“Must be mighty important for you to go to all this trouble.”
“It’s important. And she’s a thief.”
“Let’s say there is a girl inside,” Jared replied. “How’d she get those cuts and bruises? You boys been beating up on a woman?”
“You just hand her over and don’t worry about it,” Beard said.
Jared’s gut churned with fury. He knew enough about Libby now, both from her chattering and from what Ian had found out, to know she wasn’t the criminal here. These fuckers were. He had no problem putting an end to people like that.
“Naw, man, not the way I’m feeling about it. Tell you what, you motherfuckers get moving in the direction you came and I won’t shoot you. You show your faces around here again, and I definitely will. In case you’re wondering if I can manage it, spent ten years in a special forces unit. Dropped more fucking tangos than I can remember. Adding you to the pile won’t be a problem.”
The guy beside Beard flared his nostrils. “You’re making a mistake, man.”
“Not the way I see it. Start backing up. Slowly.”
The men stared at him with hard jaws as they lowered their hands to the bars. They put the snowmobiles in reverse. It was a slow process, but they kept reversing until they’d dropped out of sight over the hill. Jared holstered the handguns and reached inside for the AR. Sure enough, the sound of the snowmobiles split, one going right and one left. One idled where it was.
Stupid fuckers. They were planning to return. Hoping to surprise him with a three-pronged approach. These guys were soldiers of fortune, not the kind with real world experience. They might have done a stint in the military, but not the special forces. They were average—and average wasn’t going to cut it with him.
“Are they gone?”
Libby’s voice sounded from the other side of the door and Jared growled. “Get down, Libby. They’re coming back.”
“They said I stole something. I don’t know what they’re talking about but I don’t want you to get hurt because of me. I’m sure I could convince them I don’t have whatever it is they want. Because I don’t. You know that.”
He did know it, but it didn’t matter. “They aren’t the kind of men you convince, honey. If they get through me, they’re going to hurt you. They aren’t going to listen to anything you say.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Lie on the floor like I told you, Libby. Don’t get up no matter what you hear. Anybody comes through this door but me, you drop them.”
The snowmobiles shifted into high gear almost at once.
“Go, Libby! Now!”
Chapter Ten
Jared heard her footsteps retreating as quickly as she could. He hoped she did what he told her, but he had no time to check. It wasn’t easy to separate which snowmobile was coming from where, but he raised the gun to his shoulder and waited, sweeping the perimeter with the scope.
The first one topped the rise, the man lying low over the machine. He had a pistol in his hand. Jared squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit its target and the man slumped over the side, dropping into the snow. The snowmobile kept going until it came into contact with a tree.
The next two snowmobiles appeared, both men lying low like the first. They were coming at him from opposite directions, but that didn’t matter. Jared aimed and fired, aimed and fired again, with the kind of precision that only came from long hours on a range in all kinds of conditions.
Both men dropped, same as the first. Both snowmobiles slid to a stop, which meant the riders had been using the kill switch cords attached to their jackets.
Jared stalked off the porch, gun still at his shoulder, and headed for the closest man. It was Dog Man, and he lay gasping in pain, blood streaming from a wound in his shoulder. The other two men weren’t moving at all.
“Looks painful,” Jared said.
“Fuck you.”
“Hey, told you not to try it. You want me to put you out of your misery or leave you in case someone comes along?”
“Fuck off, asshole!”
Jared reached down and removed the weapon lying useless near the man’s arm, ejected the magazine and threw it over the rise. He took a picture of the serial number on the gun, then threw that as well. He’d do the same with the other weapons when he got to them.
Jared grabbed the man’s ID from his pocket, snapped a picture of it, and dropped it. He went to the next man. It was Beard, and he stared up at the trees with glassy eyes. Jared took care of the weapons, fished around for an ID, found it, and snapped a picture. He did the same with the last guy, also dead, then returned to Dog Man.
“What does she have, Robert? Or do you prefer Rob?” he asked as he squatted next to the injured man.
“Fuck off.”
“I’m a medic. I can fix that for you. Wrap you up and leave you here with a fighting chance.”
The guy’s eyes widened for a hopeful second before narrowing again. “You’re lying.”
“Same as I was lying about dropping all three of you if you returned, right?”
“You lied about the girl.”
Jared scratched his chin. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Guess you got a fifty-fifty shot at me helping you then. Tell me what you want with the girl and I’ll dress the wound.”
He could see the guy considering it.
“You don’t want your dogs to suffer, do you? I know you must have tied them up somewhere.” As if on cue, one of the dogs barked. The other started too.
The guy looked worried. “Don’t hurt them.”
“Hey, what do you take me for? I don’t hurt innocent animals. But I can’t take them with me, so I’ll have to let them go. I think they’ll make it if I do, but who knows?”
He was definitely lying now. He wouldn’t leave the dogs. He’d pile them in the truck and take them somewhere he could safely leave them if it came down to it.
“I don’t know what she’s got. I just know it’s important. I was only here to track her down with the dogs.”
