Out of My League: a Hope Valley novel

by Prince, Jessica

  I managed to glare at the piece of shit through my left eye, the one not currently swollen shut, and hissed, “I’ve told you a million times. I don’t know where he is. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  His wrinkled face twisted into a smile that was pure evil. “You’ve got fire. I appreciate that in a woman.”

  I was in agony. I didn’t have an ounce of medical knowledge, but I could piece together enough to know they’d done some serious damage. The spots dancing in front of my vision led me to believe I had a pretty serious concussion. If the stabbing pain in my ribs was any indication, several of them were broken. But the most concerning thing at that moment was the fact that I couldn’t seem to catch my breath no matter how hard I tried. Every inhale felt like my lungs were on fire, and no matter how much oxygen I tried sucking in, it didn’t feel like enough.

  “You’ll have to excuse me if your compliment doesn’t mean a goddamn thing to me at the moment.”

  “You aren’t doing yourself any favors right now, dear. Just tell us where Shepley is and all of this stops.”

  He was so full of shit. He wanted to kill my brother. His men killed Cord.

  Cord. At the memory of him, a fresh wave of tears that had nothing to do with physical pain slid down my swollen and bruised face.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I managed to grit out.

  The man blew out a rancid breath and shook his head in disappointment, then looked up to one of the goons and ordered, “Make the call.”

  Goon Number One pulled a phone from his pocket and hit at the screen with his sausage fingers. He passed it to the man in front of me, and the sound of ringing filled the room.

  A second later, I heard my brother’s voice come through the speakerphone. He said one word, just one, but I could still hear the fear in his voice. “Vlad.”

  From what I could tell, Shep had been living in squalor for god only knew how long, yet he still had an active cell phone? It didn’t make any sense. Then again, nothing about my brother made much sense. And I had much more important things to think about. Like somehow staying alive.

  “You’ve been difficult to track down, my friend,” the man now known as Vlad said.

  “Vlad, I don’t—”

  “I didn’t want to resort to such tactics, but I’ve grown impatient.” Vlad looked at me and commanded, “Say hello to your brother, my dear.”

  “Shep.” With the pain radiating through my entire body, that was the only word I could manage to get out.

  “Eden? Christ, Vlad, what have you done?” he barked through the line. “She has nothing to do with this!”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. See, you took something that belongs to me, and now I have something that belongs to you.”

  “Eden. Eden can you hear me?” my brother asked, his tone laced with desperation. “Christ, E. I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “I want back what you stole, Shepley,” Vlad broke in. “And to make sure that happens, I’m prepared to incentivize you.”

  He reached back with his free hand, and Goon Number Two handed him a gun.

  “Wait. What are you doing?” I began to squirm in the chair as Vlad’s fingers wrapped around the grip and he pressed the muzzle against my thigh.

  A second later a shot rang out, and I screamed as the bullet tore through my flesh. It was the most intense, most excruciating pain I’d ever felt.

  I was barely able to make out Shep thundering through the line, “Vlad, you twisted fuck! Stop it!” over the blood rushing through my ears.

  “I’m sending you a location. You have one hour. The next shot won’t be a warning.”

  With that, he hung up, and I sank once again into darkness as the pain pulled me under.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Lincoln

  “Why the fuck are we just standing here?” I bellowed. “We should be out there looking for her, goddamn it!”

  I was losing it.

  After discovering nothing at Eden’s but a concerned, anxious Rocky, Hayes and Trick had brought me back to the station with them to form a plan. That had been an hour and a half ago, and with each second that ticked by, the torturous pain in my chest grew that much worse.

  There were police combing the streets in search of anything that could help us locate Eden. Half my men were out canvasing, and the other half were sitting vigil at the hospital while Cord underwent surgery. I’d been on the phone back and forth with Xander, and the prognosis was grim. The doctors wanted to go in and retrieve the bullets riddling his body, but they weren’t holding out much hope that he’d make it through the night. He’d been out there, on the side of the rode, losing blood for too goddamn long.

