Romeo, p.7
Romeo, page 7
Giving me stink eye, Missy slowly laid her head onto her front paws.
“Fuck no,” Talerco retorted. “Hobble your Scottish ass over to the ER, or the vet if it’s Missy. Hell, fix your own shit. You could get anythin’ with wings airborne downrange, no matter what kinda shape those pieces-of-shit birds were in. I know you can fix one little ole bone. Besides, not workin’ today. It’s my day off.”
“It’s not for me, and you don’t work.” Not for money, he didn’t have to. Fucker was loaded.
Talerco sighed. “All right, I’ll bite. Where are you, and who’s it for?”
“Female. My place.”
The woman pulled the towel up to cover her shoulder and half her face.
Talerco’s laugh echoed through the line. “You have got to be shittin’ me. You sayin’ you’re finally bringin’ home the two-legged ladies? The great Mikkey MacElheran, sworn bachelor and dog whisperer, has turned from a Roark into a Romeo?” Talon laughed harder. “This I gotta see.”
“Then get down here.”
Talerco kept fucking laughing. “To do what? Tape a twisted ankle? You afraid to touch her or somethin’?”
Avoiding looking at the woman, I walked into my closet and lowered my voice. “More than an ankle,” I ground out.
“Oh, I bet,” Talon drawled sarcastically. “You check to make sure she ain’t sunburnt?”
“Fuck you.” I grabbed clothes that would swamp her.
“No, that’s what you should be doin’ with her.” He laughed at his own joke.
“There’s a situation.” I took a clean SIG 9mm from my gun safe and two extra magazines.
“Ain’t there always when a woman’s involved?”
“Talerco,” I warned.
He kept fucking going. “In fact, there’s supposed to be a situation. A somethin’ up situation. And that, my friend, is you. The up part, I mean.” He chuckled at his own joke. “Now leave me to it, and go earn your new nickname, Romeo. I got two blonde beauties that need my attention more ‘an this conversation, and the waves are callin’.”
“When have I asked you for a favor?” I demanded before he hung up.
“Can’t recall, but I’m sure—”
“Never,” I cut him off.
Silence.
Then Talerco let out a long sigh and his tone did a one-eighty. “Goddamn it, you ain’t shittin’ me, are you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “How bad?”
“Remember Mexico?” I asked cryptically.
“Christ,” Talon cursed. “Fuckin’ sex traffickers. Yeah, I remember Mexico. You tellin’ me you got a similar situation?”
“Worse.” Kentworth was organized, global, had deep pockets and even deeper connections.
“Call Luna. He can handle this.”
“Negative.” With Kenworth’s reach, this woman needed more than that. “Not in his wheelhouse.”
“Cops?”
“You know how that ends.” Even though I’d suggested it to her, I knew what would happen if she went that route. The second the cops heard Kentworth’s name, they’d pretend to take a statement, then dismiss her. The moment she walked out of the police station, one of Kentworth’s guards would be waiting.
“Fine,” Talerco conceded. “I’m on my way, but for the record, you’re single-handedly destroyin’ my date today with perfect waves and my two gorgeous ladies.”
“Appreciate it.”
He chuckled, but this time it was without humor. “Now I know it’s serious. Thank you ain’t in your vocabulary, Mikkey.”
A lot of shit wasn’t in my vocabulary before this morning. Sailor had meant Navy, not doe-eyed blonde. I glanced at the beaten, underfed woman on my bed. Sensing my movement, Missy looked up from her guard position and showed me her teeth, but the woman didn’t move. Her eyes closed, her face pained, she breathed faster than someone asleep. “Thought I was Romeo now,” I answered Talerco distractedly as I heard a vehicle drive down the street.
“I’m reservin’ judgment till I lay eyes on your woman. Anythin’ else I need to be prepared for?”
