by Sybil Bartel
I slammed my fist against the elevator call button. “There a point to your bullshit pep talk? Because I don’t fucking need it. I need to see what’s on the security feeds, I need my truck back, and I need my fucking locks rekeyed.”
“All right, all right,” he placated like I was some pussy. “I’m on my way. Give me ten.”
“Fine.” I hung up and got back in the elevator.
Every goddamn floor the elevator dinged as it ascended, I sank further. I didn’t bother looking in the restaurant because I knew I wouldn’t fucking find her. She wasn’t the type to spend ten bucks on a coffee, let alone step foot into a place like that. If she’d been hungry, she struck me as the cold pizza type. I’d bet her thrift store bike on it.
Which only pissed me off more as I passed the piece of shit when I walked back into my condo.
Goddamn it all to hell, I’d offered that woman my fucking world. I knew she didn’t have shit. I wasn’t rubbing it in her face or holding it against her. I’d meant exactly what I’d fucking said when I’d told her to stay here. Someone should enjoy it. She should’ve fucking enjoyed it. Three months rent free, with no expiration after that. Unless we weren’t compatible.
But fuck, I knew we were.
I’d fucking felt it.
Deep.
Not just her pussy, but her fucking presence. Her stillness. Shit, her eyes. I’d wanted to drown in them. I knew she was hiding something, but whatever it was, I’d stupidly been confident enough I could’ve handled it. Psycho ex, record, dirt poor, drifter, whatever the fuck she was hiding, nothing in life was insurmountable.
But she was fucking gone. My truck was gone. And I was sinking into a black hole of emotions I couldn’t fucking name faster than I could pull my trigger finger. All I knew was the moment I laid eyes on her, shit changed, and whatever that was, it was fucking with me, hard.
So hard that I was standing in my bedroom staring blindly at my bed when Luna walked in.
“Collins!”
I walked out to meet him.
Haircut still regulation, freshly showered, wearing a black polo and black cargos, André Luna sized me up with a single, quick glance before he set a laptop and a toolbox on my kitchen table. “You know what your problem is? You think too much.” He smiled like life was a fucking bowl of cherries.
He always smiled like that. Downrange, days out, covered in shit and sand and sweat, he’d still find a reason to smile like that. Fucker was also the best sniper I’d ever met. He taught me everything I knew.
“I don’t think enough,” I countered. “You wouldn’t be here if I did.”
He chuckled and opened his laptop. “Point made. Let’s see if I can hack into the security here.”
“Hack?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “How else did you think I was gonna get access?”
I didn’t fucking know. “You own a security firm.”
“Personal security, bro. As in close protection. But I’m adding monitoring, surveillance, home security, business—everything. It’ll be up and running by the time you get back.” He talked casually as his fingers flew across the keys, like he was as comfortable with a computer as he was with a long-range sniper rifle.
I tipped my chin at his computer. “When’d you learn this shit?”
“Still learning.” He concentrated on his screen a moment. “Self taught.”
Fuck. “You expecting me to sit at a desk and hack away at keys when I get back?” Because that sounded like a death sentence.
“Only if you want to. I need boots on the ground more though.” Luna looked up and winked at me. “And we’re in.”
Damn. “That fast?” Thank fuck I wouldn’t be behind a desk.
“Yeah.” He chuckled. “I need to sell your property management my new services. They have shit security.” He turned his laptop toward me. “Okay, what time did she leave?”
Three rows of four columns, a dozen different views populated his laptop screen. They showed the security camera feed for a few seconds. Then the dozen windows flipped to new windows with new security camera angles showing every fucking corner, angle and recess of the building I’d never wanted to see.
Until twenty minutes ago.
“Start about midnight,” I told Luna. “Can we find the camera from my floor?”
“No problem.” Luna typed a few strokes and the twelve camera angles cut to two, one from each end of my floor.
“That’s it. Can you speed it up?”
“Yep.”
The images started to move faster until I saw someone getting off the elevator and walk at an exaggerated pace toward my door. “Stop.” I pointed to the camera angle that was closer to my end of the hall. “Right there. Slow it down.”
