“I’m sorry, boss. I wasn’t laughing at you or the situation. I just haven’t had a zit in a really long time, and I’m not that much younger than the rest of y’all. Tyler did me a favor. If you’re angry with anyone, it should be me, not him…sir.”
“Oh don’t worry, I’m angry all right. I’m angry because when it comes to that woman and her son, you can’t seem to follow orders to save your life. I’m angry because the two of you could have gotten your fool heads blown off down in Florida without backup. I’m angry because you two seem to think you’re lone rangers all of a sudden, and that’s not how my company works. We’re a team—damn it—and like it or not, I’m in charge of that team. You answer to me, Sergeant Major Thompson and Staff Sergeant Petit, or you find yourselves another place to fucking work. When you go off half-cocked like this on some super-secret mission that even your boss isn’t privy to, you put the entire team at risk. You’ve run the risk of pissing off a drug cartel and making every one of us sitting targets.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. I didn’t want my friends hurt or killed because of something stupid I did. I simply wanted Karli and Hunter and their family to be safe. That was never going to happen as long as Guzman is holding some kind of grudge. “I’m sorry, Blake. I didn’t think about it like that.”
“That’s your problem, Leif. You never think with your head. You’re impulsive and you act on emotion alone. That’s more dangerous than not acting at all.”
I nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Please don’t hold this against Tyler, I’m the one to blame for this ‘experiment.’”
“So what the hell were you doing in Miami? Guzman is still in jail in Louisiana.”
“His son is in Miami.”
“His son, the nine year old?”
“He’s ten now, and yes, him.”
“What the hell did you want with his son?”
“A photograph.”
“A photograph? What kind of photograph?”
“I just want him to know that he is not as untouchable as he thinks he is. He thinks it’s okay to terrorize this family by killing their dog and having their little boy kidnapped. He thinks that while he’s here doing these things to my family…I mean, to Judge Morrow’s family that his is sitting safe and pretty in Miami. I simply wanted to show him how easily we can access that place that he thinks is a safe haven for his kid.”
“And you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about this plan before you took off to implement it like two teenagers home alone for the weekend with the keys to Dad’s car?”
I sighed again. My shoulder hurt like hell and my upper back felt like it was on fire. My head was pounding. “I’m sorry, Blake, honestly. I do trust you, and you’re right. We should have talked to you about this first.”
“Give me your phone.” I handed it to him and he pulled up the picture of Enrique, me, and the maid. He stared at it for a minute and then asked, “Who is his mother?”
“Her name is Valeria Hernandez. She’s from Cuba, and according to what Tyler and I were able to figure out, Guzman only lets her see the kid one Saturday a month.”
“Is this the only kid he has?”
“Yeah, that he claims anyways.”
“Go home. I’ll go see Mr. Guzman and make sure he gets your point.”
“You sure, boss?”
“You questioning me again?”
“No, sir, grateful you’re not firing my ass.”
“Who said I wasn’t? Both of you get out of my sight before I decide to do it right now.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BLAKE
I finally finished dealing with Guzman at five that afternoon. I’d gone into the jail to see him armed with the pictures Leif had taken. As pissed as I was that he and Tyler went and did that behind my back, I had to admit that it was an idea worth a shot. Guzman looked at the pictures with disinterest at first, and then he did a quick double-take. “What is that son of a bitch doing in my house, with my son?”
I shrugged. “He tells me he knocked.”
“I bet. What do you want from me, Donovan?” This wasn’t my first face-to-face with Guzman, but I was really hoping it would be my last.
“Since you asked, what I’d really like is for you to plead guilty to the charges pending
against you and give me your word that your dogs will stay away from Judge Morrow and his
family.”
He snorted out a laugh. I kept a straight face. “You’re not kidding?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Then you’re fucking insane. I’m not guilty of the charges against me. They manufactured this B.S. because the judge wanted me in jail.”
“Okay then.” I stood up and picked up the photo of his boy.
He looked at it and said, “I’d kill anyone who hurt him.”
I nodded. “I understand how you might feel that way. I don’t have any kids myself, but I do have friends that would be doing absolutely anything to keep theirs safe. The problem is that killing someone after the fact still leaves you with an injured or dead child…”
“Fuck you! You’re not going to hurt my kid. You’d think you were too good for that.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I do kind of have that Superman complex where it’s all about good and no evil. But…my boy Leif there is very much in love with Judge Morrow’s daughter and her son. He was willing to take two bullets for that boy. He went to Florida and broke into your house to get close to your son even after the fact. I’m losing control of him, so I just can’t make any promises about his behavior.” I left him with that and walked out as he spewed more profanities toward me.
I spent a long day at the office doing shit I hate like working on recruiting and billing. I also had a meeting with an advertising executive because as good as word of mouth works for us in Louisiana, I was thinking it might be time to reach out to a broader audience. Finally, at close to two a.m., I realized I was simply stalling at that point. I didn’t want to go home—and that pissed me off. I wasn’t afraid of whoever was stalking me, I was just pissed. I’d always been of a mind that when you had a problem with someone, you should just have a face-to-face. All this waiting for the next break-in or phone call or tail on the freeway was wearing on me. It seemed like it was beginning to take up way too much of my time.
