Gathering the cards and tapping them back into a neat stack, Talia let her gaze wander to where Tucker stood guard and couldn’t help making comparisons between him and her ex-husband. For one, he was damn good looking. Tall, fair-haired, and a total badass. Not the kind of badass that just thinks he’s one, but the kind that actually played the part. He took without apology, lived without censor, and respected everyone who crossed his path like a good southern gentleman should.
As far as she was concerned, Tucker was the perfect man. At least for her. She couldn’t speak for the rest of womankind, but judging by the reactions he got from them, she didn’t think she’d be wrong if she did. There was just something about Tucker Abrams that brought out the primal instincts in women. But she wasn’t complaining. Every time she looked at him, she had the urge to seek out a dark, secluded place and jump his bones.
Probably should have taken him up on the offer earlier. Just thinking about being pressed up against all that sexy was getting her hot and bothered.
To shake off the problematic thoughts, she tried to strike up a good old-fashioned conversation instead.
“So solitaire is only entertaining for about three rounds.” Nothing. Smacking the deck down on the table, Talia pushed to her feet and lifted her arms into the air, leaning to one side and then the other to stretch her back. “You feel like any food or something to drink?”
“Beer would be good, but gotta keep a clear head.”
Talia grunted her agreement. It would be nice to get a little buzz going, relax the body and the mind. “Adulting is hard sometimes.”
“Yeah.”
Sticking her head in the fridge, Talia stared at the contents without really seeing anything, then closed it again. Then she went to the sink and filled a glass with tap water.
“Everything quiet out there?” All hell hadn’t broken loose, so she imagined it was. But it was something to hopefully get him talking again.
“Mmm.”
“You’ve been standing there for over an hour,” she pointed out. “Want me to take over for a bit so you can rest your feet?”
“I’m good.”
Solid as a rock she’d bet. Over the course of the last hour, she’d watched him, unable to help making comparisons to the men and women she’d trained with. She could clearly imagine him as a solider. He was just so intense, so focused. She doubted anything could get past him.
Thinking back to when he’d first told her about being in Special Operations, Talia decided to throw a question at him and see if it stuck. “So you said you were in SF?”
At first, she didn’t think he’d heard her, he was so quiet and still. Then the words carried across the room, almost ethereal…because if she didn’t know his voice, she’d assume that his continued motionlessness meant it’d come from someone or something else.
“Yep. Joined the Army straight out of high school and worked my way up.”
Christ, he’d been so young. That he’d even made it that far was astonishing. She’d only ever heard stories of those guys. They were a special breed, a cut above the rest. She didn’t know much about them, but what she did know was that they were smart, received extensive training and education, including learning different languages, and performed some highly dangerous missions. She’d bet he’d seen some stuff. Nightmare inducing stuff. Special Forces were the guys that went behind enemy lines to offer aid to the citizens—humanitarian type stuff. No wonder he was so gentle beneath all that hard exterior.
“What made you leave?”
“Everything has an expiration,” he said cryptically.
Oh-kay. She could practically feel the door slam shut on that line of questioning, so Talia moved on. “Well, you’ve certainly kept in good shape.”
His only response was a lackluster grunt.
“Aren’t most of those guy supposed to be married, have a couple of kids? I thought I heard that somewhere.”
“Guess I’m the exception to the rule,” he drawled.
Getting any kind of information, big or small, from the man was like pulling teeth. He wasn’t giving her much to work with here. Before she could tease anything else from him, Tucker pulled out his phone and answered it.
Huh. She hadn’t even heard it ring. Guess he’d had it on vibrate.
Leaning down over the back of the couch, Talia tried to listen in on the one-sided conversation. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t learn anything worth writing home about.
Until Tucker turned and leveled her with a dark look that sent chills down her spine.
Perhaps she’d thought too soon. Stiffening, Talia slowly drew herself upright, bracing for whatever hell storm was about to come her way. The news could be about Cruiz and his gang, but her intuition was telling her that whatever the person on the other end of that line was telling him, it had everything to do with her.