Moving across the bedroom, I tossed the clothes on the bed. “Not mine, and bring a full kit, but hang on.” Glancing out the back and side windows, scanning the yard and water beyond, I made a decision. “Don’t drive down yet. I’m calling Trefor and asking him to have Zulu pick you up.” Adam “Alpha” Trefor’s company, Alpha Elite Security, had five global locations, but he’d recently relocated his headquarters from New York to Miami, bringing some of his key people with him, including his best pilot, Zulu. Most of Trefor’s business was military contracts and black-ops shit the government wanted to keep their hands clean of, but Alpha had one key advantage André Luna didn’t—long-range jets. A whole fucking fleet of them.
“Hold up.” Talerco’s tone turned lethally serious, and his Southern accent took a backseat. “You’re calling in AES to fly me down? What the hell’s going on, MacElheran?”
Moving to a window in my office that faced the front of the house, I glanced between the blinds and scanned the street for movement because I knew my neighbors. There was never traffic this early in the morning. “I was seen.”
“By who?”
I heard the vehicle again a split second before a tinted-out black SUV came around the corner.
Fuck.
“Roark,” Talerco snapped.
“Someone from AES will be in touch. Pack heavy.” He’d get my meaning.
Talerco’s Southern accent came back full force. “You’re tellin’ me to gear up, load out, bring my full med kit and wait for a taxi in a motherfuckin’ AES corporate jet when you got your own damn wings? What the fuck kinda shit have you gotten yourself into?”
The black SUV drove slowly down the street, but this time, it didn’t circle the block. It stopped two doors down. “I have to go. Bring some clothes for her.” I strode back to my bedroom.
“Christ, I’m not gonna like what I see when I get there, am I?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “What size is she?”
I glanced at the woman on my bed that was curled into a ball with strands of long, tangled blonde hair splayed everywhere. “Malnourished size. Wait for someone from AES.” I hung up and issued my girl a command. “Missy, backyard, patrol.”
Shockingly, Missy hopped up and went downstairs, going out her dog door. A second later, she was in the backyard, walking the rear of the property.
The blonde opened her eyes and looked from me to the 9mm I was holstering. Fear robbed her features. “Who did you call?”
I paused to look at her. “A friend.”
The fear in her eyes turned to duress. “You shouldn’t have told anyone about me. No one else can be involved.” Her rasp cut to a whisper. “You shouldn’t even be involved.”
No fucking shit. But now I was. “I make my own decisions.” Shoving the extra magazines into my cargo pockets, I didn’t sugarcoat. “We need to move.”
Sailor
I’d tried to warn him off, but it was like talking to a brick wall.
“I make my own decisions.” Shoving extra ammunition into the pockets of his military-looking, black cargo pants, he gave me a look that said I was out of my mind if I thought for one second that he wasn’t in control of his own destiny. “We need to move.” He walked with purpose into the bathroom.
I stared at the black T-shirt stretched across his chest and biceps as he grabbed a first aid kit and came back, setting it on the bed next to me.
My nerves frayed, my body beyond exhausted, my ego still stinging with indignity over my meltdown, all I could do now was ride the wave, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to ask what was going on. “What’s happening?”
A lifetime ago, I would’ve walked away from a man who’d yelled in my face the nickname Shane had given me. But I was no longer that woman, and this woman was not only mesmerized by his sheer strength and competence, but I was still reeling from the melody and chords that had come flooding back into my head after a year of nothing. The new melody, a sound unlike anything I’d ever written, was no longer crashing into my consciousness and taking over every thought, but it was still there, hovering in the background, causing an itch to play I hadn’t felt in forever.
“Location’s burned.” His voice converged with the notes in my head, and the scent of him became stronger as he reached for my towel.
The old me would’ve held the towel tight. I wouldn’t have let a stranger see me naked for a second time. I would’ve known that he could overpower me in seconds. Ragdoll me over his shoulder and carry me off to somewhere I’d never find my way back from. The woman I used to be would’ve realized that this lethally dominant man could break me harder and faster than Kyle ever could. But I wasn’t thinking about any of that.
All I could hear as I stared at him were the new ominous notes and haunting melody. Worse, an insane part of me trusted this man when I didn’t trust anyone. I never had. Shane had been the only person in my life I’d ever put my faith in.
