by Lee Taylor
Vega’s attack would be direct and honest, exactly like her behavior under the sheets. He knew her, every damned inch of her in fact. She would come exactly when he wanted her to, as intimate experience had proven.
The underbrush rustled. Butch rose from the ground and pulled Fiona up along with him.
“You might want to get out of the way,” he called to Whitfield. Getting Whitfield killed might put a strain on Butch’s relationship with Finn. And since Finn doled out the money, Butch didn’t need that relationship strained. “She’s here.”
Whitfield started sweating. It was forty degrees out, and the coward was sweating. Butch just shook his head and pointed to the closest boat. “Take cover in there.”
Jasper, with the split lip, waved his machine gun around while turning tight circles. The second guard, Whitfield’s own personal protector, followed him onto the boat, making Jasper the one to watch.
Butch held his breath in anticipation. Vega was about to pounce. He predicted she’d drop from a tree.
Not a moment later, Vega dropped. Her brown boots, olive colored cargo pants, black leather jacket and dark blond hair tied back into a long braid, created a blur of color as she landed on Jasper. The jerk was out and on the ground before he even realized he’d been attacked.
The intense focus of her gaze excited Butch, got his heart pumping as he remembered seeing her look at him like that many times before. They were good together. Oh well, it might be hard, but he’d soon have enough money to buy himself a replacement.
She swung one of Whitfield’s machine guns off her arm—the motion was fluid, poetry really—and aimed it squarely on Butch.
“Let Fiona go.” Vega wasn’t even breathing hard.
Butch smiled and tightened his grip around Fiona’s arms. “Tell her,” he whispered into Fiona’s ear.
“No,” she whispered back, the bitch.
Butch shrugged. “You won’t shoot me, Vega.”
“Won’t I?” If Fiona hadn’t been in the picture, she’d shoot him without a second thought. He wasn’t a fool.
“I’ve got a Colt pressed into Fiona’s back. Don’t I, darling?” He jabbed it nice and hard into Fiona’s spine so she’d jump. The effect was perfect. Vega lowered the M249 just a bit.
“I know you, Butch. You wouldn’t risk your neck just to kill Grayson and collect some money.” Vega kept her voice calm. He was impressed.
“You’re right, I wouldn’t. But I also know you won’t shoot me, knowing I’d kill your sister before dropping down dead. That makes me pretty damn safe, baby. Drop the gun.”
For the longest time Vega didn’t move. Butch feared he might have a standoff to deal with, which he didn’t like. Not with the unknown still hiding out there somewhere in the woods. He knew better than to try and predict Grayson’s actions. That one was illusive as hell. Only Vega seemed able to read his mind.
“Drop the gun, baby, and I’ll let your little sister go.” He jammed the Colt into Fiona’s spine again. This time hard enough to make her cry out.
Vega paled at the sound. The M249 went down.
“Whitfield,” Butch yelled. “Get your man out here to take the gun from Vega.”
The guard jumped off the boat and approached her carefully, his gun ready. He lunged forward and ripped the M249 from her hands before making a hasty retreat.
“Secure her with these,” Butch tossed over the twin pairs of handcuffs he carried. “And by God be careful. She’s dangerous.”
The guard picked up the handcuffs and then shook Jasper, rousing him before daring to return to Vega. Each man held an arm while chaining her hands and ankles. They didn’t bother to search her.
“Good.” He liked his women helpless like that. “Good,” he said again.
“Let Fiona go. Let her take the boat I have tied to the dock.” Vega’s voice had lost much of its vibrato.
“I don’t think so.” He pressed gun to Fiona’s temple. “I’m going to kill her and you’re going to watch.”
“No!” Vega shouted.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Wait,” Whitfield called from the boat. “Stop. Don’t kill either of them.”
“What?” Butch shouted back, and then cursed as he lowered the gun, which meant Whitfield must have been the man in control. Grayson released his finger from the trigger and the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
He’d lived the last few minutes in hell. Relief washed over him like a cool dip in the ocean. He’d watched helplessly as Vega dashed headlong into danger before he could stop her. He’d then positioned himself in this impossible situation where he could save either Fiona or Vega’s life, but not both. He had trained the Beretta on Butch’s broad skull, thinking to get Fiona out of danger while praying Vega would be able to fend for herself until he could get to her.
