Dirty Ballistics

by Peyton Banks

  Thick, muscular arms wrapped themselves around him, pulling him back from the wall. His fist pulsed with pain. He didn’t care. He’d rather take the pain of a broken hand than experience the pain of losing Aspen. If they took her, he would never see her again.

  “Aspen!” he yelled.

  Curses sounded as he was taken down to the floor. He fought them, swinging his fist. Satisfaction surged into him as it connected with something.

  “Dec! Get ahold of yourself,” Mac’s familiar voice snapped in his ear.

  A knee was pushed deeper into his back while his arms were clamped down by two bodies.

  “I have to get to Aspen,” he gasped, unable to move beneath the massive weight pushing him to the floor.

  “Not like this. Get your shit together,” Mac said. “She’s going to need you, but I swear to God, if you don’t get it together, I will have you locked up.”

  The fight left Declan. He relaxed his body and rested his head on the floor. Mac was right.

  He couldn’t lose his shit right now.

  His woman needed him.

  “Are you good?” Iker asked, his voice a level above a growl.

  Declan blew out a deep breath and nodded. “I’m good.” He closed his eyes and allowed the images of their night at the safe house to fill his mind. He’d held her in his arms while she slept. Her face had been relaxed and utterly beautiful. He’d held her close the entire night, barely sleeping a wink.

  He wanted that again.

  To hold her in his arms and never let go.

  Aspen breathed in deeply and immediately regretted it. Her lungs burned like fire, and her throat felt as if someone had sliced it with razor blades. Her body was overcome with coughing, but a piercing pain in her legs made her cry out.

  “Oh God,” she whispered, opening her eyes.

  A bright light blinded her. She raised her hand to shield her eyes to allow them to adjust. She glanced around at her surroundings and found herself in a hospital room. A standard hospital gown covered her body. She was tucked away in a bed with rails up the sides. She moved her body as much as she could, wincing from pain. “Declan?”

  Her heart raced with the thought of being alone. She swallowed hard and winced from the pain. She licked her parched lips, finding them dry and chapped.

  She took in the room. Curtains lined it. The walls were glass, but the curtains provided privacy for her. A man sat with his back to the her outside the door.

  He must be a guard.

  But where was Declan?

  The sounds of beeping had her turning and looking at the monitor that displayed her vitals. Memories of running from the building and the feel of the bullets slamming into her back crowded into her mind. She could still feel the white-hot burning sensation in her leg.

  Oh God. She’d been shot!

  Her heart rate was increasing right before her eyes with the memory of Declan picking her up and running to the car.

  Seventy-three.

  Eighty.

  Ninety.

  The door slid open, revealing a nurse walking through it.

  “Oh good. You’re awake,” the nurse said with a gentle smile.

  Her smooth, brown skin was flawless. Her dark eyes held a curious note, but she didn’t ask the questions that were smoldering in her eyes. Her dark hair was pulled up in a bun, and her scrubs were dark but didn’t hide her curves.

  Aspen didn’t say a word but watched the pretty woman walk over to her machines that were on a pole delivering intravenous fluids into the tubes connected to her. She eyed the tape on her arm and felt the cool fluid entering her veins.

  “Where am I?” Aspen asked. She grimaced hearing her voice sounding like nails on a chalkboard.

  “You’re in intensive care. You underwent surgery to get that bullet out of your thigh.” The woman paused and stepped closer to the bed. Her eyes were gentle as she studied Aspen. “I’m Ronnie, by the way.”

  “I’m Aspen,” she whispered. She winced at the pain it took to talk.

  “Here, let me help you. The doctors ordered this soothing spray for your throat. It’s probably sore from when you were intubated during the surgery.” Ronnie turned and grabbed a bottle with red liquid in it.

  Aspen read the label with a familiar name on it. She opened her mouth, and Ronnie sprayed a few squirts inside. The cooling spray instantly calmed the scorched sensation in her throat.

