Kicking open the door, I carried her straight to the master bathroom where I carefully lowered her to the floor. Her teeth chattered while I ran her a hot bath, bubbling the water with some soap I’d found in the closet.
Every move I made, she watched with wide eyes. I hated that she still feared me, but I didn’t blame her at all.
Once I’d run the bath, I moved to the door. “When you’ve warmed up, we can talk about who I am.”
We needed to get out of here as soon as we could, but I wouldn’t force her to leave until she was ready to trust me again.
“Wait.” Her voice cracked as I turned to go. “Can you help me, please?”
I sucked a rattling breath into my lungs. She wanted me to help her. She wanted me to touch, even after all of this. My eyes betrayed me, caught on the hard and swollen nipples under her wet shirt.
That’s all it took to get me back inside the door.
“You should probably get out of those wet clothes,” I said in a gruff voice. “You’ll get warm a lot faster that way.”
Rosie nodded and lifted her soaked shirt over her head, and my body stirred at the sight of her naked breasts. So gorgeous. So perfect. And yet, she wasn’t mine to have. When she reached out her arms, I gently lifted her from the floor and helped pull the drenched jeans off her shaking legs. My heart racing, I tried to keep my eyes away from her body, but her glistening skin was impossible to ignore.
Once I’d lowered her into the hot water, I sighed in relief. I needed to get out of this bathroom. I couldn’t be having these thoughts about her, not right now. Maybe not ever again. She was hurt. She was scared. And I’d been the one to cause both.
I couldn’t let my actions hurt her ever again.
“What’s your real name?” she asked me softly as I took several steps away from the sight of her curvy body in the bath.
The question caught me off guard. There were a lot of things I had assumed she’d want to know. Why I was on the run. What I’d done to get in trouble with the FBI. Who exactly had died that night when my whole life had gone to shit. But my name…it seemed so unimportant compared to everything else.
“Just call me Franklin,” I said in a soft voice. “That’s who I am right now.”
But not for long. I’d have to change my name again.
“That’s not fair,” she said, sinking further into the bubbles. “You promised to tell me everything.”
I met her gaze across the bathroom. She looked at me so starkly and openly that I couldn’t help but crumble underneath those eyes. She was right. I’d said I would explain it all, and that included starting back where it had all begun, back to who I’d been before the agency had ruined it all.
I took a deep breath and crossed the room, crouching down so that my eyes were level with hers. “Okay, Rosie Smith. You’re only the second person in the entire world who will know my story, so I hope you realize how big of a deal this is for me.”
A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “I want to know it all.”
“Okay,” I said slowly before closing my eyes. “My name is Mason Matthews. I worked for the FBI, and I was undercover as Garrett Butler in Vegas, looking into the mafia running a couple of casinos there. I got in real deep. Too deep.” I sighed. I hated telling this fucking story, but Rosie deserved to know. “The Don there, his name was Bobby Maxwell, he’d found some kids. He was using them to shift drugs, that kind of thing. Instead of keeping my cool, I let my emotions get the better of me, and I tried to get them out of there. Tried to get the FBI to move them into protection where they could find safe homes away from drugs and violence. Away from Bobby Maxwell.”
I paused and took a deep breath, turning away from Rosie. My hands twisted into fists as the fury I’d felt that day came washing over me once again.
“Somehow, they got it in their heads that the rival mob was the one trying to take the kids.” My ears roared as I remembered what came next. “So, they ambushed the rivals one night. A half dozen were killed. On both sides, including Bobby. Somehow, my fingerprints ended up on the scene. So did my gun. The FBI even found blood in my apartment. And even though my evidence sent the rest straight to prison, the FBI decided I was a person of interest.”
“You got set up,” Rosie whispered.
I nodded. “Ever since then, I’ve been on the run.”
The sharp sound of helicopter blades cut through the room, loud and explosive in the silence. My entire body went hard and unease flittered through me. Shit. I cocked my head, listening to the whirring of the engine overhead. Multiple choppers spun somewhere in the sky, the whir of the blades mixed in with the sound of thunder and rain.
“What’s wrong?” Rosie whispered.
I pressed my finger to my lips, edging over to the tiny window to gaze up at the dark sky. A black helicopter swooped through the rain, high above the cabin but still far too close to be anything other than trouble.
They’d found me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Franklin
Rosie gasped, and the sound of rushing water met my ears as she stood from the bath. She cried out in pain, and I ripped my gaze from the window. She stood before me with rivulets of water running down her smooth skin, and a part of me momentarily forgot about the threat brewing overhead.
“Rosie, what are you doing?” I rushed to her side and slid my warms around her small waist. She leaned into me, and my entire body went hard at the feel of her slick and naked body in my arms. She trembled and dug her nails into my shoulder as she tried to hold herself steady on her weakened knee.
“Are they here for you?” she asked through her panting breaths. “Or are they here for me?”
