Ruthless

by Sybil Bartel

  Luna swore. “How’d they know that?”

  “Hell if I know. I didn’t fucking ask that.”

  Luna’s voice dropped to a lethal calm. “And did you ask where my Escalade was?”

  Ty stared at him a moment, like he was trying to gage Luna’s sudden shift in tone. “Northwest Miami, somewhere in their territory is all I know. They used the jammer until they found your tracking device and disabled it.”

  Shaking his head, Luna looked pissed.

  Marek came up the front steps holding a black box with antennas coming out of it. “I’m keeping the jammer. Van’s loaded with the bodies.” He glanced over his shoulder and went still for a moment, like he was listening to something. “Company’s coming. Two, three minutes.” He glanced at Luna. “Need backup?”

  “No, gracias,” Luna answered.

  Marek eyed Luna. “If they remember this address or ever show up here again, they’re dead.”

  “Understood,” Luna acknowledged. “I’ll relay the message.”

  Marek walked into his house without so much as a nod.

  Luna glanced at me, then Ty. “Both of you get out of here. I’ll handle this.”

  “I’ll wait in the SUV until they’re gone. Give me the signal if you need any more of these fucks taken out.” Carrying his rifle, Ty walked toward his Escalade.

  I watched him skirt the van that was riddled with bullet holes and get in his SUV. “You gave her a choice,” I reminded Luna.

  “That choice had a time limit.” He tipped his chin toward the van. “Now I’ve got a van full of dead Tres Angulos and two rival gang members pulling up that are willing to take credit and haul them away. I’m making a command decision. Go inside if you don’t want them to put a face to this mess.”

  Tires sounded on the dirt lane as I leveled Luna with a look. “You sure about this?”

  Looking tired as fuck, Luna exhaled. “Are we ever sure about anything?”

  “LAST ONE,” TALON MURMURED AS he used the plier things and took the final staple out. “All done, darlin’.” He set the tool down and turned my chair back to face his. His green eyes roamed over my face. “I can definitely see it.”

  I blushed under his scrutiny. Blond hair, muscles, and the way he smelled like the beach and coconuts, he was gorgeous. But he wasn’t Sawyer. “See what?”

  “Why Playboy’s got it so bad.” He winked at me without smiling. “But I’m missing somethin’.”

  I dropped my gaze. “He doesn’t have it bad.” I did, or I had, until I’d stupidly, stupidly begged him for sex in the shower.

  “Now you’re blushin’ even harder.” Talon chuckled, tossing stuff back in his first aid kit. Then he tipped my chin. “For real, you good?”

  “Yes.” No.

  Lacing his hands and resting his arms on his legs, he leaned toward me and dropped his voice. “Know what I figured out a little too late in life?”

  “What?”

  “Talkin’ helps.”

  Touching the back of my neck, I avoided his gaze and lied again, “Besides thank you, I have nothing to say.”

  Slow, not taking his gaze off me, he nodded. “Okay, well, not judgin’, but a woman who asks me to get her away from her man only to play hide the sausage with him six dead bodies later probably has at least one somethin’ to say.”

  I was both all at once mortified and angry, and my anxiety bled out all over Sawyer’s friend. “He’s not my man, and he doesn’t want me. He made that perfectly clear.” I made to stand. “So you can tell him to go… go jump off a cliff.”

  Talon took my wrist, the same wrist Sawyer had held, and pulled me back down. “Sit,” he commanded, being just as bossy as his jerk of a friend.

  “I don’t have to do what you say,” I snapped, fighting tears and a coming tide of emotions I had desperately packed away, not to mention the emotions that had made me run from Sawyer’s penthouse in the first place.

  “No, you don’t have to do what I say,” he conceded. “And I’m not gonna tell you one way or another how to manage your love life, darlin’, but I am gonna tell you you’re dead wrong.” He let go of my wrist, only to take my hand. “A man doesn’t get spittin’ mad when a woman he cares nothin’ for walks out. You hear me?” He squeezed my hand. “Savatier cares, darlin’. A whole lot.”

