Relentless (Fallon Sisters Trilogy: Book #1)

by P. J. O'Dwyer

  Trey motioned them on ahead of him and Serg. "Rafe," he said, winded, trying to catch his breath. "Hotel's up two blocks."

  "Come on, Red." Rafe pulled her forward. Her head was still turned toward those trained to battle Juarez's drug trade with significant firepower, and she hesitated. Trey and Serg moved back in the direction they came, now only shadows.

  "Bren." The edge to his voice brooked no argument. She moved with Rafe toward the hotel and concentrated on the glint of his semiautomatic, still gripped in his other hand. "You just as good at shooting as you are at roping?" Her words came on uneven breaths.

  "Bull's-eye every time, darlin'."

  A little cocky. But if they had to fight to survive, she'd go with cocky anytime. "How many bullets?"

  "Twenty-one."

  Was that even enough? She didn't want to know. Twenty-one bullets stood in between her and—

  The thought never had time to truly register. The ground shook beneath her feet, and a dark swath of soldiers came at them. Overtaken, Bren and Rafe battled to stay together. But the warmth of his hand fell away, only the chill of the night air left to brush her palm, and the strength that had kept her from spiraling into the frightening abyss of despair was gone.

  "Rafe!" Her desperate cry, lost on the wave of insurgency, ripped from her throat.

  He cursed and tried to fight his way back to her, his familiar form disappearing among the soldiers, along with the fading of her name. He was gone.

  "Rafe!" Her voice cracked, and cold, stark terror seized her. Surrounded, they thumped and paddled her like a pinball, shooting her from side to side. She struggled to remain on her feet. But the force overwhelmed her, and she fell to her knees. Pebbles dug into her shins, and her arms flew up to protect her head.

  Her heart beat so fast she feared it would stop. Huddled into a small ball, her backpack protecting her from the jolts of their legs as they ran past, she prayed. A boot caught her calf, pinching her flesh, and she bit down on her lip to keep from crying out. The trembling ground around her steadied, the boots no longer echoing in her ears, and she lifted her hands from her head and peered through the last of the fatigue-clad legs passing by. They were gone, and she was left alone in a heap in the center of the street.

  Shaking, Bren stood, searching for Rafe. No one remained. Alone in full panic mode, she tried to run. Pain shot through her legs; she staggered, her muscles still too tense for a sprint. In front, another street came up. She checked the street in either direction—only swaying palm trees and blinking traffic lights. Across the intersection a wrought-iron fence encircled a playground, and she hoped this was the park Serg had mentioned. She searched for her bearings, but only a tall, concrete building several blocks up, minus the fancy green H, remained—her North Star.

  How had she gotten so turned around?

  She crossed the street and hugged the fence, her destination the building ahead. She needed to keep moving. The pop of gunfire still pelted the air in the distance. She needed to find Rafe. Her mind raced, and horrible thoughts crept in. She was sick with worry—worried he'd been shot or worse—dead. Tears burned the backs of her eyes.

  If she lost him...

  The screech of tires brought her around. Two dark Suburbans rounded the street behind her, their headlights off. Shit! She needed to hide. But where? She searched the deserted streets. A fence, interrupted by the entrance to the park, beckoned along with a set of hedges on either side. Bren tackled the distance quickly and shoved her body into the tangle of shrubs. She took deep breaths to steady her breathing. The earthy scent of boxwoods reminded her of her garden. Before she left, the spring pansies had just begun to peek through.

  Her hands clenched. I'm not dying in this hellhole.

  Angry shouts and the pop of gunfire erupted again, and her oath to deny death forced her to recant in a desperate plea of mercy.

  Please, God, don't let me die! She hunkered down, and gripped the iron fence.

  Her fingers tightened on the bars. Her leg muscles trembled. She kept her eyes trained on the park. The lights in the park were off, but the glare from the streetlight on the corner picked up on the red roof of the jungle gym. The colorful swings swaying in the breeze gave way to sweeter, innocent days when death didn't hang in the air like an awful stink trying to suffocate her.

  Finn's sweet face invaded her thoughts, and she sobbed. She missed her boys, and her heart smarted with the realization she might never see them again.