I hesitated, torn between coming clean and feeding her another lie. She’d probably put two and two together by now. Rosie Smith wasn’t a dumb girl. She’d figured out I was on the run from the authorities, and leaving Carlsville was the only way I could keep distance between me and a prison cell.
It was time to tell Rosie the truth. Everything would be on the table now. I just hated to see the look on her face when she realized I’d lied to her this whole damn time.
“They’re after me, Rosie.” I kept my arms tight around her. “They’ve been after me for a long-ass time.”
The chopper blades continued to spin overhead, and my body itched to move, to do something, anything at all. Slowly and carefully, I helped Rosie out of the bath and handed her a towel. She pulled the soft material around her and sat carefully on the side of the bath, staring hard at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
I glanced away, clenching my jaw. “I’m going to go outside and get a better look at what I’m facing.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but then she must have changed her mind. She pressed her lips tight together in a straight line and watched me leave the bathroom, to let her stew in her own thoughts. The truth was, she was better off with me than she had been with the FBI. I knew that, and she probably knew that, too.
I’d get her son back, no matter what. There wasn’t any agent I knew who would risk a case to reunite a family, other than me.
I paused at the front door and peered out into the dark rain slanting down from the sky. The sound of the chopper grew loud, blades sweeping through the wind. Dirt and leaves blew up all around the house, swirling as the wind picked up speed.
A light shone through the darkness, and I crouched low, pressing one palm flat against the sleek hardwood floor. Frowning, I cocked my head and listened harder. Something about the engine didn’t sound right. It was whinier and much more high-pitched than the agency choppers I’d ridden in before, almost as if it were a smaller helicopter…
Slowly, I eased open the door, still crouched low to the ground. Rain tore down like bullets onto my head as I edged onto the porch. Glancing at the sky, I could see the chopper was somewhere over the woods, slowly dipping behind the trees. They must have found a clearing where they could land.
With a deep breath, I
pushed myself off of the porch, grabbed the rifle from the truck, and jogged toward the trees. As I moved silently through into the forest, my mind couldn’t help but drift back to Rosie and how confused and scared she’d looked as I’d left her behind.
She’d be fine though. It would only take me two minutes tops to scope things out.
As I approached the clearing, I heard men shouting over the chopper blades. One of the voices rang out to me, familiar and rough and loud. Ice crept down my spine as I froze in place. I’d know that voice anywhere. It would haunt me to my grave. It was Bobby Maxwell, a man I thought was dead.
A man whose death I thought I’d caused.
This wasn’t the FBI. It was the fucking mob I’d torn down two years before.
And they certainly weren’t here to take me to prison.
Rosie. My breath got trapped in the back of my throat as the realization slid over my skin. She had nothing to do with this, but if they found her here in this cabin, they’d take her out the same as they’d take any other witness out. These men were ruthless, and she was just as unsafe as I was.
Quietly, I ducked back into the trees and ran toward the cabin. My steps were heavy, though quiet, in the deep mud. I flew through the trees, up the front steps and slammed the door behind me hard, flicking every lock and throwing every curtain shut.
None of this would keep them out.
“Rosie!” I shouted out as I stormed through the cabin. When I reached the bathroom, I found it empty. Whirling around, I raced through the cabin, flinging open door after door until the panic gripped my heart so tight, I thought it would crack.
Outside the sound of the choppers faded into the sky, and realization dawned in my head. Somehow, while I’d been out there in the rain spying on one chopper, someone else had snuck into the cabin.
And they’d taken Rosie.
She was gone.
My heart began to shake. This was all my goddamn fault.
I had to save her.
And I’d sacrifice myself if that’s what I had to do.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rosie
Scooter sneered at me from across the helicopter cabin. My whole body shook, both from fear and from the cold. After Franklin had disappeared into the rain, Scooter and a couple of his boys had stormed into the cabin and had found me huddling half-naked in the bathroom. One of them had given me a shirt, but all I had was a towel wrapped around my legs.
“Why are you doing this, Scooter?” I asked so quietly that I wasn’t sure he could hear me.
His eyes hardened. “You know why, Rosie. It didn’t have to fucking be like this. If you’d just kept your mouth shut, we wouldn’t have to do this.”
“Do what exactly?” I couldn’t help but ask. And even though my whole body trembled, my voice came out steady and calm. Franklin would be proud of me, and thinking of him was the only thing that kept me grounded right then.
I knew he would come after me. It was the only thing I knew for sure.
“Rosie, Rosie, Rosie.” He sighed and dragged a hand down his face, jiggling his knee in time with the blades whirring overhead. That was how I knew he wasn’t sober. He’d been dipping into the drugs he was dealing again, and that meant there was no way to predict how this would go.
“You’ve put me in a hell of a position.” He shook his head. “My boys are calling for your head on a spike. But you’re the fucking mother of my child. So, that’s not really an option, is it? Plus, someone I know would like to get his hands on your new boyfriend.”
“You’re not going to kill me.” My pulse throbbed in my throat. I’d never been more scared in my life, but I had to stay strong.