  Tears welled, threatening to let loose. “You’re wrong.” Sawyer didn’t forgive me for lying to him about being married. I got that. He probably had all sorts of women lie to him to get his attention. And I’d been no better, but in my mind, I wasn’t seeing anyone. My marriage was over, and I knew that, I just hadn’t had the strength to move on yet.

  “I’m so right, there ain’t no room for wrong.” Talon’s thumb stroked over my hand. “So do with that information what you will. I’m not here to play matchmaker. But I do have another concern, one that’s got even me worried.”

  “What?” I asked, barely holding it together.

  He stared at me for a moment. Then his Southern accent disappeared. “You saw a lot of violence tonight, more than most people see in a lifetime. That’s going to play on your conscience.”

  “They shot first,” I blurted, telling him the thought I’d been chanting over and over as I desperately tried to stuff every single second of the past hour down deep where I didn’t have to think about it. “They were going to kill me.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, they were.”

  The shoddy wall holding all my emotions in started to crack. “I’m alive.” My voice shook.

  “Yes, you are.”

  My voice dropped to a whisper. “It was justified.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  A tear escaped and spilled over. “I didn’t pull the trigger.”

  “No, you didn’t. I did, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

  Tears started flowing freely, but he wasn’t finished.

  “So would Savatier, so would all of us here today.” He took my hand in both of his. “We were all trained to protect, and that’s what we did. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

  I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat. “It was all my fault,” I sobbed. “I pulled his mask off!”

  A man who smelled like the ocean pulled me into his arms. “No, none of it was your fault.”

  I cried harder. I didn’t even hear the front door open.

  “What the hell did you do to her?” Sawyer barked.

  Talon eased back, but he held my arm and ignored Sawyer as his Southern accent came rushing back. “You remember what I said, darlin’.” He stood and tipped his chin at Sawyer. “No time like the present to man up, Playboy.” Grabbing his medical kit, Talon walked toward the front door.

  Eyebrows drawn together, jaw set, Sawyer glared after Talon. “I need her stuff.”

  “Already in Patrol’s ride,” Talon threw over his shoulder before opening the door and walking out.

  Sawyer watched Talon leave before looking back at me. “Why were you in his arms?” he accused.

  It was as if a switch had been flipped.

  The foster girl who married Brian was gone, and the girl in the diner who owned her own business and told Sawyer Savatier’s supermodel ex-girlfriend off came out. “For real? You’re going to stand there and ask me that? After what happened outside? After everything?” I stood. “You know what, forget it. Forget you.” I pushed my way around him. “Talon!”

  “You’re still married,” he ground out.

  The weight of humiliation slammed into my chest and I spun. “I’m separated, big difference. Get over yourself!”

  “There is no—”

  “No.” I held my hand up. “Don’t you dare. You were there in that shower as much as I was, and I’m not going to let you turn me into some villain or into some… some… bad person like those… those…” I hit a wall. The breadth of my emotional tolerance stretched to the very last shred of dignity I had left, and a sob, half mortification, half nervous breakdown, and all frustration broke free. �
�Carjackers,” I managed.

  “This isn’t about a carjacking!” he roared.

  I lost it. “How easy for you to say,” I yelled back. “You didn’t get staples, you didn’t get shot at, you didn’t get locked up for five days while crazy-scary gang members hunted you down. You have no idea what it’s like!” As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized what a complete jerk I was. Of course he knew. He knew what every one of those things was like.

  But I wasn’t taking it back.

  Not one word.

  I yanked open the front door of the house I almost died in just as Talon was getting in his Challenger. “Talon!”

  PARALYZED WITH DISBELIEF FOR A second, I didn’t move.

  Then I made for the front door.

  Dane Marek came out of nowhere. “Let her go.”

  “Fuck you.” I reached for the door. “The last time she got in a car with him, she almost died.”

  He stepped in front of me. “But she didn’t.”

  “Move,” I warned.

  He studied me. “What does it matter if she’s married?”

