Thrive (Guardian Protection)

by Aly Martinez

  I chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  “Have a good night, Jeremy.”

  “Take care of my girls, Brent.”

  He nodded, his chest puffed out like a blowfish. “Always.”

  I jogged back to my car, happier than I’d been in years.

  That should have been my first warning. Happiness came at a price.

  After I climbed into the Escalade, I grabbed my phone off the dash in order to shoot Mira a text letting her know I was on my way back.

  Seven missed calls. Three from Braydon. Four from Mira.

  The vise in my chest cranked down as I immediately clicked Mira’s number and lifted the phone to my ear.

  A sliver of relief eased the vise when she answered. At least she was okay. Whatever else was wrong, I could fix it.

  “Thank God, finally!” she rushed out.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, backing out of the driveway.

  Braydon’s voice boomed through the line. “Oh, hell no. You are not allowed phone privileges anymore!”

  “Hey!” Mira objected.

  But it was Braydon’s voice who came on the line. “We got a serious problem, Lark.”

  My pulse sped. “Then fucking tell me.”

  “One, I would highly suggest you get un-engaged and un-pregnant. Because your woman is a fucking nutjob.”

  “Hey!” Mira objected again. “Screw you too!”

  I ground my teeth. “What the fuck is going on, Bray?”

  “Mateo Rodriguez called Mira’s phone about twenty minutes ago. He’s got Whitney and the dog.”

  My whole body jerked in surprise. This should have been good news—except for the fact that it was Mateo Rodriguez. I did not trust that man one fucking bit. While he’d pledged his allegiance to Mira’s cause, he was still a dangerous and unpredictable criminal. Only hours earlier, Caleb had texted me that Steve Browel, along with three of the men suspected in Mira’s attempted kidnapping, had all been found dead in their apartments overnight. Mateo’s retribution, no doubt. And, while I wasn’t exactly crying over the loss of scum like that, I wasn’t sure how I felt about mass murder as punishment, either.

  Mateo and Leo were “friends,” yet the minute Mateo had shown up at Guardian, Leo had acted as though he’d been going to war. For fuck’s sake, when your buddy comes over, you don’t greet him with guns locked and loaded. Mira was in trouble, so I had been more than willing to accept whatever help Mateo could offer. But that didn’t mean I wanted him anywhere near her. And I sure as fuck didn’t want him calling her phone with bullshit he should have run past me or Leo first—like, say, rescuing her best friend and her dog.

  I white-knuckled the steering wheel and stepped on the accelerator. “Where?”

  “Nine seventy-one Tarapin Court. Some fancy-ass neighborhood south of the city. While I was on the phone, trying to call Leo to see what he wanted me to do, your nutjob of a woman hauled ass out the front door and hailed a fucking cab.”

  Mira argued, “You were taking too long!”

  “I was making a goddamn plan,” Braydon shot back.

  I wanted to be surprised. I really did. But come on. It was Mira. Nothing surprised me anymore.

  “Hey, hey, hey! Chill. Just take her back inside. I’ll hit Mateo’s and get Whitney and the dog and meet you at the office.”

  “Inside?” Braydon laughed. “Lark, I’m standing in the fucking driveway of nine seventy-one Tarapin Court, physically restraining your woman to keep her from storming into Rodriguez’s castle.”

  Okay. I had been wrong. There were some things with Mira that still surprised me.

  “What?” I growled, my throat burning like I’d swallowed a drum of acid.

  “Did you miss the part where she caught a fucking cab? It was a miracle I got here in time to stop her. She was trying to scale a gate, Lark. Legit. No man at her back. Completely unprotected. And she was trying to scale Mateo fucking Rodriguez’s gate in a pair of heels, with a goddamn Gucci purse slung over her shoulder.”

  Mira snapped snottily, “The gate was shut. What would you have preferred I do?”

  “Not fucking turn into King Kong in drag!” he retorted. “Do you see what I’m dealing with here, Lark?”

  “Put her on the phone,” I ordered, slamming my hand down on the steering wheel and stepping down harder on the gas pedal.

