“Birdie, the dude in the office just slipped a rifle out from under his desk,” Vaughn whispered. “No one is paying attention to him. He’s moving really slow.”
“Shit shit,” I mumbled.
The two groups of men were moving slowly closer to each other, and I could hear safeties being flicked off. My eyes bounced around the room and I finally came up with an idea.
“When I tell you to,” I whispered, “I want you to roll to your right and shoot the window out on the office with the rifle. After you shoot it, keep rolling and run for the front door.”
He nodded once and his hand slipped down to where I knew he had the HK. It was a new gun to him and I hoped he could handle it. It was way more powerful than the Ruger.
I glanced at him and whispered, “Three… two… one…” I yanked the gun out. “Now!”
Throwing myself to the left, I aimed up at the giant chandelier in the center of the room. Four rapid shots, and I managed to dislodge one support then the other and had it crashing down in between the two groups, making everyone jump back and covering the room in dust.
While it was falling, I heard two shots from Vaughn’s gun, and the explosion of glass in the back of the building.
I lurched to my feet, grabbing the wallet and jewelry on the floor. Vaughn grabbed my wrist, and dragged me toward the front door.
About a second later, I heard the high pitch scream of the emergency exit being pushed open. That meant the tellers were getting out and I hoped Bobbi-Jo went with them.
The robbers were standing and trying to clear the air out with their hands and were just standing there. Two of the other officers in the bank slipped out behind them through the front doors of the bank.
Vaughn wove his way around the mess as the dust was starting to settle quickly. I jumped ahead of him and found the wall to lead us over to the door. The money men were starting to shout at each other and trying to figure out what was going on.
We slipped to the door, and I shoved his wallet at him. “Put the gun away. We don’t want to be seen with it.”
Putting my own gun back in the shoulder holster, I kicked the door open ahead of us, and pulled Vaughn out into the street. There were cop cars screaming in the distance, getting closer. We turned to the left—
I slammed into a suit. A perfectly pressed, pinstripe suit, with a neat pocket square of purple that matched the silk tie. It was a pissed-off suit, looking down at me as if I had crapped on his head like a wayward seagull.
“Fuck,” I gasped as his hand wrapped around my upper arm.
“Going somewhere?” he snapped.
Childress Fucking Bradshaw.
Vaughn ripped my arm out of the man’s grip. His eyes landed on the pocket square, and a heartbeat later, Vaughn’s eyes snapped to the man’s face.
They both froze, staring at each other.
I finally had to slam into Vaughn to move him. I locked my hand around his wrist and pulled him hard. We barely rounded the corner when the first of the cop cars tore on to the street. I kept dragging him toward the second car we had parked nearly a mile away.
Pausing to turn and look at Vaughn’s ashen face, I slammed into another body that rounded an alleyway corner.
Bobbi-Jo.
She gasped and stepped back, but I followed her forward for just a moment. “Gail says she loves you. Hang on, we’ll have you and the twins out soon.”
A shot ricocheted off the building and I turned without thinking, firing off two shots at the corner of the building. I watched a man in a black suit duck back behind the wall and his hand snaked around to fire again.
We had to get out. I wasn’t going to get stuck at the Gunfight at the OK Corral here. Another shot at us, and I sent back three more this time.
I tucked my hand under Vaughn’s arm, and pulled him along. He seemed to come out of his shocked state and began running with me. Which helped because I had to fire back three more times. Total shots, fifteen. Two left. I only let us run for a bit longer, before starting to dodge down other blocks and alleys and houses. I needed a fresh clip in my gun, though I could always borrow the HK.
I shook my head. They had literally just walked in with millions of dollars in cash, and Bobbi-Jo was going to fix it for them, because that bastard would kill her children if he had to. He didn’t even care that they were his.
He didn’t care that Dylan was just five.
Bradshaw would kill anyone who got in his way. His eyes told me that when I had caught them for just a moment. Nothing would get in his way. He would never stop just because he was related to someone.
We had to get those kids out.
This needed to end.
We sneaked our way back to the car, dodging and hiding and finally coming up on the lot where we'd parked. Vaughn’s hand was tight in mine and I had to physically removed his grip and plant his ass in the passenger seat.
In just a minute, I had pulled out of the lot and down the road and went away from everything going on behind us.
I didn’t know if my face was on the cameras. That was going to be a problem. Vaughn's too. That would get us caught in an instant and I didn't think I wanted my mug on the Six O’Clock News.
007: Fall out. IT assist.
Q: Go ahead.
007: Need face scrubbed from footage at First Main National Third Bank.
Q: Wow. Nice name. Destroy the whole thing?
007: No. Just scrub our faces. The footage could come in handy later on.
Q: Will do, passing on to IT.
007: We have IT now?
We drove for another ten minutes in absolute silence, following the road around through the trees. At some point we were going to have to figure out where we were and how to get back to Dylan and Gail, but at that moment, I just needed to drive.
“Stop the car,” Vaughn said. “Pull off the road.”
“What?”
He turned to me, and I could see something in his eyes before it slipped away. “Pull the car over, now.”
