Melissa could’ve cried with relief.
“I need to run,” Nancy murmured as she pulled Melissa in for a tight sisterly hug. “Pich will be feeling better within forty-eight hours. You’ll see. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Thank you,” Melissa said, her eyes squeezed tight against the pain climbing up her throat. “They’re just babies. They deserve to be happy.”
“And they will be,” Nancy promised as she let go. “Remember, check your email. If you can’t wait to talk to me until you get home, have Mark get in contact with David or Alex. We’re never more than a phone call away, and I’ll always make time for you. Bye now.”
“Goodbye,” Melissa said sadly. “Thanks again.”
Mark and Zack transferred the Dangs and the rest of the girls into the waiting vans, all except for the five she’d fallen in love with. These five were hers, every last one of them. It broke her heart, but one by one, she said goodbye to stern but kindly Sotheara, then shy little Maly. There were no words as she pressed a tender kiss to bright-eyed Dara’s forehead. And then there was the tense and taciturn child with fire in her deep brown eyes and a healthy dose of attitude.
“Goodbye, sweetheart,” Melissa said calmly, not sure if she should risk kissing this little one, if that would only push her further away. “I’ll never forget you.”
The girl toed the deck mat. Her gaze shifted to the waiting van and back to Melissa. And God, this was the hardest thing in the world. At last, she shrugged like it was no big deal and turned and walked away. And that was okay. It wasn’t fair to expect adult behavior from children who’d been traumatized the way these girls had.
She swallowed hard, the knot in her throat pumping tears up into her eyes. She’d grown fond of these lost little ducklings, Zack’s name for the troop that had followed her around on this one-day trip up the Mekong. She tried to be brave, even stood there and watched David lift the last little girl into the van.
Melissa waved, determined to put on a brave face in front of these five gentle warriors who had her back. David swung the van door shut and waved goodbye. Melissa bit her bottom lip and returned the wave. Rory revved the hovercraft engine. The giant propellers aft commenced spinning, and carefully, Mark tugged her to her feet.
Melissa stood leaning against him until she couldn’t see the vans anymore. Until she lost sight of the dock at the bend in the river. Until she’d left Tucker and every one of her ducklings...
Behind.
There was no way out. No light at the end of the tunnel, and even if there had been, Tucker couldn’t have seen it. He’d been too busy taking Thick Neck down in a chokehold, squeezing the breath out of the big guy while he watched his back. The man’s knees had buckled, but not before the three guys with him piled on Tucker with kidney punches and hammer-sized fists to his head, neck, and face.
He was losing, but Tucker held on. He’d always known it would come to this, that he’d die in some far off country fighting for freedom. A man couldn’t ask for a better death than to give his life for his child. Still, he refused to let go, bound and determined to take as many of these child-slavers with him as he could. When Thick Neck went limp, Tucker came up swinging. He elbowed the guy on his right, but the man at Tucker’s left whipped one of those damned stinging rods across his face, blinding him.
Tucker hit the deck, out of breath and nearly out of strength. Sucking in enough air for one last attack, he crouched low, his head down, his fingertips splayed to the floor. Tucker feigned defeat, his one eye watering. The third guy leaned over him screaming. The dumbass. Tucker just needed a moment to power up for what he expected would be the end of him. His heart flew to Melissa, hopefully on her way home by now. To Deuce, the baby boy Tucker never thought he’d see again. God, he loved them both. His heart ached for one more chance.
But it was not to be. He was done resting. His thigh muscles bunched. He clenched his fists. He endured one last rant from the big mouth spitting on him. Tucker growled, his fingers now tightened into fists and his knuckles to the floor, his heart the heart of a SEAL to the end. This—this!—was how real men died. For others. For the ones they loved. For home and family, for God and country.
With a mighty roar, he propelled his battle-hardened body off the ground, coming up fast, and surprising the two still pounding on him. One flew backward, righteous rage the only weapon Tucker had left. His son would live, damn it. Deuce would grow old and hopefully marry better than his old man had. He’d raise a family, and he’d play that violin as long as he wanted if Tucker had anything to say about it.
