Holding Fire

by April Hunt

  With Rafe and Charlie already stationed inside her father’s room, and Chase and Stone sticking close to the SUVs, Elle had three escorts into the lower bowels of the hospital. They bypassed the boiler room and the kitchen. When they hit the cafeteria, Logan broke away with a faint nod and proceeded to the security office, where he would meet up with the hospital’s head of security and monitor the building’s surveillance cameras.

  At every corner’s turn, Elle half-expected the boogeyman to jump out, red eyes fixed and dilated, and drool dripping from his mouth. Except she wasn’t six years old and she was wide awake—and she had a bad-ass Alpha operative at each shoulder.

  With Vince and Trey next to her, people barely spared her more than a quick glance as they walked the corridors. And she couldn’t blame them because, even wearing plain clothes, the guys weren’t the type to be missed easily.

  “You doing okay?” Trey finally asked when they reached a back stairwell and started hoofing it up the three flights.

  “No signs of our friends, so I guess I’m good.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Black Dunes.”

  She knew he wasn’t, and despite this being her idea, she still hadn’t figured out what she was going to actually say to her father. She knew what she wanted to—that she was done being his pawn, done with the drama.

  Done with him.

  “I just want all of this to be done and over, already,” Elle finally admitted. “He’s had a firm grip on my life for thirty years. I’m ready to chisel it the hell off.”

  With one more flight to go, Rafe’s voice requested their arrival time via their ear mics. “ETA?”

  “We’ll be there in five,” Vince murmured. “Coming out of the east end stairwell now. Any visuals?”

  “Not of our targets, but it’s about to get a whole lot more interesting. The Senator’s got…visitors.”

  Vince looked less than thrilled. “Is it anything we need to worry about?”

  “Only if Trey’s safety is off,” Rafe joked dryly.

  Elle tried not thinking about Rafe’s ominous words, and she succeeded until they reached the double doors of the intensive care unit. Suddenly, her feet became weighted to the ground.

  Trey’s hand brushed against her lower back. “You’re almost there, sweetness. You go in, do your thing, and then we come out. Easy as fucking pie.”

  “Maybe I should go the rest of the way alone,” she suggested nervously. “It’s not like they’re going let a herd of armed, gorilla-sized men into the unit at the same time and Rafe and Charlie are already in there.”

  “It’s been worked out with the hospital staff and security. We’re good.” Trey gently rubbed her back.

  Of course it had been. Elle had officially run out of excuses.

  True to Trey’s word, the secretary barely batted her heavily mascaraed eyes when they stepped up to the window. The double doors whooshed open, immediately hitting them with an intense medicinal smell. Present throughout the hospital, it was stronger in the unit than anywhere else: a mixture of disinfectant, medicine, and things most people probably preferred not thinking about.

  Shay, a worried expression on her face, blasted her way past Vince and Trey and pulled Elle into a fierce hug. “You really did show up!”

  “What are you doing here?” Elle hugged her best friend even tighter. “Let me rephrase that…you shouldn’t be here. You should be back home in New York.”

  “Psht. Like I’d let thugs with guns keep me from my best friend. I’ve stayed away long enough.” Shay held her an arm’s length away and gave her a critical look-over. “You look okay. Are you okay? Your new friends told me that you were, but you know I don’t believe things until I see them for myself.”

  “I’m ready for all of this to be done and over.” Elle realized she hadn’t really answered the question, but Shay, surprisingly, didn’t call her on it or on the tears starting to well in her eyes.

  “Do you really think he fabricated the entire thing?” Shay asked in a low murmur. “I mean, that’s kind of low, even for your father.”

  “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  “Before you go over there, I need you to know that I’m so sorry,” Shay said. “So, so sorry. I tried everything I could to get him thrown out of here, but your father started putting on one hell of a dramatic performance. The man missed his calling with the theater. Seriously.”

