himself to remain calm.
“I’ve got you.” Riser eased her the rest of the way from the window, clamping down his jaw as her swollen and bruised face came into view.
It wasn’t until he’d gotten her fully free of the vehicle that her gashed and bloody leg came into view. Shit. Riser clutched her to his chest and moved a safe distance away. Chest tight, he eased her to the ground and ripped off his leather jacket. His shirt followed. He quickly bandaged her leg with his shirt, only tearing his gaze from her wound to make sure her ex wasn’t sneaking up on them.
Another set of headlights approached, but the vehicle slowed to a stop as it neared them. He heard two doors open and close and then the familiar voice of Duke: “Do we need to call an ambulance?”
“Yes,” Riser said quickly.
Laney gulped, “Riser, Mark—”
“Shhh, it’s okay. I’m here now. I won’t let him hurt you.” He cradled her cheek, cautious to avoid the obvious swelling on the other side of her face. “Did he do this?”
“When I fought him. In the parking lot. At the hospital. Oh, God, is Lily okay?”
“Yes, Cheri is with her now. She’s fine. What happened?”
“I woke up in the back seat of his car. I know it was stupid, but I just reacted. I started hitting him, calling him names, anything I could do.”
Riser just looked at her with a fierce wave of protection, and he gently took her into his arms. “You did good, honey. Really good.”
“Is this the asshole wh
o likes to beat up on women?” Duke dragged a man from the shattered passenger window of the vehicle, his face covered in a nice coating of blood.
Laney’s loose grip on Riser’s arm clenched down with the force of a driving pin powered by a sledgehammer.
“Yes,” Riser ground out.
He could feel the tension jumping off Laney’s skin, like there were jumper cables connected between them, her fear boosting his rage like a thousand-volt battery with its wires crossed. It took every ounce of willpower Riser had not to set Laney down so he could finish the job the car wreck hadn’t done.
As if reading his mind, Duke kicked Mark’s leg, eliciting a beautiful scream of agony from the battered man. “You can’t touch me. I’m a cop. This woman is a fugitive with a warrant for kidnapping.”
A glorious, white-hot rage zinged through Riser’s blood, and he shifted, his resolve not to kill Mark in front of Laney vanishing. “So—this is what police officers do now? They beat women and kidnap them?”
Laney latched onto his arm, not allowing him to stand. “Riser, don’t.”
But all Riser could hear was a loud buzz of the need for vengeance in his ears. The swelling bruise on Laney’s face turned that sound into a deafening roar.
Duke jerked the back of Mark’s collar, lifting him off the ground by the shirt, forcing a nice choking noise from Mark.
“When we want you to speak, we’ll fucking tell you. Otherwise keep your trap shut. Unless, of course, you want me to use you as a punching bag like you did to her.”
Duke released Mark’s collar, and Mark fell to the ground, sputtering. His leg was obviously broken, and his shoulder appeared to be dislocated. He looked like shit, but the only way Riser would be happy was if Mark looked dead.
“Laney,” Riser gently cupped her cheek, trying to focus on her beautiful brown eyes instead of the swelling on her face. “I can’t let what he did to you pass without punishment.”
Not again. He couldn’t fail again.
“Don’t listen to that lying whore. She kidnapped my daughter. I’m a police officer—” Mark’s words were cut off by a scream; Duke had nudged his damaged leg.
Riser’s vision tunneled on the man who had kidnapped Laney, but his mind saw another image overlaid on this one. Mark became Jack Mankel, cursing him, taunting him. And Laney became Caroline Cotter. Wounded. Possibly dead.
Jack Mankel might be dead now, but what good had it done Caroline? She was gone, hidden somewhere by Mankel’s lackeys, and the likelihood of her ever being found was close to zero.
And like a scratched DVD stuck on a bad scene, Riser’s mistake was stuck on repeat.
Only this time, he had the girl in his arms. This time, he had the kidnapper within his grasp. This time, he would see vengeance borne out, even if he had to die to do it.
Riser shifted Laney gently to the ground, feeling her, seeing her, but not really aware of her, as he slowly got to his feet and crossed the short distance to Mark.
His rage was seething and powerful. A burning violence directed not only at Mark, but also at Jack Mankel. At himself.
Forcing his expression to drop into a cold, hard mask, Riser squatted, his elbows on his knees. “The bruises on her face tell a different story, bastard. So does the video footage in the hospital parking lot.”
Mark’s puffy eyes widened into space, and worry deepened the tight lines around his mouth. “She attacked me.”
Riser leaned in until his face was only inches from Mark’s. He let the need to kill show openly in his gaze. “Do I look like someone who cares?”
Mark’s flushing, ruddy cheeks turned pale in an instant. Recognition dawned, and he started to shake. “I’m a cop. They’ll hunt you down.”
“For what? There won’t be a body for evidence. Everyone here wants you dead just as much as I do. The story practically writes itself. When we came upon the wreck, Laney was unconscious and you were gone. They’ll say you ran to protect yourself.”
“Lies! You’ll never get away with that,” Mark sputtered, but there wasn’t a single ounce of confidence behind his words.