But here I was, not even pretending to hold on to the towel as he pulled it away.
Instead, I was desperately trying to push the music to the background. But the urgency of the here and now crashed into the music already in my head and layered in a chorus of dangerous chords. The melodic translation of his military-speak echoed on repeat, forming its own crescendo, and I fought to concentrate.
Location burned. Location burned. LOCATION BURNED.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “The other black SUV, is it here?”
His giant hand cupped the back of my neck, and the music instantly stopped.
I sucked in a shallow breath and opened my eyes.
Firmly holding my nape and grasping one of my arms, he nodded as he raised me into a sitting position. “Already made a second pass down the street.” His gaze assessing but clinical, he quickly glanced from my arms to my ribs to my ankle as he picked a T-shirt up from the pile of clothes he’d tossed next to me. Slipping it over my head, he fed my arms through the long sleeves as if I were a child, and I snapped out of it.
“I can do this.” His touch sending goose bumps racing across my body, I pushed my arm through the second sleeve.
“Roll the cuffs,” he ordered in a brusque tone as he knelt on one knee and propped my leg on his thigh. Inspecting my ankle, his expression didn’t change, but his jaw ticked as he opened the first aid kit.
I turned back the cuffs of his shirt two times, wondering if he knew his precise movements had a sound. “How are we going to leave?” We’d left his car in that parking garage.
“Boat.” With a careful touch but also with quick dexterity, he unwrapped the wet bandage from my ankle. Holding his makeshift spoon-splint in place on my foot, he pulled a fresh bandage out of his medical kit.
I stared at his hands. “You have a boat?” Veined, tan, thick fingers—I didn’t know how he managed small tasks with them, like buttoning a button. But then I was thinking about what else he could do with those large fingers, and every nerve in my body was suddenly singing along with the notes in my head that didn’t belong to me. They belonged to him. He wasn’t a protective warrior, he was an entire symphony of alpha dominance.
“Borrowing one.” With swift movements, actually answering my question, he had my ankle rewrapped in seconds and was grabbing another article of clothing off the bed when Missy came running back into the room, whining and pacing. Glancing at her, he held a pair of sweatpants out for me. “Give me your good foot, now.”
Missy whined again, nudging Roark.
Panic dousing the music in my head, I reached for the pants. “I got it.” Shoving my legs through, barely pausing to be careful of my ankle, I stood on one leg and rolled the waistband down as Roark strode to the window.
“Stay here.” Taking his gun out of the holster on his hip, he was already moving toward the door. “Missy, guard.”
Before I could beg him not to leave me alone, his heavy black boots were barely making a sound as he rushed down the stairs.
Taking up position in the open doorway facing the stairs, his loyal dog did exactly as he told her to do. She stood guard.
“Missy,” I whispered, suddenly as frantic as I was before I jumped off that yacht. “Come here.”
Feet scuffling and a grunt sounded.
Missy moved.
Lunging for her, accidentally putting weight on my ankle, pain seared up my leg, but I caught her collar. “No,” I whisper-hissed, holding my ribs with my free hand.
Pulling at my grasp, she growled low and menacing but not at me.
Then a crash and shattering glass exploded, echoing through the house before something heavy thumped.
I couldn’t hold on to the dog anymore.
Yanking out of my grasp, Missy flew down the stairs.
Roark
Weapon drawn, I glanced around the corner at the bottom of the stairs.
A shadow moved outside the back door before a muffled voice spoke. “Go, go, go. Flanking.”
“Fuck you. You go in. Hart and Brent are missing. We should be calling for backup.”
The shadow moved again before the first man spoke. “No time. The dog’s in there, they’re in there. Breach.”
“You fucking breach. You’re the soldier.”
One military-trained asshole, one asshole.
Moving along the wall, not making a sound, I hit the kitchen and quickly glanced out the side window. Then I unlocked the back door, cracked it and stepped back.
“Move aside,” the military-trained asshole ordered before steps sounded on the back porch. “Did you open the door?”
