Black Sheep Bounty Hunter

by Jackie Ashenden

“No more bullshit,” he snarled into Jones’s ear. “I know what you’re doing, Jones.”

  “What the fuck?” Jones choked out, his hands scrabbling on the wall. “I’m not doing a fucking thing. You’re crazy. You’ve fucking—”

  Quinn tightened his arm ruthlessly then shoved the barrel of his Colt against Jones’s side. “You targeted Jack. You knew he was my son and so you went after him. And you targeted Duchess, too. And why was that, asshole? You didn’t have to fucking bring her into it. Or the boy for that matter.”

  Jones made another choking sound, fighting against Quinn’s hold, but Quinn didn’t relent. “What was it? Too scared to take me on yourself? You had to use a woman and a kid to hide behind? Well now’s your chance, motherfucker. You want to get some vengeance for Charlie? You want to fight me? So fight me.” Letting Jones go, Quinn stepped back.

  The man stood there for a moment, breathing hard, his shoulders heaving. Then he turned around, his face red and sweaty, his expression murderous.

  Quinn held up his Colt then slowly and pointedly tucked it back into the holster at the small of his back. “You don’t need blackmail or a kid’s life for revenge,” he growled. “You can come and take it from me right now.”

  There was a moment when Quinn thought Jones might pretend not to know who he was or what Quinn was talking about, the guy’s thought processes flickering behind his dark eyes. But then clearly discarding that idea, Jones said, “Why would I do that? Jack think’s the sun shines out of my ass and that fucking bitch is over a barrel. You think I don’t have insurance? Anything happens to me and that footage of her is sent to every police station in Texas. She’s fucking toast.”

  Of course he’d have insurance.

  This is all your fault. So fix it.

  Quinn smiled. “Duchess will survive, she’s nothing if not a fighter, and if my boy is anything like me, he’ll figure it out in the end. It’ll be relatively easy to get proof of what an asshole you are anyway.”

  Jones’s expression darkened. “What? You’d throw her under a bus for the pleasure of taking me out?”

  “Sure, why not?” Quinn took a slow, lazy step forward. “You have to be stopped somehow and I’m pretty sure you’re gonna release that footage anyway, right?”

  “Should I have mentioned some people who are gonna go after Jack the moment I fail to make a certain call?” Jones smiled. “Perhaps I should have.”

  A red rage threatened, but Quinn didn’t let it take hold. “Hurting Jack won’t bring Charlie back. It was my gun that killed her. My bullet. You got an issue, take it up with me.” He took another step forward. “Tell me though, why bother with Duchess in the first place? You found out about Jack. You could have used him against me instead of all that blackmail bullshit with her.”

  Jones gave him a sneering look. “I was saving him. All the fucking bail agencies in Austin needed taking down and I was going to leave yours till last. Found some footage of Duchess blowing away some guy on the dark web and thought why not start with her?” He gave a harsh laugh. “She made it so fucking easy after all.”

  “You don’t need her. Not when I’m here Come on. The man who killed your sister is right in front of you and you’re still wasting time with bullshit threats?”

  Jones snarled and took a couple of steps forward, getting in Quinn’s face. “You think a couple of punches will do it? That your life will be enough? No, fuck no. I’ll take away what you cared about like you took away Charlie’s life. And I’ll take your fucking girlfriend’s freedom from her too, the same as you took Charlie’s.” His mouth twisted. “You’re fucking scum, Redmond. You came from scum and you’ll always be scum.”

  “Sure,” Quinn said easily, because hell, it was the truth. “But at least I’m not a fucking coward like you are.”

  Jones launched himself at Quinn, but Quinn was ready. He dodged the attack then swung a punch at the guy’s face. Except the other man was dodging as well, his foot sweeping out, trying to get Quinn off balance. Quinn was already moving forward, tackling him, using his own weight and momentum to take Jones down onto the ground.

