“Yeah, it’s been that way since I got here, only a couple of hours of quiet before it all goes wild again. That’s going to make things difficult.” Tuck wasn’t ready to admit he was willing to go with her plan, he still had something to work out in his head, so he kept it short and sweet.
“It’s still doable though as long as Misty comes at the same time or around the same time. I got the impression Bender had ordered her to take me to get some food, she looked like she had just woken up. Maybe he wanted to keep me away from the other guys and chose the time specifically when most of them were either passed out or already gone.”
“Babe, that man doesn’t have a decent bone in his body, he wouldn’t give a shit about his guys,” Tuck responded with a little censure.
“I don’t know, I think you’re wrong. For right now, he needs something from me. Once he doesn’t, I’m sure that will change.”
“Maybe,” Tuck said reluctantly. She did have a point, he could have ordered Misty to take her to the kitchen at any time or just brought in some food and thrown it at them like animals. These fuckers had done that to Tuck more times than he could count. Katie ran her finger over Tuck's forehead easing the lines of worry.
“Well,” Katie said, looking up at him with a slight smile, “if you want to talk it out, I’m not going anywhere, and I have it on good authority I’m pretty smart, so…”
“Is that right?” Tuck said, enjoying being with her and playing back and forth. He felt ten years younger.
“Yep, just don’t ask me to tie my own shoes, and we’re all good,” Katie said with a yawn. “I might have a little problem with common sense, someone told me that once.”
Tuck regretted saying that to her but knew she was just playing around by the smile on her face and the sparks in her eyes.
“That isn’t going to be a problem, babe. I would tie them for you, but you don’t have any shoes, so I think we can manage.” They both laughed at that.
“Neither do you, big guy, so hit me with it. What’s on your mind besides everything?”
“You got it in one, everything and nothing. It’s all good though, I’ll figure it out. Why don’t you try to get some more sleep?”
“No can do. I’m up now, so I guess you’re going to get my unsolicited advice. It’s major, so you better listen up, okay?”
“Hit me.”
“Let it all go except getting out of here, all the stuff I said about me and you, your daughter, the club, all of it. Go through my plan and tell me everything you think can go wrong, prepare me like you would one of your guys. When we get out of here, the other stuff will still be there on your plate, and you can pick it up and mull it over until your heart’s content.”
“That’s pretty good advice from a girl with no common sense.”
“Yeah, I have my moments,” Katie laughed. Sitting up on the bed, she leaned over and for the first time, initiated a kiss between them. Where he was holding back, Katie went full force ahead. It started out small and soft, just a slight touch of their lips but quickly turned into fire. When she swiped her tongue across his bottom lip, Tuck took over, taking what he wanted. Tilting his head to the side, he sealed his lips over hers and delved his tongue into her mouth, exploring every inch. Katie was anything but passive, dueling with him in a dance as old as time. He put everything into that kiss—promise, love, and hope, and she returned it.
When he heard the footsteps out in the hall, he pulled back with a groan. Katie looked disappointed, breathless, and wild. When she scrunched her eyes as if asking why without saying the words, Tuck playfully slapped her upturned ass.
“Get a move on, babe, we’re about to get company.” Everything changed in her face and demeanor then, he hated it, wanted the moment back, but it was what it was. Tuck was still laying down, so he once again started using his skills to look like he was on death’s door while Katie rushed around the room. He could hear her picking up and moving things around and knew she went into the bathroom.
She had just come a back out when he heard the key in the lock, and the catch as the mechanism engaged. He heard a gasp and seconds later a bunch of shit landed on his groin. Shit! It fucking hurt, but he remained still and quiet, determined she would pay for that later. How hard would it have been just to bunch up the sheet or something?
Tuck had expected to hear Misty’s voice, but Bender’s voice bellowed through the room. His spine straightened, and all the muscles in his body tensed. The man sounded angry. Tuck’s first thought was Bender had discovered the window Katie had told him about and was about to make her pay for it.
