by Chloe Cole
“Retired,” she corrected, however unwisely.
“Sweetheart, I’ll be a Marine ‘til they bury my cold, dead, decrepit ass in the ground a good fifty or sixty years from now.”
She laughed, she couldn’t help it. “Ooh-rah?”
“Semper Fi, baby.” Always Faithful. She knew, though, he wasn’t talking about the Corps. “I know you can take care of yourself, but you don’t have to take care of me. Even at my worst, I can still protect us, you got that? Especially now that I finally have something worth living for.”
“Semper Fi,” she whispered, brushing her fingers over his cheek as he’d done to hers. An agreement. One that was easier to give than it should have been. A lot of things should have been more difficult with Cade, but they weren’t. Trust and love just flowed naturally. The only thing hard to do was shut him out.
He rolled onto his back, bringing her with him like his favorite toy. Which was fine, really.
Because the glass above their heads shattered in a hail of bullets and automatic weaponry.
Cade kept rolling, spinning them both to the floor. They hit hard, but Trina barely felt it. She glanced at him, not even able to register shock as he yanked two guns from beneath the bed and handed one to her without hesitation.
She simply took it and grimly stated the obvious. “They found us.”
***
Keeping low to the floor, Cade crawled quickly to the other side of the bed, heading for the corner of the cabin. Once there, he popped a panel near the floor with the side of his fist. The panel flipped, revealing a small screen and a directional toggle with four buttons beneath it. The screen came on instantly, revealing a view from the tall trees above the cabin.
Rotating the tip on the toggle, he zoomed in on one of the three trucks he saw just a few yards from his front door. Two were empty, but this one was definitely occupied. Two men stood at different ends, each with rifles too big to be anything but fully automatic, one driver and something curled up in the middle of the truck bed. Something big.
Not willing to take too much time on it, he used the buttons beneath the toggle to check all four sides of the cabin. The east and south sides had three armed men each, while the western wall of the cabin was tucked close to the granite mountainside. Close, but not flush. The escape route there was still open.
He went back to the north view, where the trucks waited, his gaze locking on the shape under what looked to be a tarp. Tightening the focus as far as it could go, he saw definite movement and clear bloodstains. Fresh stains.
“How did you say my place burned?” he asked, dread pooling in his gut because he knew the answer already.
“Explosion,” she whispered, peering over his shoulder at the view screen.
“Let me guess, none of the buildings around mine were touched, right?” He turned to look at her, but like before, he knew before the words were out of her mouth.
“No, actually. Hell, your lawn wasn’t even burning.”
“Fuck.” No question what was under that tarp now. He checked the safety on the handgun before shoving it in his back waistband. “You ever wonder how someone as young as Rick ended up in my unit?”
Trina shook her head. “I didn’t realize he was that much younger than you.”
Yeah, the streaks of white in Rick’s hair did age him to anyone who didn’t know they were from shock. “Almost eight years. My team was designed for covert ops, usually slash and grabs. The little shit is a goddamned genius with C-4. He could demolish a mountain or blow the seal on an envelope if he wanted.
“I knew there was something you told me that I wasn’t registering. You said it was blind luck that I left town yesterday. It wasn’t. Rick’s been after me to get out of town for weeks. The reason I came up here was because he’d insisted I take my vacation time and get away for awhile. Refused to take no for an answer.”
“You’re saying—”
“I’m saying Rick is no traitor. He set it up to make it look like I was dead only after he got me out of the way.”
“He knew Frank was on to you.”
“Dumbass was playing both ends against the middle and he got caught.” And if he could manage to save the moron’s life, Cade was going to throttle him for it.
“We know you’re in there, Evigan,” Carter’s gravelly voice boomed through the cabin walls. That feedback at the end meant he was on a bullhorn. Great. “You got two minutes to come on out here or things are going to get ugly for your Army buddy out here.”
Squelching the urge to tell Carter to go fuck himself if he couldn’t tell the difference between military branches, Cade took a quick mental inventory. He didn’t have any automatic weapons here, but his rifles were nothing to piss at either. “How good are you with heavier artillery?”
