“Where are we going?” Crow asked. I had to find out why the hell they called him Crow, but not now. Later, when we weren’t being hunted.
“To the nearest bus station,” I instructed the taxi driver.
“Bus?” Crow asked.
“We need to get as far away from here as possible as fast as possible. They’ll be looking for us, and they’ve clearly got connections if they can afford to rent a private jet to fly us all over the country.”
Crow scooted closer to me in the back seat as the hanger disappeared in the distance. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the view out of the rear window. Dark clouds hung in the sky and I wondered if a storm was looming. But the weather wasn’t my priority now; I wanted to make sure no one was following us. And by no one, I meant Lev and Tin. I knew they wouldn’t be far behind. I wondered if I’d ever get over the feeling of being hunted.
“Are you okay?” He wrapped his arm around my waist, and this time I leaned into him. I was getting used to having him near me. He was the constant in this storm of impossibilities.
“I’m okay. Tired.” My ears still rang from the torture Lev put us through, and I needed a shower in the worst way. I could still smell Crow on my skin, though, and it was beginning to be a comfort.
“Why don’t you sleep until we get there? I’ll keep watch.”
“Later. We can check into a hotel and get a good night’s rest.” I sent him a shy smile. “But thanks. You’re a good guy. If I was going to be trapped with anyone, I’m glad it was you.”
A pink tinge colored his cheeks underneath the scruff of beard. “You don’t have to say that. I know you must hate me after what happened. I feel like a monster.”
I wrapped my hand around his waist. “You’re not a monster, Crow.”
“It’s Brandon,” he said.
“Brandon? Why do they call you Crow?” I asked, unable to help myself given the opportunity. Curiosity got the best of me.
He lifted a shoulder and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “My dad used to call me Scarecrow because I was a skinny, tall thing growing up. It kind of stuck, and I guess I’ve been Crow ever since.”
“Do you like it?”
“Would you?” he said with a little laugh.
I leaned my head against his arm. “Then from now on, to me, you’re Brandon.”
He met my eyes at my words. “I’d like that.”
“Good. I don’t want you to feel bad about what happened. It wasn’t your fault. You were just as much a victim as I was. You were only doing what you had to in order to protect us. I forgive you.”
“You shouldn’t. I hate to admit it, but I liked it. I’m horrible.”
“I liked it, too. And I do forgive you. It wasn’t your fault,” I repeated until I felt the tension dissolve in his arms around me. “It wasn’t. If anything, it’s mine. I’m the reason you’re in this shitty situation in the first place. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be at the base, safe and sound.”
“I’d do it again,” he said stubbornly. “So, I could be with you.”
“You’re stubborn, you know that?”
“As an ox,” he agreed.
“Then let’s make a deal. You forgive yourself for what happened in the cabin, and I’ll forgive myself for dragging you into my problems, though I think you’re getting the short end of the stick here.”
Silence descended in the scant space between us, and he nodded slowly, then leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my brow. “Deal,” he said into my hair.
I was dirty and sore, tired and broken, but my blood still warmed at his touch. I couldn’t help the rush of memories from that night. His hands on my skin. His lips against mine. I wanted to pull his face down to mine, put his lips where I really wanted them.
“We’re here,” the cab driver said, breaking me from Brandon’s spell.
Brandon. It fit him so much better than Crow. Kind and thoughtful like the man himself.
I paid the cab driver with money I’d stolen from an unsuspecting woman in the airport bathroom. Who leaves their purse unattended on the counter, anyway? Or carries that much cash around. A wave a guilt for stealing crashed over me but I quickly pushed it away.
“What now?” he asked as we disembarked and melted into the crowd.
“We’ll get a ticket to Topeka. Then we’ll take a taxi to my Aunt Glinda’s house. This all goes back to Uncle Henry. She has to have a clue what’s going on. I never found anything of importance in his home, but Aunt Glinda may know. You can leave if you want. Go back home. Or anywhere else. It’s the least I can do for what you’ve done for me.”