  At first, Elle didn’t know what her friend was talking about—and then Shay shifted left, giving her an unobstructed view of her father’s hospital room door. Or more accurately, the group of men standing in front of it. Mixed in with the black suits and ridiculously mirrored sunglasses of her father’s security detail was James.

  Elle groaned. She did not have the fortitude or the patience to deal with him right now.

  Shay was apologizing again. “I tried getting him to leave, but those men in black put a big gaping hole in the term ‘assholes.’” The brunette finally registered Trey, who’d stayed a few feet away, giving them some semblance of privacy. “Jesus. I forgot how huge that man was.”

  She gave Elle a playful smack on the arm.

  “Ow!” Elle laughed. “What was that for?”

  “For lying out of your ass. There’s no way in hell a man like that doesn’t know what he’s doing in bed. I mean, Christ…look at him.”

  Elle prayed for the floor to open up and swallow her. While she loved Shay like a sister, the woman did not possess an inside voice. But Elle didn’t have to worry about Trey eavesdropping because he wasn’t even looking their way.

  He was too focused on drilling his glare through James’s chest.

  “This is going to be good.” Shay practically rubbed her hands together. “Broadway can’t supply this kind of entertainment.”

  Elle set her sights on her father’s door and hoped that by the time she got there, James would disappear. But she had no such luck. He stepped directly into her path. “I think we need to have a talk, Elle.”

  Trey was there instantly, his sudden appearance causing a chain reaction of halfway drawn guns. “And I think you need to back off. Touch her and you’ll have to jack off with a stump.”

  James flashed his too-white-to-be-real smile; the one meant to disarm people, but which never failed to rub Elle the wrong way. He was primped and immaculately dressed, looking the part of a politician with his five-hundred-dollar haircut and high-end suit. And he looked too damn jovial for a man visiting his supposedly sick father-figure.

  James returned Trey’s glare with a condescending smirk. “There’s no need for barbarics. I only want a little alone time with Elle.”

  Trey stepped closer. “You can want until you’re blue in the face, bud, but you’re not getting even a second of Elle’s time—alone or otherwise. It’s in your best physical interest for you to step aside now, or I’m going to show you how barbaric I can fucking be.”

  Trey’s hand rested on his hip, where his gun was hidden from view. Despite the fact that Elle had fantasized about shooting her ex in the ass once or twice, there was no doubt in her mind that Trey wouldn’t have a single qualm about doing it in reality.

  “Now’s not the time, James,” she butted in before things got too ugly. “In case you haven’t realized, there’s a lot going on right now.”

  “That’s what makes it the perfect time,” James retorted. “With this threat hanging over our heads, we may not have a second chance.”

  Trey pushed himself within an inch of James’s face. “Care to explain to me what the fuck you mean by that?”

  Elle shot Vince a pleading look. “Aren’t you going to do something about this?”

  “Looks to me like Hanson’s got it covered.” Vince stood still as a redwood.

  Men and their freaking testosterone.

  “Yep,” Shay murmured off to the side. “I definitely like this one. You got my complete approval, Elle. He’s a keeper. A-plus material.”

  Elle braced a hand on Trey’s arm. “T
he only thing James meant by that statement is that he’s self-centered and self-serving. It wasn’t some kind of threat.”

  “Could’ve fooled me,” Trey grumbled.

  “Looks like a lot of things could fool you,” James snapped haughtily, not caring that he stood in front of two large, armed men. “For the love of God, Elle. You couldn’t find someone a little less…brutish…to replace me with? Maybe someone with an IQ at least slightly above that of a fifth-grader?”

  Hearing his snide remarks attacking Trey, Elle’s anger flared. It was her turn to step closer, wedging herself in between the two men. “Keep spewing and you’re going to see brutish when I stuff a roll of gauze in your mouth and duct tape it shut.”

  “Still the lady, I see.” James snorted. “Although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, considering you’ve been left unchecked and free to go gallivanting anywhere you please. Now that I think about it, I suppose it was smart of you…aiming low, opting for someone who isn’t expecting much more than a quick lay and a slap on the ass. No sense in raising anyone’s hopes only to rip them away, right?”