Enraged, he let the nasty predator within him come out to play. These bullies were accustomed to slapping children around. They didn’t know what it meant to fight a real man. They did now. He rammed his hard head into the only guy still on his feet, then took a running leap at the wall, bounced off it, and clothes lined the next guy, chopping his neck as he swung by.
The first guy fell with a hard thump, but climbed unsteadily to his feet. The second tilted sideways, his arm extended to the wall. Dropping to his haunches, Tucker kicked low and swung wide, sending both adversaries to the concrete.
On his feet and moving fast, Tucker ducked behind the racks of shelves on his way out of Ham Thủ Thiêm Sewing Distributor. He hadn’t expected to get this far. He cleared the metal fence in an easy, adrenaline-induced leap with several more guards nipping on his heels.
Isaiah was nowhere in sight.
“Yes, I am. See the dirty brown garbage bin across the street?”
“You’re hiding in the trash?”
“No, you moron. Vinnie’s hiding in the bin. I thought you ought to know. Deuce and I are in the car I just stole. To your left. The rust bucket.”
“You’ve got Luke?”
“Give me some credit, Chase. Of course I’ve got Luke. Now move it!”
It didn’t get better than that. Tucker blew out a deep breath as he ran to the stolen vehicle and climbed in. Deuce burrowed into him once his butt hit the backseat. Tucker tipped his head back, relief flooding him at the miracle of holding his kid in his arms. Nothing felt better.
“You’re hurt,” Deuce cried.
“I’m fine,” Tucker insisted raggedly. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Are you sure?” Isaiah’s dark eyes met his blurry gaze in the crooked rearview mirror. “You’ve got Vinnie right where you want him. Now would be a good time to call the authorities.”
Tucker peered at the garbage bin out of the slit that, until this morning, had been his good eye. Vinnie, with his shiny shoes and white shirt was in there? Had he really thought with all Isaiah’s light flickering that the police showed up? What a chicken shit.
“Another day,” Tucker said. “Move it before everyone runs out of that building.”
“You’re hurt, Dad.” Deuce’s eyes were wide. His battered little friend barely nodded from beside him. Poor Luke’s mouth was bloodied—his nose, too.
“Yeah, well...” Tucker watched the factory fence slide open, at least two-dozen more workers after him now, all armed with rods and brooms, and a couple with pistols. All headed his way. “Step on it,” he urged his buddy.
The Chevy shuddered. Isaiah ground the gears, shifting when he should’ve been clutching.
“Depress the clutch, damn it! The middle pedal. Don’t you know anything?”
“Right. Standard transmission. Not automatic. I-I-I’ve...” Isaiah slammed the vehicle into drive, “... got it!” And they were off, racing down the street, around traffic, tires squealing and gears grinding at every shift of the poor clutch popping.
“Turn right,” Tucker ordered at the first intersection. “Go across the river.”
Why?” Isaiah argued. “The sooner we get away from the city, the better.”
“That’s what they’ll expect. Go right.”
“But that will take you east.” Isaiah shot Tucker a quick look. “Are you going back to talk to Nicole? Is that why we’re going east when we should be
headed west?”
Tucker couldn’t answer. He honestly didn’t know why he needed to go east.
Isaiah rounded the corner on two wheels while Tucker glanced over his shoulder, keeping an eye out the rear window. “Tell me again. What’s your friend’s name, son?”
“Luke,” Deuce replied. “He helped me figure out how to work the steam presses so I didn’t burn my fingers. I had to help him. He’s my friend.”
“I’m prouder than hell of you for stepping up to those bullies back there.”
Deuce’s big blue eyes shimmered, his lips pinched tight, but not crying. “I missed you, Dad.”
And God, Tucker wanted to go back and punch that witch who’d hit his son, right in the middle of her ugly face. He thumped his son’s knee instead, not going to break down. He reached out to Deuce’s too-quiet friend. “It’s good to meet you, Luke.”
Luke nodded shyly, a tear tracking over his bruised cheek. He wasn’t much taller than four feet and couldn’t have weighed as much as Deuce.
“Does your friend speak English?”
Deuce grinned. “And French and Vietnamese, too.”