  Meanwhile, I’d been stuck here against my will as Hayes, Trick, and a handful of other cops tried to keep me in check.

  “Lock it down, brother,” Hayes said. “We’re gonna find her. You have my word.”

  I paced the length of the conference room, unable to stop moving as worst-case scenarios ran through my mind on fast-forward. I didn’t know what I’d do if something happened to her. I couldn’t imagine a world without her in it, and if I lost her, I knew to my bones that I wouldn’t be able to come back from that.

  I caught movement from the corner of my eye and turned to the wall of glass overlooking the bullpen just in time to see Trick stand tall, the cord of the phone on his desk stretched as he spoke to someone on the other end. A second later, his eyes came to me and Hayes, and he lifted a hand to wave us over.

  We were on the move, out of the conference room and down the steps into the bullpen a second later. “What do we have?” Hayes asked as soon as we hit his desk.

  “That was the front desk. A man fitting Shepley Brenner’s description just walked through the front door.”

  At that, I turned on my boots and charged toward the front of the station. Hayes and Trick followed right behind me, with Leo and Micah joining the fray.

  The second I hit the entry, I spotted him. I knew his face from the countless mugshots I’d seen, but this man looked to be at least thirty pounds lighter, and just as Eden had said, he was filthy.

  “You motherfucker.” Shepley Brenner’s wide, frightened eyes landed on me right before I reached him. As soon as I was close enough, I wrapped my fingers around his throat and squeezed. I kept moving, forcing him to stumble backward until he collided with a wall, then pressed in deep and squeezed even harder. “You motherfucker! If something happens to her, I swear to fucking god, I’ll kill you myself.”

  The four other men closed in on either side of me. “Brother,” Hayes said in warning, grabbing my arm to try and pull me off. “Linc, you gotta let him go. This isn’t helping.”

  Eden’s piece-of-shit brother sputtered and choked, his face growing unnaturally red as he clawed and scratched at my hand, trying to get free. “They… they have my sister,” he rasped.

  “Lincoln!” Trick barked. “Listen to him, man. You have to let him go.”

  I loosened my grip but didn’t remove my hand. The desire to choke the life out of him was so strong it scared the hell out of me, but he was the only lead we had. “Start talking,” I hissed.

  “Th-they have Eden. You gotta help. Please, man. You have to help my sister.” Then he said something that nearly took me to my knees. “Please. You have to help. They’re hurting her.”

  * * *

  They’re hurting her.

  They’re hurting her.

  They’re hurting her.

  Those words were running on a continuous loop inside my head, and I couldn’t get them to stop.

  Leo and Micah crowded me on either side with three other officers at my back to keep me locked down as we watched Hayes and Trick with Shepley Brenner from the other side of the glass.

  “What else did they say?”

  “I don’t know, man. Christ. Fuck.” Shepley was the very definition of tweaked the fuck out as he sat in the interrogation room, his elbows to the table, fingers in his dirt
y hair. “They said… they said they wanted it back.”

  “It?” Trick asked. “You mean the money you stole?”

  “I didn’t just steal money.” At that admission I, along with every cop in the room with me, went completely wired.

  “I took a flash drive,” he confessed. “It contained information on their entire operation. Names, dates, and locations for every drug shipment they had comin’ in and goin’ out. I thought I could use it as incentive to keep ’em off my back, you know? I didn’t really give a shit about the drugs. I just needed the cash!”

  “Well that didn’t really work out for you, now did it?” Hayes clipped.

  “No. No it didn’t,” he whispered, shaking his head and yanking at his hair. “Now they have my sister.”

  “Where are they keeping her?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, they sent me the location, but it’s coordinates. I don’t have a fuckin’ clue how to read that shit.”

