by Casey Hagen
“Is it weird that this seems like a version of my brother going in with all of his friends to kick my abusive boyfriend’s ass, only on steroids?”
He laughed and squeezed her hand.
“Xavier, I think you’ve met all the guys before. Laramie, my team, a few of which you’ve met, but in case you forgot their names, this Slyder, Cole, Evan, of course you know Jake, and Zane,” Dylan said, gesturing to each one. “And this lot over here, they’ve been integral to helping us solve cases, getting New Hope running, even going so far as to invest and find investors to launch the facility. This is Tex, our hacker extraordinaire, not that he wants us to mention it. If anyone asks, you know nothing about that. And Wolf, Abe, Cookie, Mozart, Benny, and Dude.”
Xavier glanced down to find that she’d suddenly gone quiet. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just—they’re all here for me. I don’t know what to say,” she said, giving them all a nervous smile and wave.
Wolf stepped in and shook Xavier’s hand, his gaze on Laramie the entire time. The look in his dark eyes, the way he studied her, Xavier would guarantee Wolf’s thoughts went back to that night, the night that Xavier filled them in on his new patient’s precarious position before Sorelli showed up and plunged the center into chaos. “Good work, Thorne.”
He offered Laramie his hand next. “You don’t have to say anything. You hadn’t even been here a full twenty-four hours when we last came here. Thorne over here was wrung out keeping you alive. You look good. Damn good. A few warrior scars make you like all of us,” he said with a quick wink. “How’s that little girl of yours?”
Except Xavier. He didn’t carry a one, unless you counted the unseen scars and the scar tissue that lingered from past mistakes.
“Oh, uh—wow, she’s good. She’s going to be great,” Laramie said, her eyes glistening.
“I’m glad to hear it. I hope we get to meet her sometime,” Wolf said, letting go of her hand and taking a step back. “Tex, Abe, and Benny were here that night, too. We were all pulling for you.”
“Thank you,” she said, nodding to all of them.
“Listen, I don’t want to break up the chitchat, but we’re going to have to address the current situation and come up with a plan,” Dylan said.
“How late is our guy at this point?” Wolf asked.
“Forty-two minutes,” Tex said, looking down at his phone with a grimace. “No calls, no texts, radio silence.”
“What are you thinking?” Dylan asked.
“I really thought he was on the up-and-up, but now I have to wonder if he’s part of this too,” Tex said.
“No way. I won’t believe that. He’s known where those women were this whole time. If he were a part of it—if that’s true, they might not even be there now. He might have—no, I just don’t believe it. You haven’t met him. I have. He could never do this. He’s like you guys.”
“How do you mean?”
“Good—I don’t know how to say it, but he’s good to the core. I just can’t believe he’d have any part in this. Men like him…like you, they’re rare. The more I’m around you guys, the easier you are to spot, and I’m betting I’m right.”
“Okay, look…we’re not going to go there yet,” Lucas said.
“We need to consider that if that is the case, we might not be able to afford waiting much longer,” Abe said, checking the clip of his gun. “It’s time to consider taking Laramie.”
Xavier froze, the absolute worst-case scenario now front and center. He stared at Abe but didn’t see him as nightmare scenarios of the hundreds, possibly thousands of ways this could go wrong cycled through his mind.
Lucas glanced at his sister, his mouth taut, his eyes hard.
Laramie glanced between the two of them and took each of their hands. “I can do this.”
A buzzing filled the room. Zane, Lucas, Jake, Dylan, Slyder, Cole, and Evan all reached for their phones.
“We’ve got company,” Zane said.
“You think it’s him?” Tex asked.
Zane brought up the camera system at the front gate and showed it to Tex. “Looks like our guy, right?”
“That’s him,” Tex confirmed, relief in his voice.
“Approving him now. Between the drive in and scanning him into our system, we’ve got about ten minutes, and then we can put together our plan and head out,” Zane said, tapping away at his phone screen. “I’ll meet him in the lobby and bring him in.”
“Scanning him?” Laramie asked, glancing up at Xavier.
“Into the security system,” he answered, a whole new tension filling him as doubts continued to linger. What if Harland was just playing the part, getting into their system, then turning on them once inside?
Not that he’d have much of a chance in here, but if he only had one target, he could likely take it out before they took him out.
And if that seed of doubt was wrong, that meant Laramie would stay here with him where nothing could touch her while they brought the women to safety. Yeah, he’d focus on that.
“What security system? I thought there were just gates,” Laramie said beside him.
“That’s what you’re supposed to think. Zane created a security system that scans us every second of every day. Constantly measuring. If anyone attempts to make it past that gate who’s not in the system, the place locks down,” Lucas explained.
“When you say scans us…”
“Height, weight, body mass, dimensions, it can even detect if you’ve cut your hair,” Lucas said, probably figuring he was reassuring her.
She narrowed her eyes and bit her lip. “I don’t know if I should be scared or impressed.”
“And that’s why we don’t tell the residents here. They need to feel safe without feeling like they’re in a prison. You should see the bunkers your brother designed,” he said, feeling a whole lot lighter and eager to chat now that Harland had arrived.