It wasn’t until the words left my mouth that I realized how much I hoped he’d turn me down. Selfish though it may be, I didn’t want to do this alone. But more importantly, I didn’t want to be without him.
“I’m not leaving you,” he said, his tone making it clear that he wasn’t going to budge.
Relief washed over me, and I let him tug me close as we navigated through the crowd to the ticket counter. We booked tickets for the next bus to Topeka. In a way, I was glad I didn’t have my ID or debit card. I knew Tin was smart—too smart. If we didn’t put distance between us, it wouldn’t take him long to track us down.
I checked the tickets the agent had given me. “We’ve got about an hour before our bus. Why don’t we use some of this extra money and get a change of clothes? I saw on the map next to the counter there’s one of those travel stations nearby with showers that truckers use on long hauls. We could shower, change, and get some food to refuel before we leave. I don’t know about you, but I need to get clean. Plus, it’ll make it harder for them to track us if we look different.”
“A shower sounds like heaven.”
It could have been normal, the two of us shopping for clothes at a nearby strip mall. It almost felt normal. Cr—Brandon, I corrected myself, was so patient with me as my jumpiness kept me otherwise distracted. He picked out a pair of jeans and a soft sweater in under two minutes, the deep blue making his own blue eyes stand out even more. The material made me want to put it on him and stroke.
I found a pair of jeans and a sweater of my own, settling for black to blend in. I grabbed a change of underwear, soap and toothpaste, a combo bottle shampoo and conditioner, a razor and some deodorant. Brandon got a bar of soap and deodorant as well and we carried our belongings over to travel station and paid for two showers and a couple of towels.
I hesitated at the entrance to the shower, afraid to be away from him, but he squeezed my hand. “I’ll be right here,” he said. “Quickest shower of my life, I promise. You’ll feel better once you’ve changed. Then we’ll get something to eat.”
“You’re right. Of course, you’re right. I’m being stupid.”
He tipped my chin up with his thumb. “Don’t ever say you’re stupid,” he said with a grim expression.
There it was again. The urge to kiss him. I couldn’t, we’d been through too much. It was timing of the worst sort. So instead, I said, “Let’s get this over with so we can get out of here.”
He nodded and disappeared into the men’s showers. I did the same in the women’s, and though I wanted to linger under the hot spray of water, I didn’t have the luxury of time. I didn’t have a brush and my long, dark hair would be a mess by the time I was done, but at least it would be clean. It felt like heaven to wash the grime and trauma off of my skin.
The shower shut off just as I was stepping out to dry off. I toweled off and dressed quickly, not liking being alone, which wasn’t like me. I’d been alone a lot as a child. Mom used to leave me in our apartment to go off with her most recent trick. I had to feed and take care of myself from a young age. But over the past few days being locked in a room with Crow, I’d gotten used to having him near and it felt like being naked without him around.
After finger combing my hair, I shrugged and placed all my old stuff in the bags our stuff had come in and shoved them deep into the trash can. I quickly brushed my teeth as best I could and called it g
ood enough. We had about fifteen minutes to book it back to the bus station when I stepped out of the bathroom and found Brandon waiting for me, leaning against the wall opposite of me.
His dirty blonde hair was darker from the water, and I was right. The dark blue sweater did make his eyes look even more amazing. My mouth went dry at the sight of him in well-fitted jeans over his roughed-up boots. When he pushed himself off the wall and came up to me, I forgot how to speak.
“Good?” he asked, and the sound of his voice made me remember what it had felt like when he’d been inside me. I should have hated it, should have run from him, but the trauma was eclipsed by how gentle he’d been, and how he’d been trying to protect me from the beginning.
“Good,” I croaked.
He took my hand in one of his and we walked in silence to the bus station. Me because I couldn’t get around the lump in my throat and him because he wasn’t one for extraneous words. There was a strange intimacy in the horror of what we’d been through.