Maybe it was just her guilty conscience, but she didn’t think so. That look was way too personal.
“Uh huh. Yeah, strange,” Tucker muttered, his gaze laser-focused on her. “Yeah, we’ll be here. Hang tight.” He didn’t take his eyes off her as he ended the call and returned the phone to his back pocket.
Talia’s heart thudded painfully in her chest, as if it were psychic and already knew the danger heading her way.
“That was Repo,” Tucker said, his voice low and edgy. He took a slow step forward, followed by another. Another. “Seems Cruiz was a no-show. But guess who was.”
She swallowed. Spread her hands out, palms up. “No idea.”
“The cops. Feds, too. Have anything you want to tell me, sugar?”
Crap. This was not good. This was so not good. Somehow, she just knew that Tucker had her pegged. She wasn’t sure how, but he knew. Still, she needed to buy some time. “Not that I can think of,” she said, playing the dumb card. The percentage of success was low, but she was grasping at straws here.
“No?” he asked, closing the distance between them faster than she’d like. He maneuvered around the couch. Talia managed to stay rooted in place, through fear or bravery or just plain stupidity, she wasn’t sure. “Not even about that little phone call you made in the bathroom earlier?”
Talia felt her eyes widen, the shock damn near stopping her heart. What was he going to do to her?
“You were taking a while in there, so I came to find you. Overheard you talking to someone, and it was clear that you were trying not to be heard.” He patted his jeans pocket where the phone was. “Didn’t take much to put two and two together.”
Confession time. Maybe if she explained herself, it would be enough. Enough for what, she didn’t know yet, but hopefully she’d still be breathing come sunrise.
“Tuck, I can explain—”
That’s when everything went sideways.
Glass shattered. Explosions ripped through the air, piercing her ears. Talia’s vision seemed to slow as she took stock of the situation. Tufts of material bursting from the furniture. Wood splintering. Lamps collapsing. Tucker’s mouth moving as he lunged for her. Yelling. He was yelling at her. She couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Then, like she’d been sucked into a vacuum in the middle of a hurricane, Talia caught Tucker’s voice as they crashed together onto the floor behind the couch.
“Stay down!”
It was then she heard the whiz of bullets. The crack of gunshots outside. Rapid fire. They were using automatics.
“Gabby! Ash!” Fear shot through Talia faster and harder than any bullet for the pair they’d been trusted to protect.
Using all his weight against her, Tucker flattened Talia to the floor, holding her in place when she would have run. “Not now!”
“What if they’re hurt?” she cried.
“You can’t help them if you’re dead!”
So logical. So cool in a situation that was anything but. Calling upon all her training, Talia pulled herself together, breathing deep and praying for calm.
It seemed to last forever, the barrage of gunfire,
but eventually, it grew quiet again. It was the epicenter of the storm, Talia thought. Soon, they’d be bracing for round two.
“Are you okay?” Tucker’s hands ran over her face, her shoulders. He scrambled back onto his knees, looking her over everywhere for injury. “Are you hurt?”
Talia did a quick mental review of her body. All her fingers and toes were still there. No aches or pains aside from the one in her left butt cheek where she’d taken the brunt of the fall. “I’m okay. I’m good,” she assured him. Her gaze raked over him. “What about you?”
“I’m good,” he said automatically. Gun already in-hand, Tucker jumped to his feet and held out his hand. “Let’s go. It’s not safe here.”
That was the understatement of the century. Taking his hand, Talia let Tucker pull her up and together they raced through the house, making a beeline for the bedrooms. Their top priority was locating Gabby and Ash and getting them the hell out of there. Assuming they were still of this world.
Please let them be okay, Talia prayed.
Every inch of wall space between the front of the house and the back was riddled through with bullet holes. Most disturbing was their size. Some were standard, others were easily as big as of her fist. Obviously, these guys came loaded for bear, and they didn’t intend to leave anyone alive.