“With my right hand or with my left?” Even now, she had to be cheeky.
“We’ll have three seconds to get away from this wall after I push this button. Floorboard in front of the couch, there’s a twin gauge and an ammo belt pre-loaded. Count of two, you get it, I’ll cover the window. One, two!” He hit it and they raced toward the middle of the cabin, Cade using his body to shield hers from the three men he knew were on the other side of shattered window. Bullets streamed in. Cade dropped practically on top of her. A loud boom stopped that, shaking the cabin and sending dirt flying in past the broken glass. Trina, God love her, didn’t miss a beat. Her hands found the loose floorboard and yanked it up. Another few seconds scrambling and they were back in the corner, one rifle and ammo belt heavier.
“You have land mines out there?” she snapped.
“Yeah, probably should have mentioned that when I told you about the place, huh?”
“Oh, ya think? Who the hell do you think you are? First-Blood?”
“Please. That guy was a Green Beret.” Cade cracked open another panel above the surveillance viewer and pulled out the wireless walkie-talkie. “Still sure you want to be here, Carter? There’s ten more of those buried all over my property. That one looks like it cost you at least two men.” He heard his own voice echo on the loudspeakers outside.
Apparently, so did Trina, because she looked at him incredulously as she checked the rifle.
The bastard had the temerity to chuckle in response. “I had a feeling you were going to make this interesting, Evigan. Never bought that post-traumatic stress bullshit people said about you. Hope you had a good night with KK. My men tell me she’s a hell of a fuck. Consider her my gift to you.”
Trina rolled her eyes, mouthing words he hadn’t heard since he’d left the service. He’d have laughed, but she did have a loaded twin-barrel in her hands. Perverse, maybe, but if their lives weren’t in danger, this would probably rate as his best date ever.
He brought the radio back up. “Well, since you’re staying awhile, why not tell us how you found us?”
“Pretty easy, really. I keep tabs on all my bitches. She’s got a beacon in that jacket she likes so much.”
They both shot a glance to the pile of her clothes still in front of the couch.
“I’m trapped in hell with the fucking techno-twins,” she growled, probably to herself. Hopefully to herself.
“So what happens when I come to the door?” Better to stay on point or he might find himself agreeing with her.
“Simple trade. You come out and tell me where Shana is, I’ll give you back your piece of shit best friend.”
Yeah, right. “He alive?”
Another rough laugh. “Let’s put it this way. He sure as hell wishes he wasn’t.”
Shit. Trina must have been thinking the same thing because she sent him a worried look.
“Why do I need to come out for that when I’m so comfortable in here?”
“Because I fucking told you to.” The enraged snarl had Cade’s brows rising.
“He’s such a control freak,” Trina whispered, letting her head fall back against the wall. “You know he just wants you out there so he can shoot you, right?”
<
br /> “No, he’s more hands on than that. He’ll want to gut me.”
She gave him a sideways glare. “I told you, he’s not an idiot. You’re almost twice his size. No way he’d get close enough for you to hurt him.”
But Carter was prideful as all hell…
“Cade?” Trina turned fully his way, a note of nervousness in her voice.
“Let’s make a deal, Carter.”
“Cade, no.” Her hiss barely registered.
“I’ll come out, but you have to make it worth my while. Bring Trelane to the porch, then get your men back to the truck. I’ll talk to you, just you. Then we can all get out of this safe and sound.”
“What about your little friends underground? I’d hate to drop your man somewhere he won’t come back from.”
“Consider them disarmed. Unless someone breaks the rules. Then I’m blowing the shit out of you and your men.”
Long seconds ticked by while Carter seemed to consider it.
“He’s not gonna go for it,” Trina whispered, shaking her head.
Cade wasn’t sure either. The odds were fifty-fifty, but then again, Carter was a desperate man. Normally, his crew was all of forty members. For some reason, he’d come with less than ten and now was down to seven. This whole thing stunk of total desperation. Whatever Shana took, she definitely had the man by his balls.