  Reaching into the pocket of his ratty, disgusting jeans, he pulled out a burner phone and tossed it to the table. “Please, man. Please help her. She’s….” His throat bobbed on a swallow as his eyes rimmed red with tears. “They made me listen as they shot her. They fuckin’ shot her! I heard her scream. Goddamn sound’ll haunt me the rest of my life. Vlad said if I’m not there in an hour, the next one won’t be a warning. That was twenty goddamn minutes ago!”

  They shot her. They fucking shot my woman.

  So help me god, when I got her back, I was going to make sure every one of those assholes bled.

  * * *

  “This better work.”

  “It’ll work,” Hayes returned.

  “It fuckin’ better.”

  “It will.”

  I was currently standing behind an unmarked SUV with Hayes, Trick, Marco, and West. When we finally tracked down the location and came up with a plan, I’d called to fill my men in, and Marco and West refused to sit back and wait. They wanted to be part of this. They’d gotten to know Eden, and just like everyone my girl came in contact with, she’d made an impression on my men. They wanted to see her safe almost as bad as I did.

  At the time, I’d had faith that the plan might work and we’d get her out safe, but as the line of cop cars and SUVs made its way slowly and quietly toward that abandoned shack in the middle of the woods, doubt started eating at me.

  The plan was a simple one. Too simple. They were sending Shep in wired for video and sound, and as soon as it looked like they had a shot, the cops were moving in.

  I waited with bated breath as Shep pulled up to the cabin in a piece-of-shit car he’d no doubt stolen. We watched through the trees as he cut the engine, climbed out, and made his way to the door; then we moved to the open laptop sitting in the passenger seat of the department issued SUV and watched from the button cam currently pinned to Shep’s shirt.

  He knocked on the door, and a second later a man built like a goddamn mountain pulled it open.

  “You showed. And with only five minutes to spare,” Vlad Ivanov said in an almost cheerful tone, holding his arms out at his sides. My gaze zeroed in on the gun in his right hand. “I have to tell you, my friend, I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

  The camera on Shep’s chest panned around the small, mold-covered room as he turned to face his sister. The moment I spotted her, the breath stalled in my lungs until they began to burn. Her head hung limp, her hair blocking her face from my view, but what I could make out was the huge dark stain on her jeans that started from her thigh and ran all the way to her ankle. Blood. Where that fucker had shot her.

  “I wanna see my sister.” Shep’s voice came though the mic loud and clear, followed by the thump of the duffel bag containing Vlad’s money hitting the floor.

  “She’s right there,” Vlad said, waving the gun in Eden’s direction. “Help yourself.”

  The image on the laptop jostled as Shep rushed to Eden. He crouched down, putting her face in the perfect line of sight, and his hands came into the picture as he cupped her cheeks and lifted her face. “Eden, sweetie, are you okay?”

  She let out a weak groan as her one good eye opened halfway. “Shep?”

  “I’m here,” he announced. “I’m here, and I’m gonna get you out, okay?”

  “Shep” was her only response.

  “Goddamn motherfuckers,” West growled under his breath as we all got our first good look at exactly what they’d done to her.

  “Say the word and we’ll go in,” Marco added. “Fuckin’ kill ’em all.”

  That was exactly what I intended on doing, but as I took in my woman’s mangled face, I couldn’t speak or move. I couldn’t do anything but stand there and let the rage inside of me fester.

  Vlad’s image filled the screen once more as Shep stood and turned in his direction. He pulled the flash drive from his pocket, and we saw as he handed it over. “I’m here. You have what you want, so let her go.”

  “See, that’s not gonna work for me,” Vlad announced. “I might have been more lenient if you hadn’t sent me and my men on a wild-goose chase for months on end. Now, my friend, you have to pay.”

  Vlad lifted his gun, pointed it at Shep, then, at the very last second, shifted it to Eden and pulled the trigger.

  My feet moved as Hayes shouted out, “Shots fired! Shots fired! Move in!”