This was much more than just a human trafficking case. These people meant business. Who the hell were they dealing with exactly?
With no time to stand around and ponder it, Talia followed close behind Tucker. Throwing open the first door they reached, he ran inside. Talia was slower to follow, pulling out her standard issue gun that she’d brought as a precaution when he’d gotten the first phone call at her apartment. It’d been a risk, but she was glad she’d taken it.
Releasing the safety, Talia loaded one in the chamber and proceeded with caution. Inside the room decorated in motorcycles and dinosaurs, she found Tucker. He was knelt down on the opposite side of the twin-size bed making reassuring noises.
For a moment, Talia couldn’t catch her breath, her mind conjuring up the worst. Then Tucker lifted a crying Ash into his arms and a red-faced Gabby rose to follow. Talia’s quick assessment revealed both to be unharmed. Thank God.
Acting on her feet, Talia waved her arm, ushering them over. “We need to move fast. There’s no telling when—”
The wall behind Talia ripped open violently. The force lifted Talia’s feet out from under her and, powerless to slow her momentum, she was jettisoned across the room. The last thing she remembered was impacting the wall, and then it was lights out, Gracie.
THIRTY-TWO
“Talia!” Tucker bellowed. Or at least he thought he did. It was hard to tell over the ringing in his ears. Watching Talia hit the wall and slide down into a motionless heap was more horrifying than anything he’d witnessed in his entire Spec Ops career. Then, he could maintain some kind of disconnect, but it was impossible to maintain any modicum of emotional distance when you were witnessing the person you cared about getting blown up.
There was no preparing for that.
What the hell were they using anyway, rocket launchers?
Gunfire erupted once more, eliminating any chance of Tucker checking on her. He wanted more than anything to rush over and administer aid, but he was in a hot zone with two more people he had to protect. First things first, he had to get Gabby and Ash someplace safe—or safer than where they currently were. But there was nowhere they could go that would keep them out of the line of fire.
Looking around the room, Tucker realized the best he could offer given the situation they were in was under the bed. At least then they were out of sight. Thrusting Ash into Gabby’s arms, he pushed her in its direction, shouting, “Get down and out of sight. Don’t move a fucking muscle! Do you hear me? Don’t come out until I say!”
She didn’t have to be told twice. Once they were out of sight, Tucker left the room careful to remain low and vigil. No sense in getting his head blown off too early in the game, and definitely not before he took Cruiz’s off his shoulders.
The house looked like a total war zone. A heavy dust coated the air, along with a burning smell he couldn’t locate the origin of. The structure itself resembled Swiss cheese. He hoped Blake had home owner’s insurance. The deductible, though, was going to be a bitch. Good thing he was a contractor.
Bullets whizzed past his head in a constant stream, pelting the walls and everything else in their path. Tucker was torn between running into the fray and engaging the enemy, and staying put to wait for a clear path that may or may not come. Given the seemingly endless amount of ammo they were pumping into the house, he had to wonder at how many people he was looking at out there. Ten, twenty, more?
Thank God he’d loaded up earlier. Aside from the pistol in his hand that was part of a matching set, he had another in the waistband at the small of his back and a six-shooter in an ankle holster hidden beneath his pant leg. On the off chance that he had to engage in close quarters combat, he also carried a butterfly knife in his back pants pocket that he was more than fluent in. In the event that all else failed, he was a fucking MacGyver with household shit. He would take down any and every bastard that had the balls to come through that door.
Correction: the hole in the wall where the door used to be.
Ducking back out of sight, Tucker cursed roundly. From the glimpse he’d gotten, there were at least four on the front lawn. He was sure there were more. No way four guys could cause this much damage alone. The lot the house sat on wasn’t huge by any means, but it was wide and open and it had four sides, so there was a lot of possibility there.
Most of the windows had been shattered, leaving jagged edges behind, and all the lights had been cut out with the first round. At least he had that going for him. In times of war, darkness was sometimes the only ally a guy had.