“Is he up yet?” Bender demanded. Katie made some excuses at first, but the man was insistent, demanding he needed him up now. When she started spewing off medical facts and statistics, he issued another order and slammed the door when he left the room.
“Babe, I really don’t think my low-grade fever will boil my brain,” Tuck said sarcastically with a smile.
“Yeah, well, I might boil his brain if I could just figure out how to do it without touching him; that man gives me the creeps. It’s all in his eyes, it’s like they’re dead,” Katie said with an overexaggerated shiver.
“Kind of like his soul.”
“I doubt he has a soul. If I were a betting woman, I would say he sold it to the devil a long time ago.”
“You might be right, babe. Okay, let’s go over everything before someone else decides to come in the room. Tell me exactly what Misty said to you and everything you saw when you left the room with her, including everything you saw when you were brought to the place. Don’t leave anything out—where people were, what type of furniture is out there, the number of doors you saw opened or closed—everything.”
They talked everything out, and Tuck was surprised at all the details Katie remembered. He had worked with seasoned soldiers who didn’t pay as much attention to their surroundings as Katie had. She blew it off as an ER Doc thing, but he knew it was more than that. Katie had always, even as a child, been quietly observant. He remembered the few times he came into Lexington on leave. When he went to Major’s, Katie’s dad, house because he was sponsoring him through the RBMC, Tuck would watch the family interact while Major gave his life lessons, most of which involved a bike and how to fix it with several well-placed moments of advice. He also noticed Major, or his kids didn’t spend much time with his Old Lady. The kids were always with him but he played favorites, and Katie was often left out because she was a girl. Tuck figured it was because Major was old school, to him little girls had a place and that was in the house cleaning or baking cookies but he made an exception because his Old Lady was a rip-roaring drunk and he didn’t trust her with his princess.
Colton was a typical boy, brash and abrupt. The kid ruined more things than he helped fix, but Katie had always been methodical. She would sit back and watch her dad or Tuck when they were trying to teach Colton, and when she thought no one was watching, she would go over and fix it. Tuck had been watching, and it amazed him she could fix almost anything on a bike. Through the early years, he even purposely left things off or untightened, just to see what she would do. Each and every time, she found his mistake, fixed it quietly and went back to reading her book in the corner. Because as Colton used to say, girls weren’t supposed to fix bikes.
The morning seemed to fly by, and by the time Misty made her first appearance with the vial of morphine, they were both ready. Katie rigged the IV tubing just like she said. There was a second where he thought some might get through, but the trap had worked like a charm. But what was really interesting to him was how Katie seemed able to get Misty to talk about anything. She did things in such a subtle way with the biggest impact—a little compliment or snarky response, whatever it took to get the results she needed at the moment. Hell, he was thinking about asking her to train some of the guys.
Just listening to her was a like a well-choreographed dance. By the time she was done, they had a name of the big wig, Miguel Perez. That shit
bugged him. He knew of Perez because of Cin and had wanted to take him down, but the RBMC didn’t mess with cartels, there was too much collateral damage involved. That didn’t mean he hadn’t put feelers out. She also got Misty talking about the information Tuck supposedly had. Apparently, there was a guy associated with the cartel and the good Senator Jeffers who had been working with the Vultures, taking notes, all kinds of notes. They didn’t find out until after the explosion Creed and Slim set off that the guy was missing along with this little treasure trove of information. Misty didn’t have a lot of information on the guy only a name, and it blew Tuck away—Jamison Sinclair, Addy’s brother.
The Vultures thought the RBMC had him, but Tuck knew they didn’t, they had been looking for him as well but couldn’t find him. Now that he thought about it, the fucker was probably still in the damn tunnel. Link had gone back time and time again, but the blast had destroyed a good portion of the tunnel. Tuck also knew the Vultures had tried to go back with Haslet, Worthington, and the Senator, but Tuck had ordered it sealed from both sides. The guys had taken care of that. Link and Carri had another way in, and he was hoping once he and Katie got out of there, he could finally fucking find out what was so damn important.
