That phone call gave Melissa what she needed, but it didn’t help Tucker. Now that those kids were safe, his thoughts turned to Vinnie, the scumbag of Hồ Chí Minh City. To Mr. Big Stuff and that one night of hell in jail. To Simon Siegel and his flesh-peddling cohorts.
The world was still plenty wicked. Something needed to be done.
He stuck his fingers deep in his jeans pocket and retrieved the keys he’d stolen from that smart-assed jail boss. He had no doubt he could get back inside without being caught. Wouldn’t that bastard be surprised to see him again?
Tucker snapped the keys into his palm before they jingled. Too late.
“What do you have there?” Melissa asked. “Keys? For Isaiah’s rusty Chevy?”
He glanced at the innocence in her eyes, the ready lie on his lips suddenly unspeakable. He didn’t usually have a problem inventing stories that sounded good if they got him his way or out of trouble, but with Melissa, they’d gotten harder to tell.
He confessed rather than disappoint her. “They’re keys to the jail I was in. I stole them from the guard who threatened to kill me if he ever saw me again.”
“No,” she breathed fire with one word. “He said that? When was this?”
That was the difference between Melissa and the rest of the world. He didn’t have to fight her to be heard or accepted or understood. She was instantly in his corner and on his side. He had to tell her the whole story then, didn’t he? How he’d raced after her abductors only to end up caught for stealing the mayor’s car and stuck in a jail cell when he’d gotten stopped by a train. How Alex sprang Isaiah out of jail first, but couldn’t get Tucker out because he’d stolen the mayor’s car. How he’d been roughed up, then saved by Alex at the last moment.
She melted against him, her teacup on the flat railing, her fingers on his face, and her soft breasts cushioned to his pecs. So gentle. So sweet. So much everything he didn’t deserve. “That’s what happened to your eye, isn’t it? That’s how your ribs were broken. Those jerks. They beat you while you were their prisoner, didn’t they? We should do something about them.”
He wrapped her in his arms and tunneled his fingers through her silken locks, surprised at the vehemence in her tone. He knew it to his core then. She would always fight for him and with him. She’d always be there for him at the end of every hard day. Melissa was not the betraying type.
It was odd how, when you got what you thought you wanted, the world shifted, and all at once you wanted something different. Something better. Like her safety more than Mr. Big Stuff’s comeuppance. Like her peace of mind more than his revenge.
“Nah,” Tucker mumbled as he pressed a kiss of utter fealty on the forehead of his all-American girl. His queen. He paused there, drawing in the scent of her, now mingled with a hint of lemon soap instead of apples and cinnamon. Still Melissa. “It’s done, babe. I’m not going back to jail for any reason, especially not for guys like them.”
“Not even to report them?” she asked, her nose in his neck and her breath soft and moist on his skin, teasing him with her love. “There ought to be something we can do. They deserve to be taught a lesson. Are you sure?”
Tucker pulled her flat against him, her ear to his heart, relishing the pleasure of her lush body, and the sea in his nose. She had a way of smoothing his rough edges, of filling in the pits and scars that life had left in its wake. Of making him whole again.
“I’m sure,” he said calmly. It was unlike him not to feel the compulsion to fight back. He took a deep breath and proved it. He dropped the keys into the river. “There. Now it’s done. It’s over.”
“What about the guy who hurt Deuce? You’re going to have a talk with Vinnie, aren’t you?”
His body stiffened at the image of that slick weasel in his fine linen trousers while sweaty children groveled at his imperious feet. Vinnie definitely had a thing or two coming. The only part of that payback that Tucker struggled with was the guy’s two children. He had sons. If not for them, Tucker would be in Vinnie’s face right then, pounding a definite message home. But the boys in the picture that Isaiah had found on the internet were close to Deuce’s age. They needed their father. Hell, they might even be the reason Vinnie did what he did in his cruel, mixed-up mind.
Tucker understood a father’s devotion to his sons. Love drove a man crazy. It might even drive him to take the law into his own hands. Vinnie might think he’d gotten away with what he’d done to Deuce, but from this day forward, he owed his life to those two kids of his. Who knew? Maybe with Nicole out of the picture, Vinnie would straighten up, at least until the evidence that Isaiah gave the police caught up with him. It could happen.
