Makenna's Trust: Titan Security Series #3

by Cynthia P. O’Neill

  Not knowing what to do, I called Rick’s personal number and explained the situation. “Damn it!” He cursed. “I knew her leaving here without Luke was a bad idea. She usually has him by her side but assured me she could handle things on her own this time.”

  Okay, I was at a loss. “What are you talking about? How do I help her?”

  Rick calmly explained. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with PTSD, but Makenna has been put into some very dangerous situations, where she’s had to do things she’s not proud of. As a result, she has PTSD, and certain things can trigger nightmares to come back and haunt her.”

  I don’t know what I’d expected, but this was definitely not it. Rick wouldn’t elaborate on what she’d seen, only that I shouldn’t try to get near her to wake her up. “Marcus, I need you to listen carefully to me and do exactly as I say.”

  He proceeded to tell me to never touch a former soldier when they are sleeping or turn a light on suddenly. Most times the soldier has a weapon within arm’s reach and could use it if startled. He rattled off a few more instructions on how to get her to wake up.

  Finally I uttered, “Okay, I’m ready.” My voice was shaky, and I hoped he didn’t detect my fear. Kenna and I would definitely be talking in more detail about all this, if she would open up to me. And who the hell is this Luke guy? Was it her new boyfriend?

  “I’ll make sure Luke is on a plane up to New York by morning. Keep me on the line so I can listen in,” Rick ordered.

  I put the phone down inside the pocket of my sweatpants. Taking a deep breath in, I proclaimed in the loudest, most commanding voice possible, “Front and center, Airman.”

  Makenna’s eyes flew open, her body jumped out of bed, and she stood at attention, saluting me. She kept the pose for a moment, before looking at me with startled eyes and relaxing her stance. “What the? Marcus?”

  I’d pulled the curtains open slightly, to let enough light in so she could see whom I was and that I wasn’t there to harm her. I held my hands up in a surrender position as Rick had instructed. “You were having a nightmare. You were starting to scream.”

  Her eyes looked confused, and her shoulders started to deflate as her hand came up to push the hair out of her face. She mumbled something like, “I thought I could handle this. I swore I was over these nightmares. I wish—” that’s when she realized I was still standing there with my hands up.

  She shook her head side to side. “You can relax. I’ve got my faculties about me now.”

  Moving closer to her, I put a hand on her shoulder and drew her closer to me, trying to comfort her with a hug. “Everything will be just fine. It was just a bad dream.”

  Time stood still as I became weightless in the air. I couldn’t understand which direction I was looking. Was that the ceiling or the floor? Glass shattered and something went whizzing by my head, narrowly missing me.

  I watched in horror as Makenna flew backward across the bed, landing against the opposite wall, while I was knocked down against the carpet by the doorway. “Get out!” she yelled.

  Scurrying to the hallway, I looked back to find her crawling against the floor, grabbing for her shoes. She grabbed her rifle, too, along with extra ammunition, and began screaming, “Tyler! Dane!”

  The guys came crashing through the front door with guns drawn as she ran downstairs spouting, “Cover him. No one gets in or out of the place without my permission. We have an active shooter on one of the rooftops. I’m calling for backup and will try to take the shooter out.”

  Everything happened so fast around me. I couldn’t even get the words “Stop. Don’t do this.” out before she was out into the hallway.

  I heard muffled screaming coming from my pocket. That’s when I realized Rick was still on the phone. “What the hell just happened?” Rick demanded to know.

  “I’m not sure. I think something about an active shooter, if I heard correctly,” I admitted with my heart racing a mile a minute. “This can’t be happening.”

  Dane helped me stand up and checked me over for any injuries while Tyler moved cautiously into my room, avoiding the window.

  “The window’s been hailed with gunfire. There are at least four bullets buried in the wall and . . .” his voice trailed off as he exited the room.

  When he returned to the hallway, he examined the small amount of blood on his hands. Tyler looked over at me with questioning eyes. I guess he was wondering if it had been my blood.