But Whitfield, by calling Butch off, changed everything. But what was Whitfield doing? Grayson worked his way closer to the boats. He knew benevolence hadn’t been the source of this lucky event.
Not that Whitfield’s reasons mattered. The delay bought Grayson time. With his options limited and the dangers heightened, his mind sharpened and his heart rate pick up a beat. If not for Mirna’s death in South America, he’d still be living a life strung on the edge and loving it. Situations like these, as damnable as they were, made things interesting.
And here, just like in South America, Grayson had a choice to make. The pain over Mirna’s death, still alive deep in Grayson’s chest, kept him from doing what his training and experience had taught him to do, which would be to blast down anything with a gun and not worry about the causalities, namely Vega and Fiona. But a rescue attempt, no matter how he planned to play it, was too risky. The probable outcome would be his death, Vega and Fiona’s death, Whitfield’s escape, or any combination of the above. Pick one. Which one didn’t matter, they all pointed to failure.
Delaying the inevitable for as long as possible, he inched closer to the edge of the clearing. No one was watching the perimeter with adequate care. He took advantage of the opportunity to get close enough to hear what Whitfield was telling Butch.
“He’s like that,” Whitfield was saying. “I know him. I know how he plays.”
Fiona had inched away and taken a seat on that Palmetto log again. No one besides Grayson seemed to notice.
“You’re wrong,” Butch said, shaking his head. He kept glancing away from Whitfield’s tall, skeletal frame and over to where Vega stood with her hands bound behind her back and her legs hobbled.
“This guy has morals, Polsen. The only things keeping us alive are those two women. Kill them and he’ll rain bullets on us.”
Butch shrugged. His gaze was now fixed on Vega. Grayson worried about her. She appeared out of it, perhaps in shock. Her head bobbed slightly forward and she seemed to have trouble focusing on anything, much less notice Butch approaching her or the menace pulling his lips into a vicious smirk.
“Don’t hurt her,” Whitfield warned. “I’m telling you, it’s a huge mistake.”
Butch only nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m hoping.”
He grabbed Vega by the waistline of her pants and pulled her chest to his. She fell forward like a boneless rag doll. Seeing her sister in danger must have pushed her over the edge. She was done.
Grayson knew then what he needed to do and how he planned to do it. He pulled up one of his pants’ legs and used the lacing from his shoe to strap the Beretta to his thigh.
Butch had his hand on Vega’s breast and his tongue in her mouth. She whimpered. The helpless sound only strengthened Grayson’s resolve. He dumped one of the two M249s that had been slung over his shoulder, leaving the weapon well hidden in a mass of brambles.
If events unfolded the way he planned, both Vega and Fiona would escape alive.
* * * *
Vega fought an urge to bite Butch’s tongue. She’d whimpered instead, hoping to feed his desire to control her. His handcuffing her hands and legs had made esc
ape difficult, but not impossible. And his pawing her only improved her chances. She was pleased he fell for her lure.
Especially, after her direct approach had failed miserably. But she was still alive and Fiona was still alive, and being alive was everything. So she let go of her past mistakes and focused on the present. Butch had anticipated her attack. He knew her strengths too well.
What he didn’t know were her weaknesses.
To keep herself and her sister alive, she’d have to do some things differently. Butch let his hand trail down her chest, over her abs, and lower. Vega shuddered and sank into his arms.
She wasn’t a man, and would never be able to match a man’s physical strength. What she was, what she’d denied herself to fully become for as many years as she could remember, was a woman. She should have never even tried to become a son to her father. She didn’t have the right qualifications.
Butch’s hand slipped into her pants. She let a small cry pass over her lips. “Please Butch, no,” she whispered on a feathery breath. “Please don’t.”
Her protests and fear prodded him. His excitement grew. She could feel him move against her belly.