Tucker looked down into his world, the one in those trusting blues with the cutest laugh lines at the corners. He cocked his head to place a kiss on her lush, plump lips. “Don’t worry. One day, the police will raid his factory, and he’ll get what’s coming to him. We might even read about it in the papers back home.”
“You’re awfully mellow today,” she murmured against his mouth, her breath minty fresh on his tongue. “This week has taken a lot out of you.”
He grunted and tugged her back under his chin, his nose in her hair. “It has,” he sighed. “Guess it’s been hard on everyone.”
“Did Dr. Noah bandage your ribs?”
“Yes, and he gave me some oils to rub on my bruises, too. I actually feel good for a change. I can breathe. It’s too bad we can’t take him home with us. I could use a decent family doctor.”
Melissa relaxed, her body heat seeping into that cold spot in his soul, the one that cried for Luke and all the lost children like him. A SEAL saw a lot in his travels across the globe. South America. India. The Mideast. It didn’t matter where Tucker had gone, the motherless were there. Even in America.
Tucker cocked his head. He sensed him before he heard him. Isaiah. Out of breath. His gut churning with acid and panic. Tucker’s heart kicked into high gear. With Melissa in his arms, he turned to the open bridge just as Isaiah pounded up the ladder from below. “What’s wrong?”
Isaiah’s face said it all. “Is Deuce with you?”
“The last I heard him you were telling him about some psychic babble.”
“He said he needed to talk to you. He said he’d only be a minute, only he didn’t come back and now...”
Tucker’s heart leapt out of his chest. Somehow he knew. “Shit. He’s going after Vinnie.”
“Where? The factory or his house?” Melissa asked, her fingernails digging into Tucker’s forearm.
He turned on Isaiah. “Do you know?”
Isaiah closed his eyes and lowered his head. He dropped his palms to his knees, shaking and sucking in great draughts of air, his chest heaving. “Give me a sec.”
“I’m going with you,” Melissa declared.
“No, you’re not,” Tucker shot back at her, his focus still on his fellow agent. She might have his six, but she needed to stay here with the Giangs where it was safe. “You’ll stay here and—”
“I’ll do no such thing. I didn’t fly all the way back to Vietnam to—”
He whirled her into his arms, his thumbs stuck below her collarbones, his stare lethal. “You’ll stay and that’s the end of it.”
Damned if she didn’t narrow those pretty blues, and glare right back at him. “He’s going to be my son too, Tucker Chase. Get over yourself and—”
“You don’t understand. It’s not that simple. I can’t—”
“You can’t what? Make room in your life for me? Let me love your son as much as you do?” She spiked a malicious brow at him, her lips pinched thin and tight. “I thought a big, tough Navy SEAL could do everything.”
“I can’t...” He growled, his tenderized heart on his sleeve. “I can’t chance losing you, damn it. Things might go bad. Don’t you get it? I finally found you. I finally have something good and decent and pure and I… I just can’t.”
“But Tucker.” She moved in fast, her hands gentle on
his neck instead of wringing it like he half expected. She’d shoved one foot between his boots, her body aligned perfectly with his. “You’re the one who told me I can’t control life. It’s a rush and a downer all in the same day, remember? It’s a bull named Daisy and a sweet baby boy named Deuce, and I’m here, Tucker. For you. Do you think it’s any easier for me to sit home and worry while you’re in danger? I’m sorry I yelled at you, but I’m in this with you all the way. To the end and beyond. Let’s go get that boy of yours back once and for all.”
God, he loved this woman so hard. Tucker mashed his mouth to hers, his heart on fire and his mind made up. She could come with him, and he’d be proud to have her on his six. He wouldn’t want it any other way.
He licked her luscious lips to seal his promise to her. “Now that we’ve got that settled...” He glanced over Melissa’s shoulder to Isaiah. “Where are we going, kid?”
Isaiah looked damned bleak. “He’s at Vinnie’s house.”