Riser’s smile was cruel and punishing, intended to inflict terror. “I think you and I both know that’s not true.” Before Mark could protest, Riser stood, brushing his hands down his legs, like he was ridding himself of the taint of being in Mark’s presence. “Duke, mind if I put him in your vehicle? Don’t think he’ll fit on my bike.”
“We’re one step ahead of you. Got the kit in the back end.”
Duke lifted Mark by the arms, and started dragging him to his parked SUV. A dark, wet stain appeared near Mark’s crotch as he pleaded for his life.
Riser would finally get to exact the revenge he’d so longed for. Maybe in the process, he could extinguish some of the burning guilt for his previous failure.
He knew that getting that revenge would cost him Laney, but maybe this was the way it should be. The past two days had been living proof of the fact that he wasn’t good enough for her. He had failed to protect her. Just like before.
Hell, he didn’t deserve a relationship with anyone, let alone a woman as sweet and beautiful as Laney.
No, he would accept his role in life, like the good grunt that he was. There would always be a bad guy who needed killing. He would save her memory tucked in the back of his mind to keep him warm on those freezing cold nights, when he was huddled alone in some godforsaken Third World country without food or water. She could keep him company then—if only in his memories.
Chapter Fifteen
Laney struggled to her feet, ignoring the burning ache that seemed to envelop every inch of her skin. Trying not to cry. Her cheek throbbed, and she could only imagine what she must look like. The way Riser and his buddies were looking at her made it an easy guess.
She wanted to kill Mark as much as the next person, but hearing Riser say those words out loud had sent a chill of dread down the back of her neck. He’d put up a block of ice between them—she’d felt it as soon as he eased her down onto the pavement. She could practically feel him withdrawing from her, mentally severing their connection. She could see it in the tense set to his shoulders and the way he kept his back to her as the two strangers dragged Mark to their vehicle.
If Riser did this awful thing—if he killed Mark in cold blood—he would be killing all the good inside him. And she couldn’t let that happen.
“Riser, don’t do this.” Her voice came out in a ragged whisper, scraped raw from Mark’s little choke fest at the hospital.
“Even the sound of your voice makes me want to kill him. You can barely speak.” Riser shifted, facing her. “He wanted to hurt you, Laney. To hurt you and keep on hurting you. I could see it in his eyes.”
Laney closed the distance between them, trying not to focus on Riser’s features, and how they’d been turned to stone. He was trying to appear empty and uncaring, but she could practically see his forearms vibrating with tension.
The honorable man standing before her was at war with himself, and he was only seconds away from losing the battle.
“Laney! Tell him the truth. Tell him I would never hurt you.” Mark’s fearful voice was like a rusty spoon scraping over a chalkboard. Laney cringed on reflex, and that tiny movement was enough to set Riser off.
He strode to Mark, pulled back his arm and slammed it down with all the force of a Mack truck ramming into a brick wall at full speed. Mark crumpled, and Riser returned to stand before her, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
This wasn’t the man who she’d come to know, to connect with on a deep level. This wasn’t the teasing, handsome man she’d seen at the bar. Any trace of softness had disappeared. Riser was a full-blown warrior now.
Laney could feel the unraveling of her tenuous hope for the future. She wanted him in her life; she wanted him in Lily’s life too. Thinking back, even though they’d never interacted much at the bar, Riser had always been there, strong and steady as a rock, stepping in to protect the weak or s
tepping up to defend someone’s honor.
Now, however misguided it was, he was stepping up to defend her. She had to show him she didn’t need it. Didn’t want it either. She would not be the ruining of him.
“You’re not killing him.” Laney planted her fists on her hips, but her bossy stance was completely ruined when she jammed a knuckle into a bruise on her hip bone and winced.
“He’s already dead.” Riser’s voice, like his eyes, lacked any emotion.
That underriding hope inside her snapped. Desperation—aching and ragged—spurred her forward until she latched her arms around his waist, anchoring him to her the only way she knew how.
The physical contact felt so good and hurt so bad at the same time. But she wasn’t giving up. Not now. Not ever again. She was tired of letting other people win. Of accepting that she couldn’t have the things she wanted. “Riser, he’s not worth this. He’s not worth risking your career or your life over.”
He jerked and then went still again, as if her words had somehow picked the edge of a scab on his control. “I can’t let him go. I planned to turn him over to the sheriff, but—” His face crumpled a little, another break in his immaculate composure “—seeing you like this, I… Just don’t ask me to do that, Laney.”
She buried her face against his washboard chest, drawing in the reassuring scent of fresh male. He was wearing the same shirt she’d slept in. Hope curled through her. “You know you will do the right thing. There really is footage at the hospital? There’s evidence, right? We can lock him up.”
Riser’s arms went around her, and Laney held her breath, not daring to move.
He replied, “But what if it’s not enough?”
She heard the minuscule amount of doubt underneath the steel voice, and she latched on to it for dear life. “It will be. It will be enough to ruin his reputation and his career. And if we do it right, we can lock him up for a long time.”
A great shudder worked down his body, and he squeezed her tighter. His heart staccatoed fast and hard against her cheek, evidence of the battle waging inside him.
Brotherhood Protectors: Riser's Resolve: Men of Mercy (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 9