I found a logging turn off and took it, driving about a hundred feet back from the road. I was about turn to him and ask what was going on when I found myself hauled over the console and his lips slammed over mine.
Finding the buttons on the side of the damn seat, I leaned it all the way back while he sucked and nibbled at my mouth.
“Condom, God, please tell me you have a condom.”
“Wallet,” he managed.
Foregoing that for a moment since we knew it was there, I unfastened his belt and shoved everything down his ass, to the floor. His straight, stiff erection bobbed back against his stomach, leaking a little of his precum. His hands worked under the wig I was wearing and he slipped it up and off my head, my red hair spilling down, a tangled mess.
I snagged the wallet and pulled out the condom. Before I could get it open, he snatched it and ripped the foil packet and pulled out the prize. He stared straight into my eyes. “Grab my cock, baby, help me roll this on.”
Fisting his base, I held him still so he could roll the condom down his length. I was still impressed with his one handed in the car method.
He leaned up and caught me with a thorough kiss. “Ride me, Bridget. Fuck my brains out. Please.”
That was not going to be a problem. I lifted and resettled quickly, slipping him inside me—and we both groaned loudly. I left him there a moment before the adrenaline took over again and I started pistoning up and down the wonderful dick this man had.
He grabbed my hips and created a frantic pace for the two of us. The grunts and groans and moans of rough, adrenaline fueled sex filled the car. It was music to my ears. A hand slipped to my breast and he crushed it in his palm, his palm brushing and teasing my nipple.
“No, no,” I hissed, rocking my hips. “Finger my clit. Jesusfuckingchrist, get a finger on my clit, Vaughn. Hurry, hurry.”
His thumb found the bundle of nerves and as soon as he touched it, I screamed in sheer delight. I couldn’t get him deep e
nough inside me as he teased and tortured me.
“I’m coming,” I hissed as his finger grazed the nub of nerves once again. “Fuck yes, yes.”
Vaughn jackknifed his hips, spearing into the deepest part of my pussy. He pinched my clit, and I just flew the fuck apart, thrashing and screaming his name.
His body jerked. “Fuck yes,” Vaughn growled and his cock twitched and pulsed against my walls, and I knew he’d come, spilling his cum in the latex barrier. He screamed my name as well and fisted my hair, crushing our mouths together, his tongue as merciless as his dick had been.
After mindless, boneless minutes slumped against each other, I finally raised my head from his chest.
There were tears streaming down his face.
Childress Bradshaw murdered my wife.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bridget
“You saw her.” Gail let out a breath of relief.
“Don’t get too excited,” I cautioned. “Bradshaw knows who we are now. He knows our faces.”
Vaughn chose to speak up at after nearly four hours of silence. “Bradshaw knew who I was long before this.” I glanced over at him, and he was definitely waking up out of his stupor.
He had scared the goddamn life out of me in the car. I thought he’d been hurt, or that something was seriously wrong. I was scared I’d hurt him. But Vaughn shook his head when I asked him all that, just completely unable to stop the tears.
I’d never had adrenaline rush sex—and it had been fantastic. Raw, fast, rough. But the tears from him…I just didn’t know what to do. I resituated us back in the car, dressing myself, then him, and drove back to Frankie’s Hair and Wax.
Vaughn followed me out of the car, into the building, down the stairs to the other side from the arsenal where we found Dylan playing a video game.
He had scooped up his son and hadn’t let him go for nearly half an hour. Settling on the couch there, he had hugged him and held him while Dylan continued to be oblivious to his father’s emotional state.
Gail had let us be, but she reappeared with two pizzas and some soda just a few minutes before. Dylan excitedly tore into a slice after pulling out of his father’s arms.
“What do you mean, he already knew you?” Gail asked.
It all slid into place.
“Bradshaw was the one at your house that day…” I gasped.
Vaughn nodded, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “He was the one who pulled the trigger.”
“Holy shit, and I brought you right into the lion’s den.” My eyes went wide with shock. “Gail, I need you to find me a car he and Dylan can take and get the hell out of here.” I pulled out the phone to text Farida and find him a safehouse.
The phone was pulled gently out of my hands, and I looked up at Vaughn staring at me.
“No.”
The word was firm, and laced with a determined hate that had no place in the man’s voice.
“Vaughn, you have to get out of here. He’ll kill you too if he can find you. I won’t risk—”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He looked at Gail. “Can we use the other room for a moment?” He tossed his chin at the bedroom behind this little living room.
Gail nodded and focused on Dylan who was currently chugging a glass of soda. Vaughn took my hand and walked me into the room, closing the door quietly.
He leaned me against the door, and put his hand on my cheek, studying me. God, even just his gaze did things to my body I didn’t think a simple look could. Or should.
“I’m sorry about what happened in the car.”
“Oh.” My heart started to break a little.
“Not. About the sex.” He smiled. “Because frankly, that was mind blowing. You can rev me up for that kind of fuck any day of the week and twice on Sunday.” He pushed my hair behind my ear. “No. I’m sorry about freaking out after. I saw the face of my wife’s killer, and I hadn’t been ready. The face of the man who would take my son’s life, to make sure I never drew breath again. I was a jumbled mess of emotion and adrenaline and I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I let out a breath. “Let me get you out of here, Vaughn. There’s no reason for you to stay.”
