Reaper

by Lena North

  Bo leaned down toward me and whispered, “I love what Mary drew, and how Joakim tattooed it, but I gotta say – allowing me to show off my buttocks to so many was a perk I hadn’t foreseen.”

  He pranced off across the porch, and we saw him do the blouse-hiking and pants pushing again. He wiggled his hips a little which made the men and women at the table cheer loudly, and Bo turned to look at Carson with a broad, cheeky grin. He was a happy, happy man in that moment and I heard Carson's deep chuckle, so I guessed he was happy too.

  The rest of the evening passed in a blur, and it felt as if I just couldn't stop smiling. We didn't discuss the weather anymore. Instead, we talked about places we'd visited, and where we would go when Cameron Strachlan was incarcerated. Olly mentioned some old trails leading to ancient ruins, high in the mountains a few hours south of our country, and we decided that doing that hike would be our first trip.

  Since we couldn’t go just yet, I suggested we’d do a short local hike the next day instead. Mary had told me about a cave outside Thend where she’d spent time as a teenager, drinking hooch and dancing. I had also read three old texts Wilder had found in her grandfather’s house, and that cave was mentioned in them, so I was curious. After some texting back and forth, both Mary and Wilder said they’d join us.

  When we sat in the car on our way back, I rested my hand on Olly’s strong leg and wondered how I'd be able to get Sven to leave the house for a few days. If I planned it carefully, I should be able to arrange something, I thought.

  I had no clue that the solution would present itself already the next day, by a stroke of luck and Wilder’s sense of humor.

  ***

  Wilder texted me early in the morning that something had come up, she was p-d and would kill her f-ing da, and we’d meet later instead. Mill tried to get Mary to stay at home too, mumbling something about her pregnancy and the fact that the path up to the front entrance was closed due to some falling rocks. She promptly informed him that there was a back entrance, the hike was less than a mile on easy terrain, it looked like she’d be nothing but pregnant for the foreseeable future and she wasn’t waiting until her retirement to go on a hike. I thought it was sweet that he worried, and told them we could go another time. Mary ignored me and stepped in close to Miller, slid her hands up the sides of his torso and murmured something in his ear which I did my best to not overhear, but I did, and I blushed. Then she walked out to Miller’s car, waited patiently by the passenger door, and that was apparently that.

  The back entrance to the cave wasn't frequently used, but the path was easy, and we laughed and joked as we walked. The sun warmed us, and the birds were gliding above, on the lookout for any danger.

  Olly and Miller stopped to look at the tunnel and talked quietly about how it could have been made. It seemed man-made, but it was old, so they searched the walls for marks that would explain how it had been created. Mary and I kept walking and were well ahead of them into the cave.

  A group of men waited for us, all dressed in black and with weapons at their hips. One of them took a step forward.

  “What have we here?” he asked.

  He spoke with a slight accent which I recognized immediately. Mary gasped, and I felt her shiver slightly as I pushed her behind me and moved us slowly backward.

  “Ophidians,” Mary whispered, but the sound carried through the cave, so they heard, and their hard faces turned to granite.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “We’ll leave.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Mary,” I said quietly and kept pushing us back until we were partially in the tunnel again. “Run.”

  She didn't hesitate, and I heard her soft steps disappear up the tunnel. The men moved toward me, but I stood where I was, hoping I could delay them enough to let Mary reach the men.

  “Stop,” I said pompously.

  They didn’t.

  “Do you know who I am?” I asked.

  The man who was closest to me raised a hand, and the other four men stopped, but he kept walking until he was standing in front of me.

  “Should I care?” he asked.

  “That depends.

  “Depends on what?

  Good, I thought. Keep him talking. Stall for time.

  “It depends on what you care about,” I said.

  Then I heard heavy steps marching down the tunnel behind me. They were even and very, very determined.

  “You should probably back away from me,” I said quietly.

  His brows went up, but before he had a chance to react, I was pushed to the side by an enormously pissed off man.

  “Back away,” Olly grunted and just kept walking.

  The man tried to hold his ground but it was clear that he wouldn’t be a match for Olly even on a good day, and this was not a good day for him. He barked out an order, and his men moved, but a knife went straight into the shoulder of one of them, and Olly suddenly had a gun pressed to the man’s temple.

  “I know who you are,” Olly said. “Do you know who I am, Roman?”

  Their eyes locked and the man called Roman swallowed.

  “Reaper,” he said hoarsely.

  “That’s right,” Olly said. “And do you know her name?”

  I blinked. Was he going to tell them my name?

  No one said a word, and then Olly lowered the gun, and took a step back, watching the men emotionlessly. His cold, hard, and almost entirely black eyes met mine briefly, but to my surprise, he seemed calm.

  “Do you know her name, Roman?” Olly asked again. “Her name is Annie. You might have heard about her as Heather.” He paused and locked eyes with the leader. “Or Bree,” he added.

  The man flinched, and I knew they were working with Cameron. Olly knew it too.

  “Anything you heard from the man you work with was a lie,” he said.

  “Reaper,” the man said hoarsely, but Olly was in his face immediately.