“Fine,” Carter barked suddenly. “Give us a few to drag this sack of shit up there.”
Trina gaped. “You’re seriously going to let him just drive away?”
“First priority is getting Rick back alive. After that, we’ll see.”
“We’ll see what?” Damn she was beautiful when she wanted to throw things at him.
“I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch.” He grasped her chin and pressed a rough kiss on her lips before snatching the rifle from her hands. “Watch the viewer, make sure they don’t try anything. If one of those guys moves or shows up on any view but the north, blow ‘em to kingdom come.”
“What about you?” There was still some worry on her face, the old worry, that he’d been too scarred by his past. Oddly enough, the painful memories weren’t blocking his survival instincts. He actually felt somewhat back in his element. Maybe because he understood what he was protecting. The lines had blurred too much before, watching friends he considered brothers die no matter how hard he fought for them. This time the lines were brutally clear. No one, especially not Frank Carter, was getting past them.
“I’m fine, I swear.”
They both heard the thump outside, likely Trelane getting dumped like a sack of potatoes.
Trina eyed him grimly, blowing out a breath as she turned her face back to the viewer. He watched her shift from one view to the next before nodding at him. Field clear.
Slowly, nosing the gun out first, he opened the cabin door. As expected, Trelane, blood running down his face and just about everywhere else Cade could see, lay on the porch. No blood pools, though, which he decided to take as a positive sign. Directly in front of him stood the unlikely mastermind. “Hello, Carter.”
“Evigan.” Physically, there wasn’t much to Carter. No taller than five-foot-eight, his body was wiry and spare. Too much sun had turned his skin to a reddened leather while his hair was a stringy, dull brown well blended with errant silver. For a small guy, he was definitely powerful, like a rabid pit bull, especially in one of his rages. But his strength wasn’t what made him dangerous. No, that part was visible when you looked into his vicious, rat-like gaze and saw the mind working behind it. He had magnetism and just enough bat-shit crazy to scare without doing a damn thing if he didn’t want to. Like Charles Manson without the swastika or the straight-jacket. “I thought we were planning to play nice here.”
“I am. If I wasn’t, you’d be playing dead.” Really, really well.
“So tell me where that bitch and my son are.”
Distasteful as it was to answer, Cade could keep a deal. “I have no idea whatsoever.”
Carter’s beady little eyes narrowed. “You fuckin’ with me?”
Not even if he begged. “I drove her to Eureka three months ago. Where she went from there, I have no idea.”
“You… you…” Carter’s mottled color turned dark, nearly purple as he all but vibrated like a volcano about to go off. Roaring, he threw himself at Cade, grabbing the end of the rifle, trying to wrestle it out of Cade’s hands. Surprisingly, he just about did it, until Cade suddenly shoved the stock forward, unbalancing the smaller man and cracking him in the face with it. The skin on his forehead burst, blood splashing on the gun butt, but Carter didn’t let go.
Not until the ground beneath them literally jumped, sending them both sprawling and choking on the flying earth. Trying to clear his vision, another delayed crash split the air just before the door to the cabin opened and Trina stood there like an avenging angel of some kind. She’d put her pants back on, thank God, but both hands were extended out, each with a 9 mm, hunting for a possible target in the front yard. As the dust blew out of the way, all he could make out was the upside down truck with an uncomfortable number of bodies laid out in overturned earth and—hopefully—moaning all around it. He wasn’t sure. Both of his ears were still ringing slightly.
He must have managed an incredulous look of his own though, because Trina simply hitched a shoulder. “They moved.”
Sure they did. Cade used the rifle still in his hand to roll himself back to his feet.
“You fucking bitch,” Carter groaned, staring blearily toward the yard. He wasn’t moving, though, not after having crashed through a 4x4 railing bar. It almost seemed unfair to go over there and pin him with the rifle to his neck, but Cade had never really cared too much about fair. He cared about right.