  Dane shook his head. “It’s not his. I just checked him over for any signs of trauma.”

  The words left my mouth on a whisper. “Makenna was shot.” I began to lose it and couldn’t control the shakiness in my voice. “She’s on the roof trying to take out this son of a bitch. Stop her, please.” I pleaded to Rick, Dane, and Tyler, anyone who’d listen.

  “Marcus, listen to me,” Rick ordered. “Makenna is a crack-shot sniper. Whoever did this will either be taken down or killed. She called in the issue with our local office, and they’ll be there in one minute. She’s already reporting back that she has a shot and has asked permission to take it. She’s got this. You need to let her do her job. This is what she does best.”

  His words meant nothing to me. In one sense, I knew she was doing what she’d been trained to do, but in another, this was the woman I’ve spent my whole life loving. The woman I’ve waited five years to reunite with, to be given a second chance at happiness. I couldn’t lose her now.

  Before I could utter a word, Dane left me with Tyler and ran to the door to catch Makenna as she stumbled through. He grabbed on to her just in time, preventing her from tumbling to the floor. “No!” I screamed out.

  The sound of her rifle hitting the floor, the sight of her clutching the left side of her stomach, which was covered in blood . . . I was stuck in some alternate universe in a slow-motion suspense flick and unable to escape.

  “Safety’s on. Medical kit in box.” Her words were weak, but they were proof she was okay.

  “Hand me over to Tyler,” Rick commanded. Tyler took the phone from me, so I took the steps two at a time to get down to my sweet Kenna.

  Dane sat her gently onto the top of my dining table before he opened up the kit she’d mentioned and grabbed gauze to put pressure onto her wound. I took hold of her right hand while he started assessing the wound on the left side of her abdomen. “Towels. I need some clean towels and some water to help clean her up so I can see if we need an ambulance or doctor.”

  I ran into the kitchen and grabbed all of the recently washed hand towels along with a big bowl of water. I placed them within Dane’s reach at the foot of the table, and then took my place back by her other side.

  “Please be okay,” I begged.

  Makenna winced as Dane carefully lifted her shirt to get a good look at the wound. Squeezing her hand, I tried to reassure her I was there for her.

  I watched in horror as the clear bowl of water slowly took on a deep red hue. There was so much blood.

  “Looks like you got grazed real good. You’ll need some stitches, some antibiotics, and maybe some pain meds.” Dane stated matter-of-factly.

  She nodded in agreement, trying to look down and see the wound for herself. “Everything you need is in that kit. I can get it resupplied tomorrow. You’re trained for this. Will you do the honors or should I?”

  Dane smiled and shook his head. “You are one badass woman. You look all soft and petite, but you are stronger than most of the men I had to treat in the field of combat. Just lie back down and let me get this done so the rest of the night can go smoothly.”

  Tyler came downstairs and headed to the front door, still talking with Rick on my phone. “Copy that. I’ll have her call you when she’s done getting patched up.”

  Dane pulled out a syringe and a bottle of liquid that he began drawing up. “I’m going to give you a little lidocaine to numb the area before we stitch you up.”

  “Don’t we need to get her to a hospital? Maybe have a doctor take a look at her?�
�� I argued, not wanting Dane touching my woman with his hands. Thankfully, I noticed the wedding ring on his finger. Good, he was married. But that still didn’t give him the right to touch my Makenna. Am I a bit protective of her? Hell yes!

  “There’s no need,” Dane assured me. “Had the bullet gone through an area with vital organs, we’d want her to be checked out to ensure no internal bleeding or damage. This is a little more than a bullet graze, but not quite a through and through.” He motioned toward her abdominals. “Had the bullet hit her an inch or two to the right, we’d be on a whole other page and in the back of an ambulance.”

  I watched as Makenna accepted the lidocaine and Dane began the process of stitching up the wound. A cacophony of voices came from the hallway before the door opened. One of the guys I recognized from the window-film install crew this afternoon. Gary.

