by Isabel Wroth
“Vitals all good, mucus membranes nice and pink. I’m confident she'll be alright, but since you don't know what drug she was given, I'd keep an eye on her just the same. Any signs of vomiting or lethargy, get her back in to see a vet immediately.”
The nervous tension twisting Dillon's guts into knots finally eased with a heavy sigh of relief.
“Absolutely. Thank you. Elka, here.”
Elka hopped off tailgate at Dillon's murmured command, plonking her huge butt on Dillon's sneakers while Dr. Bly packed up his stuff,
With a tip of his cowboy hat to Top, Dr. Bly hopped in his truck and took off without asking for any kind of payment.
Confused, Dillon looked to Top with a frown.
“I have cash in my truck to cover whatever this special visit cost.”
Top snorted and brushed her offer aside with a wave of his hand. “We're square, girly. Doc owed me a favor. You ready to come back inside? It's hot as balls out here.”
It was hot as balls, the air thick enough to swim through, but Dillon was most definitely not ready to go back inside.
“No. I want to go home.”
“You in that much of a hurry to die?” Top asked bluntly.
The idea of returning to her house was, in fact, repugnant. She believed Ghost when he told her there was nowhere to hide.
She believed there was no defense system he couldn't penetrate, no security he couldn't bypass.
The emotionless sound of his voice telling her all the ways he could brutally murder her would haunt her for months. Maybe even years.
It made no sense at all that Ghost would go to so much trouble to get to her, to send her down here with the dire message for Nasa, ensuring she was safe from the Leviathans.
Was there truly some kind of bounty on her head?
Or was it just a lie to get her out of Dallas?
If it was true, what had she done to earn it? Try as she might, she couldn't come up with any answer as to how she could have pissed them off.
“I'll take my chances,” Dillon answered as firmly as she could manage. “I told you everything about Ghost that I could, every detail of what he said to me, what he did. I don't have anything else for you, and I want to leave.”
The salt and pepper jut of Top's beard stood out from his jaw at an angle, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“Most people would choose the devil they know.”
“I met you two hours ago,” Dillon pointed out. “You're still a devil I don't know.”
CHAPTER FOUR
For the fiftieth time in the last hour, Nasa found himself glaring at the man he respected most in the entire world.
“I can't believe you just let her go!”
Top shot him a less than enthused look over the top of his cheaters and put down the file he'd been staring at.
“I'm not in the habit of taking innocent women hostage, Nasa. We told her the risks, offered her sanctuary, and she refused.
"Considering you still aren't convinced she ain't workin' for Ghost, I thought you'd be thrilled to see the back of her.”
“I am thrilled!” Nasa bellowed belligerently, and instead of chewing his ass out for being a prick, Top laced his fingers together over his belly and leaned back to watch Nasa pace holes in the floor of his office.
"I don't want one of Ghost's operatives in our house, but even if she is, I don't want her dead or sold down some trafficking pipeline if the Leviathans get hold of her for whatever the fuck it is she did to piss them off.”
“If that girl is one of Ghost's operatives, I will eat an entire block of kale flavored tofu,” Top replied just as harshly, his beard jutting out at a near ninety-degree angle as he pursed his lips and clenched his jaw.
“Ghost always talks in riddles. 'Straying into their territory' might be a literal misstep across Leviathan turf. Or she could have interrupted a sale, a delivery, who the fuck knows?
"We'll get to the bottom of it. Until we do, Veracruz and the commandos are keeping an eye on her. They'll keep us apprised. You get anything off her background check?”
Nasa raked his hands through his hair in frustration, taking a violent swing at the air as he made another circuit around the office.
Veracruz and his guys were good, real good, but Nasa didn't like not having eyes on their little messenger.
She'd dumped her fucking cell phone—which was a burner anyway—so the only GPS he had to rely on came from the tracker he'd put on her car.
It could fall off. Dillon could find it and toss it, and then he wouldn't have anything to keep tabs on her whereabouts.
If he'd thought the monstrous bitch wouldn't rip his throat out, he'd have tried to put a tracker on the dog's collar.
“Not a damn thing. She's clean, and I mean ‘clean’ in the way someone with a government issue backstory is clean. She's a spy.”
“I swear, you're getting even more paranoid as you get older.” Top grunted, waving his hand dismissively when Nasa whirled on him with a scowl. “I ain't callin' you a liar or doubting your skills, boy. I'm sayin' something stinks about this whole damn situation.
“Spies who get caught get burned. They're either taken out by us, or by whoever's holdin' their strings. Common knowledge. And if that's so, why is Dillon still breathin'?”
It caused Nasa physical pain to say, “I don't know.”
“You ever tell Ghost about your life before Perdition?”
“Fuck no! The only reason you know is because you got me black out drunk the day I came to sign up as a prospect and wheeled it out of me!”
Top gave a sad, reminiscent sigh. “I miss being able to make snot-nosed punks like you puke their guts up. Good times. Remind me why we don't do that anymore?”
“Background checks are more efficient,” Nasa muttered darkly.
“Apparently not.” Top arched his brows in challenge, which only served to piss Nasa off even more.