A lump closed Tucker’s throat. Of course Luke spoke Vietnamese, but it was so cute the way Deuce declared it, like he was proud of his friend. “Where’s your mother? Weren’t you supposed to have lunch with her today?”
Deuce blinked. “She says stuff like that all the time, but she doesn’t mean it, Dad. Mom’s not nice like she used to be.”
Tucker couldn’t begin to explain how Nicole never really was nice. He palmed his son’s knee to distract him when Deuce’s eyes brimmed. Vinnie wasn’t the only one who still had a smack down coming. “I’ll bet you and Luke are hungry. How about a cheeseburger and a bucket of greasy fries?”
“Yeah!” Deuce’s eyes lit up, but Luke had yet to speak. Tucker planned to check the boy for injuries if he could keep his eyes open. His head pounded like a mother. “Isaiah, my boy’s hungry,” he hinted, his voice weaker than he’d expected.
Isaiah gunned the Chevy into the dense traffic crossing the Saigon River. It would’ve made Tucker feel good if he hadn’t spotted a police cruiser behind them with its lights flashing. A shiver galloped over his shoulders. He’d come too far to lose Deuce now.
“Sheriff’s on your tail,” he warned Isaiah. “Step on it.”
“I see that,” Isaiah murmured as he slowed to the speed limit. “Let me handle this.”
Tucker bit back the urge to order his junior agent around. Isaiah had yet to do him wrong. The kid couldn’t drive a stick for shit, but Tucker was willing to trust. He blinked hard at the pain in his chest. Man, a guy needed a day off once in a while.
The cruiser dodged traffic on its way east behind them, then moved in close and tailed them. Isaiah kept watch in the rear-view while Tucker strived not to turn around. Isaiah pressed his index finger to his temple. When he slowed down, Tucker’s heart rate kicked up. The police car cranked up its siren and—
Shit. Tucker was sick of fighting the world. He gripped the door handle, intending to make a run for it the second Isaiah stopped, to draw the police away from the boys if push came to shove. Deuce deserved a better life, and Tucker meant for him to have it.
But the police car swerved around the Chevy and roared into traffic. Away. Thank God. Tucker exhaled heavily.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me God,” Isaiah whispered into his mind. “A name like that could stick to a guy. Now sit back and rest. You look like hell.”
“I feel like hell. You did that? You tricked the cops?” Tucker slouched back into his seat, utterly spent.
“I made an astute observation, that’s all. I told them the donuts were fresh out of the fryer east of the river, but they’d better hurry.”
Tucker would’ve laughed at the outrageous stereotype if his gut didn’t hurt like it did. “You did not.”
“Actually...” Isaiah glanced at him slyly. “I simply planted a suggestion. I told the driver we were not who they were looking for. I told him they needed to stop bothering us and to hurry, the bad guys were getting away.”
Tucker closed his eyes, fighting the urge to hug the daylights out of his boy. Maybe even poor Luke. Maybe Isaiah, too.
Chapter Twenty-Four
By the time they got close to Vinnie’s, Tucker knew he was in trouble. He couldn’t draw in a deep enough breath, and dark blotches compromised his vision in what was left of his one good eye. Ha. What a misnomer for an eyeball that dripped what he hoped were just tears. He didn’t dare look at his kid in case it was blood trickling down his cheek. He kept his head down to wipe the leaking fluid without being seen. Crap. A man shouldn’t feel so bad on such a good day. He had his kid back. He was on his way to the altar with a damned good woman. He should be buying a round for the whole world down at the local pub.
Instead...
He lost track of exactly when and precisely where Isaiah turned off the highway. He didn’t want to move when the car stopped vibrating. He wanted to be left the hell alone.
“Is he okay?” Deuce asked somewhere off in the distance, and honestly, Tucker tried to come up with some pithy SEAL-type answer, but shit. The room he’d stumbled into spun, and he didn’t have a clue where he was or how he’d gotten there. Not a good scenario for the lead dog to find himself in—accepting assistance when he was used to being the one who dashed in and rescued others.
Instead...
He collapsed onto the first bed he came to, his arm slung over his eyes because the light hurt his eyeball. Someone took his boots off, and he couldn’t remember securing his gear or his weapons. Little by little, the cool breeze from the air conditioner wafted over his sweaty body, and he knew he was sick, a rare event in his life.
