Redeeming

by Calle J. Brookes

  Someone shouted, and she recognized her name. Luc. Dear God, he was alive. Thank God. He was running toward her. Toward the woman with a gun.

  The gun turned toward Luc, and Payton looked into the woman’s eyes. What the woman was thinking was right there for Payton to see. She knew what this bitch was going to do.

  Payton dove for the woman just as the woman’s finger squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter Sixty

  Mick reacted without hesitation the instant Dr. Asher moved. He fired, three successive shots right into the woman’s chest. She and Dr. Asher both went down and Mick’s heart nearly stopped.

  Had Asher been hit?

  Paige and her brother were down on the ground, but they were both moving. Mick ran past them and toward the suspect and Dr. Asher.

  Dr. Asher was moving, but she was covered in blood. He rolled her carefully off of the other woman. “I could have killed you!”

  “And she could have killed Luc.” She pushed a hand against her chest and her fingers came away covered with blood. Mick cursed and pushed her down on the ground. He needed something to cover the wound, but his clothing was too damned dirty from the explosion. It would probably do more harm than good.

  He grabbed the suspect’s jacket—she wouldn’t be needing it anytime soon, Hell was a pretty damned hot place—and balled it up. He pressed it to the holes on Dr. Asher’s right shoulder. “Lucas! I need help here! Payton’s hit!”

  “So’s Paige!” Lucas’s voice was filled with complete terror. Mick understood it. Lucas loved these two women, and they’d both been hurt because of him. Mick got that guilt; he’d experienced it before.

  “I’m alright. Flesh wound,” Paige called. Mick looked up from Asher long enough to check for himself. Paige was on her feet, her hand pressed to her bloodied arm. Then she was next to him, kneeling by her friend. “How is she?”

  “I’m alright.” Asher tried to sit up. “Where’s Luc?”

  “I’m here, baby.”

  “Thank God. I was terrified you were dead.”

  “Baby, you know you can’t kill the devil. Come on, let’s get you to the ambulance.” Mick admired Lucas’s control. The other guy lifted Dr. Asher carefully, and started down the alley.

  Paige started with her brother, then looked back at Mick—and at the dead woman at his feet.

  Mick knew what she felt. “Go, Daviess. Go with your family. Get yourself taken care of. I’ll take care of the madam here.”

  “Bitch deserved what she got, and so much more.”

  Mick looked at the woman, and couldn’t agree more. “We’ve stopped her now. And saved how many girls’ lives? We’ll never know.”

  “No. But there will be another one just like her out there soon. Will it ever end?”

  Mick had a strong suspicion that it wouldn’t.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Nothing had ever hurt Luc more than seeing her covered in blood. Than seeing her hurting because of him. He kept muttering empty reassurances as he carried her back down the alley and toward where he knew ambulances were waiting. He’d get her help, then he’d stay with her until she was whole again.

  And then he was never letting her out of his sight, never letting anything like this happen to her again.

  “Luc,” Her head rested against his shoulder, but she was remarkably calm. “Luc, it wasn’t your fault. You aren’t responsible for what she or her son have done. She said…she said she’s been running this ring for twenty-three years. Everything that happened was her fault. Not yours. You weren’t in control of that, and you couldn’t have been.”

  “Quit trying to make me feel better. You should be conserving your energy. We’ll talk about all of this later.”

  “I know. How’s Terrance?”

  “Ambulance took him away. I don’t know, yet.” Another sin upon his soul. He hadn’t given the man who’d worked for him for eight years even a second thought. What did that say about him, truly? He wasn’t much different than Judith Buenavista had been. He still used people for his own ends. He didn’t know how to act any differently.

  Even Payton. He’d used her from the very beginning.

  But no more. He’d spend a lifetime making it up to her, if he had to. No matter what he had to do.

  They were at the end of the alley, and Paige stepped in front of him to run interference through the gawkers gathered around watching the fire department. His building was in flames—at least what remained of the upper floors. He didn’t understand it; the building hadn’t been engulfed when he and Brockman had run out.

  He truly didn’t care. He had all that mattered to him, truly, right there in his arms and walking ahead of him.

  Sirens were still blazing, and several dark, government-issue SUVs were pulling up behind the fire engines. People he recognized were pouring out of the vehicles. He walked right by them, though Paige was caught up by Brockman’s brother and Compton.

  Luc looked at the eldest Brockman brother. “She needs medical attention, too. She’s been shot in the arm and probably has a concussion. Payton’s been hit and I’m getting her help. Your brother’s down the alley with the woman responsible for everything.”

  Brockman met his eyes and nodded. “I understand. Go. We’ll take care of Paige for you.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  Then he was at the ambulance and they were taking Payton and placing her gently on a gurney. He climbed in the back with her, and gave orders to get her to the hospital.

  She held his hand the entire time.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Payton woke clean and in a nice hospital room. The lights were dimmed and there was a dark man asleep on the couch next to her bed. She smiled when she saw how his normally perfect hair was sticking up all over his head.