  But I was already running, the gun from the waistband of my jeans in my hand. Shifting my body at the last second, my shoulder connected with the door at a full sprint and the rotted wood splintered. I went down on one knee just as it banged open, lifted my gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger all in the blink of an eye, putting a bullet through the center of Vlad Ivanov’s forehead.

  Shots rang out from all around me, followed by men shouting orders, but I could only focus on one thing. Standing to my feet, I raced across the room to a limp Eden and fell to my knees right in front of her. Ivan’s shot had hit her in the gut, and my heart threatened to beat through my ribs as I frantically brushed her hair out of my way, cupped her cheeks, and lifted her face. “Baby. Baby, open your eyes. I’m here, Edie. I’m here. You’re gonna be okay.”

  Her good eye fluttered open. “Linc.”

  “I’m here baby. Stay with me. God, baby. Please, just stay with me. I’m gonna get you help.” Whipping my head around, I bellowed, “We need an ambulance!”

  “Linc.” Her weak voice pulled my attention back to her. “Knew you’d come.”

  “Don’t talk, Edie. It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

  “Knew you’d come,” she repeated, her split lips pulling into a tiny grin. “Knew it.”

  “That’s right, baby. I’m here.”

  Her gaze hit me and seemed to clear like she was truly seeing me for the first time. “Love you, honey,” she whispered. “Should’ve said it sooner.”

  Then her eye closed and her entire body went limp.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Eden

  It felt like I was struggling through a dense, heavy fog that didn’t want to let me go.

  My eyelids fluttered, but only one opened fully, and as my vision came into focus, I fought to shake off the haze clinging to my consciousness and looked around the unfamiliar room.

  I made the mistake of trying to turn my neck and let out a low groan as pain ricocheted through my skull like a ping-pong ball. I tried to lift my hand to rub at my forehead, but something caught. I looked down at a long tube that went from my hand to an IV bag hanging near my head.

  “About time you decided to wake up, buttercup.”

  Despite the pain, my head whipped in Lincoln’s direction. “Linc?” I asked, still in a daze. “Is this a dream?”

  “Not a dream, baby,” he responded in a gentle voice as he sat on the side of the bed I was in. “Just really good drugs to keep the pain at bay.”

  My brows pulled into a frown that made me wince as another spark of fire shot through me. I lifted my hand again, that time more carefully, and felt around my forehead.” />
  “Stiches, baby. I know they’re a pain in the ass, but try not to touch ’em,” Lincoln said, taking my hand and pulling it away from my head. He kept it in his, lifting it to his mouth and pressing a kiss against my knuckles.

  “Where am I?”

  His expression twisted into one of pain as he answered, “You’re in the hospital, darlin’.”

  Then the levy broke and the memories all came flooding in. Vlad’s men beating me, my brother showing up, gunshots… and Cord.

  Tears blurred my eyes, making it impossible to see as I whispered, “Cord—”

  “He’s gonna be just fine, Edie. It was touch and go for a while, but he pulled through surgery, and he’s gonna be fine.”

  I was so sure he’d been dead, so sure that hearing Lincoln say he was going to be okay made me burst into gut-wrenching sobs that made it feel like someone was stabbing me over and over in the ribs, but I couldn’t stop. He was alive. That was all that mattered.

  Lincoln crawled into the bed as I cried and cried, holding me in his arms and whispering soothing words to me as I let it all out. Being kidnapped, being shot twice, thinking one of my friends had lost his life trying to protect me, seeing my brother come to save me. All of it was just too much, and by the time I finally got ahold of my tears, every muscle in my body throbbed at the exertion.

  Lincoln reached over and hit a tiny red button at the end of a long cord, and seconds later that fog started rolling back in.

  I wanted to stay awake, wanted to ask him a million questions. But as Lincoln’s lips pressed against my forehead, and his soft command of “Sleep, darlin’. You need to heal up” filled my ears, I lost my battle and drifted back off.

  * * *