We pull off the highway and follow a back country road for a few miles before the SUVs pull off into a grassy field, driving about a quarter of a mile before we reach the cover of some large trees.
My brothers and I get out and head toward the SUVs, where eight men armed with assault rifles and tactical gear are unloading from the vehicles and checking their equipment.
A man with gray at his temples steps forward. I didn’t have time to meet the men in person yet, but I recognize his picture from the email my assistant sent over after contracting them. He’s the squad leader. Stopes I think was his last name, but I’m not sure. Frankly I don’t care, either.
“You Mr. Sharp?” he asks in a gruff voice.
A couple of the men glance up at us, sizing my brothers and I up.
“Yeah.”
“She didn’t tell us much,” says Stopes.
“We don’t know much,” I say. “This could get bloody, though. I know that much.”
Stopes nods to his men, who nod back, cocking weapons and racking bullets in chambers before they fan out and head toward the trailer park through the trees.
My brothers and I follow behind.
“Got any more of those big guns we can borrow?” asks Murph. “Dean just gave us these little things,” he says, holding the pistol up like it’s a dirty paper towel.
One of the men near the back eyes the gun. “That’s a Smith and Wesson Performance Center, Model SW1911, man. I wouldn’t call it little. Only point that fucker at something you want real dead,” he says, turning back to keep his eye on the path he takes through the underbrush.
We reach the top of a hill a few minutes later and have a clear view of at least thirty mobile homes. Some are tipped on their sides with moldy water lines almost up to the roof. It’s clear that the water carried some of the homes from their original positions, and there’s waterlogged possessions and furniture still rotting in the boggy ground.
There’s a patch of clean white in the field of brown decay. Camille. She wears a white dress and has her hair back as she steps purposefully toward the center of the park. A shitty pickup truck is parked on the other end, and my eye twitches when I see Sean get out and motion for three men to follow him. They are the same assholes from the night I got the shit kicked out of me. I would feel relief to see them instead of the contractors, but the men carry hunting rifles and shotguns casually and with a cocky glint in their eyes I don’t like at all.
Besides, there’s no telling who could be watching from the treeline on the opposite ridge. For all I know, my ex security detail is over there with rifles just as deadly as the men sinking into prone positions and aiming down at the men approaching Camille.
It takes everything in me not to run down right now and put myself between her and danger, but my head wins out over my body. If I made myself known right now, I’d be putting her in even more danger. From up here we have the element of surprise. The men know to drop Sean and his friends if they so much as look at Camille the wrong way, and they have the firepower to do it.
I pull out the pistol and line up the sights on Sean’s face, tracking him slowly as he crosses the park toward Camille.
16
Camille
I watch Sean and his friends approach, feeling like my stomach is doing flips and my heart is about to beat out of my chest. Guns. They have guns. I force myself to breathe slowly to keep from hyperventilating. I didn’t expect guns.
But then I guess by now the security and maybe even Dean and his brothers are somewhere above, watching us with guns just as deadly pointed straight down into this decaying valley of mobile homes.
I’ve never felt more aware of the fragility of my own life than I do right now. Even in the darkest moments with Sean, the times when I thought he might not loosen his grip in time for me to get the life saving air to my brain, or when I thought he might hit me so hard he would break something permanent and end me, even then it didn’t feel this real.
Right now I feel death breathing down my neck, and what surprises me is how badly I want to live. Thinking about everything ending makes me realize how much I’ve taken my life for granted. I’ve let years and years be squandered by my parents anger and a long chain of abusive boyfriends that ended with a finale like Sean. I want to live so I have a chance to fix this, so I don’t have to answer to someone up there and explain why I didn’t think I deserved anything better than this.
“I thought you said come alone,” I call out when Sean and his friends are close enough.
He smirks. “Yeah, I did. You didn’t think I wasn’t going to bring some insurance, did you? How do I know you didn’t tell your rich cocksucker boyfriend to come?”
“Did you see any other cars when I came in?”
“No,” he says, stepping close enough that he could reach out and touch me. “No, I didn’t see them, but I’m not a fucking idiot.”
It takes everything in me not to glance toward the treeline where I think Dean and the security might be waiting. I want to know they are here, that I’m safe and not completely alone right now, but I can’t. If I look he’ll suspect, and if he suspects…
“Where’s Jen?” I ask.
“Somewhere safe,” he says.
“The deal was me for her. I need to see her or the deal is off.”
He sneers, looking at his friends who all laugh cruelly. “Honey, I already have you. I had you the moment you stepped foot in this place. Take a look,” he says, pointing up to the peak of the valley to my left. “Wave, Collins,” he shouts.
I notice a series of clumps I thought to be bushes or rocks are actually men lying down with rifles pointed down at us.
“So don’t try anything stupid,” he says. “Don’t worry though, all the men have strict orders not to hurt you. That was my condition,” he reaches to stroke my cheek and I flinch away, glaring at him.
He clicks his mouth in disapproval, snatching my face tightly this time and squeezing me by the jaw so I can’t look away. “I still love you, even if you disobeyed me. I want you back in one piece, because if anyone is going to break you, it’s going to be me.”