“Come back and bust my balls when you actually have something, until then, piss off. She's in good hands with the commandos.”
*****
Pride goeth before the fall.
The old saying continued to pop through Dillon's mind as she did another walk-through of her house. She knew she shouldn't have come back here.
Everything she needed to move on was tucked away in the secret compartment in her Bronco, and the Go-Bag full of spare clothes and supplies she'd need for Elka always sat in the back of the truck.
Her sanctuary was compromised, and after the fear faded to a more manageable level, Dillon decided she was pissed.
She was pissed terror had her shaking in her boots as she walked from room to room, keeping her in a state of hyper-vigilance that had her seeing shadows where there were none.
Dillon knew Ghost must have been stalking her for days, weeks even, to have gotten a sense of what she thought was an unpredictable schedule.
She changed up her routine at the drop of a hat, thinking the spontaneity would help protect her. She rarely ever took the same route into town twice. Elka wasn't even on a regular exercise schedule.
Dillon followed every rule she'd been taught to keep herself safe and had gone so far as to install a biometric security system that utilized the rhythm of her heartbeat to get in and out of the house.
Cameras were everywhere around the ten-acre property. The windows all had an industrial aluminum frame that held in bulletproof glass, and any interruption in the electro-magnetic charge running through every door and window would cause steel shutters rolled down from the inside, providing a completely sealed building.
The doors were reinforced and the exterior of the house was solid brick, the fence surrounding the house completely electrified; motion sensors were everywhere...
Maybe they call him Ghost because he can walk through walls, drawled Dillon's sarcastic inner voice. But ghosts didn't make floorboards creak under their weight.
In the renovation, Dillon purposefully left a few creaky boards throughout the house as another
pre-warning system.
If she hadn’t been drugged, she would have heard the creak and been able to get to cover before the door opened.
She stood in her bedroom, trying to look at it without reliving the horrifying moments where she'd been so sure she was going to die.
The white duvet and blue striped sheets were still rumpled, only one pillow remained on the bed from where Dillon had thrashed and struggled to fight off the remnants of the paralytic.
Her dresser drawer was still open where Ghost had rifled through her underwear for the black bra he’d put on her. He'd even left the oxygen tank behind and strapped to her face to ensure she didn't suffocate after he left her.
Dillon scrubbed her hands through her hair as she sagged back against the door, exhausted and panting like she'd run a marathon.
She wished she could crawl back in bed and pretend the last day hadn't happened, but falling asleep in this room... not happening.
She'd come back to try and figure out where she'd gone wrong and to get a fresh change of clothes and some of Elka's things. It quickly became clear what a mistake it had been. She was too emotional, the fear and trauma too fresh.
Elka gave a low whine, looking up at her in confusion, on edge because Dillon was surfing the wave of a meltdown.
“We're gonna go soon, I just need to get some stuff, okay?” Elka tilted her head to the side in the cutest way. “It'll be alright. I'll find us someplace new to stay. We'll be safe.”
Dillon said the words out loud, but deep down, it didn’t feel like the truth.
Elka didn't dispute, she just sat and patiently waited for Dillon to get herself together, and then followed Dillon around the house like a shadow while Dillon gathered up the things she needed to get through the next few days.
It made Dillon feel better to know there was a load of clean laundry in the dryer, stuff Ghost hadn't touched.
She didn't take any of her electronics, except her external hard drive, none of her toiletries, none of the things in her bedroom, just the clean clothes that got tossed in a spare backpack.
For all she knew, Ghost had tampered with everything. No reason to risk it when most of her stuff could be replaced.
She grabbed Elka's favorite blanket and some collapsible food bowls, and in the kitchen, she pushed the hidden cupboard beneath the island open to reveal the case with her small collection of handguns, her stash of cash, and important documents.
Ghost—that bastard—had taken the Firestar she usually slept with, and Dillon wasn't sure why. If he was as good as Top said, Ghost could get whatever weapons he needed. Why take her pistol?
“Probably just to fuck with me even more,” she growled, preferring to be angry than afraid.
After closing the secret compartment, Dillon set the silver case on the counter and flipped it open, perusing her options.
The Defender was compact enough to fit unobtrusively in her waistband, but if push came to shove and she had to shoot someone to protect herself, the .19 held more bullets.
“Nineteen it is,” she decided, remembering Joshua telling her the difference between life or death was as simple as having more bullets than the other guy.
She took one last look around her home and walked out the door. It would be dark in less than an hour, but the humid heat wouldn't dissipate until well after midnight.
Not even two feet outside, Elka froze, her blade shaped ears swiveling around, alert as she lifted her muzzle to scent at the air.
The hairs on Dillon's arms quivered as she paused behind the wide porch column, looking and listening for whatever had caught Elka's attention.
Ever's pink Harley tee clung to the sweat that broke out on Dillon's skin, her heart thundered in her chest, and adrenaline pumped through her veins, but the hand she had wrapped around the butt of her gun was steady.
There weren't any bird sounds, the bugs in the trees were unusually quiet, and even her human nose could detect the faint scent of cigarette smoke.
