Love Renewed (Entwined Hearts #3)

by Maria Macdonald

  “Fuck Dane, what have you gotten us into? I have Pea and my baby daughter here. Shit!”

  I feel a pang inside at what I’ve caused.

  “I’m sorry. I really am. Please know that. Also, know I love all my family and will do whatever needs to be done to protect you all.”

  “What about Saul?” he asks.

  “He’s fine. I’ve told him to stay out there until I let him know to come home,” I answer.

  “And what? He’s just agreed without questions?” Con laces his fingers together and puts his hands on the back of his head.

  “Pretty much. He understands that I tell him what he needs to know and nothing more. He trusts me.”

  Con sighs and sits at the kitchen table. “Well, I trust you too. But if I didn’t, Saul trusting you would be enough for me anyway. I’m just scared man. Those two up there are my life.”

  “I know,” I whisper the words out. “If I don’t come back, just tell my little sister I love her.”

  “Don’t fucking talk like that Dane. Fuck! Pea will lose her shit, we all will.”

  “I’m coming back,” I say, but even I can hear the words are carelessly thrown out there without any determination behind them. Because I know. If she’s gone, then I might as well be too. She’s worth the fight, but she’s also worth the sacrifice. And although I will always fight for her, if she’s already gone, I’ll give up for her too.

  An hour later I stand in my private office. The one nobody knows about. Pulling out the memory stick, I open all the documents on my laptop. There isn’t much. Three photos of Ryan. One of Ryan and Nova, the one that makes me grit my teeth again. Other than that there are three pieces of paperwork. One is Ryan’s history. Homes he’s lived in and people he’s associated with. Then there’s details of his training.

  When the fuck…he was trained?

  I look at the dates and see he started four months before me, then stopped six weeks after I was recruited. The third is his birth certificate, which has nothing of any interest on it. So, Ryan was trained, if only for a short while and he knew where Nova was even when he said he didn’t. This is obviously centred around him somehow. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I locate his number then put it into the app on my laptop. His phone is off, either that or he’s using a burner. This is going to have to happen the old fashioned way. I grab my laptop and make my way outside, getting into my car and pointing it toward Ryan’s home.

  Thirty minutes later, I pull up a few streets away and jog a couple of houses down from Ryan’s. Checking the immediate vicinity, I can see a man out the front. Foot soldier. Then another two standing near a car. I watch as Ryan walks out and gets into the car, which shoots away. I notice another car out the front as the two men from before slip back inside.

  Nova must be in that house.

  I go back to my car and pull out a tracker. When I arrive back at Ryan’s the foot soldier has disappeared, so I use that moment to slide under the second car and attach the tracker. Now I just need to get home and prepare myself for a dawn attack.

  After being at home for a little over two hours, I find myself pacing. I feel useless being here. I know they have Nova and I don’t know what they’re doing with her. It’s almost enough to crush me, but I’m useless to her unless I focus. I need to treat her like any other client that I’d be saving. Only my heart knows different and that knowledge cuts deep.

  There’s a knock on the door startling me. Grabbing my gun, I walk into the hall. I can’t check the peephole like I normally would. Not with things the way they are. I have known people to be shot through it straight into their eye.

  “What,” I shout.

  “Dane. Lewis. I’ve come to help,” I hear thrown back. Confusion washes over me and it’s not an emotion I deal with well. Being in control is something I strive for. I pull the door ajar and see Lewis and another man. Widening it, I wait for them to come in then glance outside before closing it again.

  “Through here,” I tell them moving into the lounge.

  They look around but say nothing at the state of the place. Will and his crew blew through here and made a mess.

  “Not meaning to be an arsehole, but you’re Con and Nov…Libby’s friend. And I’ve spent some time with you and think you’re solid. But what do you know about this situation? What are you doing here? And who’s he? In reverse order,” I demand.

  Lewis smirks at me. “This is Cayson.” My eyes flit to the other man, then focus back on Lewis. “In a previous life, I was a bounty hunter.” My head jerking back doesn’t go unnoticed when Lewis chuckles. “I know, you can’t imagine it, right? That’s what I always get. It’s the sharp clothes and witty humour isn’t it?”