Chapter Ten
Katie was feeling pretty proud of herself, and when Misty finally left the room, she turned around and beamed at Tuck.
“Well, I think that answers a few of your questions, don’t you?”
Tuck smiled back at her, and she knew she would do anything in her power to keep that handsome smile on his face. He’d always been so serious around her—she would see him interacting with the guys, smiling and laughing, living it up even with Cinny but never with her. No, until now, she always got serious Tuck. She loved that side of him but was starting to like this one just a little better.
“Don’t get too cocky, Kate, this is only the start,” Tuck reprimanded, but not in a snide or shitty way. She knew they still had an uphill battle at their door, so she started asking him questions, trying to think of anything she could use. What happened if say there were more Vultures out there than expected? What should she do if Bender didn’t come in for coffee like he had before? What if Misty didn’t come at all and Bender sent one of the other guys to get her? Her list of questions just kept going, but Tuck listened to each one and offered his advice. Katie didn’t know if she would remember it all, but she tried.
When the time finally came and the party died down outside the room, Katie at first got excited, the adrenaline pumping in her veins, and she was raring to go. When the minutes passed and Misty still hadn’t shown up, Katie started to lose hope, but Tuck just held her and said they would figure out something else. She loved being in his arms and wanted more of it in the real world. She let her mind drift to hopes and possibilities but stopped because only time would tell if what she and Tuck had worked out in this tiny room, under life and death circumstances, would hold the test of time and freedom.
So many things could go wrong. Right now, unlike before, she regretted asking Tuck to take her through it, to tell her what to look out for because there was just so much. She kept playing her walk to and from the kitchen over in her mind—there was something important she was missing, but she just couldn’t seem to put her finger on it.
Katie had a gut feeling if Misty didn’t show up and Katie flaked and couldn’t follow through, things were about to get a hell of a lot worse for the both of them. She hadn’t said anything to Tuck, but Bender’s cold dead eyes promised her something more this time, and he had backed down way too easy for a man who had been so determined to kidnap a doctor to keep Tuck alive. There was no way he could know about her plan, hell, she had just come up with it yesterday, and Tuck had done a thorough sweep of the room, so they knew it wasn’t bugged.
She couldn’t help looking down at her watch every few minutes. When six o’clock in the morning came and went, dread rushed into her body. They only had about an hour before the building was packed again with Bender’s men. She was just about to tell Tuck what she was thinking when he squeezed her tight, kissed her forehead.
“Showtime baby.”
Everything went exactly as they’d planned. Katie followed Misty into the breakroom slash kitchen. Katie cleaned it up a little. When Misty took out her little bag of pills, Katie told her she should take a blue and white one for a better high, and Misty did it without question. Bender came in, grabbed the coffee, and disappeared. All of it was so damn smooth. Misty passed out, and that was when Katie remembered what had been bugging her before—the damn keys. Misty never had them except this time. They were laying right there on the table. Katie realized it could be a setup, but what was she really going to do?
She went over to Misty, checked her vitals—sluggish but okay. Then she went to the window and opened it all the way, not even caring about the tremendous squeak it made going up. It was a test as far as she was concerned. When no one came in, she peeked her head out of the doorway and just like before, no one was in sight, or they were passed out and snoring on one of the many couches. She wanted to run down the hall and get to Tuck, but she walked and kept thinking this was just too damn easy.
When she got to the door, she inserted the key, opening the door. Tuck was right there, she motioned him out, and he followed her to the breakroom again. No one moved or tried to stop them. The fire escape had been tricky but doable, and even with Tuck’s weakness, they made it down safely. As they started to run, Katie holding on to Tuck so she could help him move faster and support him, they ran right into Crank. Again, what the fuck, Katie thought. There wasn’t any time to talk. Crank ushered them into two SUVs—Tuck in one and her in the other with Link and Crash. They started driving fast, Katie’s mind going as fast as the lines on the street.