It was times like these that learning Elka's attack commands in Russian made sense. Someone was trespassing on her small plot of land, and chances were good they didn't speak a word of Russian.
So, they wouldn't know she'd just quietly told Elka to move forward with her, which sent the dog into full on attack mode.
Elka moved with the grace of a demon, hackles up, head low, ears forward toward the threat only she could hear at this point. It happened fast, but Dillon and Elka had prepared together for a day just like this.
With a word, Dillon sent Elka after the biker coming around the house behind her, leaving Dillon to face the one coming around in front of her.
He wore a face shield with a grotesque skull leering at her over his mouth and nose, leaving only his muddy brown eyes and greasy, windblown tangle of hair visible.
His jeans were streaked with dirt and grease, his T-shirt had likely once been white, but it was now a dingy yellowish gray.
In contrast, his leather vest was immaculately clean. Black, with blue stitching and an octopus patch on the upper left-hand corner.
In a split second, her vision narrowed to the menace in his gaze and the wicked sharp knife he held in his hand. She’d really had enough being threatened with a knife.
Hearing the other biker scream and fall to Elka's brutal attack, Dillon didn't hesitate to fire at her target.
Blood blossomed beneath the octopus patch, right where she'd meant her bullet to go. At the same time, the white siding of her house turned red as the right side of his head exploded.
“What a dumbass,” a man announced with obvious disdain.
Dillon took a step back and crouched behind one of the concrete planters she’d built for cover, glancing sideways to see the other biker down and choking on his last breath, rivers of blood pouring out from the torn flesh of his throat.
Elka was trained to attack, to kill in order to protect Dillon, but it would bother her later to remember the way Elka's teeth were stained red, the froth around her lips pink as she returned to Dillon's unprotected side to snarl and growl warningly.
“Who brings a knife to a gunfight anymore?”
Whoever the new player was, he was somewhere in the treeline, keeping her from making it to the Bronco without leaving the protection of the planter, and obviously, he was an excellent shot.
“You're a dumbass, dumbass,” another voice replied. “Giving away your position before we've had time to assure the lady with very fine aim and one bad bitch on her heel that we're friends. Sloppy, Duke. Fuckin’ sloppy.”
“Fuck you, Matt. Could you have taken that shot any slower?” Duke grumbled.
A third man heaved a sigh and stepped out of the cover of the trees. The sun was behind him, but Dillon could clearly see his outline and the empty hands he held up and out to his sides.
“Dillon DeLoughrey? My name is Tobias. Top called me and my team this morning to say you'd had a run-in with that dickhole, Ghost, and could be facing some problems with his Leviathans.
“I know we're a little late to the party, but we're here to make sure you stay alive. I'm gonna reach in my pocket with two fingers for my phone to call Perdition, okay? Don't shoot.”
Dillon didn't move except to loosen the finger she had curled around the trigger of her gun. Tobias did what he said he would, moving slowly and deliberately to get his cell, putting it on speaker so she could hear it ringing.
The line clicked after two rings, and a familiar voice answered.
“You're an hour late for the check-in, toad whack. Dillon still alive?”
Dillon could just make out Tobias's smile, taking a slow, deep breath as he took a step closer with the hand holding the phone outstretched.
“She is, but we got two dead Leviathan's on the ground, and she shot one of them before Matt could get a bead. You're on speaker so she doesn't shoot me next. Or send the dog after me.”
Tobias definitely found this situation amusing, but like he said, there were two dead men on her prope
rty, and Dillon was responsible for both.
“Given the size of those chompers, you might prefer the bullet,” Top drawled before raising his voice to address her. “Girly, I ain't one to say 'I told you so,' but in case you're not convinced about the severity of your situation, take a gander at those bodies and decide whether or not you want to continue to fly solo or come back here and let me and the boys look after you till we get this shit sorted.”
She let out the breath she'd been holding, about to honestly tell Top that she'd prefer not to have to shoot anyone else and to apologize for being so damn stubborn.
She meant to, right up until Tobias took another step toward her, which put the setting sun behind him, giving her a clear look at his face.
Like the ocean flowing away from the shore to feed the oncoming tsunami, every drop of blood drained from her upper body in a rush.
Her gun fell from her nerveless hands to clatter on the concrete, and all the hours she’d spent training in preparation to face her enemies, completely deserted her.
The heat beating down on her turned to suffocating coldness, darkness consumed her, and the moment before Dillon was lost to the tsunami of pure, undiluted panic, she saw the surprised flare of recognition in Tobias's face.
He said, “Oh, shit.”
Then Dillon was drowning in the sound of her own screams, Elka's enraged barks, and the shouting.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nasa sat hunched over his keyboard, hard rock pumping through the stereo while his eyes tracked back and forth over the data being compiled before him. Even after five hours, he still couldn't find a single thing about Dillon's life that was suspicious.
Which was suspicious.
He'd so far managed to map her movements from traffic camera footage over the past three months, but that was it.
She went from her home to a few different hardware stores, the post office, a storage facility, and back with very few deviations other than to take alternate routes to and from. The map picked up her Bronco parked outside grocery stores, a few health food stores, and gas stations.