Laramie wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Laramie met Harland’s eyes the minute he came through the door, and a wave of relief flooded her. Tears streaked down her face, and she ran to him.
“Hey there, honey,” he said and scooped her right off the floor, hugging her tight. “God, it’s good to see you.”
“For a minute there I thought—”
“Shhhh, I know. I got caught behind one hell of a mess with a cattle crossing, and my phone is dead out here. But don’t worry, I’m one of the good guys,” he said as he set her down on her feet and smoothed her hair away from her face. “And soon we’re going to put that son of a bitch away along with every monster who helped him along the way, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling through the tears. “I want you to meet someone.” She reached for the doc and tugged on his jacket until he stood next to her. “This is the doc.”
“Xavier Thorne,” Xavier said, reaching out a hand.
“You’re the man who saved her,” Harland said, shaking his offered hand.
The doc glanced down at her and gave her a slow, sexy smile, and her heart tripped in her chest. “I think we saved each other.”
Harland’s gaze darted between the two of them, his hazel eyes widening a bit and a grin splitting his face. “So that’s the way of it?”
“Yeah,” she sighed, looking up at the doc. “Definitely. And this over here, this is my brother Lucas.”
“Good to meet you. Thank you for what you did for my sister,” he said, blowing out a rough breath.
Harland nodded. “Anytime. She’s a tough one. One of the strongest women I’ve met. It’s been an honor to help her.”
“Okay, guys, now that we’re all here, it’s time to get down to business. Caine still hasn’t been found so let’s get these women out before he decides to show up on our doorstep,” Dylan said.
Dylan made a quick round of introductions, and Harland laid out a map of the property off of Range Road on the outskirts of Mead. “Okay, guys, we’re easy on, easy off the interstate. The property is an old mil
“The guard post?” Lucas said.
“That’s right. Under the desk, there’s a mechanism that pops a series of locks leading to the underground shelter. That’s where we’re headed,” Harland said.
“What’s this here?” Dylan asked to lines that formed a corridor of sorts on the map.
Tunnels, that connected to the old air field at one time. They’re closed off now.
Lucas whistled low. “They’ve been underground this whole time?”
“They’ve had the freedom to come and go, but it’s complicated. I’ve had a relative of mine leaving supplies there for them to retrieve once he’s off the property. He has a ranch about thirty miles from there, and he was the only one I could trust. I couldn’t uproot myself because my wife is expecting, and I need to stay close to home for the most part,” Harland said.
The same alarms buzzed from before, and everyone in the room froze. “We’re not expecting anybody else, right?”
“No, we’re not,” Zane said, bringing up his camera system. He squinted down at the screen then with his thumb and index finger he zoomed in. “Jesus!” He pressed a button on his screen and started barking out orders. “Get an ambulance to the gatehouse. Now!”
“What is it?” her brother asked, opening a door on the wall and pressing a series of buttons that lowered a screen from the ceiling. They all whipped around in time for the screen to come to life, the image of a body lying against the gate.
Guards scrambled from out of the gatehouse and crouched down around the woman in a flurry of activity. One applied pressure to wounds; another looked for a pulse. Everything played out in agonizing detail with their technology.
“We need transport! We’ve got gunshot wounds. To the arm, chest, and—fuck, her abdomen. She’s pregnant. Best guess at least seven months.”
Xavier was already out the door, his white coat billowing behind him.
A roaring filled Laramie’s ears, and her skin ran cold. No one knew where her husband was, and now a pregnant woman is dumped right at the front gates of New Hope. It could be total coincidence, but her gut—the same gut that screamed at her to follow him that very first night—screamed at her again.
Caine liked to fuck with people. To torment them by taking the most precious thing in their life and using it against them.
What better way to send a clear message to Harland and Laramie, the people who not only took the very women he used as a human breeding farm, but Harland with a pregnant wife at home, than to injure a pregnant woman and dump her right at their doorstep?
She couldn’t keep up with the flurry that followed. Vests were on in a matter of seconds. Firearms were secured.
Lucas grabbed her hand, and they all ran to the emergency entrance next to the lobby, waiting for the woman to be brought through.
A weird stillness filled the air, a thick silence suffocating them all in a blanket of unease. She fought to catch her breath, her heart racing with bone-deep trepidation.
The men surrounding her, though, their eyes took on this edge, focused and assessing, as though they’d all gone into some mode that she wasn’t privy to. Even Harland.
Xavier hadn’t come back, not that she expected him to. He had a job to do, and she wouldn’t distract him from it. Glancing down the hall, she spotted a flurry of activity at the nurses’ station. Dr. Keith and who she only assumed was Dr. Brewer flew past, and she exhaled a sigh of relief knowing that Xavier wouldn’t be tackling this alone.
The ambulance skidded to a halt outside the doors, and in seconds paramedics, four of them, rushed inside, one hand on the gurney, their other hands on various gunshot wounds. Blood bubbled between their fingers, running over the backs of their hands as they tried to staunch the flow.