  He’d had a shower, hadn’t he? She vaguely recalled how he’d looked in the alley. He’d been covered in blood, his shirt torn and his pants gray from something. Because of the explosion.

  The explosion.

  Had he been hurt more than she knew? There was a small white bandage over his left brow, and his right wrist was immobilized in an air cast. But he looked ok. She’d refused to let herself focus on what could have happened to him when she’d been with that woman, but now?

  Now she shook and felt like she was going to vomit. She could have lost him today.

  “Luc?” She barely whispered his name, but he must have heard her. He shot up on the couch, his eyes wild and worried.

  “Sweetheart. How are you feeling?”

  “A little sore. How badly was I damaged?” She remembered what happened. There wasn’t any confusion about any minute of it; not from the moment the building had exploded until he’d been separated from her in the ER before she’d been brought upstairs for surgery.

  “Brockman’s bullet went straight through you. It hit the area just beneath your collar bone, and exited through the front. They’ve repaired the torn tissue, and cleaned out bone and bullet fragments. You were lucky, sweetheart.”

  “Mick shot me?” She’d thought the woman had. Instead, she’d been hit by friendly fire. “He’s not going to be in trouble for it, is he?”

  “Something about administrative leave. But I don’t think he will be in too much trouble. You’re the one who moved into his line of fire.”

  “I had to. She was going to shoot you. Or Paige.”

  “She did shoot Paige.”

  “Oh my God, how bad?”

  “Sixteen stitches. My idiot little sister thought to protect me.”

  “Of course she did. You’re her brother.”

  “The big brother. It was my job to protect both of you.” Bitterness was in his tone and it had her struggling to sit up. Finally, she gave up and used the remote button in her hand.

  “Don’t be stupid, Luc. Your job is to love us. Just like ours—mine—is to love you. You can’t always protect the people you love. I’ve learned that this year. All you can do is cherish the times you have toget
her. You have no other real option. Even locking someone in a steel fortress has its dangers.”

  “She went for you and Paige because of me, sweetheart. I can’t forget that.”

  “No. She went for Paige and me because she was evil inside, and couldn’t stand when good was winning. You were just a convenient target. Don’t give her power over you. Please?”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  She was begging him with her eyes. Did she know what that did to him? “I’ll try, sweetheart. Do you need anything?”

  “For you to get over here and hold me. I’m starting to feel like I was hit by a bullet, here.” Her eyes filled with tears and had him completely mush. He stood and approached the bed. He didn’t want to hurt her any more than she already had been. And she looked so thin and fragile in the hospital bed.

  He settled on the edge, she shifted closer to the opposite side. Luc wrapped an arm behind her neck opposite of her injured shoulder, and though he had to balance himself with one foot on the floor, he managed to hold her.

  “How is Terrance?”

  “He’ll live. Probably a full recovery. They were smaller caliber rounds, and he is a big man. One was lodged near his spine, but they managed to remove it in surgery. We were all very lucky.”

  “And no one was in the building?”

  “No. Chase and Whilton got everyone out.” And according to Chase, barely made it out themselves. But still, his people were safe. He was so damned thankful for that.

  Today could have cost a whole lot worse than it had. His people were what mattered to him, not an old building in the heart of the city.

  “Thank God. Was the building destroyed? I can’t believe she set a bomb.”

  “She didn’t. Her son Rodney did. He apparently enjoyed pyrotechnics as a hobby. His signature was found in fifteen other devices along their trafficking route. Mostly foreign countries. They specialized in bringing American girls to foreign places because there was a high demand.”

  “Sick. I can’t even imagine it. Did we get them all?”

  “Mick is rounding them all up now. I don’t think he’s going to stop until he has every last one of them. He’s kind of a driven guy, isn’t he?”

  “Like someone else I know.”

  Someone knocked on the door before he could reply. He looked up to see his sister and Cody in the doorway. He slipped off the bed as they came in.

  They each took a turn hugging Payton.

  Paige looked at him. “You get some sleep?”

  “A bit. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m tired of getting my bells rung. The head still hurts a bit and the arm is stinging. But I’ll live.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry to get you in to this.”

  “Don’t go there. It wasn’t your fault. People who sell others, they’re monsters, pure and simple.” There was a world of pain in his sister’s eyes. And he knew then that she’d been through it herself. And she’d been older than three when it happened.

  He hadn’t protected her, after all. He’d always live with the guilt of that. Luc surprised himself—and probably her—by grabbing her and hugging her. And then she hugged him back.

  He needed a minute or two by himself. He needed to take a walk and get some air.

  He just had to get out of there.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Payton hurt for him, seeing the look in his eyes. He booked it out of the room, after kissing her once.

  Then it was just her and her friends. She took a deep breath; she wouldn’t cry. Not now.

  “Think I scared him away.” Paige shrugged, then climbed on the foot of Payton’s hospital bed. “So. Truth. How do you feel?”

  “Like someone shoved a piece of flaming metal through my skin just for the heck of it. You?”