Luna backed the footage up a few seconds then we watched a guy in a dress shirt and pants, phone in hand, exit the elevator and walk directly toward my front door.
“What the fuck?” I muttered, as I watched him stop and lean on the wall right outside my place. “What time is that?”
“Almost oh-one-hundred.”
“Who the fuck is that?” Did she fucking tell someone where she was? “He’s not looking up from his phone.”
Luna studied the screen as we watched the fucker scroll through shit on his phone. “It’s on purpose.” He rewound the footage and pointed. “There, watch when he gets off the elevator.”
Sure enough, the fucking prick made a quick glance up and down the hall before dropping his head, pulling his phone out and holding it in front of him while he walked.
I watched as the fuck stood outside my door for a minute before Luna sped the tape up again.
Twenty-nine minutes later, Luna stopped the fast forward.
At one-twenty in the morning, my front door opened and Brookelyn froze.
Her face registered shock then she tried to shut the door, but the prick put his foot in the way.
“Dios mio,” Luna muttered.
I didn’t say anything. I was watching in a silent rage as he reached for a curl of hair and twisted it around his finger.
The same gesture I’d done.
But that was only the beginning.
The Gucci-dressed prick leaned down and kissed her cheek then whispered in her ear. He stood back up, pulled on the lock of her hair before releasing it, then said something else.
Brookelyn shook her head.
Out of nowhere, his hand shot out and he grabbed her breast. Hard and punishing, he twisted in a show of dominance and Brookelyn flinched.
“Luna,” I growled low.
“I know, I know, amigo. Hold on, we need a shot of his face.”
I didn’t want to hold the fuck on. I wanted to find the asshole and fucking crucify him. I didn’t know if she’d alerted him to her whereabouts or what, but she clearly didn’t want to see him, and she definitely didn’t want him touching her.
That’s what I fucking thought…
Until I watched him step up to her, grab her chin and put his motherfucking mouth on her.
My hands fisted and my adrenaline went into fucking orbit as I waited for her to push him away.
But she didn’t.
The woman I’d fucked all night, the woman I’d offered my home to, the woman I’d laid my shit wide open for and come inside—she didn’t push the man away who assaulted her breast.
No.
She fucking tilted her head and kissed him.
Passionately.
“JESUS, IT’S HOT AS FUCK out here,” Tank bitched through the comm.
I scanned the sidewalk for the hundredth time. “Not as hot as Afghanistan.”
“That was dry heat and sand,” Sawyer chimed in. “No comparison.”
“Tell me again why we’re out here?” Tyler asked.
“Because you and Tank fucked up,” I clipped.
I was over these half-ass assignments for dignitaries or whatever bullshit detail we were supposed to be on. Both of them had fucked up on an assignment with a famous actress and
managed to get themselves on TV. Well, Tank did. Tyler got his ass filmed while he’d carried said actress, naked as the day she was born, over his shoulder across South Beach in the middle of the night. The video had gone viral within hours.
So now we did bullshit assignments like guarding the front of the state building in Miami in August while some asshole in a suit who was paranoid about snipers blowing his head off pretended he was worth four ex-Force Recon Marines’ time. Meanwhile he’d hired a rent-a-cop security detail for his close protection and those inexperienced pricks were inside. In air conditioning.
“Money is money,” Sawyer said.
“Two whole sentences strung together in one day? Damn, Sawyer,” Tyler teased. “You finally coming out of your shell after what… three years?”
Silence.
Tyler chuckled. “Guess Sawyer hit his daily word limit.”
“Heads up,” Tank interjected. “We’ve got movement. They’re coming out the back.”
“Thank fuck,” Tyler muttered.
“What’s wrong, Pretty Boy?” I hazed Tyler. “You getting soft on us now that you’re actually getting laid?”
“First,” Tyler countered, “fuck you. And second, you should try it sometime. It’d do wonders for your shit disposition.”
“My disposition isn’t the problem, asshole.” Women were. All of them. Trouble with a capital T.