A redhead. Her eyes open and unfocused. Laramie caught the sound of her wheeze through parted lips as they whisked her past. Her bloody hands rested on her stomach, her fingertips clutching her baby.
Each of the men looked at her, a lethal look entering their eyes, their jaws tight with rage. Laramie watched her brother’s face morph, focusing on just him as a barrage of emotions flooded through her, choking her. She needed the familiar face, an anchor to some type of life before this, before the pain, the blood, the death.
She tried to grasp on to childhood memories, anything to keep her from losing herself in the tragedy unfolding before her. To keep her from wondering if what Harmony saw that night was this horrific, or God forbid worse.
A guttural cry split the silence—anguish so deep she forgot to breathe, her gaze searching for the source.
Harland.
He broke before their very eyes. Never looking away from the gurney even as they crossed into the inner sanctum, leaving him behind.
The woman disappeared out of sight, and when the man who’d been Laramie’s rock fell to his knees—she knew.
His wife’s blood stained his hands.
Chapter 18
“Time of death, three forty-eight,” Xavier called to Diedre as he read the clock on the wall.
Mack Brewer stepped in, frustration and anger radiating from him. “This is where I’m supposed to say, ‘At least we got the baby out,’ but fuck that.”
Xavier dragged off his protective apron, balled it up, and tossed it to the floor. “How is she?”
“Stable, but we need to move her. Life Flight is on the way. ETA is eleven minutes from now. They’ll take her to Cedars-Sinai where they’ve got a team waiting. Her lungs are underdeveloped, and she’s got a bullet wound to the leg.” Mack glanced down at the mother, his mouth tight.
“We need to get an ID on her. Try to find the father—what?” Xavier asked, the hair standing up on his neck at the surprise on Mack’s face.
“No one told you.”
“Told me what?”
“Her name is Charlotte East. Harland East’s wife.”
Xavier staggered on his feet, his adrenaline crashing. His breath rasped as ice-cold terror took over, and a stifling fog of grief settled over him.
This had all been done by design. The ultimate vile act to knock them off balance. Orchestrated by a man hell bent on making his wife pay if it’s the last thing he did.
“He needs to go to Cedars to be with his daughter,” he whispered, swallowing the bitter bile rising to his mouth, burning his throat along the way.
“Yes, he’s going to have decisions to make,” Mack agreed.
Which meant Laramie had to go. Laramie would blame herself for this—likely already was. She had no choice but to go even as her heart warred with guilt, sorrow, and fury—so many emotions clouding her judgment, possibly making her reckless.
“Diedre, can you clean her up as best you can from the neck up? We’ll wheel her into the next room if he wants a chance to see her before he goes. Fuck—it’s not how I want it to be, but he doesn’t have time.”
“I’m on it, Dr. Thorne,” she said, unshed tears in her eyes as she glanced down at their patient, her hands already reaching to extubate her.
“You want me to deliver the news?” Mack asked.
“No, I’ve got it. Stay with the baby.” He gripped Mack’s forearm. “Don’t let him lose his daughter, too.”
“I’ll do everything I can. I promise you that,” Mack guaranteed.
Xavier nodded. It’s what they did, and he had no right to demand it, and Mark shouldn’t have to promise, but somehow saying the words released the pressure building in his chest that was threatening to crush him from the inside out.
He’d never get used to forces beyond his control. The need to bend everything to his will and preserve life no matter what, made it all that much harder for him to handle the aftermath.
It also drove him harder the next time.
He’d done everything. It only took minutes to know the damage was too great, but still he tried, prayed, begged for a miracle, pleaded with God for modern medicine to be wrong—too stubborn to give in.
He shed his gloves and washed his hands quickly, passed on replacing his jacket, and headed for the waiting room.
The double doors slid silently open, and he walked through, still not knowing what he would say or where he would start. He’d only met the man minutes earlier, but it had been enough time that they were bound by something bigger than them. Harland loved Laramie, not the same way as Xavier, but not less. They both wanted what was best for her and each had a tremendous amount of respect for the strong woman and her generous heart. Those connections made his next words so much harder.
The team watched him, wary and mad, their bitterness pulsing in the small lobby.
Harland gripped the edge of the wall, his wife’s dried blood on his hand, his face tucked against Laramie’s neck as she held him, much like she held Xavier the night before.
Shaking in her arms, she held on tighter—because that’s what she did. She turned herself into an anchor in the storm.
She’d done it for the women who couldn’t fight for themselves. For her daughter. For Xavier. And at the moment, for Harland.
“Harland,” he said, wincing at the gruff tone of his voice that said everything while saying nothing.
Red-rimmed eyes met his, and Harland—familiar yet foreign, nodded, painful knowledge etched into his skin.
“I’m sorry. I did everything—”
He held his hand up and closed his eyes; agony transformed him from larger than life to gaunt. “My baby—is—did you…”
“You have a daughter, and she’s very much alive. We’re moving her to Cedars-Sinai. Life Flight will be here in just a few minutes. Her lungs are underdeveloped and—” He swallowed, his throat constricting. “She’s got a bullet wound in her leg. She’s stable and she’s fighting. She needs you to go and fight with her.”
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