  My nostrils flared. “None of your goddamn business.” I was not my father.

  “Try again.”

  I didn’t give a shit about the rumors about him. Mercenary or not, I stepped up to him, toe to toe, eye to eye. “Last time I’ll say it. Move.”

  “She is not your past.”

  She wasn’t my future either. And now I was everything I swore I would never be. “Get out of my way, Marek.”

  “Give me a reason to.”

  Goddamn it. “I am not my fucking father!”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “Tell her what?” That I fucked up? That I was enraged she was in Talerco’s arms? That I wanted back inside her so goddamn bad, I couldn’t see a single thing except anger?

  “That you want her.”

  “It isn’t that simple,” I ground out.

  “It’s exactly that simple.”

  “Get out of my way.”

  Stepping aside, Marek glanced out the window by the door. “We get what we deserve. Remember that.” He walked the fuck off.

  I yanked the door open and flew down the front steps. I was across the drive and grabbing her as she was getting in Talerco’s car before I had a plan.

  I didn’t think.

  I didn’t calculate.

  I didn’t measure every angle and scenario and compensate for variables.

  I was turning her, taking her face in my hands, and I was crushing my mouth over hers.

  I kissed her like I’d wanted to in the shower, and her shocked gasp gave me the in I needed. I devoured her mouth like I’d devoured her body, and goddamn it, I kissed her.

  I fucking kissed her.

  For two strokes through the maddening, infuriating, diabolical temptation that was all her, she let me.

  But then she pushed me away, and the back of her hand wiped across her lips. “Too little, too late.” She got one leg in the car.

  Reactively, I grabbed her arm. “Genevieve.”

  All of a sudden, Luna, Talerco and Ty were on me. Luna to my right, Ty to my left, it was Talerco who spoke.

  Standing on the opposite side of his Challenger, he leveled me with a look. “Don’t make me come over there, Playboy,” he warned. “Let her go.”

  Adrenaline fueling irrational thoughts, I glared back at Talerco. “Stand down.”

  “You stand the fuck down,” Talerco countered.

  “Enough,” Luna barked in Spanish.

  I spun on Luna. “It’ll be enough when all of you mind your own fucking business.”

  “That’s it!” Genevieve yelled, yanking out of my grasp. “Talon, take me home, now.” She got in the car and slammed the door.

  Talerco eyed me before getting behind the wheel, cranking the engine and flooring it.

  Luna’s hand landed on my shoulder. “Give her some breathing room.”

  Jerking away from his touch, I glared at him. “This is none of your business. I stay out of everyone’s goddamn shit. I expect the same fucking courtesy.”

  Expression neutral, Luna’s hands went to his hips. “You done?”

  No, I wasn’t fucking done. I’d fucked her and she’d left, and my head was goddamn spinning, and I’d turned into every piece of shit thing I hated about my father. I wasn’t done. I was irate.

  “Good,” Luna said, without waiting for an answer. “I got a lead on your SUV. Some Tres Angulos prick has it.” He rattled off an address. “Go with Ty and get my vehicle back.” Luna eyed Ty. “Don’t fucking kill anyone.”

  “Too late for today,” Ty clipped. “Maybe you’ll get lucky tomorrow.” He glanced at the bloodstains still on the dirt driveway near where the gray van had been. “Might want to make sure Marek does something about that.”

  Luna cussed in Spanish, but I was already walking to Ty’s SUV and yanking the passenger door open.

  A few seconds later, Ty got behind the wheel and punched in the address Luna had given us. “So what’s the real plan?” he asked as he pulled down Marek’s driveway. “You really want to leave any potential witnesses and just retrieve the vehicle?”

  My nostrils still flaring with every inhale, I didn’t comment.

  Ty smirked. “Read you loud and clear.” He pulled onto the main road. “Wouldn’t be my first choice either.”

  Fucking prick. “Don’t mistake my silence for consent to anything you say.”

  “Whatever, asshole.”

  His phone rang, and instead of answering on the car’s speaker system, he looked at the display. “Shit.” He yanked the wheel and pulled off the road. Slamming on the brakes, he threw the SUV into park, then swept across his screen.