“Do I look suicidal? You saw the size of that dude on the beach. I didn’t open shit. He’s probably standing behind the door, waiting to pound your face in. That fucker looked insane.”
“You’re paid to handle insane.”
“Hell no, I’m not. I’m paid to watch hot, naked chicks suck dick. Slap them around a little if they get out of line. No fucking way am I getting paid enough for this shit.”
“Cover me.”
The muzzle of an automatic rifle breached first.
Silently holstering my 9mm, I waited.
Weapon aimed, the soldier stepped into my kitchen.
“You see them?” the nonmilitary asshole whispered.
The soldier held up a closed fist. Then he made a crucial mistake. He swung left toward the open kitchen without looking behind the door.
I moved.
Grabbing the barrel, torquing down, I yanked.
Too stupid to let go of his weapon, the fucker stumbled into my kitchen.
Slamming my elbow into his face, I twisted the rifle and kneed him in the groin as his nose exploded with blood. Before he dropped, I was striking the butt of his AK-47 into the back of his head.
The soldier crashed into one of the kitchen cabinets, shattering the glass front before he hit the floor.
I already had the rifle aimed and was moving to the back porch when the second asshole took off across the yard.
Missy ran into the kitchen, growling at the unconscious asshole on the floor.
“Stand down,” I ordered as I kicked my back door shut and wiped my prints from the rifle after releasing the magazine and pocketing it. Grabbing duct tape from a kitchen drawer, I secured the asshole’s legs and hands, crushed his phone’s SIM card and fished his wallet out of his back pocket.
No ID, no credit cards, a few hundred in cash.
Missy whined and ran toward the front room.
“Fuck,” I muttered, duct taping the asshole’s mouth shut. “What do you see, girl?”
Standing at the front window, her nose between the blinds, Missy whined again but she didn’t give a warning bark.
I took the stairs two at a time.
Balancing on one leg, holding a fucking lamp over her head, the woman stood just inside my bedroom. When she saw it was me, she lowered her arms.
“Are you okay?” Her eyes frantically scanned my length. “Where’s Missy?”
“Get off that foot.” I took the lamp from her. “Sit on the bed.”
“There’s blood on your arm.” Holding on to the dresser, she didn’t move.
“Woman,” I growled. “Sit.”
Not fucking waiting to see what the hell she did, I grabbed my go bag, my M16 and Missy’s tactical vest from the closet. Shoving the rifle into my bag, then rinsing that asshole’s blood splatter from my arm in the bathroom, I strode back into the master.
Perched on the edge of the bed, the woman gave me her frantic, doe-eyed expression again. “I heard breaking glass.”
“Broken kitchen cabinet.” That fucking asshole guard of Kentworth’s. The kitchen and the master suite were the only two places in my house where I’d finished the remodel. Pissed that I’d have to fix the cabinet in the kitchen, I whistled for Missy.
Bounding up the stairs, my dog made a beeline for the woman, licked her hand, then leisurely made her way to me as if I hadn’t just given her the command to get her ass to me pronto.
Trying not to be mad as hell at a canine, I slipped her vest over her head and buckled it. “Let’s go.”
The woman stood.
“Not you, the dog. You’re not walking on that foot.” Or without shoes.
“How far are we going?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I shoved some first aid supplies in my go bag and shouldered it. “You’re still not walking.” I picked the woman up.
“I’m sorry.” Low and quiet, her voice fucked with my head as she put an arm around my neck.
“Quit apologizing.” Glancing out the bedroom windows, I scanned the street.
“Maybe you’re right.” The woman looked behind us. “Maybe you’re crazy and I shouldn’t apologize for getting you into my mess. Anyone else would’ve just left me on that beach and not gotten involved.”
“I’m not anyone else.” I followed Missy down the stairs. “I’m a Marine.”
“You said you fly a seaplane for tourists.”
“Once a Marine, always a Marine.” Hitting the bottom step, I turned the corner into the kitchen as Missy started in with a low growl.