  He walked up to the table and looked down at Makenna. “You doing okay, champ?”

  “I’ll be good as new in a few minutes. Are you sorry you missed out on the action?” she countered back.

  Gary shook his head, laughing. “You make our job too easy. Do we have cleanup or takeaway?”

  Makenna shrugged her shoulders. “Your guess is as good as mine. He was a tricky bastard. I took out his trigger hand, blew out a kneecap, and clipped his shoulder, but he just kept coming. I managed to put a plug in his chest, but don’t know if he’s down for the count of DOA. You’ll find him on top of the building across the way.”

  Their watches sparked to life with a voice calling out. “Found him alive, just barely, but he’s not talking.”

  I’ve never been one to promote violence, but I couldn’t help but feel satisfied that the dickhead who’d hurt my love was hurting more. A shiver ran through me as I realized the guy had been sent to kill me.

  Makenna squeezed my hand to give me reassurance while looking up into my eyes. “Titan will find out who sent him and why. We’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

  I bent down and placed a gentle kiss upon her forehead, causing her to jump.

  Dane cleared his throat to get our attention. “Guys, you might want to save that for when I’m done with the stitches.”

  Despite the number of people in the room, you could hear a pin drop as Dane bandaged up Makenna’s wound, gave her a shot of antibiotics, and handed her some pills to take for pain and infection.

  Once she was done, I carried her in my arms over to the sofa where we could rest comfortably. Dane, Tyler, Gary, and a couple of the other Titan guys circled around while a few remained out in the hall to guard the entry.

  “What do we do about the window upstairs?” Makenna spoke up.

  Gary was quick to reply. “We already boarded it up while you were getting mended. We’ll be over tomorrow to replace it and should have some tint to put on the day after. Until then, you’ll need to sleep in the guest room or down here.”

  She looked a little scared as she looked over to me. “I can’t take your bed.”

  I was going to argue that I could take the floor or we could share the bed, but Dane ended up giving me the best present ever. “You’ll need someone close by to check that the wound isn’t bleeding and to make sure you don’t start running a fever. I’d feel better if you let him either stay in the room with you or, better yet, sleep next to you.”

  Makenna started to open her mouth to argue, when, surprisingly, Gary jumped in. He motioned between the two of us and said, “It’s kind of obvious you two were once an item. So staying in the same room shouldn’t be a problem. I know all of us at Titan would feel better knowing someone has a close eye on you. Speaking of Titan, Rick wants you to call him.”

  She let out an exasperated breath and winced as she ran both of her hands through her hair. “Great. He’s probably going to chew me out about letting this happen.”

  Reaching behind the sofa, I placed my arm around the back of her and let my hand rest lightly on her shoulder. Yes, I was making a power play to let these guys know I intended to go after her once again. She was mine, and I wasn’t going to give her up, at least not without a fight. I noticed a few of them smiled and was relieved that Kenna didn’t pull away from my touch but, instead, fell into the side of me. I didn’t know if it was a triggered response from familiarity or what, but I wouldn’t question it.

  “You do know that Rick was on the phone the whole time. He heard all that happened, so there’s no way he could blame you. If anything, it was my fault for parting the curtains enough to let some light in so you’d see I was in the room. I’ll take the blame,” I offered as a means of trying to get on everyone’s good side.

  Tyler handed her my phone so she could call Rick. I watched as she nodded her head and spoke tersely, saying something like, “Yes. Okay. Sure thing. Will do.” before hanging up.

  All eyes were on her, waiting for a response. She finally held up both hands and made a scooting motion. “Okay, guys, get back to your posts. I need to get a good night’s rest so I can pick things back up in the morning. I may be shot, but I’m not down for the count. This is still my case.”

  I watched as all the men left begrudgingly. Once they were out of my place, I turned toward Makenna and offered to pick her up and carry her up to the guest room, but she held her hands up to stop me. “I’m not an invalid. I can manage to walk on my own accord, Marcus.”