Tucker closed his eyes briefly, concentrating on his breathing. In and out. In and out. Steady. Calm. His mind cleared of all outside influence until the only thing left was the mission at hand and the drive to complete it.
He was, in the truest sense of the word, a killing machine.
Heavy boot steps climbed the wooden steps out front, and Tucker timed them to the door. Into the house. Crunching of glass. The scrape of furniture. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Deep breath in, out. They grew closer, closing in on his location. Tucker’s fist tightened around the butt of the gun, his trigger finger itching to pull.
Closer. Closer. Closer…Without a sound, Tucker, remaining in his crouched position, lifted his weapon and aimed high. The instant he saw the dark figure step into view, he emptied two rounds right into his cranium.
The bastard dropped like a bolder. Shouts rebounded, and the rest of the men came running. A savage grin stole over Tucker’s face as he rose up to greet them. “Game on, motherfuckers.”
***
Bodies littered the floors. Outside, the wail of sirens grew closer. But Tucker wasn’t even close to being finished. He might have taken out a dozen or more of Cruiz’s crew, but he had yet to take the head of the snake himself.
He wanted blood. Vengeance. And he wouldn’t rest until he’d made sure it was done. Blake and his family deserved to live in peace. His brothers deserved to live in peace. And he resented the hell out of the fact that Talia had been placed in any kind of danger. Which was why this battle was personal now.
Cruiz had a lot to answer for, and Tucker planned to make sure he did. If that meant he had to spend the rest of his life in prison to make it happen, then so be it.
Right now, he had the little weasel cornered in the backyard—not that he was trying to run away. Cruiz had cased the property while his men carried out his dirty work, casually smoking a cigar while he waited. Typical for a kingpin like him. The big difference between Cruiz and a kingpin though was that Cruiz liked to be part of the action. He liked to get up close and personal with his work. He especially enjoyed watching the light fade from his victim’s eyes.
Yes
, Tucker had met many men like him in his years, and he knew how to spot them a mile away. Standing on the back deck, Tucker met Cruiz’s cold, dead eyes and saw nothing but pure evil reflected back. Soulless. The effect was chilling.
Puffing one last time on his cigar, Cruiz tossed the stub into the grass and left it to burn. Smoke trailed lazily from his nostril and lips as he made a slow, steady approach. No fear. No hesitation. Even in the face of death, the man was cold as ice.
“Bravo.” He clapped his hands together slowly, the action more mocking than words alone could ever be. “Last man standing. Quite a feat. I’m impressed with your skill. Perhaps you’d consider coming to work for me. I could always use a man who knows his way around a weapon.”
“Not a chance in hell, cabrón.” The police were closing in fast. In the distance, Tucker thought he heard the whoop of a helicopter. If he planned to take this piece of shit down, he had to make it fast.
“No? I guarantee you the pay is better than anything that president of yours gives you, and the benefits are not so bad either. Definitely better than these American jobs offer.” He laughed lightly, although there was no humor behind it.
Impatient, Tucker made a show of checking his clip. One bullet left. That’s all he needed. “Let’s cut the chitchat,” he sniped. “We’re not going to be amigos, but I can tell you what you’re gonna be. Dead.” He lifted his arm, taking aim.
Cruiz’s expression flattened. Dipping his head, he chuckled softly. Without any visible concern for his well-being, he reached into the left breast of his finely tailored suit jacket and withdrew a shiny silver gun that glinted in the moonlight. Like Tucker, he made a show of checking the clip, then he pulled back the slide to chamber a round.
“Shame to put an end to so much talent. Are you sure you won’t make an exception?”
“I’m sure.”
Twisting the gun to the left then the right, examining it with little interest, Cruiz said conversationally, “You know, when mi abuelo was our age, he settled his problems with a duel of sorts. What do you say we do this the gentlemanly way.”
Mettle: (Spartan Riders #2) Page 24