  Doors slammed shut, along with her future. Heavy soles beat against the sidewalk and entered the park. She pressed back into the thicket to keep hidden. Several more men entered, holding assault rifles. Dressed in black, wearing stocking masks with only holes for their eyes and mouth, they danced and shouted and shot randomly into the air. A scream, high-pitched and savage, came up behind her. Something moved past her through the gate. Gone was the stomp of angry boots and shoes on the sidewalk, replaced with friction and drag and an earsplitting wail, fierce and keening.

  Bren froze. Fear clutched her throat. What in hell was that? An animal?

  It came again, a more urgent shriek. No, it had to be a human sound—frighteningly human. My God, what had she stumbled into?

  Bren remained still. The risk of movement too great, she remained rooted to the ground. Her fingers cemented to the bars of the fence, afraid drawing back her hands would alert them to her location. She'd pray the overgrown limbs, thick with leaves, would conceal her pale skin against the black iron.

  Bren gasped. Hog tied, a man writhed against the ropes binding his ankles and his wrists. His colorful striped shirt rode up his back. Bare skin scuffed along the pavement. His head thrashed back and forth, his face staring upward.

  He cried, the words a jumble of Spanish that meant nothing to Bren. The others paraded around him, taunting him with jeers and kicks to his side and head. A taller black form approached, his arm swinging up from behind his back with malice, and the gleam of a machete took shape, and the blade swung down viciously. A gut-twisting shriek echoed in her ears and was silenced. Blood spurted like a geyser where his head should have been, and Bren shook in horror as they hoisted the ropes binding his ankles over a thick tree limb several steps from where she crouched. It swayed just like before. Just like... God... Tom's body. Dark and menacing, its arms dangled and the nightmare she'd lived with for months left her wide awake and petrified.

  She so desperately wanted to shut her eyes, but she needed to keep them accounted for. Nausea assailed her and she swallowed in desperation. Clenching her teeth against a second wave, she remained entrenched.

  Another man slung his rifle behind his back and reached for the head. His fingers grabbed the head by its hair, and he held it high. His comrades laughed and slapped each others' backs while he walked toward the fence and Bren.

  Bren whimpered. The irrepressible sound sent jagged spokes of fear racing over her skin. Dark pant legs and boots stood straddled before her. The drip of blood, steady and horrific, plopped on the supple leaves inches from her face. The man stepped back. Another round of bullets sprayed the night sky, and panic rushed her. Boots and heavy shoes filed past the gate into the street. Their voices, filled with mirth, vanished with the abrupt slamming of doors.

  They were gone.

  Bren chewed on her lips with indecision. Her fingers, still white-knuckled and oddly sticky, remained on the fence. Terror-fed adrenaline spiked, and she shot up to her feet and screamed. The head, jammed on the spike of the fence, stared back, now a hideous death mask, eyes bulging, mouth frozen open.

  An iron grip seized her arm, and she could taste her own fear as it spun her around. "Bren!" His voice was so rough, she scarcely recognized it as his.

  She shook. Her fingers tight and sticky, she raised her hands.

  His eyes hardened, and he pulled her from the entanglement of shrubs. "I got you, darlin'."

  Silent tears flowed down her cheeks. She couldn't even wipe her face. The blood—his blood—stained he
r hands, and it hit her swift and sickening. She now knew the meaning of having someone's blood on her hands, and the truth that could only live in her nightmares awakened. The blood was no longer that of a stranger's in a hellish land.

  It was Tom's.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Bren couldn't keep her teeth from chattering. Warmth eluded her. Had eluded her since Tom's death, and tonight as she witnessed the most barbaric of acts, she realized that the tortured soul she had become would never experience true warmth unless she told someone what she had done.

  Rafe slipped the room passkey through the lock. It beeped then buzzed, and he opened the door.