  “Snitch,” Mira seethed before her voice transformed into a sugary-sweet tone and she chirped, “Hey, baby.”

  My blood thundered in my ears, and I gripped the phone so tight that it was a wonder I didn’t crush it. “Mira,” I rumbled, doing my best to keep the anger out of my tone. I did not have time to venture into the middle of one of her snit fits.

  Calm. Cool. Collected. That was the only way I was going to get through to her.

  “Get in Braydon’s car. Now.”

  “No,” she replied in the next beat.

  “Get in his fucking car!” I yelled so loudly that it rattled the windows.

  Yeah. That was as long as the whole calm-cool-and collected thing had lasted.

  “Whitney is in there, Jeremy. I’m not leaving her.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek so hard that I tasted the metallic tinge of blood. “Yes. And she will still be there when I arrive in about fifteen minutes.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Weaving through traffic, I declared, “Well, you’re not fucking going inside, either.”

  “Jesus, Jeremy. It’s just Mateo!”

  I swung a hard right onto the interstate. “Yeah, baby. That’s exactly the problem. It’s just Mateo. Do not forget who that man is. Remember what we talked about this morning? A future. A family. A forever.”

  Her voice gentled. “Of course I remember.”

  “Okay,” I breathed, my anxiety starting to fade. “Then I’m asking you to please get in the car with Braydon. Go back to Guardian, where I know you’ll be safe. Let me get your girl. And then, as soon as I get back, we can start on all of those things.”

  “Jeremy—”

  “Mira, please. That’s all I’m asking here. Fifteen minutes and I’ll have her back to you.”

  The line went silent.

  “Mira?” I prompted.

  She huffed, but I knew I’d won. “Fine. But hurry up. I’m going crazy over here.”

  I blew out a ragged breath, victory singing in my veins.

  Little did I know, the battle was just getting started.

  I glared at Braydon as I hung up the phone.

  He was returning the glare from less than a foot away.

  “You’re an asshole,” I declared, tucking the phone into the back of my jeans.

  “You’re a nutjob,” he declared, his tall, muscular body not moving an inch.

  I rolled my eyes. “Jeremy says you’re supposed to take me back to Guardian.”

  He smiled, and even if he was being an asshole, it was still gorgeous. “Did he now?”

  I rolled my eyes again, making sure he saw it before I marched to the door of his tiny, royal-blue convertible Mercedes sports car. It was a miracle his long legs fit inside. No way it could be comfortable for him to drive something that small.

  Opening the door, I glanced back at Mateo’s mansion. Yes, mansion. For a man who lived in Miami and only visited Chicago a few times a month, it seemed like overkill. But I guessed that drug lords didn’t worry about the minor details of practicality. Jeremy had made it clear he didn’t trust Mateo, but I did. He’d been nothing but nice to me since the day we’d met. He’d take care of Whitney until Jeremy could get there. And only that knowledge allowed me to put my ass to Braydon’s leather passenger’s seat.

  The minute the door clicked behind me, Braydon became unstuck and started toward the driver’s side.

  Abruptly, he stopped at the front of the car and turned his head to look at something over his shoulder.

  I followed his gaze and saw the big iron gate at the front of the house sliding open.

  At the exact sam
e time, my phone started ringing in my pocket. I quickly dug it out and saw the same number from before flashing on the screen.

  “Mateo?” I answered.

  “Leaving so soon? Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “See…Jeremy’s on his way. He kinda wanted to be…” I trailed off when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Braydon turn all the way around, and then his body locked up tight.

  His palpable panic slammed into me. My pulse skyrocketed despite the fact that I had no idea what I was afraid of yet.

  I could only see the side of his face, but the most unforgettable combination of confusion and horror twisted his handsome features.

  I slung my head back toward the massive house, this time finding Whitney standing on the front porch. She was wearing a filthy men’s white button-down shirt, her curly, black locks were matted to her head, and her left eye was swollen and black. She was barefoot, barely able to balance on her shaking legs, with Bitsy tucked into the crook of one of her trembling arms.