  “Like that hunk of metal passed through me, too. But at least I’m up walking. Crazy day, huh? We should have stayed and had our ice cream.”

  It had been her choice to leave the café; Terrance and Paige had both been hurt because of her choice. She’d have to deal with that, too. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, none of that. It wasn’t your fault, any more than it was Davie’s.” Paige grinned, the expression so much like her brother’s. “And we are stopping the monsters. Can’t get much better than that in this world.”

  Cody pulled a hairbrush from her purse and brushed Payton’s hair. “No, it can’t. So…tell me…what happens now with you and Luc? He’s got it bad for you. Worse than I thought. I think he’s a goner.”

  “He’s not the only one. I love him. I’m going to be with him; we have a few things to work out, but I know this is what I’m meant to do.” Payton looked at Luc’s sister and her best friend. “But…I’m going to need a huge favor from the two of you.”

  “Anything you need, little sister.” Paige started whistling the Wedding March.

  Payton laughed.

  Everything was going to be just fine.

  She just had to make Luc see that.

  Sixty-Five

  She’d been too quiet, hadn’t she? Luc fought the worry. She was fine, the doctors had said as much, and she looked fine. Nothing was the matter with her.

  Except that she hadn’t let him even mention what would happen now, hadn’t so much as discussed it once in the two days she’d been in the hospital. And he’d never left her side, afraid she’d be gone when he returned. Was she still thinking she would go back to her apartment as if nothing had happened between them?

  He wasn’t going to let her. He’d get down on his knees and beg her if he had to.

  She was dressed in loose pajamas and another of his black leather coats. The first one had been damaged beyond repair. Her hair was in pigtails, of all things, and looked perfect.

  Chase opened the limo door and between the two of them they were able to get her out of the limo without jostling her too much. She wrapped her arm behind his neck. “Luc, we’re going to have to talk about something…there is something you need to know…”

  “Whatever it is, it can wait until you’re settled inside. Until we’ve made a few decisions about the when and where we are getting married.” Chase opened the front entryway and he carried her inside.

  “Married? Kind of jumping the gun, aren’t you? I haven’t even agreed to live with you.”

  He kept walking down the long hallway until he reached the door to his room. Their room. Chase opened the door. Luc carried her in.

  “I’m taking advantage of you in a weak moment. Doing whatever I have to—“He stopped.

  There was an old rocking chair in the corner of his room. It hadn’t been there before.

  Her grandmother’s quilt was spread over the foot of his bed.

  She smiled up at him, the expression one of completely fake innocence. “But I need to tell you…I had your sister and Cody move everything from my apartment here yesterday. I didn’t think you’d mind. And I figured it would save us some time.”

  He didn’t know what to think. He looked into her blue eyes. “You’re serious? What if I’d changed my mind?”

  “Easy. I was going to whistle.”

  Luc kissed her, completely.

  Watch for more PAVAD novels and stories coming from

  Calle J. Brookes and Lost River Lit. in 2014 and 2015!

  Now Available from

  Lost River Lit

  And

  B. G. Lashbrooks

  Called Home

  Book One in the Lofton, In. Series

  Prologue

  He’d always thought he would have more time on the earth. Thought he’d live to see his children married and settled in with loves of their own. His eldest had married, but the woman hadn’t lasted. She’d left his son and his grandsons high and dry years ago.

  His son’s heart had never healed.

  He had three other sons and one daughter. Strong, intelligent, and kind, all five of his children. He would have had one more, but young Matthias hadn’t lived past two months.

  He�
��d grieved that lost child every single day.

  The only solace he had in his own death was that he’d get to hold that baby again now. Hopefully his wife would have the knowledge that he was with their son now, too.

  Another regret was that his wife was the one to find him. He didn’t want her remembering him like that, but he knew she always would.

  Rams Royle had always tried to protect his Ella from everything he could.

  She was there beside him in the ambulance, wasn’t she? Her hand, so soft and beautiful, was wrapped around his and she was crying his name.

  Other soft hands were trying to get his damned heart to pump on its own, but he could have told the doc to not bother.

  It was Rams’ time to go. And he was going to go no matter what the doc did.

  He didn’t want her hurting over him, either. He knew who she was, and as he stepped out of the shell that was his body to make the next transition he took a look at that little doc.

  He loved her almost as much as he loved his own daughter. He’d known the moment he’d found her along the road years ago that she was meant to be one of his.

  He’d always hoped she and his oldest would make a match, two wounded hearts who’d needed someone to hold them safe and loved.

  But now that he was unfettered by the trappings of the earthly world he knew he’d misjudged her a bit.

  She wasn’t meant for his oldest. But for another of his sons.

  But his second son lived in Tennessee, quite a distance from the home he’d grown up in. But perhaps his death would bring his son home where he belonged.

  To his mother, and to the woman who was meant to be his.

  Rams looked at his wife one more time, then somehow stepped out of the ambulance, his spirit moving toward the brightly shining sun.