  Smiling back at him and shaking my head, I reply, “Takes all sorts, brother.”

  The corner of his mouth tips up and he winks. I just look at the floor for a second trying to work out when my life got so crazy.

  “So I called Libby about forty-eight hours ago as we were supposed to be meeting for coffee on Sunday. I needed to re-arrange as I set up a date with this woman who wanted to do—”

  “Focus,” I growl and Lewis rolls his eyes at me.

  “Anyway, when I couldn’t get hold of her I went to her work. They hadn’t seen her. Then I called Con. He said she was on her way over to you. That night I was talking to Cayson here. I gave up the hunt a few years ago. Cayson and I stayed tight. He told me about this situation with one of my boss’s old allies. Your boss, Archer.” He stares at me waiting for a reaction. “Shit, you give nothing away do you?” I allow my lips to tip up and that seems to placate Lewis because he continues, “Seems the situation, as I’m told, is all about agents going rogue. But this Archer has his wires crossed as far as my old boss tells Cayson here. Thinks one set of agents have gone rogue when it’s actually a different set. I think nothing of this. We’re chatting over beer so it’s just bar talk,” he tells me pointing to Cayson. “Until they say that the rogue agents have aligned themselves with an outside operative. They think they’re in it for the money. The outside guy who’s leading the situation is in it for revenge, or jealousy. Some shit like that. Apparently, he was dating a girl. Someone in a tight spot. Things went bad. She disappeared for ten years…to America. He found her, but he didn’t care, she was existing not living, made this sick fuck happy. Seems this guy started caring again when she met up with her childhood sweetheart. Someone he didn’t want to see happy. Someone he had gotten all kinds of sick pleasure out of watching live his life miserable.”

  Every single muscle in my body is pulled tight. Like it’s about to snap.

  “Here’s the kicker. This guy wants to get the woman’s childhood sweetheart so he can kill him, so his plan is to get this dude’s old mentor first then trap him. But then he got intel that the woman was coming back to the UK. All bets were off. That’s when I got Grayson to dial in and find out the name of the woman…Elizabeth Burchall. Next plane out brother, I was on it. Cayson joining me. He’s still in. I’m out. But you never forget when you need to remember.”

  I sit down trying to breathe. Trying to rein my fucking emotions in. I lay my head back.

  “What do we need to do?” Lewis asks, all joking has been stripped from his voice and I see a different side to him. One I wouldn’t have realised even existed. I walk over to my laptop and activate the GPS.

  “There. This is a car that was outside the house I saw Ryan come out of. This is where it’s gone to. Looks like an industrial estate. You can go check it out,” I tell him.

  “What’s at the house?” he asks warily.

  “Nova,” I reply.

  “Then that’s where we should go,” he tells me and I narrow my eyes at him.

  “She’s mine,” I growl.

  “Of course. But you’re too close. We need to go for her. You go to the estate.”

  “Fucking hell!” I shout. I know he’s right, but I don’t want him to be. Now I have help though I need to utilise it in the best way, and Lew
is and Cayson going to the house is the better option. I’d be overly emotional. Wouldn’t think straight.

  “You fuck this up—”

  He stops me before I start. “I get it. I fuck up, you’re going to kill me.”

  I smirk at him. “Not even close. You fuck up. She dies. You’ll be begging for death.” His eyes widen and he chokes out a laugh.

  “Shit, you really are as crazy as they say.” He shakes his head with a smile. Then looks at Cayson. “Get the address, let’s go.”

  “Now?” I question looking at the time. It’s only just after ten pm.

  “What would they expect you to do?” he asks.

  “Nothing. They don’t expect anything from me as I never follow a pattern. I can’t be worked out.”

  “Right, so no point waiting then.”

  “Shit,” I snap, wiping my hand down my face. I’m already overthinking and making the wrong decisions at this rate I’m going to fuck this shit up. Nobody else.