When I got to the house, I parked my car in the driveway and walked across the street. When the guys and I checked out the empty house the week before we’d found evidence that someone had been there…like food containers and trash. But there were so many fingerprints because of the house being shown so many times that it was impossible to get a handle on exactly who had been in and out of there. I took out my gun and flashlight tonight and walked around the perimeter of it. I didn’t see anything suspicious, so I walked to the end of the street and back and around the perimeter of my townhouse before finally going inside. I was slipping my key into the lock when I heard Jules’ door open. I looked over and she was standing there in a pair of shorts and a tank top. Her hair was messy like she’d been sleeping and she had a shadow of eyeliner underneath her eyes that gave them a smoky, sleepy look. No, that wasn’t right…it was sexy, way too sexy.
“Hey, what are you doing up so late?”
She smiled. “Maybe I’m up early.”
I looked at my watch. It was after three. “Either way, it’s a fucking ungodly hour.”
“True. I’m not a very good sleeper.”
“Neither am I, obviously.”
“Are you turning in now?”
I really was tired, but damn she looked good. I could manage another hour if it was spent in the company of a gorgeous woman. “I don’t have to, what did you have in mind?”
“Well, we never had that coffee.”
“We didn’t, did we?” I hadn’t found out anything about the mystery caller either—and I hadn’t heard from her since. It was getting frustrating as hell—and the more I looked for Dana Stanton, the more I began to believe s
he was a ghost. Somehow...she seemed to evade me at every turn.
Jules stepped back and opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
I followed her inside her townhouse and came to a dead stop just inside the door. On the wall above the fireplace mantle was a painting of a man in a uniform. It was the exact same uniform we wore in the Special Ops unit I was in. He was probably only twenty, or maybe twenty-one—and he had dark hair and eyes and looked a lot like Jules. He looked slightly familiar to me, but maybe that was just because he looked so much like her.
“That’s my brother,” she said as she closed the door behind me.
“When did he serve?”
“He was in from 2010 to 2011.”
Only a year said that he was either discharged early for some reason, went AWOL, or died. None of them were good scenarios. I walked over closer and looked at the portrait. Something about him seemed familiar to me. “What unit did he serve in?”
“He was in the one hundred second.”
I turned and looked at her. That was the unit I’d served with just briefly before receiving my promotion and command…in 2010. She was smiling at me, but I suddenly got a chill down my spine.
“Jules, what is this about?”
“I’m sorry…I don’t know what you’re asking? I thought we were just having coffee.”
Maybe I was just being paranoid or even narcissistic….it didn’t always have to be about me, but it seemed like way too much of a coincidence that she just happened to rent the townhouse next to mine after her brother served in one of the same units I did. It was the unit from where most of my nightmares stemmed as well. Something was off here. “I thought so too, but I can’t help but think that your brother serving in one of the same units I did is a pretty big coincidence.”
She shrugged. “I guess it is. But I can promise you Blake, I have no agenda here. Just coffee.”
I nodded and warily followed her into the kitchen. I sat down at the table while she poured us each a cup and then sat mine down in front of me.
“So, where are you from originally Jules?”
“We moved around a lot,” she said. “Daddy was a career military man. He served in Vietnam, Korea, and he did one tour in Desert Storm before he retired. My brother always wanted to be like him. Daddy was our hero. We settled here when I was in high school, and I’ve been here since…at least in Louisiana. I went to high school in Shreveport. What about you?”
“I grew up here, or just outside of here in the Terrebonne Parish.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re Cajun?”
“No, but my father’s family had always lived near the swamps, so that’s where we lived. I grew up pretty fluent in Cajun French and with a lot of their traditions and beliefs.”
“So do you believe in dark magic?”
“Um, like voodoo?”
“Yeah, aren’t Cajuns into all of that?” I thought about Granny…Ryder’s Granny. She fancied herself a “white” voodoo priestess. She didn’t practice any of the black magic, but she believed in the power of the mind and the potions that she swore by.
“Some of them are I guess, but it’s not like you see on TV where everyone down there in the swamps are casting dark spells. They’re just a little more spiritual than most, I suppose. Does your family still live in Louisiana?”
“No,” her expression darkened for just a second as she said, “They’re all gone.”
“Gone? Your parents passed away?”
“Yep. My parents and my brother. We lost two good men courtesy of the U.S. Government, and Mama went not long afterwards. I don’t want to talk about that right now though; it just makes me sad.”
“Sure, I’m sorry for your losses.”
She smiled at me, but this one seemed forced. I still had that creepy feeling. I picked up my coffee and sipped it as she said, “Thank you. So what made you want to be a bodyguard?”
“When I got out of the army, I was just slightly lost. I didn’t know what to do with myself because the only thing I was really good at was the army.”
“Killing people?”