  He held a knife in one hand and the gun in the other, and there was suddenly a long, red scratch on the other man’s face. I hadn’t even seen Olly’s hand move.

  “Spread the word, Roman,” Olly ordered. “Breathe close enough to ruffle her hair, and you lose a limb. Touch her, and you die. Harm her and death will not come to you easily. Make sure they all know that what happened when my mother died was a breeze compared to what will happen if she is harmed. There will be no holding me back.”

  Their eyes held and when the man finally nodded, Olly took a small step back.

  “Your daughters are still young,” Olly rumbled.

  The man immediately stilled, and his face grew hard. He suddenly looked dangerous, but Olly wasn't intimidated.

  “Heard you’re an honorable man, Roman, so I’ll tell you this; you don’t want your daughters around that man.”

  Roman’s eyes darted to me and then back again. Olly made a huffing sound and pointed toward the smaller tunnel on the opposite end of the cave, but didn’t say another word. Roman nodded, and the men moved out slowly.

  Olly didn't move even after the last man had disappeared, and I didn't dare to either. Then he exhaled and nodded.

  “Bird says they’re leaving,” he said and turned toward me.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He looked okay, but he'd just thrown two of his knives into drug cartel minions and issued a dramatic decree which hopefully would ensure increased safety for me.

  His brows went up on his forehead and, finally, he put his arms around me.

  “Of course I’m okay,” he murmured.

  “You were pretty mad,” I said into his black tee.

  “But not out of control,” he countered.

  “Not out of control,” I confirmed, although he knew better than me that he hadn’t been. “I guess you found your dimmer.”

  “My what?”

  “You told me that your temper was like a light switch. It was either on, or off, and when it was on it
just… flared.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I have a dimmer instead of a light switch in my living room at Gramps’ place. Turns the flare on slowly. Let’s me control it.” His eyes softened when I went on, “Maybe you found a way to do that with your temper.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed. “Not sure if threatening to kill them all that way was a good thing, though.”

  “It made me feel good. Let’s get your knives and go home,” I said. “We should tell Hawk about this.”

  I walked over to the cave wall where they had thrown his knives and wiped the blades off as best I could on the dirt and sand on the floor.

  “Annie, come on,” Olly called out. “Miller and Mary are waiting outside, and Mill is not happy to be there.”

  We trekked back to the car at a brisk pace, and then we went back to the farm where Hawker, Mac, and Wilder were waiting.

  The incident in the cave had taken less than ten minutes, and both Mary and I were unharmed. Neither of us was particularly shaken by what had happened. Mary because her participation in the whole thing had lasted for fifteen seconds or so; me because Olly had marched right in and told them he’d kill them if they touched me.

  Hawker’s interrogation took almost an hour, and then we sat in the kitchen at the farm, watching each other silently.

  “Coffee,” I said calmly. “And maybe some cookies.”

  “You’ve baked cookies?” Wilder asked.

  “Have you lost your mind?” I retorted. “Why would I do that when the store has them all neatly packed up in boxes?”

  Olly moved restlessly. He'd said he was okay, but I wished everyone would leave so we could curl up somewhere and talk about what had happened. I wanted to let his strong hands smooth away the day.

  “I love your hair, Annie,” Wilder said as I fiddled with the coffee maker. “I liked the brown, but this looks a lot more natural.”

  “It is natural,” I said. “Or, as close as they could get using all kinds of gunk at the spa.”

  “The question we all ask ourselves is if they fixed, your hair… or all your hair,” she said with a grin and a wink.

  She did not expect me to reply, but there it was. My opening to make Sven embarrassed enough to leave us for a few days.

  “It involved some kind of bleach, so I refused,” I said.

  There were scattered chuckles in the room, and Mary giggled. Wilder laughed out loud, but her eyes narrowed when she saw my serene smile.

  “Besides,” I added. “They already had the wax heated up.”

  The room went completely silent, and then Olly made a hoarse sound as if someone had punched him in his belly.

  Yes, I thought. That should do the trick.

  “You’re a brave, brave girl,” Wilder said. “It must have hurt like hell?”

  “Well,” I started, but a big hand stopped me from sharing further details, not that I'd planned to anyway.

  “This is not a good time to be quirky,” Olly said hoarsely.

  I grinned into his palm, and his face softened.

  Sven got up and picked his phone off the counter.

  “Forgot,” he muttered. “Gideon invited me to visit for a few days. I’ll go pack my things.”

  “Da,” Olly said, but Sven had already walked into his bedroom

  “I guess you’ll have to stay here, Olly,” I murmured. He swung around to look at me, and I added with what I hoped was an innocent smile, “To keep me safe, I mean.”

  Olly's mouth opened, but it was Hawker who spoke.

  “I told you holding back was a dumb plan that would never work, Olly. Everyone else is leaving. Sit down and talk through some shit with me while your da packs,” he said.

  Olly glanced at me, but since Hawker clearly hadn't ended his sentence with a question mark, he sat down with a sigh.

  “I’ll go and work on my Boolean logic,” I said cheerily and smiled at the blank stares I got.