“Damn it, Butch. Do you plan to rape her in front of us?” Whitfield cried. He sounded as panic-stricken as she had. Fiona had remained curiously silent, which pleased Vega enormously.
“Shut up,” Butch growled.
His muscles were taut bundles. His defenses were still raised. Vega sighed a quivery breath into Butch’s mouth. “Please Butch, not in front of them.” Her echoing Whitfield’s objection must have pleased him. He pulled her closer and bit her lip. She could feel the urgency in his groping hands.
The time was ripe, thank God. Now was the time to show Butch that soft feminine side she’d kept hidden.
“Butch,” she said with a lusty sigh. “I won’t fight you. I know you’re stronger than me.”
He grunted.
“I can get you Grayson.” She laid a trail of kisses down his pulsating throat. “I can get him to play into your hands. Just let Fiona go.”
He paused, his roving hands stilling in her pants, and quirked a gentle brow. “I’m getting him into my hands right now, baby, aren’t I?”
“No.” Vega licked her lips. Butch once said kissing her was better than licking ice cream—his favorite treat. “He’s not suicidal.”
“But he’s still on the island?” She had him. His glassy eyes cleared. His confident stance sank a good inch as his shoulders slumped.
“I think so. I think Whitfield is right when he says Grayson wants to protect Fiona and me. But would he trade his life for ours? Would you?”
Butch hardened further as her confidence drained away. “Of course not.”
“Let Fiona go?”
“I can’t, baby. She’s part of the deal.”
“I can’t help you then.” Vega hadn’t stopped kissing his neck, his ear, his chin. She kept her voice soft, pliable.
“Yes you can, baby.” Her tone had soothed Butch. He was beginning to cave. “I’ll make Fiona a clean kill. That should be good enough.” He curled a hand around Vega’s bottom and squeezed.
A bullet sailed into the clearing and kicked up sand at Butch’s feet, putting a huge monkey wrench in Vega’s carefully plotted plan.
Before she could react, Butch had his gun pressed to her temple.
Couldn’t Grayson have waited another minute?
“Let the women go.” His voice echoed through the trees.
Both guards fired blindly into the canopy and sent a spray of broken branches and leaves raining down on their heads.
A second bullet thudded into the sand a foot from Butch’s leg.
“Let the women go.” This time Grayson’s voice bounced through the lower branches. Directionless really. The guards followed with a second barrage.
Two reports from a pistol followed in the silence. Sand sputtered at Butch’s toe. A bullet had grazed the boot, taking off a strip of snakeskin. At about the same time Whitfield shouted and fell. He curled up into a ball on the ground, cradling his arm as he rocked.
“Let the damn women go,” Whitfield cried.
Butch rolled his eyes. Grayson’s strong-arm tactic only served to piss him off. “Jasper, shoot Fiona through the arm,” Butch said without a breath of remorse.
One guard, his hands shaking and his gaze jumping from Butch to the forest to Whitfield, swung his M249 around and pumped two bullets into Fiona’s left arm.
Fiona cursed and pressed her right hand against the blooming red wounds. “Kill him already, why don’t you?” she shouted up to the trees.
“Make Grayson come to you,” Vega whispered. She refused to let her heart race or her mind be affected by Fiona’s injury. Her thoughts rushed through possible scenarios for salvaging the situation. Butch certainly wasn’t going to let anyone leave, not with Grayson threatening him. “Tell him you’ll make a trade.” She had to neutralize the danger Grayson presented to Butch.
“I’ll let them go if you give yourself up,” Butch called into the dark vegetation. “You have five seconds to make a decision before Jasper shoots Fiona again.”
An M249 fell from a high branch and landed near the fire. “Don’t fall for it,” Whitfield moaned from his fetal position in the sand. “We’re dead men. I suppose we were dead the moment you botched Greg’s murder. It was supposed to look like an accident.”
“Shut the hell up!”
Whitfield wiggled around in the sand. It looked like he was trying to get up. “Lenny, help me get to the boat.”
The second guard rushed to Whitfield’s aid. The two men were nearly on the boat when Grayson stepped into the clearing with his arms stretched out, his hands empty.