There’s a popping sound that reminds me of the Fourth of July. The first pop is followed by an explosion of sound a split second later.
It all happens so fast it doesn’t register at first. Sean lets me go and runs toward one of the trailers, ducking his head and covering himself as he runs. I take a few confused steps backwards, watching the strange way the ground seems to explode upwards in small patches, like little bombs are going off underground.
Sean’s friends only have time to half-crouch and aim their guns toward the source of the sound before the air mists red and what I now realize to be bullets rips through them. The three men are jostled by the impacts, suspended on their feet as they twitch and writhe in a final, morbid dance before collapsing to the ground.
But the shooting doesn’t stop there. More gunshots erupt from where Sean said his men were.
“Get to cover!” comes a roaring voice from the opposite side of the valley ridge. I look toward the sound and see Dean sprinting down the steep valley toward me, somehow managing to keep his balance and aim a pistol toward the other valley peak and fire shots off as he runs.
I see bullets pelting the ground near him and can’t bring myself to run away, so I run to him.
He half-tackles me when he reaches me, pushing me to the back of a mobile home. He grips my shoulders and cups my face, kissing me hard and then pulling back. “Are you hurt?” he asks, eyes scanning me with concern.
“I’m okay. Are you?” I ask.
“I’m fine. Where did Sean go?”
“He--” I flinch, ducking my head when the trailer shakes behind me and part of the wall bursts open from gunshots.
“Come on,” says Dean, firing his pistol around the corner and taking me to another trailer. “Here, get in,” he says, reaching for what looks like some sort of storm cellar. “I have to get Sean before he gets away.”
“Don’t leave me,” I say. “Please. I want to help.”
“You already did your part, Camille,” says Dean, who doesn’t seem to even notice the bullets zipping overhead and pounding into the ground and trailers all around us. “You were so fucking brave. I’m proud of you. I mean that.”
Even in the middle of such chaos, Dean is composed and strong. He’s a beacon of light in a storm, strong and unwavering as a lighthouse, and my brush with death just a minute ago has me looking at him in an entirely new light. I see it now more clearly than before. Any last ounce of doubt I had about he and I is blasted away like the flimsy walls of these trailers against the hail of gunfire.
I don’t care if I’ve only known him a few weeks, I want Dean in my life. I never want to let him go, and I never want to go back to Sean or anybody like him who would put me down to boost their own ego.
“I love you,” I say.
Dean was about to help me down in the cellar but he pauses, eyes intense. He doesn’t immediately say the words back. It’s not some reflex that burps out of him with no meaning and no force. Instead, he seems to conjure up the words only when he knows without a doubt they are true, and each syllable hits me with the force of a hammer.
“I love you too. I fucking love you, Camille.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, closing my eyes and wishing we could snap our fingers and make everything perfect right now, that we could have Jen back and get all these people out of our lives who want to see us hurt and suffering. I just want it to all go away so I can be with him and be happy in the way I finally think I deserve.
A bullet explodes through the wall just above Dean’s head, showering us with plaster and tearing me from my thoughts. If he hadn’t been kneeling to help me down to the cellar, that bullet would’ve hit him.
“Dean, please be careful,” I say.
“Only as careful as I have to be,” he says with a smirk. “Get down there, okay?”
I nod, closing the hatch and surrounding myself in darkness. I climb down the ladder a few rungs until I feel cold water. I pull my leg back, hanging on tight to the ladder and waiting, for what--I don’t know, but I wait in the dark, eyes closed tight not against the light, but against what kind of life I’ll be stepping into when the light returns. Will the hand that reaches to pull me out of the darkness be Dean’s or Sean’s? Will I come out of this dark hole in the ground to find the only man who could ever pull me out of my misery is dead? Will Jen be gone?
17
Dean
Using the trailers as cover, I weave toward where Sean is hiding. The gunfire is calming a little, and I spare a thought for my brothers, hoping they have kept themselves safe. I told them their pistols would be next to useless from such a distance and to keep hidden, but there’s no telling what those two might do. It’s hard to tell if the gunfire I still hear is from behind or in front of me, but it has definitely slowed down.
Ears ringing, I make my way to the front of the trailer Sean snuck inside. I slowly raise my head until I can see through the corner of a blown out window. I hold the pistol tightly, finger on the trigger.
“Get the fuck out of there,” I shout.
“Come in the door and I’ll open you up, asshole!” shouts Sean.
“You’re unarmed,” I say. “It’s over.”
“Come inside if you want to see how unarmed I am.”
He appeared to be unarmed when he confronted Camille, but I guess I don’t have any way of knowing for sure. He might have even shown up here ahead of time and hidden guns inside the trailers, but that wouldn’t make sense. His friends had no problem showing their hand by approaching with guns. I think Sean chose not to bring one because he didn’t want to look weak in front of Camille, like he didn’t need one.
“Have it your way,” I say, shifting across the mobile home until I’m right in front of the door. I can tell what side of the door Sean is on from the sound of his voice, and when I kick through the flimsy door, I spin immediately toward him, gun at the ready.
Something hard connects with the back of my neck, making my vision swim. I realize I’ve fallen to one knee and the gun has clattered to the ground.