  Then I waved the others off, and since I thought it would be good for Olly to talk to Hawker about how he’d somehow controlled his anger, I walked upstairs. I updated my database with the name Roman, and every little detail I could remember from what had happened. I should investigate the man, and I would, although I suspected that I knew enough about him already. I sat there staring at the screen for a while, wondering why I couldn’t see the patterns in what was happening. I felt in my gut that there was something there, and I just couldn’t see it. Then I suddenly knew what it was that bothered me.

  How had they known we’d be in the cave?

  We'd decided it the evening before on a whim, and the only ones who knew except for Olly and I were Mill, Mary, and Wilder. Hawker had probably known from his second in command or his daughter, which meant Sloane could have known. The others in the group could all have heard it mentioned casually. They were in each other's business all the time, so it was more than likely that they had.

  An ugly suspicion crept into my mind, and I tried to reason with myself that it was ridiculous but it stuck, poking at me to act. With a muttered profanity, I started changing the program, and instead of cross-checking Cameron’s activities against mine, I set it to check against Hawker and the others in the group. I added Jinx, Dante and Nick, thought about it for a while and expanded it to include a few of Dante’s men from Marshes, Nick’s cousin from the Islands and some of the men at Double H.

  When the program started running, updating the database with information from the net about the people I’d added, I leaned back and rubbed my cheeks. Surely none of them had shared with Cameron that we’d go hiking?

  If they had, it had to have been unintentional I decided as I got up to stretch my back and shoulders a little. Then I heard a car leave and realized that Olly and I were alone in the house.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bubba Jones

  “When did you get this?” I asked and let my fingertips slide slowly over the black dragonfly inked into his skin.

  He didn't answer, and I tilted my head back to look at him.

  “Olly?”

  “Because of the first time we talked,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “What?” I repeated.

  “First time we chatted, Annie. A dragonfly was suddenly here, and it rested on my desk.” He indicated the desk in the corner with his hand. “Sat there while we talked, and then it left.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said immediately. “They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask them to come here. The first time we talked I didn’t even know who –”

  “Don't,” He squeezed me gently, and I stopped talking. “It would have been okay if it was you. Besides, I was also…”

  He trailed off, and I got up on an elbow to look at him.

  “Are you blushing?” I asked curiously.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, and added defiantly, “No.”

  “You are.”

  “Annie –”

  “Why?”

  “A –”

  “Olly?”

  “I tried to find out who you are, okay,” he snapped.

  I blinked.

  “I know you did,” I said slowly.

  “You know?”

  “Hacker?” I said and waved a hand to indicate I was talking about myself. “Genius? Scared shitless?” I grinned a little and added, “Of course I knew. Didn’t think it was strange because I’d looked you up.”

  “Would you have met me somewhere if I asked you?

  “Yes,” I said, but added. “Maybe.” Then I thought about it for a while and repeated, “Yes.”

  “I am such an idiot,” he sighed. “I thought I’d ask when I couldn’t find out who you were, but I felt stupid, so I didn’t.”

  “Really?” I asked, and my voice squeaked a little in a way I found incredibly silly.

  “Yeah, really,” he murmured. “I got the dragonfly a couple of years ago, to remind me the
re are light and happiness in the world. Got it because of all the times you calmed me down, and made me laugh.”

  “I love you,” I blurted out, realized what I'd said and tried to backtrack. “Like you. I like you so much, and you are so nice, Olly, and –”

  His mouth on mine stopped my tirade, and then he rolled us until he was on top, leaning on his elbows to look down at me with eyes that had turned so soft my own burned with tears.

  “Annie,” he said quietly.

  “I –”

  “I love you too,” he interrupted me.

  My belly got warm and it felt as if my heart stumbled over a few beats.

  “Really?” I breathed out, and he started laughing.

  “Yes, really.”

  “Okay,” I said and could have kicked myself.

  I should have said something profound. Something we would remember forever, and okay was such a mundane word.

  “Okay,” he echoed.

  When we finally left his room, it was lunchtime. Since we skipped dinner the evening before and breakfast that morning, I was hungry and went to survey our food options.

  “Got any laundry?” Olly said, and the contents of the fridge became blurry.

  “What?”

  “Washing whites, so if you –”

  “You’re going to wash? Clothes?”

  “Like clean underwear, so yeah. Washing.”

  His brows were raised, and it was clear he didn't understand my confusion.

  “You’re offering to wash my undies?”

  He grinned and shook his head.

  “Babe,” he said with a grin. “Do you have anything or what?”

  “No,” I said quickly, and it wasn’t true but no way I’d let him wash my underwear.

  “Annie.”

  “No.”

  “Annie.”

  “N –”

  “I’ll just go up and look.”

  He was halfway up the stairs when I unfroze, but it seemed silly to chase him, so I didn't. It wasn’t that I had any embarrassing skid marks in my panties or anything like that. It was just that it felt so… intimate, suddenly. Like we were a family.

  I swallowed, tried to be calm about the whole thing, and decided we’d have bacon and eggs for lunch. By the time I had the skillet on the stove, Olly was walking downstairs with his arms full of my laundry.