  I grab my keys and note the location of the GPS. “Give me your phone.” I hold my hand out to Lewis.

  “It’s a burner,” he tells me.

  “Perfect. Mine too. I’ll put my number in.” He nods and we swap numbers.

  “You get her—”

  “I get her, I’ll contact you straight away.”

  “Okay then, now we can go,” I state striding to my car and hoping like hell that I can trust my girl to two good men that I hardly know.

  They left him there, they left Jenson lying on the floor. They said he was dead. My heart feels like it’s breaking for someone I hardly knew. But something is forged when you’re stuck with another person in such a small space. Especially, when he’s fighting for your life more than his own. And anyway, all of that wouldn’t matter, just the fact that he’s friends with Dane would be enough to make me feel this way. Dane has never let people in easily. That’s why when he finds out about Ryan he’s going to go postal.

  When I arrive at the warehouse, they’re expecting me. I manage to take out all six outside guards with my gun. I attached the silencer, so I manage to do it nearly all in stealth. When I get inside it becomes a bit harder. I didn’t have time to check the site out like I normally would. There were no cameras that I could see, but I missed the hidden motion detectors. They knew I was inside before I realised and eight of them came at me. I killed two quickly and swiftly and I was fighting two. Punches were thrown in abundance and I managed to get another kill shot off before I lost my gun. I had two men on the floor unconscious and three dead so that just left the three facing me. Unfortunately, these men were not amateurs like the other five. I held my own. Broke one man’s arm. Another one cracked his head on the floor when he fell from my head-butting. I rammed into another man and we both toppled over, I believe I cracked his collar bone as we landed because he cried out and couldn’t move. Just as I was winning, even with my injuries, someone new came at me from behind and I felt a knife pierce my side. That’s when I saw Dex. By then I’d been fighting two and was now back to fighting four with a stab wound. I kept going but then Dex pulled out a gun and shot me in each thigh, I lost my balance and fell. They pinned me down and pulled a bag over my head continuing to beat me.

  Throwing me down, they pull off the black hood covering my head. I try to open my eyes, but the left eyelid is stuck, maybe swollen. As I pry the right open I want to scream at the pain, but I breathe through it, I’ve been in worse situations.

  Take note. Stay sharp.

  I can see three pairs of boots. At least one of those boots will have made the footprint-shaped bruises that I can feel forming on top of my cracked ribs. My shoulder is dislocated, I can feel my arm hanging loosely across my chest as I lay on my side.

  “So you managed to get the amazing D?” The sound is muffled, I think there might be something wrong with my eardrum, but I can still make out Will’s voice.

  “Ha, yeah man, he’s not so amazing,” says a voice I’ve not heard before.

  “Never thought he was. Been protected, and ushered to fucking untouchable status by Jenson. No more, though. Not now Jenson’s dead.” Will’s words cause a blow in my gut that no physical touch could top. Jenson had always been there for me. Always. No questions asked. Now he’s dead because Will and Dex are fucking traitors.

  I test my legs. They hurt like fuck, a bullet in each thigh will do that. Still, it could be worse, they didn’t kneecap me. When I need to, I will be able to walk, an escape is always possible. I won’t be able to run and I’ll have to use my left arm since the right is useless now. Either that or I’ll have to pop the right shoulder back in. The wound I’m worried about is the knife hole in my side. Not fatal—yet. But if I leave it too long I could lose consciousness, something I don’t need to do and not least because I have no idea what these fuckers would do if I black out.

  “Grab him.” The unknown voice says coming closer. I’m pulled up by arms, dragging my dislocated shoulder sharply and I want to cry out like a bitch, but that would be feeding their egos. Anyway, I’ve been trained to withstand it. Never show fear. Never show pain.