  Still frozen and standing rigid in the hotel's corridor, her hands held out, fingers stiff with dried blood that she'd refused to get anywhere near her person, Rafe pulled her inside. He flipped on the light and dropped their backpacks against the wall. A soft glow illuminated the hotel room from around the narrow entryway where she could make out the beginnings of matching comforters draping two beds. Rafe directed her into the bathroom and hit the light. It was small, with only a single shower behind a frosted-glass door, a toilet, and narrow vanity with one sink.

  "You have any open cuts?" Their eyes met in the mirror—his tense, hers blank and staring.

  She shook her head. "N-no." She clenched her teeth to stop them from chattering.

  He frowned. "You're freezing." His hands came up, brusquely rubbing her arms.

  She nodded. "A l-little."

  He turned on the faucets and began pulling up her sweatshirt sleeves. He tested the water and directed her hands underneath. It was warm. The instant contact of the heat against the cold of her skin burned slightly. The water, turning a rusty pink, swirled down the drain. He hit the pump soap. Working up a lather, he reached for her hands.

  While he scrubbed, his long fingers moving vigorously in between hers, she noticed the differences in their hands. Where hers were small and pale and slightly trembling, his were generous and male, shades darker, and moving in controlled motions. He rinsed her hands and grabbed the hand towel off the bar on the wall and dried them. As he flipped the towel over his shoulder, their eyes met in the mirror again.

  Gone was the gentleness he possessed while administering to her blood-caked hands. He scowled at her. "Do yourself a favor and forget about tonight."

  Not a chance. She lifted her chin to him in the mirror. "I—"

  "We're done, Bren." He spun her around, gripping her shoulders. Her breath caught. "I almost went nuts when I couldn't find you. We let this thing go before it kills us."

  They were a pair, the two of them. Both exhausted, dirty, and still smarting from their near escape. But she couldn't agree. Not about this. Unlike Tom's death, she had verifiable proof. Wes was guilty. She might never prove he'd killed Tom, but she wasn't walking away from Smiley's murder. Putting him behind bars, even for a week or a month, would at least give her some satisfaction.

  "I can't." She wanted to elaborate, but any more than one- or two-word sentences were beyond her. And even if she possessed the ability to lodge a stronger complaint, Rafe's severe expression and the distress in his voice outweighed any harsh reply.

  Her teeth chattered anew. God, she wanted to be warm, and his body, which took up an ample portion of the tiny space, gave off the most wonderful heat. She trembled right down to her toes and moved closer. But even his strength and nearness couldn't extinguish the horror of tonight. And it flooded her senses with overwhelming alarm.

  "Don't you understand?" She reached for him, tugging on his arm. "It's always there. I can't let it go. It won't let me go!" Her voice cracked.

  Not going to lose it. Not now.

  But every ounce of suck-it-up-and-deal dwindled, leaving her with the awful image of that body. "I-it swung..." Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my God, Rafe. T-they cut off his head!"

  His hands slid down her sides, and he hoisted her onto the edge of the vanity and kept a firm hold on her waist. "It wasn't Tom, Bren. He was a nameless face—a drug dealer. He got what he deserved." His eyes narrowed in on her. "Jesus." He took a deep breath, and his fierce gaze softened. "What you saw..." He hesitated and reached to caress her face. His voice gentling, his eyes still incisive, determined. "I should have said no to you. No to this savage border town."

  But she had seen it, heard it—way before tonight. The awful sound. It played back with frightening intensity, and she clenched her hands to keep them from covering her ears. "The creaking was just like before." Her head fell back, and she closed her eyes.

  Rough fingers gently kneaded the back of her neck. "No, honey, it wasn't."

  She opened her eyes and shook her head. "I couldn't save him." Toms' lifeless body took shape in her mind. "His face was the most frightful shade of purple," she whispered.

  Rafe tilted her chin up. "You've got to let it go."

  She swallowed hard. "I've never experienced that kind of panic." Her teeth began to chatter again. "U-until tonight. T-then I thought I'd be n-next."

  He raked his fingers through his hair and cursed. "You and me. That's what's important here. I'm not willing to take any more risks. Not with you."