We both slept on the bus ride to Topeka. We were low on cash, but once I got to Aunt Glinda’s I could retrieve my backup identification and raid my savings. Thank God, I had a nest egg from working two jobs every day since I turned sixteen.
Brandon hailed a taxi. I gave him the address and despite myself, fell asleep in the cab.
“Dorothy.”
I woke to find Brandon leaning over me, one of his hands brushing back my hair. “We’re here.”
Sitting up, I wiped my eyes and found Aunt Glinda’s house in front of us. My heart leapt into my throat until the door opened and a woman stepped out.
“Aunt Glinda!” I said and burst from the taxi.
13
Tin
“Where the fuck are they?” I screamed at Lev.
But I knew that Dorothy escaping wasn’t Lev’s fault. It was mine.
Mine.
I was a fucking failure
I failed at everything.
My marriage. My Team. My mission. It was a wonder that I survived Hell Week.
And now, I had failed at delivering Dorothy.
The wizard would kill me.
Maybe I’d be better off dead.
Fuck. I needed to take control now.
Think, motherfucker think!
I grabbed my cell phone.
Bingo.
Dorothy may be smart, but Crow was dumb.
Though we had confiscated his phone when we captured him, we had left his watch on. And unbeknownst to him, Lev had isolated the signal and was tracking him right now.
I knew exactly where they were.
I placed my hand on Lev’s shoulder. “Good job, bro. I know exactly where they are. Thanks to you.”
A wave of satisfaction graced Lev’s face. “Anytime, man. Let’s get them.”
I shook my head. Amateur. Lev clearly had never hunted down someone. “Nope. Not so fast. We know where they are. But I don’t give a fuck about Dorothy. We don’t want her.” I lied. I did want her. I wanted everything about her. I wanted to taste her. Fuck her. Make her come again. Being inside her was the only time lately I could forget the monster I had become. “We want the shoes—they had an electronic chip inside that the wizard needs. I wasn’t surprised that she brought fake heels to the Arctic—she would’ve been stupid enough to bring the real ones there. Her goal of going to the Arctic was to find me. She succeeded. But if we chase her down now, we lose the chance of her leading us to the chip. We need to let her think that we can’t find her.”
“Yeah. That makes way more sense. She seems to really like Crow, too. I mean, you should’ve seen them the other day, the way he fucked her. She fucking loved it.”
“Yeah, that’s why I let him live. We can turn him later.” I cocked my eyebrow. “What’s your deal, dude? Can’t get it up? Why didn’t you fuck her?”
Lev shook his head, his long hair cascading over his shoulders. “You don’t have a clue about me. I can fuck. I’m a beast. It’s not about that.”
He piqued my interest. “Then what is it.”
“Not gonna tell you.”
Ah, I got it. “What was her name?”
Lev took an audible gasp. “Bri.”
Bri. Her name was enough for now. I’d get under his skin later.
I grabbed my seabag, hailed a taxi, and Lev and I climbed in.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
“The nearest bar.” I hadn’t had a drink in a few days. I needed to get wasted. Lev was Russian; I was sure he could hold his own. A Russian mafioso and a Navy SEAL walked into a bar. Sounded like a fucking joke. And my life was a fucking joke.
The truth was, I was lonely. As a SEAL, my Teammates were supposed to be my brothers. Supposed was the keyword here. But they fucking hated my guts. And the feeling was mutual. Just because I spoke my mind and didn’t cover for their bullshit. I did not drink their Kool-Aid. Clearly, I was meant to operate alone.
The taxi driver pulled up at some hole in the wall bar. Definitely different from the pretty dives back in San Diego. Back there, the goal of bars was to buy Instagrammable drinks so all the pretty girls could post them to their accounts. The women out there cared more about getting followers than getting to know you.
I tipped the driver and Lev and I walked into the bar. Just what I expected—dusty, dated, and dark. I slid up to the counter and ordered a whiskey. Lev decided to remain a stereotype and ordered a vodka, straight.