  There was a brief moment of scuffling, a well timed elbow taking Quinn in the face at the same time as Jones knee came up. But Quinn dodged that, planting his fist in the other man’s gut. Jones swore and began to fight in earnest, rough, dirty moves that spoke of experience. Quinn managed to get in another punch, then his hands were around Jones’s neck before he realized what he was doing.

  He had the guy pinned on his back, Jones twisting beneath him, trying to get free, but Quinn didn’t let up the pressure. The red rage was back and he didn’t much care about this shithead’s life. He’d threatened his boy. He’d threatened Lily. And it had to stop. Quinn had to stop it, fix it.

  Then he heard the sound of his name being called.

  A woman’s voice. Cool and calm.

  Lily.

  Jones had gone red in the face again, his fingers pulling at Quinn’s, choking.

  “Let him go, Quinn.” Lily said calmly.

  “Get the fuck away,” Quinn growled, not looking at her. “This is my mess. Let me fix it.”

  “No.” Lily came into view in the alley, in jeans and a T-shirt, a gun in her hand and pointed at Jones’ head. “You don’t fix it like this.”

  Jones had gone purple, no longer pulling at Quinn’s fingers. He was scrabbling around for something else, but Quinn took no notice. He could feel the man’s frantic pulse beneath his fingertips, see the fear in his eyes.

  You took his sister’s life and if you’re not careful, you’ll take his. The old man would have been so proud…

  Cold wound through him. Because of course, this was what the old man would have loved: his boy dishing out some old-fashioned Redmond justice to those who crossed them. But how was it justice when Quinn had taken this man’s sister’s life? There was grief in Jones’ eyes and rage, a rage just like Quinn’s, and what they were doing here in this alley, beating the shit out of each other fixed precisely nothing.

  It didn’t bring Charlie back and it didn’t fix his brothers. It didn’t change all those years he could have spent with Jack and didn’t. It didn’t protect Lily or Rose.

  All was, was violence. Violence and pain.

  The cycle perpetuating.

  But that was true, wasn’t it? If he continued down this road, continued to give in to his anger, he’d end up being exactly like Joe Redmond. An angry, bitter drunk who’d alienated his entire family.

  He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t.

  His fingers slipped from Jones’s neck, the pressure easing, and the man gasped, hands flailing. Quinn began to rise to his feet, only to feel something punch him hard in the stomach, and then another strange, cold feeling begin to radiate out. A very, very cold feeling.

  “Quinn!” Lily shouted and there was movement and a gunshot, and he was falling onto his back into the filthy of the alley, the blue sky over his head.

  She appeared suddenly above him, her eyes bluer than that sky and full of horror and desperation. “What happened?” she demanded frantically, no trace of cool and calm in her voice now. “Quinn, what did he do?”

  “Dad would have done it.” His voice sounded weak, not like his at all. “But I’m not him. And it wouldn’t fix anything.”

  There were tears in Lily’s eyes, running down her cheeks. “Of course, you’re not. And you don’t have to—”

  But there was no time. “Tell the others,” he forced out, cutting her off. “Jones has people who will go after Jack. I don’t think he’ll do it now, but just in case.”

  Lily was shaking her head, her face full of anguish. Why was she crying?

  “He’s going to send that footage out anyway,” he said, but it came out as a whisper. “Tell Rose.”

  But now, somehow, Lily had her phone out and was talking on it, her eyes red, her voice thick.

  A cold feeling spread relentlessly through his body.

  He blinked at the blue sky above
his head, that was somehow less blue and less intense than the color of Lily’s eyes.

  Then that was gone and he saw nothing else but blackness.

  Lily sat in the hospital waiting room alone, ignoring the calls on her phone. She held a coffee cup full of lukewarm brown liquid masquerading as coffee and stared into space. The doctor had told her that the knife wound was pretty serious, but that they’d know more after the surgery was over.

  Which didn’t sound positive. It felt as if Jones had stabbed her as well as Quinn.

  When she’d woken up that morning to find the guest wing empty, she’d known instantly what was happening, that he’d gone to tackle Jones himself. And she didn’t know what he intended to do, but it wasn’t going to end well.