  “If that leg of yours hurts too much, hit this button, and pain medication will be dispensed to you to help keep it under control.” Ronnie lifted a small device with a red button on the tip.

  “Thank you.” Aspen tried to smile, but her cracked lips prevented her. She took it from Ronnie and hit the button. A beep sounded from the machine it was connected to.

  “Don’t need to thank me. I’m friends with Sarena. You’ve met her before, right?”

  Aspen nodded, thinking back to the day she and Declan had lunch with Mac and Sarena. It seemed like eons ago.

  “She told me to pass along that Declan is here. But you’re under heavy guard now, and they won’t let anyone who isn’t a federal agent or hospital staff into your room. I was able to bribe the other nurse to switch patients with me so I could have you.” She patted Aspen’s hand with a smile.

  Aspen felt somewhat comforted knowing that if Declan couldn’t be here right now, they’d at least found a way to send a friendly person to be with her.

  “Thank you.” Aspen couldn’t help but say it again. “What happened?”

  “You took a couple shots to the back. Thank God you were wearing that bulletproof vest. You are going to be sore for a while. But the real issue was your leg. You took a bullet in your thigh, and it lodged itself into your femur. Had it been an inch or two higher, it would have hit your femoral artery, and I don’t even want to say what could have happened if that would have been the case.”

  Aspen gulped with that knowledge. She wasn’t medically trained, but hearing a bullet hitting any artery didn’t sound good.

  “I don’t even want to know what could have happened.” Aspen shook her head.

  “You were in good hands. The surgeons were able to dig it out without causing too much damage. Now you relax. I’m going to let Dr. Murphy know you are awake. He’s one of the surgeons who operated on you.” Ronnie backed away from the bed and turned. She disappeared out the door, leaving Aspen alone once again.

  She settled back against the pillows, feeling the effects of the pain medication kick in. Her body relaxed, and her eyes drifted shut.

  Chapter 21

  Aspen felt herself being pulled from her dream. The physicians had come with Ronnie and examined her, pleased with the sight of the wound. Her leg still burned, and she was assured that it would feel better by the next day. The surgeon had ordered a scan to be performed in the morning to ensure there was no internal bleeding since the area was hot to touch.

  Since then, she’d floated in and out of sleep. The pain medication made her drowsy, but it took some of the edge off.

  Dreams of Declan threatened to pull her back under, but something was off. Her body swayed, and she realized her bed was moving.

  Her eyes flew open, and the sight of the ceiling rolled past.

  Panic filled her chest, and she glanced up. A man in dark scrubs with a mask covering his face pushed her bed. The cool air brushed her face as he sped up.

  “Where are you taking me?” she grumbled, trying to shake the fog from her brain.

  Was it morning already? She didn’t think she’d slept that hard or long.

  “Shut up,” he snapped.

  Well, that certainly wasn’t the way to speak to a patient.

  She looked at him and frowned. Fear crept into her chest with the thought of where he was actually taking her.

  She may have been a little loopy from the medication but she was no dummy.

  He is not hospital personnel.

  She frantically took in her surroundings and found herself being pushed down a
n unfamiliar hallway. From what she could tell, it looked as if they were in the basement of the hospital. Strangely enough, there wasn’t anyone around for her to call out for help.

  “They are going to be looking for me,” she warned. She didn’t have much to threaten with. Hell, she didn’t even know if they’d realized she was gone yet. “The feds and the police—”

  “I said shut up, bitch,” he snarled. “Or I’ll shut your mouth permanently.”

  Her lips snapped shut. The pain in her leg was throbbing, and she needed to push her pain button. She glanced up and saw her IV pole still attached to her bed, but there was no way in hell she was going to take the happy drugs and drift off to her wonderfully drugged sleep at a time like this. She’d just have to grin and bear it.

  They turned a corner, and the perfectly esthetic hallway turned into what looked to be a large storage facility. Her gaze landed on large loading dock doorways, and she finally understood where they were.