  Murderous rage glinted in Shay’s eyes. She lurched forward. “You little piece of sh—”

  “Ah-ah-ah.” Vince caught the brunette around the waist only a few inches short of contact. “Let this play out.”

  “I didn’t get it wrong, did I?” James shifted his attention from Trey to Elle. A gradual realization settled his mouth into a wry, knowing grin. “You wouldn’t purposefully lead someone to believe something that isn’t true, would you? I mean, could you imagine the fallout down the road? Crushed dreams. Chaos and disappointment.” He winced. “It wouldn’t be pretty.”

  Elle felt the color leach from her face. Not like this…not from James’s mouth. “Don’t. Please.”

  “Elle’s the last person on earth who would lead someone to believe something that isn’t true—unlike your boss,” Trey growled.

  “Yeah? Does that mean she’s told you that all she’s good for these days is to wet your stick? If you have any plans to bring little brutes into the world, it’s best to go somewhere else. That’s what I had to do.”

  Elle didn’t even see Trey swing. One moment James stood in front her; in the next, his body crashed against the wall.

  “You son-of-a-bitch! You broke my damn nose!” Blood seeped through James’s fingers as he cupped his nose.

  “I’ll break every bone in your fucking body if you so much as use Elle’s name in a sentence again, asshole,” Trey said, his voice deceptively low and mellow.

  “Are you threatening me?” James challenged.

  “No, I’m promising you. Touch her. Look at her. Even think about her, and I will break off your dick and stuff it down your throat.”

  Vince must’ve believed him because the former SEAL finally stepped close, although Elle wasn’t sure if it was to stop Trey from fulfilling his promise or to help make it happen.

  Her father’s door opened, and Charlie stood there, taking in the scene. She looked from Trey to James to the baffled security guards who appeared not to know what the hell to do. Finally, she took Elle’s arm and gestured for her to come inside the room. “With me.”

  “But—” Elle started to refuse.

  “Let the boys work out their issues. Navy will make sure your lover boy doesn’t go to jail.”

  Elle didn’t want to move. Trey didn’t look the least bit calmer.

  “Trey.” His name fell from her lips in a faint whisper, but he heard.

  The stern look he gave her was a knife through the chest. Pain swelled with every breath she took. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t blink.

  “Go deal with your father,” he finally said, voice gruff. “Then you can move on with your life.”

  Charlie gently tugged Elle into her father’s hospital room, leaving her heart out there in the corridor, shattering.

  * * *

  Trey wasn’t proud he’d decked Elle’s prick of an ex. He was disappointed—disappointed Vince had stopped him before he could send the bastard through the wall instead of into it. At some point in the chaos, Rafe had slipped out from the hospital room and now stood at his right flank.

  “Don’t even think about it, man,” Rafe’s voice warned. “I know what you want to do, but it’ll only create a whole new shit-storm of problems.”

  “Would you be singing that tune if it had been Penny?” Trey muttered under his breath.

  “Fuck no, but you’re too pretty to go to jail. I at least have that rugged thing going on.”

  Trey snorted. Leave it to Rafe to pull him—slightly, and definitely temporarily—out of his dark mood.

  “Let’s go, man. Your lady’s about to put on quite the show.” Rafe smacked him on the back before gesturing to Vince. “You got it out here?”

  “Got it covered.”

  They stepped into the Senator’s room, and got their first glimpse at the supposedly ailing man. Dressed in silk pajamas and without so much as an IV attached to the arm, Senator Monroe lay in bed and glared at his daughter.

  “You look awfully fucking spry for a man who just had a major heart attack,” Trey said, pointing out the obvious.

  “That’s because he didn’t have a heart attack,” Elle confirmed without looking his way. Judging by the scowl she was throwing at her father, Trey’s pissed-off little pixie was back with a fucking vengeance. “Isn’t that right, Dad?”