“It was too easy,” she blurted out. Link didn’t pay her much attention, he was focused on driving and getting them out of there. Link had always been a self-absorbed ass with only one exception—his brothers or Carri. Crash turned and looked at her.
“Katie there’s some food and water in a bag back, there it isn’t much, but it will help you calm down. Link will get us back to Defiance before you know it, honey, you just need to take a couple of deep breaths, and let us do this, okay?”
He was placating her, Katie didn’t like it. She knew she sounded like a lunatic, but she needed them to understand.
“NO! You don’t get it, it was too easy. The keys shouldn’t have been there, Misty never had them, Bender always had them.”
“Katie,” Link growled, “what are you trying to say, you aren’t making any fucking sense.”
“It was my plan, I came up with it. Tuck and I talked about it, but it was mine. It shouldn’t have gone that way. He knew, Link. Bender knew what we were doing and let it happen.”
“Katie?” Link’s voice got soft like he was going to start treating her like the lunatic she felt like. Katie took a deep breath and tried to calm her emotions and thoughts so she could make the words come out clearer or in a way they would understand. After she felt a little better, she explained the plan from the beginning, then explained how it all went down, but they still weren’t getting it, telling her that she was just over thinking it or that she was in shock. She was a damn doctor and knew damn well she wasn’t in shock. Then it hit her.
“How did you guys know to be right there, on the same night we were making our unplanned escape? Crank wasn’t even a block away, we ran right into him when we came down those steps. Think about it, Link, how in the hell was that possible? Right time, right place, no fucking way! It was a setup, they wanted us to leave. But why?”
Link hit the steering wheel a couple of times and yelled a few choice curse words before grabbing his phone and making a call. Katie assumed it was to the other car and Tuck. Link’s responses were terse and short, and Katie wasn’t getting much of it. When he hung up, he and Crash did some weird hand movements Katie had seen before and knew they were communicating. She’d had enou
gh, this was bullshit. She’d given them her information, but in return, they were keeping shit from her. Hitting the back of Links seat, she yelled, “Well!” not willing to wait any longer.
“Katie, chill.” Link chastised. “We need to figure some stuff out first.”
“Well then, ask me, damn it, I was there, and you weren’t. Quit doing the silent solider stuff and talk to me!”
“Fine, woman. You are a pain in the ass.”
Katie wanted to say, back at you butthole but kept her mouth shut. She would have a little conversation with Link after all this mess was sorted but not right now. Dude needed to get a fucking clue about talking to people other than his wife or brothers. Crash tried to help by softening his tone.
“Katie, did they touch you in any way?”
“No, besides manhandling me a little, they all kept their distance once we got to that building.” Link’s muttered, thank god made Katie realize what they had been really worried about, and it made her sick to her stomach. Thankfully, none of that had happened.
“What about your clothes, did they make you change or give you anything else to wear?” Crash asked.
“Nothing,” Katie responded. “But everything Tuck is wearing came from them, the shorts and even his underwear.”
“Shit!” Link said and picked up the phone again. This time Katie knew exactly what he was saying and getting in return. When he got off the phone this time, he didn’t bother with hand signals to Crash. He looked through the review mirror, and said, “Katie, you need to strip and throw everything out the window, okay? Crash is going to come back there and help. He needs to look at your skin and make sure they didn’t attach anything to you. Are you okay with that?”
Katie looked at Link, then over at Crash who happened to look like this was the last thing he wanted to do and realized both of them were just as uncomfortable as she was about it. She nodded her head, she couldn’t speak the words. The thought of the Vultures or Bender being able to find her again freaked her out in a big way. Getting undressed in front of Link and Crash, not so much. She had played sports in school and wasn’t ashamed of her body. It would just be weird, like undressing in front of your bratty brother, it just wasn’t done. But in this instance, she realized it needed to be, and she wanted it. She didn’t want anything that man had touched being on her body.
Tuck Page 7