Chapter Thirty
Melissa rode shotgun. It hadn’t taken long for Tucker to drive Isaiah’s rust bucket to Vinnie’s estate. Tucker pulled into the brush just off the end of Vinnie’s wide circular driveway. He’d already let Isaiah out down the road, and now they waited for Isaiah to get in position at the rear of the estate. Two snipers with a psychic link were better than one.
Climbing out of the battered vehicle, she hefted the AR that Tucker had allowed her to carry, intent on matching him step-for-step. He seemed to think he was the boss of her, allowing her to do anything. Silly man. For now, she let him think that. His son’s life was at stake. They didn’t have time to squabble. If Deuce was in this place, she meant to do whatever it took to get him back. Tucker needed to understand that. She could handle herself.
The estate was quiet though. Too quiet. The last time she’d been there, noisy peacocks strolled the front lawn. There’d been quaking ducks in the pond, and long-legged, white cranes in the reeds by the waterfall. But today there was nothing—until she and Tucker drew deeper onto the estate.
Someone had raked the lawn over with rapid fire. She saw the peacocks then. All dead, their lovely sapphire-blue bodies torn and shredded. A poor turtle floated belly-up on the pond. The stucco walls of the house carried plenty of pockmarks. Melissa swallowed hard, her throat dry at what had taken place there. At what Deuce might not have lived through. Summoning Tucker’s salty vernacular, she muttered a guarded, “Shit.”
“Deuce didn’t do this,” Tucker cautioned, his voice rife with tension. “Isaiah, can you get a read on my son? Is he still here? Where’s Vinnie? What the hell happened?”
She stilled along with Tucker, waiting on his command to move forward.
“Isaiah?” he asked again, his head cocked. “Can you read me?”
Her pulse quickened at the worry in his voice. He turned to the house, his fingertip to his ear as if that could help the psychic connection. “Damn it, where are you? Talk to me.”
“What’s wrong?” Mental links were always supposed to work, weren’t they?
He nodded for her to follow him around the pond, behind the palm trees to the side of the house. “Not sure. I’ve never not had him in my head on this trip until now. Let’s find out what’s going on. Keep your weapon up and ready.”
She got that. Brady had always said there was no foolproof plan, that Murphy’s Law could and would ruin any and every way forward. A sudden chill passed over the back of Melissa’s neck despite her thick mantle of hair now tied into a ponytail. She’d practiced shooting alongside Brady at gun ranges before he’d been injured, but this was different. Her fingers trembled alongside her rifle’s trigger guard. She licked the sweat off her upper lip. This was real.
Step by step, she and Tucker advanced. He led, his broad shoulders blocking her view, the point of his weapon sweeping back and forth, his massive body like one rippling jungle cat ready to pounce. How a big man like him could move so quickly and be so light on his feet intrigued and amazed Melissa. She honed her pace and her movements to match his. To keep as quiet as sin—until they cleared the rear corner of the estate and saw the pergola.
He snapped his rifle on the lone man standing there. She followed suit. It was a trap. An evil, wretched trap of death and dare, and Deuce was caught in the middle of it, along with Vinnie, his son, and Isaiah.
The pergola, constructed of eight-by-eight red-stained wooden uprights, stretched the width of the backyard. Ropes laced over the top beams in the center of the wooden structure. Vinnie sat in one of two chairs beneath the beams, his neck in a noose, a gag in his mouth, and his hands tied behind his back. He’d been beaten, his cheek bloodied. Tears ran down his face. He sobbed, his head cocked to the side, but his gaze fastened to the chair at his side.
Isaiah sat in that chair to his left, unconscious, his head on his shoulder, and his neck also in a noose. Blood trickled from a gash over his brow.
But worse were the marionettes dangling by their necks at the other end of those ropes. Deuce and one of Vinnie’s boys. They stood on the back of the men’s chairs, their hands tied behind their backs, their feet slipping, striving for balance. If either boy fell, they hanged the man at the other end of their rope while they strangled themselves.
Deuce danced nervously over Vinnie’s chair back, Vinnie’s son over Isaiah’s. Deuce would die getting the revenge he’d wanted. If Isaiah didn’t come to, he’d never know what killed him. It wouldn’t take much. Just one slip. One frightened boy.