  A small boy appeared on the screen, his hands gesticulating.

  “Hold on,” Ty said to the kid before balancing his phone on the steering wheel.

  The kid gesticulated again.

  “I said hold on. I’m in the car.” As Ty spoke, he also signed out his words in ASL.

  The kid signed back.

  “Why the hell are you up so late?”

  The kid said something to him.

  Ty started signing and speaking again. “I can’t pick you up. I’m at work, and hell is not a swear word. It’s a place.”

  The kid said something back.

  “Motherfucker,” Ty muttered under his breath. “Okay, fine, a dollar for the swear jar. Now, why are you up?”

  Ty frowned as the kid signed back.

  “Your mom always works nights. This is nothing new, little man.”

  The kid rolled his eyes, then signed again.

  “What?” Ty sat up straighter. “Where the hell is the babysitter?”

  The kid signed again.

  “She said that?” Ty swore under his breath, then started signing again. “You let her know next time I see her, I’m gonna kick her ass. And yes, ass is a swear word. Don’t use it with your mother.”

  The kid let out a silent laugh.

  Ty grinned, then got serious again. “Crawl back into bed, take your phone and play a game until you fall asleep. I’ll text your mother and let her know what happened with the babysitter, and in the meantime, I’ll get there as soon as I can. Is the front door locked? Did you use the chain?”

  The kid nodded.

  “Good.” Ty signed the word out as he spoke it. “I’ll come in the back door. Call me back if you get scared.”

  The boy flexed his little arm, then signed.

  Ty smiled. “I know, rug rat, you’re strong as hell and brave. Get some sleep.”

  The boy signed the only thing I knew in ASL. I love you.

  “Love you too.” Ty hung up and fired off a text before pocketing his phone and pulling back on the road.

  My impression of him had done almost a one-eighty. “Your son?”

  “None of your goddamn business.”

  “He’s smart.” He signed twice as fast as Ty.

  Ty eased off the gas and leveled me
with a look. “My personal life’s personal, got it?”

  More than he’d ever know. “Copy.”

  We drove the rest of the way in silence, except for the GPS spewing directions. When we got close, Ty pulled down an alley behind a strip mall where half the storefronts were boarded up.

  Glancing at the GPS one last time, he cut the engine and reached behind his seat. “A block over and half a block east. Looks like it’ll be residential.” He pulled two 9mms from the back seat. “My vote is a surprise approach on foot.” He rummaged around in a duffle behind my seat before coming away with two silencers.

  “Fine.” I checked the magazine on my gun out of habit.

  “Put your shit away.” Ty handed me one of his 9mms and one of the silencers. “Fully loaded.” He eyed me as he screwed the other silencer on his gun. “And untraceable.” He raised an eyebrow. “We cleaning house?”

  My jaw ticked, and I holstered my own gun. Screwing the silencer on the gun he gave me, I glanced around the alley and the street beyond. Gang territory at night, there were no people out. “How untraceable?”

  Dead serious, Ty looked at me. “‘Leave-it-at-the-scene untraceable.”

  I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but if anyone was going to have an untraceable piece, it’d be him. Without a word, I got out of the SUV.

  Ty followed suit and locked the doors, then everything the Marines trained us to be kicked in.

  Weapons drawn, sticking to the shadows, I led and Ty took my six. We covered the first block in under three minutes, and a minute later I had a visual on my Escalade in the driveway of a rundown, south Florida bungalow. A ratty screen door in place, the front door wide open, a TV was blaring from the house.

  I stepped behind the vehicle and looked for the small indents on the passenger side where I’d fired rounds at the SUV five days ago. Even though the Escalade now had tricked-out rims, the circular dents were right where I’d shot at the vehicle. I looked through the windows on the off chance her purse would still be there, but I couldn’t see shit past the limo tint. As much as I hated to agree with anything Ty said, he’d been right earlier about not leaving any potential witnesses. That shit would follow Genevieve for life, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.