  A quick call to Rose had helped track his phone and she’d borrowed one of the cars in the vast garage that the butler-person had given her a key for, and had immediately driven out to find Quinn.

  She hadn’t known what she’d find when she eventually tracked him down, and a great part of her was terrified that she’d find him dead. Or maybe that Jones would be injured and assault charges would be laid against Quinn and everything would get immeasurably worse.

  She hadn’t expected to find Quinn in the process of stepping away from a half-strangled man, only to have a knife plunged into his side.

  Operating purely on instinct, she’d shot Jones in the leg as Quinn had fallen onto the ground. Then she’d dialed 911 and raced over to him, holding her hands over the knife wound as blood poured all over the concrete.

  She, who’d never cried until she’d met Quinn goddamned Redmond, who now found herself weeping in an alleyway, feeling like she’d been stabbed too, pain and fear for him washing though her, threatening to choke her.

  The ambulance had come for both men, but they hadn’t allowed her to come to the hospital with Quinn. She had to stay to give a statement to the police. She’d acted flustered, the damsel in distress, about her fiancé being mugged and she’d then shot the mugger in self-defense. The cop she’d spoken to had been bored and barely able to conceal his contempt as she played up the fluttering blonde who didn’t know how to use a weapon. He’d taken a statement and that had been it.

  She’d driven straight to the hospital afterward, giving them the same bullshit she’d given the cop, about how he was her fiancé, and since there’d been an emergency currently in progress and no-one could be bothered checking her credentials, the nurse she’d spoken to had waved vaguely in the direction of the waiting room and so that’s where she’d been, waiting.

  The only thought she’d given to anything else was a brief call to Zane to make sure of Jack’s safety. She hadn’t told him about Quinn being in hospital. She didn’t want to answer his questions or deal with his worry. She’d mentioned in passing to Zane about the footage that would be released also, but she didn’t really want to go into it. It seemed right now to be the very least of her issues.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket again and Lily ignored it. Exhaustion was tugging at her and a strange kind of emptiness. But she knew what lay behind that emptiness. Pain. Fear. Desperation. And all for the man currently in a hospital bed.

  You’re in love with him.

  Lily closed her eyes, tears leaking from underneath her lashes. Seemed stupid to deny it. In fact, she couldn’t understand why she’d resisted thinking about it before. Perhaps it was the specter of death stripping away everything, all her protections, all her walls. Made the lies she told herself seem so ridiculous and pointless. Because lies didn’t make any difference to the feeling in her heart. They didn’t change it or make it go away, or reduce it.

  Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was Quinn stripped bare emotionally as well as physically in the shower the night before. Giving her pieces of himself. Letting her hold him the way he held her.

  He hadn’t shattered the walls around her heart by battering them down. He’d done that by dropping the walls around his.

  The feeling sat there in her chest, getting bigger and bigger, crowding out the rest of her emotions entirely.

  She was in love with Quinn Redmond.

  Except he didn’t want you near him.

  Yes, there was that.

  Brushing away the tears, she eventually forced herself to take her phone out and look at the messages she’d received. There were many demanding that she pick up the damn phone and inform various people as to what the fuck was happening.

  There was one from Rose telling her that having identified Jones, she’d been able to hack into his private network and wipe the contents of his hard drive and stop the automatic email that he’d been going to send with the footage attached. Some specialists of Rhys’s were also going to go into his private office and make sure to wipe any other devices so that any remaining footage would be deleted. Another from Zane telling her that some military buddies of his and West’s had found Jack and he was fine. They were going to stick around until the situation with Jones had been resolved.

  She barely noted it, not when the barbed tendrils of pain were flowering in her chest and seemingly impervious to her trying to push them away.

  So, she sat there, staring into space, ignoring her phone, and when finally a doctor came in and told her that the surgery had been successful and that her fiancé was going to be fine, she had to sit down again, because her legs wouldn’t hold her.

  Some time after that — she didn’t know how long — another doctor came in to tell her she could see him now, and so she followed the woman down a series of busy corridors and into a very quiet room.