The man at the opposite side of the pergola held an equally impressive AR trained on his hapless victims. Simon Siegel. He looked as if he’d been in a war since she’d last seen him, the left side of his face raw and blistered. Patches of hair were missing from his bare head. One ear was a melted piece of raw flesh.
Melissa’s heart sank. How could anyone be so evil? So cruel? She leveled the barrel of her weapon on his head, mentally judging distance, praying she could get a shot off before he did. That’s all it would take to end this despicable farce. Just one lucky shot.
“Dad,” Deuce cried hoarsely, his eyes wide with terror. “Dad, I’m sorry.”
Tucker sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re doing fine, son,” he encouraged the impossible, his rifle also aimed at Siegel. “Stay calm. I’ll get you out of there.”
“But I—”
Melissa licked her bottom lip, wanting Simon to look away. To blink. To give up so she wouldn’t have to kill him.
“But nothing,” Tucker said evenly. “Take a deep breath, Deuce, and keep your eyes on me. You can do it. Hang on. This’ll be over soon.”
Melissa didn’t argue. Deuce needed to trust his dad. He nodded slightly at Tucker that he understood, his neck already rubbed red and raw from the nylon rope stretched taut between him and Vinnie. It had no slack to it, but at least Deuce’s tennis shoes had some grip. Between them and the tension of the rope, he seemed able to maintain a shaky balance.
Vinnie’s son was another problem. The poor boy looked as if he’d been on his way to a dance or to church in his white shirt and slacks. Sweating profusely, he tipped forward and backward in slippery dress shoes on the back of Isaiah’s chair. Blubbering for his father, he wouldn’t last. He’d be the first to fall. Vinnie would react, hanging Deuce, and Isaiah would most certainly strangle to death.
Melissa’s heart kicked up as she planned for that worst-case scenario. Tucker would most likely end Siegel the second this game changed. Isaiah’s chair was closest. She would run to him, cut the rope from his neck with the knife in her back jeans pocket on her way to catch Deuce before he fell. It could work.
Simon nodded his burned chin at Melissa, a salacious twitch at the corners of his mouth, jolting her back to square one. “I’d say it’s good to see you again, Mrs. McCormack, but hey...” He waved a bandaged hand at the beleaguered performers on his stage. “I’d be lying. You’re certainly a clever bitch, though. Not once did I connect you with McCormack Industries, and I should have. I could’ve u
sed you a whole lot better if I’d known you came from real money. I wouldn’t be here now, would I?"
He winked at Tucker. “So you’re the almighty Senior Chief I’ve heard so much about. It’s time we met face-to-face, Chase. Did your lady-friend there tell you how quick she gave it up to me once I let her out of her box? She tell you how fast she cozied up to me and some of my boys, how happy she was to put out so we wouldn’t kill her worthless, rich ass?”
Melissa’s indignation nearly got the best of her. He sounded as if he knew someone that Tucker knew. Just who had he been talking to?
“Liar,” Tucker hissed as if he’d read her mind. “What do you want? Money? Is that what this is about?”
Siegel’s peeling nose twisted, along with the rest of his burned face when he shook his head. “Them little girls are what this is about. They were the real money, Chase, but you’re too late to the party. I’m past that now. Look at me. Do I look like I need cash? Do I look like I care about screwing rich chicks like that whore behind you just to get my hands on a few billion dollars?”
Well, yeah. Melissa almost nodded. Wasn’t everything about money to guys like Simon?
Tucker’s rifle hadn’t wavered an inch off his target. Shaking with adrenaline, Melissa tried to keep the barrel of her weapon as steady, but her emotions were all over the place. Anger for what Simon had done to Pich surged through her veins like molten magma. Her soul burned to shoot him in the face for what he was doing to Deuce and Isaiah. For what he’d done to those little girls. To Tristan.
Fear for Tucker and Deuce, for Vinnie and his son, roared up her spine, shaking what little composure she had left. Outright panic pulsed through her mind, making it difficult to think clearly. How could Tucker stay so cool and calm in the face of such evil? That was his son’s life on the line, riding on Vinnie’s chair back. All Vinnie had to do was panic and try to save his son, and Tucker would lose Deuce and Isaiah. Was there ice in his veins?
King of Hearts (Deuces Wild Book 1) Page 28