  "But I can't—"

  "Damn it, Bren!" He gripped her by the shoulders. "Listen to what I'm telling you. We're done. This thing between you and Wes ends tonight." He yanked the towel off his shoulder and balled it in his hands and tossed it on the vanity. "I'm dead serious here." He cupped her chin, his eyes glinting a warning to let him finish. "We've turned up zilch. Even your buddy Kevin couldn't prove Wes killed Tom. I was all for helping you. I don't scare easy, darlin'. But tonight, when I thought I'd lost you, it just about killed me."

  "I'm sorry." She slumped against the mirror and turned away from him. For once she had nothing to say. Everything he said was true.

  "Hey." He knelt down in front of her. His hands slipping under her bot­tom, and he nudged her to him.

  If she so much as peeked at him, she'd be tempted to give in.

  "Look at me." His voice was gruff and demanding, yet when she engaged him, met his eyes, they belied the tough guy she'd come to know as Rafe Langston and hinted at the pain she, too, had felt when they had been separated tonight.

  "It's not your fault, darlin'. I should have never let go." He hugged her legs and laid his head on her thighs.

  Her heart caught at his expression of tenderness for her, and she reached out, twining shaky fingers through his thick, unruly black locks. Pulling gently, she directed him up. He was handsome and strong and curiously sensitive, and it touched her deeply. "I caused all this, not you. I think God was just giving me a what for!"

  He shook her lightly. "It doesn't matter." He searched her eyes. "Did you mean what you said the other night... about your heart?"

  The roughness of his voice made her go all shivery. Yes, she'd meant it—fallen for him when she shouldn't, lost her heart in degrees starting the night in the hayloft of her barn.

  Don't make me love you.

  "I'll only hurt you, Rafe."

  "I'm hurting already." He kissed her mouth. "I knew I should have stayed clear of you." His hands slid under her bottom, and he pulled her still closer. "I told myself you were trouble."

  She smiled at that, but she wasn't getting a reprieve. For the most part, her covert activities were benign. Her schemes were only meant to save lives, not end them—except for one. "Tom is dead because of me, Rafe."

  "It wasn't your fault."

  "Don't be nice to me." Tears stung her eyes, and her throat ached to tell him the truth.

  His hands moved under her sweatshirt and pressed lightly against her spine, his eyes softened. "What is it, Red?"

  She held his face between her hands, the dark whiskers along his cheeks prickly. She hadn't meant to get close to him. If anything, in the beginning, he was an irritant. Or maybe she was just irritated. "You're the only one who believed me—would help me. You're my best friend, Rafe."Those damn tears she tried valiantly to keep f
rom spilling over betrayed her.

  His fingers tensed along her back. "Hey, don't cry." He frowned and slipped a hand out from her shirt, brushing away a tear from her cheek. "Want to know a secret?" He cocked a brow up and grinned. The exaggerated gesture lightened her mood and coaxed a half smile from her lips. "You're mine, too."

  And there it was. This stranger she'd wanted no part of had broken through her walls, and the awareness that she'd known him all her life—at least bits and pieces of him—was stronger than ever.

  She couldn't explain it. Simply, there was no explanation, and she'd given up trying.

  Still shivering, she scooted closer, her knees bumping up against his solid chest. She brought her hands down to rest on his shoulders, the resilience of firm muscle tensed, and his reaction left her no doubt he was bracing himself.

  "You need to know the truth, Rafe. About me." The words were there. She only needed to say them, and she would be free.

  Tell him.

  "I lied when I told you that night in the barn I had nothing to do with Tom's death." Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. "I'd still have Tom and Smiley if I hadn't gone after Wes. I should have let those damn horses go." Her throat went dry, and she whispered, "I didn't, Rafe." She held fast to him. "All the stories around town are true. I stole back the horses we lost at auction to Wes—slipped out at night while Tom slept, crossed the fence onto Connelly land, and stole them out from under him. I had help, but it was my idea."

  He remained quiet for a moment, only reaching up to press back a strand of her hair. "I already guessed that."

  "You did?"

  "We think alike. I would have done the same."

  She let go of his shoulders, her hands on her hips, and pinned him with her eyes. "And that's exactly why, cowboy, we're filthy dirty, pouring out our souls to each other, holed up in some hotel, surrounded by lawlessness."