  The doctor checked a couple of things on Quinn’s chart and then Lily was left alone with him. He was lying in the bed surrounded by lines and machines that made noises, and even so helpless, even with his shoulder heavily bandaged, he radiated strength. He’d never looked weak to her and he didn’t now.

  Except there were lines around his eyes and mouth, dark circles beneath his eyes. She wanted to touch his face, lay her head on his chest, tell him it was all okay. That Jack was safe and she was fine, that he hadn’t failed. They’d taken down the blackmailer and soon they could go back to Texas and then…

  Then what?

  Then nothing. He’d told her he couldn’t have her near him. He’d told her he’d changed his mind, that he couldn’t keep her safe. That she undermined his control and it was better for her if he kept her at a distance.

  But she was staring to think that safety was overrated. For years she’d kept herself protected and she’d thought she was fine with that. Thought that nothing was worth sacrificing her physical and emotional safety for.

  And then Quinn Redmond had come into her life and he’d shown her how sterile and lonely her safe little world had become. He’d given her a taste of passion and heat and caring. Of what it was like to trust someone, to have someone at her back, to lean on someone. To have someone care about her.

  And to let herself care for someone in return.

  She didn’t want to go back to being protected. She didn’t want to go back to having no one in her life. She didn’t want to go back to not having Quinn Redmond, because he was worth sacrificing her safety for. He was worth sacrificing everything for, and she had a sneaking suspicion that no one had ever told him that before. Which meant she had to.

  Quinn’s long black lashes quivered then lifted. His green eyes were very dark and for a second she thought he looked oddly focused for a man who’d only just woken up from a major operation. Then realized that he’d probably been awake before, she just hadn’t realized.

  “So,” he said, his voice gravelly. “What happened to Jones?”

  “I shot him in the leg. Cops took him away.”

  “Ah.” His lashes lowered.

  There was a silence.

  “Jack’s fine,” she went on. “Zane and West had some buddies here who’ve been keeping an eye on him. Rhys and Rose are dealing with the footage threat. I think we’ve managed to contain it.” She swallowed. “I haven’t t
old them you’re in the hospital.”

  “Good. I don’t want them fluttering around.”

  “Quinn—”

  “You’d better get back to Austin. Someone’s got to make sure things are cleaned up properly.”

  Lily stared at him, conscious of a steadily rising anger. If that wasn’t a dismissal, she didn’t know what was. “So that’s it? I save you stupid ass and you send me away?”

  His lashes lifted and he stared at her. “Do you need to stay? Sounds like I’m going to recover.”

  Everything was a tight, hard knot inside her. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Why?” His gaze didn’t flicker. It was as direct as it had been the night before when he’d told her he wanted distance.

  There was a time for caution, a time for cool logic and careful assessment. But that time was not now.

  Throwing all her caution and logic to the winds, Lily said, “Because I’m in love with you, you stupid asshole.”

  Shock flared in his eyes, and behind it something more intense, more powerful. Then it was gone, leaving behind it nothing but cold emerald. “I’m sorry, Lily,” he said, emotionless and flat. “But I have nothing to give you.”

  A fledgeling hope she hadn’t realized was there died stillborn, the cracks in her heart widening.

  Come on, did you really expect him to change his mind for you?

  “Why?” she heard herself ask — no, demand. “And don’t give me that bullshit about keeping me safe.”

  Quinn’s eyes glittered. “Wanting to keep you safe is bullshit?”

  “Oh don’t you dare.” She was suddenly shaking all over. “Don’t you dare give me that crap. So you failed to protect some people, big deal. I’ve failed too. I failed Rose time and time again, but you know what? I got back up and I tried to do better. I tried again and again and again, because she’s my sister. Because I love her. Because she was more important to me than my fear that I couldn’t keep her safe.” She was breathing very fast, her anger clawing at her insides. “Or is that problem? Is it that I’m not important enough to you?”

  A muscle flicked in his jaw. “Lily….”