“Uh-huh. And what were they going to do with her when they got what they wanted?”
The man’s lids dropped over his eyes. Pain etched his features. Jared stood and put his foot on the guy’s shoulder. Then he pressed. The man screamed.
“Better tell me, Robert.”
“Dispose of her. That was the order,” he gasped out.
“Who gave it?”
Robert didn’t answer, so Jared started to apply pressure again. “I don’t know! I don’t! I’d tell you if I did, I swear.” He was blubbering now. “Don’t step on me again. Please don’t.”
Jared took his foot away. “Well, that’s not much to go on, but it’ll do. I’ll get my medical kit.”
When Jared walked up on the porch, he called out to Libby. “It’s me, honey. Don’t shoot.”
“I won’t.”
He walked inside. She was at the window, peering out from the curtains, but when he entered, she flung herself at him. He caught her as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s okay.”
She shuddered in his arms. “You could have been killed.”
He chuckled. He liked the way she felt pressed up against him. Her body was soft in all the right places. Libby wasn’t skinny. She had curves. Nice ones. And that ass he wanted to squeeze.
“Not really, but it’s sweet of you to worry about me,” he murmured as he nuzzled into her hair. It smelled clean, like pine and flowers, and it was silky against his face.
She pushed back and looked up at him, her eyes shining. “You sh-shot them. All of them.”
“I told them I would. I’m sorry you had to witness it though.”
“I didn’t see you do it. But when I heard the first shot, I ran—well, hobbled—to the window.”
He squeezed her for a second. “I told you to stay down.”
She bit her lower lip. “I know. But I was worried.”
Not about herself. About him.
“Dammit,” he swore. And then he dropped his mouth to hers and did what he’d been wanting to do for hours.
She gasped, but didn’t pull away. Her mouth opened beneath his and their tongues collided.
Jared stifled a groan at the sweet, silky feel of her. He swept his tongue into her mouth, tasting her. His dick went from zero to sixty in a millisecond. If they only had time…
If she’d let him, he’d strip her naked and lose himself in her body for a while. He’d make her come over and over, until she was limp and sated.
But they didn’t have time. He’d taken care of the men who were searching for her, but if he knew anything about this kind of shit, there would be more of them. He wasn’t waiting around for whoever they sent next. Gently, he broke the kiss. It wasn’t easy with the way her arms wrapped around his neck, or the way she stretched up on tiptoe and arched her hips against his.
“No time, Libby,” he said. “I need to patch that asshole up and we need to go.”
“G-go? How?”
“We’re gonna take my truck. If that doesn’t work, we’ll take the snowmobiles.”
“I thought we were stuck here.”
“So long as it was less dangerous to stay here than to brave the roads, we were. That’s no longer the case.” Once he got onto the road, if he took his time and drove carefully enough, they’d make it down the mountain. He just had to hope no one intercepted them along the way.
“Oh,” she whispered.
He stepped away and went to retrieve his medical supplies. “Grab the food and put it into some bags, okay? We’ll take everything we can in case we get stuck.”
“Okay.”
He left her to do what he’d asked while he returned to the man bleeding in the snow.
“All right, fucker,” he said, dropping down beside the guy. “Let’s see what we can do with you.”
“What’s going to happen to him?” Libby asked as she looked over at the man lying on the ground. His dogs sat on the porch, tongues out, looking perfectly content.
Jared glanced at her and then at the man. “He’ll live. He’s going to have to crawl into the cabin at some point, and that’s going to be hell on his shoulder, but it’s that or freeze.”
“You left it unlocked?”
“I did.”
Libby hugged herself. She was shivering, but it wasn’t just the cold. She had enough clothes on. She suspected it was the aftereffects of that kiss for one thing. Maybe seeing dead bodies for another.
And knowing they’d been coming for her.
“You’re a compassionate man.”
He shoved the truck into gear and pressed the gas. The truck moved slowly, but it moved. He’d worked to clear the ground out to the road, using one of the snowmobiles to drag a log he’d chained onto it. The track wasn’t clear, but it was passable. “Sometimes.”
She thought about that. “Why didn’t you kill him?”
“I meant to. He had the good fortune to come to a dip in the ground when the bullet arrived, or it would have hit him in the heart instead of the shoulder.”
Libby shivered again. Jared had been nothing but gentle with her, but seeing what he was capable of had stunned her a bit more than she’d thought it would. He did it for you, Libby.
Yes, he had—and she was grateful for it. But what had it cost him?
“You dressed his wound, fetched his dogs so they could stay with him, and left him with shelter. Why did you do that? You could have left him where he fell.”
He glanced at her. “I could have, but he gave me some information I wanted. I thought it was a fair exchange. He’s still in trouble. It could be awhile before anyone comes looking for him, and he doesn’t have a cell phone to call out because I smashed it.”
“Was the information about me?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t much.”
She processed that. “What do they think I stole?”
“He didn’t know. He just knew they were supposed to get it from you.”
“And then what?”
He gripped the steering wheel and didn’t answer.