Tyler chuckled. “Case in point.”
“Southeast side of the building, Sawyer,” Tank cut in. “They’ll be coming your way next.”
“Copy,” Sawyer answered.
“So how long has it been, Collins?” Tyler asked. “None of us have seen you with a woman in… well, ever.” He laughed. “You need us to hold your hand. Tell you how it’s done?”
“Unlike you, I’m not a dumb shit letting bleeders or trouble into my life.” Fuck that shit. There were only two kinds of women, and I wasn’t getting involved with either one. Been there, done that.
“Client secure in his convoy,” Tank said. “They’re on the move. Sawyer, you’re up. I’m heading to my SUV to pick up the convoy’s six.”
“Copy that, I have visual,” Sawyer replied. “Three vehicles rounding the side of the building. Heading toward you next, Collins.”
“Copy,” I replied, scanning the southeast end of the building. “First vehicle approaching. Second close behind.”
“Hold up, hold up,” Tank clipped. “Two delivery trucks blocked me, I’m boxed in. You’re up, Sawyer.”
“Convoy already passed me,” Sawyer interjected. “I’m out.”
I started to jog toward my SUV. “I have visual. I’ll pick up their six.”
“Wait,” Tank cut in. “Coming back around now, one of the trucks moved. I can—Jesus fuck, what the hell? There’re kids all over the place. Twenty, thirty, another two dozen adults, they’re pouring out of the state building.”
Shit. I stepped up my pace. “Were there any scheduled tours today?” The last thing I needed was to mow down some kid as I tried to keep a suit from getting his head blown off.
“No,” Tyler answered. “But the history museum and Miami PD are located in the state building.”
“Collins,” Sawyer cut in. “I’m coming at you from the northeast side. Let me know if you need backup.”
“Copy.” I was almost to my SUV.
“You’re gonna get blocked, Sawyer,” Tank warned. “Tyler, get on the comms with the convoy, tell them to divert at the next corner and head east. I’ll pick them up and lead them out of here. I’m coming around the southwest corner of the building now.”
“Shit,” Tyler swore. “Convoy is radio silent.”
“Switch to backup,” Sawyer clipped.
“I’m trying,” Tyler answered. “But the dumb shits either forgot to turn on their comms or they don’t know how, and you’d think the fucks would answer a cell phone when it rang.”
“Collins,” Sawyer clipped. “Heads up, heavy pedestrian traffic coming at you. The convoy will be caught at the light. You can redirect east.” Laughing kids sounded in the background of his comm.
A crowd of children and adults seeped around the corner of the building like an oil spill.
“Copy that, already see them.” The crowd of kids and parents took up the whole damn sidewalk as I headed toward the first SUV in the convoy. Fighting upstream pedestrian traffic, I dodged a chain of three kids and a frazzled middle-aged woman. “I’m almost to the front vehicle, I’ll tell them to re—” My words died on my suddenly dry tongue.
No.
No fucking way.
No motherfucking way.
Brown curly hair I’d dreamed about.
The traffic light changed and the first vehicle in the convoy sped past me.
“Collins,” Sawyer barked.
Full lips, perfect hips and haunted blue eyes.
But there wasn’t just one pair of eyes.
The second vehicle in the convoy rushed by.
“Goddamn it,” Tank cursed through the comm. “What the fuck are you doing, Collins?”
There was another pair. A light-brown pair. A color I knew intimately, one that I saw every time I looked in the mirror.
My nostrils flared, and her name left my mouth on a curse. “Brookelyn.”
“Collins,” Tank bellowed through the comm, as the third and last SUV in the convoy sped past me.
Her head snapped up and the smile on her face dropped like a stone.
Unconsciously, my right hand landed on the 9mm in my waist holster and I was striding toward her before my lungs could fucking catch up to the shock and anger flooding my veins.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sawyer pull over in his SUV and glance between me and her.
Tank sped around the corner and ran the light, barely missing half a dozen kids and adults. “Collins, you fuck, you—”
My eyes on her, I reached up and shut off my comm.