  The underbelly of the hospital.

  Late at night, the maintenance employees weren’t around, and deliveries would not be happening at this time.

  Her heart skipped a beat as a few men stepped from behind large pillars. One familiar figure stood apart from the goons and captivated her attention.

  The one person she’d hoped to never see on this side of a set of prison bars stood not twenty feet from her with a scowl embedded on his face.

  “I knew you weren’t dead,” Ray sneered.

  “And I just knew you’d be in prison forever,” she remarked. She took in a deep breath and refused to show fear. There was no way she’d let him know how frightened she was.

  His dry chuckle met her ears. She glanced around and took in five men with him. Each of them were armed with weapons visible on their bodies. She stared at Ray and saw the man she’d grown up with and thought of as an uncle, but the man whose murderous gaze met hers wasn’t that same person.

  “You’re still a smart-ass.” He shook his head. “Come here, Aspen.”

  Her eyes widened, thinking of the pain she was in lying down. She didn’t even want to think of the agony she’d be in taking her first step.

  “I don’t know if you know, but I just had surgery to remove a bullet your man put in my leg,” she snapped. How the hell was she supposed to walk?

  “Well, you’re lucky he only hit your leg. Too bad. He should have been aiming at the middle of your forehead.” Ray nodded to the man who had pushed her down.

  The masked man came alongside her bed and snatched the IV line from her arm. She cried out from the sting of the tape and tubing being removed.

  “You’re not going to get away with this,” she gasped as the man dragged her to the edge of the bed.

  He wasn’t gentle at all. Her vision blurred with tears. The pain in her leg exploded, and she cried out. Her back was sore and ached as if she’d been hit with a bat. She didn’t even want to imagine what it would have felt like if she hadn’t worn the vest.

  “But I will. Do you know how much I had to spend to find you? How many agents I had to bribe?”

  “How could you do this to us?” she screamed. She batted the masked man’s hands from her. She wasn’t going anywhere with Ray. If they took her, she knew she’d never see Declan again. She’d watched with her own eyes, Ray take a man’s life. What was stopping him from doing the same to her? “You were like an uncle to me. I looked up to you.” Her voice ended on a hitch.

  Ray stalked toward her and stopped directly in front of her. “You left me no choice, Aspen,” he snapped. He settled his hands on his hips and waved his thug away. Ray returned his attention to her with a look of disgust on his face.

  This was not the man she’d grown up with. No longer was he the man whose pool she’d swum in as a child. No longer was he the proud uncle who had attended her high school and college graduations.

  That person was long gone.

  Instead, a cold, hard killer stared at her.

  Her body trembled from the force of the pain rushing through her. She swayed for a second, her body threatening to fall over. She fought to stay sitting up, not wanting to appear weak.

  “You had plenty of choices,” she whispered. Tears slid down her face, and she no longer cared. If he was going to kill her, he might as well do it now. She would fight to the death before she let him take her from the hospital. “My father trusted you.”

  “Your father was an idiot. I had big plans, and he just shot them down. I was ready to take our business to the next level.”

  “Well, it looks like you have a little more pressing matter at hand. Breaking out of jail won’t help your case—”

  “You don’t worry about me, Aspen. I won’t be standing trial,” Ray cut her off. “You think you are the only one who is good at hiding money?”

  Her quick intake of breath had a chuckle spilling from his lips. His eyes narrowed on her.

  “What are you talking about?” Her voice was just a decibel over a whisper. Her mind raced. She had been careful over the years. What she’d stashed had taken years for her to accumulate. It had always been her rainy day fund. She always believed that one should save money in offshore accounts.

  Just in case.

  “Oh, don’t try to play dumb, Aspen. I know you are extremely intelligent. It took me a while, but I finally found proof that you have been putting money away—”

  “There’s no crime in that,” she snapped. Her leg throbbed, and her breathing rate increased. She was beginning to feel light-headed and knew she was going to be in trouble.