He leaned his weight onto the gun, making sure Carter wasn’t going anywhere. “What did Shana take from you?”
“Screw yourself, Evigan.”
Cade heard the snick of the blade shuttling from the band on Carter’s wrist, just barely catching the man’s hand before he could sink it into Cade’s kidney. Instead, he arrowed it down into Carter’s own thigh. Carter roared in pain.
“I guess you didn’t hear me. What did she take?”
Carter lurched up, looking like a rabid beast, but this time, Cade just dropped his weight entirely and slammed the rifle across the man’s chest again.
“She’s already in custody, Carter. Whatever she took, you’re not getting it back so you might as well tell me what it was.”
“Money!” Carter finally yelled. “She took my stash, all right?”
“Stash?” Trina kept the guns out, but she did look down at the two of them. “You mean you’ve been skimming the payments to the Columbians? Are you out of your mind?”
“Three million of my buyer’s money. I earned that shit!”
“Like hell you did. Who’s the buyer?” she yelled.
It took another slam from the rifle, but Carter finally coughed it up. “Blu-Wood, all right!”
Cade frowned. “Isn’t Blu-Wood a construction company? They make prefab houses or something, don’t they?”
“It’s a front,” Carter groaned. “It’s owned by the Scarapacci family.”
Trina dropped her guns entirely. “You know what? Let him go.”
“What? Why?”
“Because that bastard is planning to go state’s evidence and I’m not going to watch decent agents die protecting his ass from the fucking Mob and a bunch of pissed off Columbians. He made his bed, let him die in it.”
Cade looked down at the vaguely smiling visage of Frank Carter, wishing he could do just that. Instead, he crashed his fist into the man’s face and had to settle for the less satisfying crunch of bone as he sent him into unconsciousness.
He got up, that much at least settled and headed back to Rick. “Get my kit.”
Trina spun around back into the cabin while he knelt in front of his friend.
Rick watched him through one badly swo
llen eye. “Sorry I got you into this mess.” The words were a mumbled mess.
“Not yet, you’re not,” Cade said, carefully taking stock. It wasn’t good. “Your arm’s broken. Your hand, too. At least three fingers snapped. Probably the cheekbone, too. Shit, kid, what’d they work you over with, a lead pipe?”
“Aluminum bats. And a car.”
Which led to the internal bleeding question Cade was already moving to check. “We need a life-flight.”
Rick’s hand gripped Cade’s, not hard, but with urgency. “I wasn’t trying to get you killed.”
“I know.”
“Wanted your help. Then I saw you and Trina. Couldn’t drag you in further. I’m sorry, man.”
“Make it up to me and don’t die, okay?” Trina arrived with the heavy kit, but Cade sent her right back in for the transceiver. “You live and you can be the best man at our wedding.”
Trina handed him the device, waiting precious seconds while he called in on the emergency frequency. Then she handed him a pair of latex gloves. “Just so you know, that’s a crappy way to propose, Evigan.”
“Hey, I let you blow up my cabin, got you your case settled and even got you an informant.” He snapped them on, already looking for the best place to start. “That’s the best proposal a cop ever gave, period.”
She grumbled, but he saw the smile on her face as she donned her own gloves.
“If you two are done planning your future,” Rick groaned. “Could you get back to saving my life, please?”
“Ah, you’ll live,” Trina declared. “And when you’re all done healing up, I’m going to kill you for getting us all in this mess.”
“Sounds fair,” Rick mumbled, his open eye falling shut.
“No,” Cade sighed, smiling at Trina. “It sounds right. Absolutely right.”
Epilogue
Marketta Bugle, June 23rd.
Announcements: SSgt Cade Evigan, Retired, and his wife, Katrina, welcomed the latest addition to their family in the form of an 8 lb 12 oz little girl, whom they named Merina. She’s the second child for our town’s elected Sherriff and his wife, a decorated federal agent—also retired—who already have a son, Ricky, age three. The Evigans say the undersheriff, Richard Trelane, will be standing as Godparent to their daughter as well.