The smooth liquor coated my throat and my nerves began to relax. I quickly checked the app to make sure Crow hadn’t figured out he was being tracked. Lucky for me, the dumb motherfucker had no clue.
“They’re at a bus stop around ten miles away from here. We will monitor where they go. But a storm is coming in; possible tornado looming. We need to make sure we monitor it.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Lev’s accent hung thick in the smoky air. Where had the wizard found this guy? Why did he trust him? I trusted no one.
“So, how did you meet the wizard?”
Lev knocked back his shot, then ordered another. “Back in Russia. He was working overseas on some new app and needed a man who knew his way around the city and spoke English. You?”
I downed my own drink. “He made a Navy SEAL So Com video game and needed some SEALs to model the moves. It was a week-long job, fun as shit. In Hollywood, just shooting guns and clearing buildings. Then he asked me to retrieve the shoes from Henry. I thought it would be an easy mission, but when I got there, there were no shoes.”
Lev looked me square in the eyes. “So, you killed him anyway? That’s what Dorothy said.”
I shook my head. “Nope.” But I left it at that. He didn’t know the details. What I did. What I saw. Who the wizard really was. The wizard may trust him, but he needed to prove himself to me.
One drink turned into five. By the end of the night, we were blazed. Surprisingly, Lev was funny as shit. And he could keep up with me.
We stumbled down the street. Lev was singing some Russian songs. I found a motel, and we checked in.
Once inside, we both collapsed on our own queen beds.
“Truth or dare,” he asked.
“Always the dare.” I never told my truth.
“No, man. I have questions for you. Seriously.”
“Fine, Lev. What do you want to know?”
“Why did you leave your SEAL Team? You spend your entire life making the Team, and then you throw your career away? For what? For some money for the wizard. You, at least, have a life, I have nothing. Leaving Russia was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I detected a hint of sadness in his voice.
“My Team cost me everything.”
“What is everything? What do you mean?”
I ignored his question. I didn’t want to face what I had done. How my blind loyalty to my Team had cost me my life.
My love.
A love that I had never shared with her.
She had died thinking I was heartless.
&
nbsp; And you know what? She was right.
****
I woke the next morning with a wicked hangover and some texts from the Wizard.
But I didn’t answer him, yet. Not until I had Dorothy. And the shoes. He hired me because I could handle it.
And that was exactly what I was going to do.
I threw my own shoe at Lev, and he bolted out of bed.
“What?”
“What? Get the fuck up. Dorothy is at some house.”
Lev threw back his mane of hair and hit the head. When he was finished, I took a quick shower, for once not dreading the day.
Today, I would reunite with Dorothy. My Team was looking for me, no doubt, but for now, I was in charge. Yes, I would retrieve the shoes for the Wizard, but that was my choice. And I would be handsomely rewarded. Handsomely rewarded enough I could vanish forever.
I checked the app, and Dorothy was forty miles out of town. We checked out of the hotel, took a taxi to the rental car place, Lev paid with his card so the SEALs couldn’t track me, and we were on our way.
I blasted metal music for our trip, and thankfully Lev didn’t complain. The dude was growing on me.
Even so, I wanted to know what his deal was.
“Are you married or something?”
He shook his head. “No. Why do you ask that?”
“Because you seem normal enough. I don’t get why you didn’t fuck Dorothy. You asked for Crow to rape her. That’s fucked up. I wouldn’t even do that.” And I was fucked up.
“Why is this such a big deal to you?”
“I just don’t get it. She’s beautiful. You forced another man to rape her. You’re a monster. And if that’s your kink, at least do it yourself.”
“Don’t you get it, Tin? I’m a fucking coward. I could never do that to a woman. Ever. Take her against her will if she didn’t want me. I may look big and bad, but I’m a pussy.”
I almost felt bad for the guy. But if anyone could teach him how to have courage, not to rape a woman which I would never allow happen, but real courage, then it would be me.
With that, he just stared out into the plains, dark clouds swirling above.
Desiring Dorothy Page 7