Her step faltered and her arms tightened around the kid perched on her hip.
A kid who was my spitting image.
MY HEART STOPPED.
All the air left my lungs and my arms instinctually tightened protectively around my son.
The crowd around us faded to nothing and I stared.
I stared at him.
The man I thought I’d never see again. Not the man. The Marine.
The Marine I’d taken from, used and stolen more than his truck. The Marine who’d made me feel safer in his arms than I’d ever felt in my life. The Marine who’d stared down at me like I was the only thing in the whole damn world important to him as he’d entered me. The Marine I dreamed about.
Garrett Collins.
The father of my son strode angrily toward me. Bigger, harder, his face so much more angular than I remembered, he was more muscular and more beautiful than in my dreams. But his expression right now was more terrifying than the nightmare I lived every day. Staring at the man I saw every time I looked into my son’s eyes, my whole world tilted.
“Mama.” Maverick squirmed in my arms.
Anxiety shot through my veins as reality rushed at me faster than the pavement on a ten-story drop. “Sh, sh, baby.”
“Down,” he demanded.
Inches taller than six feet, his arms almost as big as my thighs, Garrett stopped in front of me. Anger coming off him like the waves of heat rolling off the Miami midday sidewalks, he glared at me.
“How old?” he demanded, his voice more sandpaper and less sex than I remembered.
A hundred responses flew through my mind. Everything I wanted to say. Everything I wanted to give him. Everything I wanted from him. Meet your son, Maverick. I’m so sorry I stole from you. I had no way to contact you. I couldn’t put you in danger. Every night after the sun goes down, when I’m alone in my thoughts, I think of you. I miss how you held me. I miss how you touched me. I miss how you made me feel real. I’m so, so sorry.
But I couldn’t say any of it.
I only had one response that wa
s safe.
“I’m sorry.” I swallowed past the sudden boulder in my throat. “Do I know you?”
Leaning forward, his eyes glued to mine, Garrett didn’t so much as glance at his son. “Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know who the hell I am. We both know what I’m looking at.”
“Mama?” Maverick asked, looking between me and Garrett.
My heart broke into a million pieces. “Sh, sh, it’s okay,” I lied, rubbing my son’s back. Nothing was okay.
A blond man, as handsome as he was austere, stepped up next to Garrett. “Problem?” His gaze fixed on Maverick.
“No,” Garrett bit out, dismissing him. “See you back at the office.”
Maverick tucked his head against my chest and quietly whispered, “Mama, go home.”
“Soon, baby.” I kissed my son’s hair, which was an exact match to the shade of black-brown as the man standing in front of me. Not knowing where to look, I glanced at the insignia on Garrett’s black polo shirt that stretched across his huge chest. Luna and Associates. “Excuse me.” I moved to step around the two men who had more muscle between them than five linebackers.
As if anticipating my move, Garrett stepped in front of me. “I asked you a question.”
“Collins,” the blond man said, short and fast, glancing at me.
Garrett’s jaw ticked. “I said I would see you back at the office, Sawyer.”
The man Garrett called Sawyer glanced at me and Maverick. A heartbeat that felt like a lifetime passed before he finally looked back at Garrett. “Client’s on the move. We need to go.”
“You need to go,” Garrett corrected, raising his voice a notch in warning.
With a single nod, Sawyer turned.
The other parents and kids in the group, who’d ignored us for the most part up until this point, started to glance toward us as Sawyer walked away.
I didn’t care what any of the school moms thought. I avoided all of them. I had to. I didn’t have any friends at Maverick’s preschool, but that didn’t mean I wanted to draw attention to myself or Maverick by standing in the middle of the sidewalk in downtown Miami on a Tuesday morning.
But what I wanted didn’t matter when the director of the preschool walked up beside me and smiled at Garrett. Putting one hand on Maverick’s shoulder, she held her other hand out to Garrett. “I’m Mrs. Oberlin.” Her smile amped up. “I didn’t know Maverick’s father was coming on the preschool field trip today.”