“There is every reason for me to stay. That man killed my wife. He’s had people pointing guns at me, and my son, and you, for five very long months. I am tired of this bullshit.”
“I want you safe, Vaughn.”
“I want you safe with me, Bridget. You know, maybe I didn’t start out as a full participant in this mess, but watching you work, and watching you do what you’ve been trained to do…I can’t remain neutral. I can’t remain a liability. I won’t ever love guns, but I see their purpose in this. I don’t like violence, but I see the very clean execution of it in your work. You’ve gone to great lengths to protect my son, and I want to help you.
“Don’t send me away. Let me stay and help you. And Gail, and Farida, Miles, Nolan…all of them. Once we have Bradshaw gone, we break a connection that was making our world more violent. We break the drugs to guns train, and that makes it all worth it.”
I stared into the stormy pools of his eyes. “I have to kill Bradshaw. I don’t have a choice. If I don’t, this just keeps going.”
He nodded slowly. “I know. I know you have to kill him. And I will help you. Once he’s done, the fentanyl will slow, and people will have a chance to save themselves. Once he’s dead, we can go back to Pittsburgh and figure out what normal is again.”
I stared at him. “Dead?”
“You said he has to die, and that’s the only way I’m ever going to be able to sleep again,” Vaughn said.
“That’s not who you are…”
He gave a little laugh. “Maybe this is who I really am now. Maybe I just needed to see what the underbelly of this world looked like to change my tune. I want him dead, Bridget. He killed a part of my life and I will never ever get that back.”
I tried very, very hard not to let the tears escape, but my eyes burned and all it took was one blink for them to spill. “You still love Helen.”
Using the pad of his thumb, he wiped away the tears that trailed down my cheek. “Of course, I do. I always will. She was my everything. She was the mother of my son.”
Fuck, damn, shit. Every part of my heart was shattering. I had let myself love again and it was the wrong person at the wrong time. I closed my eyes and took a long slow breath to try and gain some semblance of control.
His next words brushed over my lips. “Birdie, do you think that means I don’t have room for you?”
I found his eyes burning into me when I dared to open mine. I nodded, ever so slightly.
“I will always love Helen. Always. That does not mean I can’t love you, too. The room we have in our hearts is not limited by how much we give one person. There is room for as many people as can bring the kind of joy to me as you do, as Dylan does, as Helen did. It’s not a simple math problem, Birdie. It’s as complex and vast as the universe, and nothing can limit the infinity of what love really is.”
He placed a kiss on my forehead. “I don’t expect you to stop loving Greg because he’s not here. If he brought you happiness, I consider myself the luckiest man in the world to share that space with him.”
“Shit,” I gasped. “I’m so fucked up…”
“Me, too.” He chuckled. “But we don’t have to be perfect to be right.”
A sob escaped me. I had no idea what to think, to say, to do…but Vaughn solved that for me. He leaned down and gave me the softest, sweetest, most undemanding kiss I had ever been offered.
I melted into him, and all the tears I tried to hide came pouring out. “I’m supposed to be a bad ass super-agent.” I laughed through my sob.
“You’re doing a pretty good job, McInnis.” He nipped down my jaw. “I’d show you how good, but Gail and my son are outside, and I don’t think they want or need to hear you screaming my name.”
Lifting my eyes to his, I stared at him through the fog of fresh tears. He
was so handsome, so smart, so caring.
“I love you, Vaughn.”
Vaughn
It was like a dam burst between us. Those words were the crack the water needed to rush out.
“I love you too, Bridget.” I wrapped my arms around her and pulled tight against me. “We’re in this together, and we’re going to get out of it together. We just need a plan to take this asshole out.”
“It’s not going to solve the drug or gun problem.”
“I know, but it will stifle it for a while. Cut off one head, two will grow back. But the more heads there are, the more unwieldy it becomes. We don’t have to save the world, we just have to stop Childress Bradshaw.”
She nodded. “I really wish we had some time right now.”
“We’ll have all the time we need when we get back.” I grinned, hoping it came off as dirty as I wanted it to. I was going to have a serious case of blue balls.
Her phone pinged in her pocket and she drew it out.
Q: Further info on CCC Carol.
007: Go ahead.
Q: Two tour Army Ranger. Perfect kill sheet. Honorably discharged after second tour in Afghanistan. Worked for a security company for about a year before being dismissed over a personnel issue.
007: Info on that?
Q: Told the boss to fuck off when he took a contract on a seventeen year old.
007: That’s encouraging.
Q: She’s been helping an underground movement in your location to stop the higher level drug runners.
007: Saw the evidence of that.
Q: I’d deem her worthy.
007: Do you have any suggestions for raiding the fortress?
Q: What about the Tajik Trick? I still don’t know what that means.
007: Problem.
Q: ?
007: He’s seen me.
Plain Sight Page 20