“Jared. I have a right to know.”
“Are you sure you want to?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
“They weren’t going to let you live, Libby.”
Her heart throbbed as panic threatened. She pushed it down. “Maybe you should have killed him too.” The moment she said it, she felt sick that she had.
“Pretty sure we won’t see him again. I told him I won’t miss the next time.” He hesitated a moment. “He told me they didn’t sexually assault you. In case you were still thinking about that. I don’t think he was lying. They were more concerned with getting the information from you first. I think they would have though. Before they killed you.”
She squeezed her hands in her lap. “Well, that’s something then. Did he tell you what else they did?”
“Some of it, yes. I’d rather not tell you right now. I think it’s important for you to remember on your own.”
She wanted to argue with him, but what if he was right? He said he had experience with this kind of memory loss, and she believed that. He hadn’t been wrong about anything yet. She needed to trust him, no matter how hard it was not to press for answers. She sucked in a breath. “What about the other two? What happens when the police find the bodies and that man tells them everything?”
“Nothing will happen. The people I work for will fix it.”
She gaped at him. “How do you fix that, Jared? They’re dead. And he’s a witness!”
He turned his piercing gaze on her. “If they weren’t dead, you would be. And he’s not going to say anything. My people will take him into custody until this is over.”
Libby closed her mouth and didn’t say anything else. There was nothing she could say. She didn’t know what was going on or how to extricate herself from it. Jared was the only friend she had right now, and she was thankful he was on her side even if she didn’t understand the world he lived in.
They reached the main road and turned onto it. The snow was still thick on the ground, but there were wheel ruts where a few intrepid souls had driven through. Libby stared at the forest covered in snow. Those men said she’d stolen something and they wanted it back. But what? Was she really a thief?
She didn’t feel like a bad person, but maybe she was. Maybe she cheated and lied and stole and it’d finally caught up with her. Maybe she ran with criminals, and they’d turned on her. Maybe she was just as bad as they were. Under different circumstances, maybe she’d be lying in that snow beside them, the victim of a criminal enterprise gone wrong.
She thought about everything she knew. Nothing about herself, but lots of other stuff. She had impressions about herself though. At least she thought that’s what they were.
A hot summer’s day, a field of tall corn, running through the stalks like it was a maze. Being chased—and chasing—other children. The tall man with the deep voice who’d told her to stay inside the night the cow went missing. The woman with blond hair who seemed perpetually exasperated with her.
They had to be her parents, but she couldn’t see their faces. It was more or less an impression of people that she had, not a picture. Jared said it would come back to her. She hoped he was right.
It took them over two hours to make it down the mountain. She wasn’t entirely aware of it until she realized that the road had straightened. The roads were clearer here, the track slushy with the passage of many vehicles. For the first time, it occurred to her that she didn’t know where they were headed.
“Are you taking me home?”
Panic and excitement filled her at the thought of going to a place where all her belongings were located. A place that would give a more complete picture of who she was. That was the excitement part. The panic part was not knowing, and not wanting to be left alone, especially when she didn’t know who was looking for her or what they wanted.
“I don’t think that’s
a good idea. Since those guys didn’t get what they wanted from you, it’s very likely someone will go looking for you there.”
“Maybe what they wanted is at my apartment. We could get it first. If we knew what to look for.”
He shook his head. “Nope, all the more reason for you not to be there.”
“Where are we going then?”
“My house.”
Her heart thumped. “Where do you live?”
“Maryland. Near Annapolis.”
Libby looked down at her feet. His socks looked ridiculous with her yoga pants and running shoes, but at least her ankles were warm. “I need clothes. Can we at least stop at my place so I can get some things?”
“Too dangerous. Until we know who’s after you and what they want, you can’t be seen anywhere near your apartment.”
“I can’t keep wearing the same clothes.” Tears pricked her eyes at the thought. She sucked them back. It wasn’t really the clothing putting her emotions on edge. It was the situation. The feeling of having no control. She didn’t know who she was, and she couldn’t go home. She couldn’t ground herself with her own things for just a few moments before leaving again.
“I know, honey. We’ll swing by Walmart or Target and grab some things, okay?”
“How am I going to pay for anything? I don’t have money or credit cards—or identification.”
“I’ll pay.”
“Jared—”
“It’s a loan,” he cut in. “You can pay me back later.”
She lay her head against the cold glass, letting the shock of it still her thoughts for a moment. “Thank you.” Another thought occurred to her then. “I have a job. I need to go to it, don’t I? If I don’t show up, I could get fired. I can’t imagine that would be a good thing.”
“It’s Saturday. We’ll get it figured out once we’re at my place and I can talk with my guys.”
“Your guys,” she repeated. “Who are your guys really, and how are they going to help me with my job?”
He shot her a look. “They’re the same guys who found your name, address, and work, based on nothing more than a vague idea about your first name. Do you really think they’ve got nothing more to offer here?”
Black Knight (A Black's Bandits Novel): HOT Heroes for Hire: Mercenaries Page 8