  “No, I did not,” the Senator snapped. “But you weren’t aware of that until a minute ago, and I have to admit, I’m not impressed with your response time. For God’s sake, I was rushed to the hospital almost thirty-six hours ago, and it’s taken you until now to come see me.”

  “There’s so much wrong with what you said that I don’t even know where to begin.” Elle shook her head in obvious disbelief. “But let’s start with what you were doing when you were rushed to the hospital.”

  “What about it?” Monroe’s impatience irked Trey to high hell.

  “You knew about the airport,” Elle continued, “because you’d been given an update. You knew about the gala, because you’d been there. How did you know about the third time? About the dangerous occasion where there’d been children present?”

  Muffled conversations could be heard from the corridor outside the room as the hospital shift continued to move on around them.

  “I’d been given an update,” Monroe finally stated. “I am paying these men to keep you safe.”

  “But you weren’t. No one from this side of the threat told you…which means you got the information from somewhere else, and I highly doubt it was from one of the elementary school kids.”

  “You’re blowing this out of proportion, Elle,” Monroe sputtered, clearly getting flustered.

  From the other side of the room, Charlie cursed. “‘Out of proportion’? You hired bloody mercenaries!”

  “To make it appear as if she were danger,” the Senator finally admitted. “Nothing was ever going to happen.”

  “Tell that to someone who didn’t have to check her for a concussion,” Trey muttered harshly.

  “My father doesn’t care about that,” Elle reminded the room. “He doesn’t care how any of his decisions or actions affect someone’s life unless that someone is him.”

  Her fisted hands dropped to her side, and damn it if her chin didn’t fucking quiver. Trey almost intervened. He wanted to take her out of this room and not look back. But he also knew that this was something she needed to do—alone.

  “You not only messed with my life,” Elle pointed out to her father, “but you messed with the lives of everyone here. For weeks, they put themselves at risk to keep me safe, and you didn’t give one single damn.”

  “Don’t make them out to be martyrs. It’s their job, one I paid them to. It’s not like they’re doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.”

  “Actually,” Charlie interjected, looking almost gleeful, “we ripped up the bloody check weeks ago because knowing where the money
came from gave us indigestion. And we don’t charge family—which is exactly what she is to us. They have our protection, whether they want it or not.”

  Tears welled in Elle’s eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall—not in front of her father. Trey couldn’t keep his distance anymore. He skimmed his hand down her back and over her hip. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Charlie.”

  “I know.” Charlie smirked.

  Elle continued to stare at her father, her voice barely audible when she spoke. “Family’s supposed to be a blessing, and you treat it as a tool to work your will. And it’s always been like that…even when Mom was alive.”

  Senator Monroe shrugged, not looking the least bit fazed. “When you have life goals, you make certain to use the things around you to your advantage. If you don’t have any, you create them. That’s something you never seemed to grasp, Elle. You give up. You let opportunities pass you by, to do what? Hop from one underdeveloped nation to another with the likes of people like him?” The Senator glared Trey’s way and shook his head in disgust. “You could’ve had a proper, well-respected life with a powerful man.”

  “Who I didn’t love, and who showed me in every way possible that the feeling was mutual,” Elle added.

  “Love is entirely overrated. Common goals are what matters, and what you’re willing to do to achieve them. And let’s face it, dear, you can’t really afford to be too damn particular—not someone in your predicament.”

  “All right, that’s enough.” Trey tossed his satellite phone onto the Senator’s lap a little harder than was necessary. “Call off Black Dunes.”

  “You do not order me around, boy,” Monroe howled.

  “Oh, I do order you around…sir. You’re going to call off your dogs, show us the confirmation, and then this is going to be the very last time you hurt your daughter. If it’s not, the next time an ambulance rushes you away, it’s going to be for real.”

  “I could have you arrested for threatening me like that. I’m a United States Senator!”

  “No, you’re a United States Asshole…now make the damn call.”