“This doesn’t involve the women, Butch. Even Whitfield admits that.”
Jasper, the nervous guard who was holding his gun on Fiona, regained much of his courage at the sight of Grayson looking harmless without a gun. He turned the weapon’s aim to Grayson’s chest. But from where he stood, Butch and Vega were within the line of fire.
“Get me out of here,” Whitfield was shouting at the guard helping him. “I know his military history. We’re dead men.”
Butch tightened his hold on Vega, maneuvering her so she shielded him from Grayson. With her chest pressed against his, she didn’t have many options.
Fortunately, she only needed one.
“Grayson, you asshole,” she shouted as loud as her lungs would let her. “I had the situation under control. What the hell were you thinking? I can’t collect a bounty on a dead man.”
The way Butch was holding her, she could no longer see Grayson. She could see Jasper pointing his gun at them and Whitfield struggling to get into the boat. But she could imagine that Grayson was still advancing at a steady pace with his arms held wide.
Everyone’s attention was on Grayson, which meant Fiona was in no immediate danger. That was important.
Vega couldn’t overpower Butch. The best she could do at the moment was give Grayson an opening—she prayed he had a gun hidden somewhere on him—and then get Fiona to safety. It wasn’t exactly suicidal. Though the pistol pressed to her temple didn’t help paint a rosy future.
She stopped yelling at Grayson long enough to whisper to Butch, “I don’t feel right.” Her body dropped as every muscle relaxed. Butch tried to hold onto her and refocus the aim of his gun at the same time. In the confusion of movements, she slipped out of his hands.
BAM. BAM. BAM. The shooting started almost immediately.
She kept her head down and tumbled into a flip. There was no time to worry about the gunfire or the shouts and confusion. Grayson could take care of himself. Fiona was her goal. Besides, this mess was his fault. What kind of cooperation was he expecting, coming blasting into the boat dock like that? He got Fiona shot and made those guards with the guns cranky. That military training of his must have prepared him for situations like these. He should be able to take care of himself.
“Fiona,” her
sister’s name whooshed out of Vega’s lungs as she landed in Fiona’s lap, and knocked her off the Palmetto log she’d been sitting on.
“You okay?” Fiona asked through a grunt of pain. She instinctively grabbed her injured arm as she crashed into the sand. The question struck Vega as backwards. She should’ve been asking Fiona if she was okay, not the other way around. Vega nudged her sister to the far side of the log for additional protection.
“If you can manage…in my pocket is a key.”
Fiona’s slender hand slipped into Vega’s pants pocket.
“The handcuffs.” Adrenaline pumping. Gunfire thundering. Time moved twice as fast while eternity compressed itself into the space of a heartbeat.
With very little fiddling, Fiona managed to unlock the handcuffs on Vega’s wrists. Vega drew her Glock while Fiona released the shackles from her ankles. She peered over the log.
Silence. She hadn’t noticed when that silence had started.
Grayson was running toward them, blood smeared across his brow. One guard was laying face down in the sand. Whitfield, Butch, and the third guard were gone.
Vega lowered the Glock and sat up. “What happened?”
“You okay?” Fiona asked Grayson.
Grayson jammed the Beretta into his pants and felt the side of his head. He frowned at the blood on his hand. “Damn bullet grazed me. I’ll live.”
Vega had already figured that out. She took Fiona’s arm and began binding the wounds to slow the bleeding. Fiona’s skin had paled several shades and was coated with a sheen of perspiration.
“That guard of Butch’s ran into the woods as soon as the bullets began flying. Butch followed not far behind him. I got the guard helping Whitfield.” Grayson explained.
“And Whitfield?” Vega asked.
“He’s in the boat, crying.”
“Damn mess,” Vega muttered. She fastened a sling for Fiona, then took off her leather jacket, and wrapped it around Fiona’s shoulders. “You nearly got us all killed with that Rambo shit.”
“You’re welcome.” Grayson growled.
Vega met his gaze. He was still breathing heavier than normal and his eyes were clouded with a lust that had nothing to do with sex.