  Not wanting to upset her any further, I held my hands out for her to grab on to and lift herself off the sofa. She stood just fine, but her hand immediately went to her side, and she started to double over.

  So what if I pissed her off. I swept my arms up under her and started for the stairs with her ready to argue. “I know you’re quite capable, but you’re injured, need some time to heal, and have lost quite a bit of blood. You’ll get into my bed, drink some orange juice, take a couple of pain pills, and sleep for the rest of tonight. Only if you’re feeling better tomorrow will I let you out of that bed.”

  To my surprise I got, “Yes, sir.”

  It felt nice having her call me sir again. “I’m glad we can agree on that. So what did Rick tell you?”

  Makenna winced a bit when I slipped her into bed in an upright sitting position. I put my finger out to her to indicate I needed a moment. I reached into the closet and pulled out a T-shirt. “You might want to put this on and throw away the shirt you’re currently wearing.”

  She wanted to argue when I tried to hand it to her, but she took one look at the shirt she had on and cringed, and then grabbed the clean one from my hands.

  I turned around to give her some privacy. Sure I’d already seen her naked tonight, but I didn’t want to her getting upset.

  “Okay. It’s safe to turn around now, though you know you didn’t have to do that. It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before. And I’m guessing you were the one to carry me upstairs and dress me for bed?”

  I turned around, nodding and smiling like the idiot I was. A fool in love. “I’ll be right back with your juice and medicine.”

  She took the medication with no argument, which surprised me. “I promised Rick I’d take the pain pills tonight. He added an extra guard to the hallway for the remainder of the week so I can rest. He knew I wanted to stay on this case, so he’s giving me the chance to rest and do desk work for a bit.”

  Okay this was news to me. I’d been scared he’d pull her from me despite knowing how badly I wanted her here. “So he’s okay with how things went down?”

  She nodded. “He’s happy the perpetrator is captured. We know now that someone is trying to frame you and potentially kill you. Who it is remains to be seen. It could be an investor you supposedly scammed or it could be the mastermind behind this whole setup.”

  I crawled into bed slowly, making sure I didn’t jostle Makenna too much or make her uncomfortable. “Is Rick mad?”

  “No. This kind of thing can happen with even the best laid plans. He’s not happy about my nightmares popping back up, but he knows it didn’t have anything to do wit
h the shooter.

  “If nothing else comes out of tonight, at least we know that you are on someone’s shit list, and it gives us more reason to believe that you were set up to take the fall for this whole scheme. Now we just have to find flaws in your case, where we can get it thrown out before it ever makes it to court.”

  We turned out the lights and started talking, reminiscing about the past, focusing on happier times and all the experiences we shared together, until Makenna finally succumbed to the effects of the pain pills, slipping into a deep slumber.

  I took the opportunity to wrap my arms around her and pull her tight against my body, not wanting to let this moment go. The warmth of her body felt so right with mine. “I’ve never stopped loving you, Kenna.” I just prayed I wouldn’t have to give her up. I knew some guy named Luke was on his way in the morning. I could only hope our love would see us together again.

  The last memory before sleep claimed me that night was Makenna whispering, “I’ve never stopped either.”

  My senses were living on the edge of a magnificent dream, one in which I didn’t want to wake, for risk of it being just that—a dream. I had Makenna back in my life, snug against my side. As I held her firmly in the warmth of my arms, the smell of her vanilla body wash filled my nostrils. Her warm breath blew gently against my neck, making me almost believe she was right here with me. The past five years had been nothing more than a nightmare gone awry. I was happy for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.

  I kept still and cherished the warmth of her body pressed against mine, knowing that, at some point, I’d have to open my eyes to find the feeling of holding Makenna had either been a beautiful fantasy or I was actually living in misery.

  Kenna’s body tensed and a moan escaped her mouth as she moved. My eyes sprang open to realize last night had put me on the threshold of the worst hell imaginable, fearing I’d lost the love of my life to a shooter whose bullets were meant for me. She’d taken the hit, saving my life, and therefore, I owed her mine if she’d have it.