“Melissa,” he growled, his lips dry and his throat sore. He reached for her, his arm flung wide even though he was pretty sure he was dreaming. Some guy pressed a bottle of water to his lips and he gulped a few swallows down. Ah. Finally. Some relief.
“It’s me,” Isaiah answered. “Melissa’s with Mark and the guys, remember? We saved your son. He’s in the shower and Luke’s watching TV. Are you hungry? I’ve got noodles and—”
“Deuce?”
“Yes, Tucker. Deuce is safe. He and Luke have been playing video games and watching TV while you slept.”
“Did we... get ’em?”
“Get who?” Isaiah wiped a cool rag over Tucker’s forehead. Just once. Tucker snagged it out of his hands before he tried that crap again. “Did we get...?” He shut his mouth. He couldn’t remember who he was supposed to get.
Isaiah kept talking, but Tucker’s mind soared through dizzying spirals where eagles dared to fly and Navy SEALs were never wrong. A few words filtered through to him. Airport. Mark. She’s gone... home.
Tucker swallowed the pills Isaiah shoved between his lips with one long gulp of lukewarm water, and he tried. He really tried to keep his mind alert and his eyes open, but...
A man’s just a... man’s just a… damned sick man.
He dozed off.
Tân Sơn Nhất Airport to Reagan International. Twenty-six hours of international flying discomfort as straight as the crow flew—if that crow stopped for a two-hour layover in Seoul, Korea. And if that crazy bird flew over the Arctic Circle, then hovered in a hold pattern over JFK International Airport until a passenger was ready to scream. The long flight home wore on Melissa’s last nerve.
Not for Mark and the guys, though. Like her, all were sprawled out in first-class where they usually traveled. They’d dropped off to sleep the moment the jumbo jet’s landing gear lifted up from Vietnamese soil. Maverick had nursed a whiskey sour until he gave up the ghost. Not Melissa. She couldn’t sleep. Her heart was still in the country she’d left behind with Tucker and all those little girls.
Taz was one happy puppy when she retrieved him from her parent’s place. They were happy to see her, especially after hearing her harrowing story, but he wriggled in her arms all the way h
ome.
Home.
Somehow, her tidy bungalow-for-one didn’t feel like home when she unlocked the door. It felt—bereft. Lonely. Empty. It didn’t make her happy like it once had.
She’d always taken care of herself. Exercised. Ate a nutritionally balanced diet. Worked for charitable causes mostly because she didn’t need the money. Yes, everyone thought she’d given her wealth away to that crackpot cult in California, that madman Lucien Cain, but she wasn’t that dumb. She’d done the same thing Cassidy Dancer’s husband, Jude, did before he’d gone looking for his missing daughter, Judith. She’d created a shell company and buried her assets, every last one of them, so deep that no self-professed prophet could reach one dollar of her wealth.
Yes, she’d stumbled into depression, and she hadn’t made the smartest decisions for a short time in her life, but give every last day of her future away? Strip herself of Brady’s hard-earned investments? Never. She’d been inconsolable and heartbroken after she’d lost Brady, but she hadn’t been that dumb or that lost. She’d been confused. Not anymore.
Melissa wandered through her apartment with faithful Taz dancing at her heels. The reality of what she’d become stared bleakly back at her from her immaculately cleaned rooms. From her tidy refrigerator with not a single bottle of Sam Adams beer –Tucker’s drink of choice—in it. From her well-organized closet without a single man’s crisply ironed shirt or rumpled jacket or sweatshirt hanging alongside hers. Tucker preferred his ratty sweatshirt with bright yellow NAVY stenciled across it when he watched football at her place. She wished he’d left it behind. It’d be comforting to snuggle inside something that smelled like him.
But no. For too long now she’d resisted the male chaos Tucker brought into her life. She’d forced him to clean up after himself. To keep his hands to himself. To be some stupid idea of the perfect man. She’d tried to change him to fit her standards. What a ridiculous notion, to tame a man as big and wild and free as Tucker Chase. What was I thinking?
King of Hearts (Deuces Wild Book 1) Page 23