“No…I mean, yes, while I was over there I killed a few people because I had to. But there was a lot more to my job than killing people.”
“Were you an officer?”
“Yes.”
“So you may not have killed a lot of people, but you gave the command for your men to do it instead, right?”
“Jules, this conversation has an odd feel to it. Is there something that you’re trying to say, or some reason you resent me?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, refilling the inch of coffee that I’d drank. “Drink your coffee…we’ll talk about something else.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
LEIF
“You keep staring at her like you’re afraid she’ll disappear.” Blake walked up next to me and caught me looking at Karli. I guess that’s not a hard thing to do because when she’s around, I can hardly force myself to look at anything else. Ryder’s Granny had invited us all out to Houmas for a cochon de laits. There were about a hundred people here, and the smell of roasting pig filled the air. The kids were running around, chasing each other and having a good time, and the adults were getting drunk or feasting on the other side dishes while they waited for the pig to be served. Music was playing loudly in the background, and I had to step a little closer to Blake to keep from yelling.
“I reckon I still can’t believe she wants to be with me. Now I’m just wondering where to go from here.”
“You don’t need the birds and the bees talk, do you?”
If it had been any one of the guys other than Blake, they would have gotten the finger. Blake got honesty instead. “I think that part I can manage, I hope anyways. I don’t want to do anything that doesn’t make her happy or leave her satisfied. The thing is that I’m twenty-five years old and I’ve never been in a relationship. I’ve never even been on a real date except with Karli—and both times we did that, I ended up screwing things up somehow. I don’t want to move too fast or too slow…Jesus, boss, I just don’t want to mess this up. I’m not only crazy about her now, but there’s also Hunter to think about. Before I knew him, it was like a little piece of my heart died every time I screwed things up with her, but now that piece doubled in size—and I don’t know if I could survive losing both of them.”
Blake smiled and said, “Then it’s simple, just don’t screw it up.”
“Simple, huh?”
“Yeah. Anyone can see how Karli looks at you. She’s looked at you like that since the first day we walked into the mansion and she had a fit about you being there. She is crazy about you…”
“She loves me.” I couldn’t resist. I loved saying it out loud.
Blake rolled his eyes and said, “Fine, she loooovesss you.” He laughed then and said, “My point is that you have her now, Leif. All you have to do is keep her. What’s the one thing you know she hates more than anything? What’s the one thing you did that she couldn’t tolerate?”
“I lied to her, over and over.”
“Then it’s simple like I said. She already…loves you. The hard part is over. Now you just have to nourish the relationship by making sure you give her what she needs and none of what she doesn’t. Don’t lie to her. No matter how mad you think she’s going to get, a lie always makes things worse in the end.”
“Boy did I figure that out the hard way. Can I ask you another question?”
“What’s that?”
“What about things like what we did with Guzman? She knows that Tyler and I went to Florida, and she keeps asking what we did there. So far I haven’t told her anything because I don’t want to lie…I also don’t want to tell her we threatened a little boy. Somehow I don’t think she’ll be happy about that.”
“We never threatened that little boy first of all. We simply used a picture of him to let his father know how easily we could get to his family…if we were so inclined. You and I know that we’d never follow through o
n it.” Thankfully, Guzman didn’t. He never contacted Blake again, but the next time he went to court, his lawyer entered a “no contest” plea. They took the deal the D.A. was offering, five years in prison. It would at least be a reprieve for Karli’s family.
“So always the truth, no matter what…that’s the key?”
Blake laughed and said, “For me that would be the key, but look who you’re talking to kid. I’m thirty years old and I’ve never been in a serious relationship. Maybe you should run it by one of the other guys. Tyler and Ryder seem to have it figured out.” I looked over at Ryder. He and Alicia were sitting with his grandmother—and Ryder had the baby on his lap. Alicia was looking at them both with so much love in her eyes that there was a time in my life I would have turned green with envy. Today, I was just happy for my friend. I glanced over at Karli. She was talking to Tyler but she must have felt me looking at her because she turned and smiled. My heart swelled, and when Hunter came over and took my hand and asked me to play ball with him and his new friends it nearly burst. I never thought that I was capable of so much love, and I really never believed that I deserved it in return. I’m still working on that self-confidence thing, but at least Karli and Hunter both know that when I say, “I’d take a bullet for you, that I really mean it.”
********
KARLI
While Leif and Hunter played ball, I walked over to talk with Ryder’s Granny. Leif had brought us out the week before, and the little woman had fed us so much that we nearly had to be rolled out to our car when we left. She was hands down the most interesting woman that I’d ever met, and she seemed to have a better handle on what everyone was thinking and feeling then they did themselves.
“Hi Granny.”
“Hello beautiful,” she said in her cute little Cajun accent. “How you doin’ today?”
“I’m doing good, Granny. How about you?”
“Baby, my heart is so full.” She looked over at Ryder, and I could see the pride all over her face. “Dat boy was raised up in a trailer surrounded by gators and a crazy old woman and look at him now. I’m a lucky old woman.”
LEIF (Blake Security Book 3) Page 14