  My heart stopped as I flung the car door open and took in the sight of Mateo at her side, the phone still held to his ear, his malevolent gaze locked on mine, six of his suited bodyguards standing in a perfect line behind them.

  My scalp prickled, and the chill of unease traveled down my spine.

  The man staring back at me wasn’t the Mateo I knew.

  He wasn’t the man from my bar.

  He wasn’t even the man from Guardian.

  He was the man Jeremy had warned me about.

  And, suddenly, everything got a hell of a lot worse.

  All at once, Braydon exploded forward, Whitney’s middle name—Dawn—tearing from his lips—and, from the way it sounded, his soul as well.

  One of Mateo’s men stepped out from behind him, pulled a gun, and trained it on Braydon, forcing him to a stop.

  “No!” I yelled, sprinting toward them.

  As I ran, Whitney’s scream pierced through me. “Dimples!” she cried.

  Even more puzzled, I watched her launch herself in Braydon’s direction, but Mateo caught her at the back of her shirt, roughly pulling her up short.

  “You know him?” he asked her.

  Tears fell from her eyes as she nodded repeatedly.

  “Interesting,” he mumbled.

  Yes, it was very interesting, but that would have to wait for another day. A day when funerals weren’t only a trigger away.

  “Let her go!” I shouted without a single shred of concern for my own safety.

  Mateo’s lips tipped up into a sinister smile. “Mira, we need to talk.”

  I blinked, panic spiraling higher than ever. Whitney’s dark eyes finally flittered to mine, her face crumbling all over again.

  “Mir,” she choked out through a sob.

  My heart physically ached as I imagined what she’d been through, but I pushed the pain aside and tried my best to steady my voice. “It’s going to be okay now, Whit. I promise.”

  Another sob shook her shoulders, but she turned her gaze back to Braydon. He was watching her with his hands in the air, a gun aimed at his chest, and paralyzing terror carved into his face.

  But that terror was not because he feared for his life.

  It was all for her.

  I needed him to get her out of there, and fast, ending this nightmare for her once and for all.

  Even if it meant walking into my own.

  Straightening my shoulders, I took a step forward. “Let them go and we can have whatever conversation you’d like.”

  Mateo’s smile stretched, and a twinkle hit his dark eyes. “That, my love, is the right answer.”

  According to the GPS, I was only a few miles away. Leo hadn’t answered any of my calls, and it was starting to unnerve me. I had no fucking idea what to expect when I got to Mateo’s. It didn’t sit right with me that he’d taken Whitney back to his place and then called Mira to come get her. If he had no motives, he could have dropped her off at Guardian. Or called Leo or me to meet him somewhere.

  But he’d called Mira.

  He was definitely up to something, I just couldn’t figure out what. My only peace came in the knowledge that Braydon had taken Mira back to Guardian.

  My phone started ringing in my lap. When Braydon’s number flashed on the screen, I did not delay in putting it to my ear. “What’s up?”

  “She went inside with him,” he stated, his voice gritty and raw, barely recognizable. “He had guys guarding the door. I couldn’t get back in there. I know Leo said no cops. But we need to call Caleb or whoever.”

  The oxygen in my car suddenly disappeared, and my gut rotted. I knew the answer before I even asked the question. I just didn’t want to believe it. “Who?”

  “Mira,” he replied, ending my life as I knew it.

  He continued to talk, but the phone fell into my lap as the most staggering pain I had ever felt sliced through me. My vision tunneled, and adrenaline hit me so hard that it jolted my body.

  No fucking way.

  This was not happening. This was not happening.

  This…was…not happening.

  Not to Mira. Not to me. Not to us.

  No one. Not Kurt Benton. Not even fucking Mateo Rodriguez could take her away from me. Not after she’d promised me forever. Not after we’d made a plan. Not after I’d fucking finally gotten her back.

  Suddenly, an unnatural calm washed over me.

  I should have been frazzled, with desperation and fear clouding my thoughts.

  But I wasn’t. I was going to get her back. And whoever dared to touch her would pay.

  With their lives.