Shit. He’s not alone.
My mind struggles to recover from the blow but I reflexively turn, seeing the big man with the tire iron who was behind me. I rush him clumsily, head still spinning. We crash into the back wall, which is so rotted through with mold that we burst right through and fall to the ground outside.
I manage to get a grip on the tire iron as my vision clears and smash it into the guy’s face.
I hear a metallic scrape and turn to see Sean picking up my gun. Everything slows down, and the only thing I see is the weapon. I don’t see the trailers, I don’t see the muzzle flashes far above, I don’t see Sean. I just see the weapon being lifted as if in slow motion, arcing upward toward me, and I know I’m not going to be fast enough. There’s nowhere to get cover, nothing to do but charge.
Most men would probably still try to run, even my brain is screaming for me to try to get away, but I know I have to risk rushing him, for Jen and for Camille, I can’t turn my back.
I let out a guttural shout, springing to my feet and moving faster than I’ve ever moved toward him. He raises the gun and I try to anticipate the shot, jerking to my left just before I expect him to shoot.
The gun goes off and I feel something confusingly mild, like a half-hearted punch to the chest. I don’t slow down, and Sean realizes it just before I reach him. His eyes go wide and he pulls the gun back, turning his shoulder to brace himself for the impact.
I crash into him and it feels like we both fly several feet through the air before smashing to the ground. I strip the gun from his hand, taking a position of power on top of him and then I whip the barrel of the gun across his temple.
His head jerks to the side from the force of the blow. He blinks a few times rapidly, eyebrows drawing down in confusion, and then his eyes roll back into his head and his body goes limp.
I feel for a pulse, and with relief, it’s still strong.
I’m grabbed from behind and I throw my head back, feeling the back of my head collide with something solid. A muffled curse follows and the grip on me loosens, but when I throw my full strength against the hold and expect to break free, I’m surprised to find my body is sluggish. There’s a burning pain in my chest and a sphere of icy numbness spreading out from the point of heat.
I look down and see the blood gushing over the arm wrapped tightly around me. My blood.
Fuck. He shot me.
Something whistles through the air and the man holding me lets go immediately. I turn in time to see him collapse and to see Camille standing there with the tire iron in her hand.
“You were supposed to stay in the--” It feels like the ground lurches beneath me, throwing off my balance. I stagger to the side, barely catching myself on a broken table.
“Dean!” she shouts, hurrying to my side and helping hold me up. “Oh my God. You’re hurt.”
“It’s okay,” I say, looking down at the bloody hole on the right side of my chest. “I don’t think there’s anything important inside me on that side. Right?”
She makes an incredulous face. “There’s your fucking insides, Dean. You’re shot. We have to get you out of here to a doctor.”
“We need to bring Sean. We have to find Jen.”
“I’ll get it out of him, but we’re getting you to a doctor first. Give me your phone,” she says, rooting through my pants to find it without waiting for my help.
She pulls it out and growls in frustration. “Give me your finger,” she says, yanking my hand to the fingerprint reader on the phone to sign in.
She taps her fingers rapidly and puts it up to her ear, calling someone. I watch it all through blackening vision and fading awareness. When I look down and see how soaked my shirt is with blood, I feel vaguely surprised, but it doesn’t seem as urgent as it probably should. I have an overwhelmin
g need to lie down and take a nap. The only thing keeping me from taking the rest I need is Jen. I won’t stop looking until we’ve found her. No matter--
18
Camille
Dean suddenly seems to get ten times heavier and slips out of my grip, slamming to the ground. “Murph!” I shout into the phone. “Dean’s shot. Help me get him out of here! Did you see where we went?”
“We’re coming,” says Murph, hanging up.
The gunfire is now scattered and unenthusiastic, just like the hours after a Fourth of July celebration, there are random pops and loud bangs, but it’s nothing like the storm of just a few minutes ago.
I take off the thin white cardigan I’m wearing and ball it up, pressing it to Dean’s bullet wound to stifle the bleeding. Dean looks unconscious, but when I try lifting his hands and putting them on top of the balled cardigan, he pushes down. Good. That means I can focus my attention on Sean, who is groaning and struggling to his feet.
I grab the pistol and aim it at Sean, who still doesn’t see me. He’s on his hands and knees now, shaking his head and blinking through some sort of pain.
This is it. This is the moment I think I’ve always secretly hoped for. Even at times when I thought I couldn’t go through with it if I had the chance, I hoped. The anger and hatred in my chest boil together in a sickening swirl, threatening to contaminate me forever. My finger is tight on the trigger, inching toward the fatal decision.
I see all the times he hit me play across my mind, all the times he used his poisonous words to hurt me--to cripple. I remember all the things he did to me without remorse and without mercy and can’t find a reason to forgive him or spare him. He deserves this. Doesn’t he?
My hands shake, making the gun unsteady, but I never take the sights away from him.
“Camille?” he asks, looking up now and sinking back to sit on his knees, facing me with a look of disbelief. “The fuck you think you’re going to do with that? Put it down before you hurt yourself.”
Bad for the Billionaires: A Bad Boy Billionaire Bundle Page 76