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re going to give that money to me.”

  “I am not!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “You’re trying to tell me that you have nothing? No money?”

  “They stripped everything from me!” he screamed. He paced the floor.

  The thugs shifted uncomfortably around the room as they watched him.

  “Talk about a system that brags about the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ theory. I haven’t even got to trial yet and they’ve already convicted me. All of my bank accounts have been frozen. Even my offshore accounts can’t be accessed. But yours, they will be mine. Because of you—”

  “Me?” she shrieked. The bastard couldn’t believe everything that had happened to him was her fault? “This is all your doing!”

  “And I’m going to fix it,” he taunted, pausing before her.

  Ray snapped his fingers, and she watched with dread—one of his men approached. He was tall and solid muscle. His dark skin was roughened with scars above his right eye and one on his lower lip. His beard was thick, and his eyes were black as midnight. She swallowed hard as he pulled his gun from his holster.

  “This is not a request. You are going to transfer the money to me. I’m leaving this fucking country, and you are going to be my ticket out of here so I can disappear.”

  “Why, so then you’ll kill me afterwards?”

  “Kill you?” Ray scoffed. “You’re already dead.”

  A fear like she’d never known gripped her. She was trapped between a rock and hard place. Either she refused and they killed her now, or she give him what he wanted and she died later. Either way, she didn’t see him allowing her to remain alive much longer.

  “Now stand,” Ray ordered.

  Her gaze swept the large room, and she sent up a prayer that Declan and his men would swoop in and save her.

  Aspen swallowed hard. She blinked a few times before scooting to the edge of the bed. Her bare toes touched the floor while fire shot up her leg. She bit back a whimper, not wanting to show her pain. Ray’s man turned his gun on her, and she had no other choice but to stand. Putting her weight on her good leg didn’t help once she was on her feet.

  Her body shook, and a warm substance trailed down her leg. Her body swayed, and the room darkened.

  Ray released a curse, and she lost her fight with consciousness and slipped into a dark abyss.

  Chapter 22

  “Excuse me.
When I can I visit Aspen Hale?” Declan asked the woman behind the nurses’ station.

  Her eyes widened when she looked up and met his. He was on a short fuse. They’d kept Aspen from him long enough. Mac had been on the phone with the captain trying to get clearance for him to visit with her.

  It was bullshit that he couldn’t go see her. He’d been on her detail before the plans had gone to Hell in a hand basket.

  “I’m sorry, sir. We are not allowed to let visitors in to see her.” She smiled apologetically. “It’s not our rule, but the agents told us unless you are a federal agent then we can’t allow anyone in her room.”

  “When did this change? I was told I would be able to see her during visiting hours?” he demanded to know. But he already knew the answers. Now the feds were here—they would run the show.

  He lowered his gaze to her badge and read her name.

  Susan.

  “Susan, do you have loved ones?” His voice dropped low. He narrowed his gaze on her, his temper rising. He gripped the counter, trying to remain in control and not lose his shit. He didn’t care that she didn’t make the rules.

  She visibly swallowed hard and nodded. Her eyes widened with tears forming.

  He ignored them.

  “What if the one person who mattered to you was lying in a hospital bed, alone, scared, and you were unable to be with them. How would that make you feel?”

  Guilt.

  He wasn’t above using it to get what he wanted.

  “Umm…” She swallowed hard again, wiping a tear that escaped down her cheek. Her fair skin paled. She wiped another tear that slipped from her eye again. “Sir, there’s nothing I can do—”

  His attention was caught by the sight of people rushing by down the unit behind her. He pushed off from the counter and walked to the edge of it, curious as to why they’d be running. The nursing staff was in a full-blown panic.

  “Susan.” A nurse rushed up to the secretary. Her eyes were wide and frantic.

  Declan recognized her as the nurse who had relieved Ronnie. It had been time for Sarena’s friend to get off, and she’d left to go home to get some sleep with the promise to return in the morning.