  I’m thrown onto a chair and almost slide off and back on the floor only catching myself at the last moment. They all chuckle. I take that time to look around. I’m in what looks like an abandoned factory or warehouse. There’s equipment in the corner. Seems like the place was once filled with machinery, but most of it has been taken away. The space is empty now, the odd piece of wood or milk bottle crate is scattered about but otherwise, me, this chair and the three guys in front of me is it. I only glimpsed at what’s behind me, but from what I could make out it’s just more of the same. I know that there’s an exit door in the right corner behind the abandoned equipment, another one thirty feet along the same wall, but that has chains wrapped around the escape bars. The door in front of me to the left leads to a corridor, it might be a way out, but it’s an internal door. The only other choice is the window behind me, to my left. I got a quick look before and saw it was ajar, and all eight windows in this room are big. Four foot wide and six high, so escape is possible. It will be a task, though, they are five foot from the ground at their lowest. My arm, legs and side alone will hinder my escape.

  Shit.

  “So D, huh, it’s like you were given that title because everyone is so beneath you. You’re far too good for the rest of us, right?” Will sneers at me. I say nothing. “What’s the matter? You don’t have an answer?” he continues.

  “Sorry, didn’t think you were asking a question. Just thought you were pointing out a fact,” I say, my tone completely emotionless and I try to smirk, although I’m not sure if that’s what my face shows. My words get me two punches to the gut. Which starts them all laughing again.

  Dumb fucks. They’re playing. They shouldn’t play. That’s when shit usually gets messy. And it will—for them.

  “So Dane, tell me where Jenson hid the disk?” Dex demands.

  I smirk again. I won’t give them anything. I don’t know the answer to their question. Even if I did, I wouldn’t give them what they want. They know this.

  “He won’t tell you anything. He’s been trained not to,” Will tells Dex.

  “He will with some persuasion.” The unknown man answers. I take him in. Amateur. He’s young, early twenties with dark hair. Looks Asian. Short and a medium build. He’s a trainee.

  Dex steps forward and his fist connects with my jaw, once, twice, three times. I feel blood running down my chin and I look up at Dex smiling.

  “He’s fucking crazy. Fuck!” he tells Will with widened eyes.

  “He’ll think differently in a minute,” Will says nodding toward the trainee who walks away disappearing through the internal door. I look at the other two chatting and wonder if it’s time to make a move. Noting where the guns are. I want to find the knife used on me earlier, it belongs to one of them. I want to relieve them of it and show them how it should be used. I know it wasn’t Will’s knife as we were facing off when I was sta
bbed from behind. A metal rattling noise makes me turn my head toward the door. What I see causes more pain than all my injuries put together ever could. My breath is ripped from my body as I see them wheel in a trolley with meat hooks adorning it, but what’s hanging from the hooks isn’t a dead animal. It’s Nova, a very beaten, bloodied, unmoving Nova.

  Suddenly, I feel nothing. All my pain disappears. Everything goes numb. My ears turn off every noise, my brain stops every thought. Everything but killing the three men in front of me. My mind focusses and I roar so loud it hurts my own ears.

  “So he can feel emotion then?” Will laughs.

  I close my eyes and take another breath. I didn’t think she was here. I thought she was at the house, that’s where I’ve sent Lewis and Cayson. Shit. I need them here and I didn’t even know it.

  Fuck. This is what happens when you’re thinking with emotion.

  “Do you want to know what we did to her?” Dex spits out and I look straight into his eyes.

  “I’m going to kill you Dex. You know that don’t you?” The words are barely a whisper, delivered with a smile. I watch as his eyes widen and then he beats back the fear, bravado winning out.

  “Yeah, whatever Mr. Dane. I’d be more worried about what Mr. Boss Man has done to your precious bitch over there.”

  I work my jaw at his words and look back to Nova. For the first time, I notice her jeans are unbuttoned and her shirt is ripped open. It’s then that I feel something I haven’t felt for twelve years. Fear. It vibrates through my body and heats my skin. I don’t know what happens next, my vision goes white as I see everything and nothing all at once. The feral feeling in the pit of my stomach feeds me as I fly off the chair and at the three men. I grab the gun in my left hand and shoot the trainee in the neck before downing Will and slamming the gun into his head over and over. Then Dex shouts for my attention and I look up to see the gun pressed into Nova’s temple and her frightened eyes on mine.