  I don’t remember driving the last few minutes to Mateo’s house, but when I arrived, Braydon’s car was nowhere in sight. The gate was open, inviting me inside. I didn’t hesitate as I flew all the way up the brick horseshoe driveway, and then I came to a screeching stop just inches from the porch, taking out what I was sure was a strategically planted rose garden by the front steps. After palming the forty-five I’d retrieved from the glove box, I folded out in record time, not bothering to turn the engine off. I wouldn’t be there long anyway.

  My heart thundered with every step toward that door. I didn’t give the first fuck who was on the other side. All I knew was that Mira was somewhere in that house. And it didn’t matter if I had to tear the whole goddamn thing to the ground in order to find her.

  That is until a man came out of nowhere, hitting me like a battering ram from the side as he tackled me to the ground—in the most familiar way.

  I was lying on a king-size four-poster bed that, on any other day, would have made me salivate. But, that day, lying in only a pair of jeans and a bra, with one of my hands tied above me, while a man I didn’t know was diligently working on securing the other, I had other things to think about.

  “Jeremy is going to kill you,” I told Mateo as he paced the foot of the bed.

  He barked a laugh and then swept his furious gaze over my chest and my neck. “Not before I kill him. You look like you were fucking beaten.”

  “They’re hickeys!”

  He stopped and glared at me. “Perfect. Then that is what I’ll call the black-and-blue bruises my fists cover him in before putting a bullet in his head.”

  “Stop,” I whispered before sucking in sharply as the rope cinched painfully tight around my wrist.

  “Easy,” Mateo growled at the man. “You leave one goddamn mark on her, I will feed your carcass to the rats.”

  “Ew!” I whined.

  “Shut up, Mira. I am not in the mood to deal with that fucking mouth of yours. If I had known what was beneath that scarf last night…” He trailed off, his jaw ticking as he resumed his pacing.

  For fuck’s sake, how was this my life?

  Oh, right.

  Kurt.

  I startled when the flash of a Polaroid camera nearly blinded me.

  Mateo shook the image for a second before throwing it onto the bed beside me. “Fucking disgusting, a man leaves
marks like that.”

  “Says the man tying me to a fucking bed!” I fired off.

  Ignoring me, he continued to rant to himself. “Her ass? Maybe. I’ve left more than a few palm prints in the heat of passion. But for fuck’s sake, I could inspect the man’s dental work from the bites he left on your chest.”

  A guy I didn’t recognize poked his head into the room. “Her man just pulled up.”

  My stomach fluttered at the thought of Jeremy being there, but then, just as quickly, it dropped when Mateo’s eyes flared wide and his lip curled into a snarl.

  “That motherfucker,” he breathed, marching to the door.

  Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

  Jeremy was there, probably pissed off to the ends of the earth that I’d gone inside the house, and Mateo wanted to kill him for having put hickeys on me. Both of them were probably armed. And…well, testosterone and all. This was not going to end well.

  “Mateo!” I screamed as he disappeared through the door. “Oh, God! Please don’t kill him!”

  “No promises!” he called through the open door.

  My heart pounded against my ribs, regret suddenly engulfing me. “Please!” I cried. “I got pre-pregnant today! Don’t take that away from me!”

  The deep, masculine chuckle from the chair in the corner caught my attention, reminding me he was in the room.

  I cut my gaze to him and hysterically asked, “He won’t really kill him, will he?”

  Leo smirked, his humor-filled chocolaty-brown eyes meeting mine. “No, babe. He won’t kill him.”

  “How ya holding up?” Caleb asked, walking into the prison’s private visitation room and patting my shoulder before giving it a squeeze.

  I turned a murderous glower his way. “How the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

  His brows shot up in surprise as he set a manila file folder on the table. “Normally, I’d tell you to chill the hell out, but given our current situation, feel free to keep that up.”

  I pushed to my feet and the metal folding chair tipped over backward, making a deafening crack as it hit the tile and then echoed around the small room. I moved to what I knew was a two-way mirror and inspected my face. My lip was split, there was a huge gash in my hairline that probably needed stitches, and the road rash that spread temple to chin from Mateo’s sidewalk made me look like Two-Face.