“Kill you? No.” He smiled. “But you can forget about ever seeing anything outside the compound for the rest of your miserable life. Yeah, yeah, you can see Owen, but only on my terms. And if you even think about trying to escape, well then, I can’t control what my boys do in response.”
The compound. Scooter’s headquarters for dealing. Where he was keeping my child. Anger burned through my veins, so hot I could melt the plastic seat.
“Last time I checked, the compound wasn’t a prison. Good luck trying to stop me.”
“You may have only been gone three months, Rosie.” His glimmering smile sent shivers down my spine. “But a hell of a lot has changed.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Franklin
I peered through a pair of binoculars at the chain-length fence. Barbed wire curved at the top, and the lines sparked when a dead leaf flew down from an overhanging tree. Rosie hadn’t mentioned this little barrier when we’d spent hours talking about this place during our evenings at the cabin, which suggested to me that it hadn’t been here before.
Rosie had told me everything. She’d opened herself up to me and look where it had gotten her.
Well, that was going to stop right fucking now. I didn’t care if it got me caught. Her life was far more important than mine.
Scooter sure was intent on keeping people out, and the fact that the Vegas boys had been with him gave me a pretty clear idea why that was. He’d gotten himself in way over his head and thought he could play with the big boys. What he didn’t know was, the big boys were likely to screw him over faster than he could blink.
I picked up my latest burner phone and dialed.
“Bulldog here,” I said when an exasperated sigh met my ear.
“Mason, what the fuck are you doing?” Rockford was so pissed off that he hadn’t even bothered to use my code name. “Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Rosie Smith has been kidnapped by her asshole of an ex-husband. I’m just outside his headquarters now, and I fully intend to go inside to extract her and her son from the situation.”
A beat passed in silence. “Of course you are. I suppose there’s a reason you’re calling to tell me this.”
“Scooter Stone is in up to his eyeballs with the Vegas mafia.”
“Say what?” The disbelief I heard in his voice was enough to confirm that he hadn’t known. Someone at the agency was probably aware of this strange new partnership, but it wasn’t Rockford. That meant I might have a chance.
“You heard me.” I cleared my throat and kept my eye on the fence. “I have reason to believe they are here at Scooter's residence in Carlsville. If there was any time for the agency to move on this place, it’d be right about now. Just give me half an hour to get Rosie and her son out of line of crossfire.”
“Mason, even if I tell the boss about this, there’s no guarantee they’ll move in.”
“They will.” My voice was hard. I knew I was right, and so did he. They wanted these guys so bad they could all taste it. “You know they will.”
“Okay,” Rockford said. “You’ve got half an hour. But if you’re still in there after that, you know there’s nothing I can do to help you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rosie
Scooter left me in a tiny room with an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of jogging pants. Shivering, I grudgingly slid into the clothes and wrapped my arms tight around my waist. Down the hall, I could hear loud voices arguing about something. Nobody sounded particularly happy, and I had a feeling it had to do with those scary-looking men I’d noticed when we’d arrived, though Scooter hadn’t let me get a good look at them. I had a feeling I didn’t want to know.
“I’d like to see my son, please,” I said loudly at the door before banging my fist on it. One of Scooter’s boys was on the other side, guarding me like some kind of criminal, but he didn’t respond, even when I repeated the request about ten dozen times. Now that I was so close to my son, the urge to see him was overwhelming.
I had to make sure he was okay.
I was just about to ask again when a knock on the window made me jump ten feet in the air. Whirling, I gasped when I saw Franklin’s face pressed up against the glass. A tidal wave of emotions overtook me.
Everything was going to be okay.
&n
bsp; Franklin was here.
And he was going to save us.
He motioned for me to come closer, and I stormed across the room with renewed energy. I didn’t care how much Franklin argued, I was going to kiss him so hard and wrap my legs around his waist, thanking him for rushing in like the white knight I knew he was.
When I pushed up the window and stuck my head outside, I almost cried out at what I saw.
Franklin had Owen in his arms. My son. My son is here. Franklin had gone to save him first. My poor innocent boy was fast asleep, his little arms slung loosely around Franklin’s sturdy neck. My heart swelled and tears pricked my eyes. It was the best thing I’d ever seen in my entire life.
I started crying. I couldn’t stop myself.
“Oh, Owen,” I said in a whisper that sounded so loud in the darkness.
“It’s okay, Rosie. Everyone is safe now. Come on. Let’s get you out of there,” Franklin said quietly.
As I climbed out of the window, I shook my head in amazement at Franklin. “How did you do this?”
“His security isn’t as good as it looks.”
“Not so fast,” a voice said, harsh and loud. Freezing, I turned to see several men in black all around us, their guns pointed right at Franklin…at Owen. My heart lurched into my throat, and the world began to spin underneath my feet. Scooter’s boys had found us, far more prepared than I ever thought possible.
“What’s going on?” I cried out, jumping to stand between Owen and the men. “You can’t do this.”
“Just come over here to us, ma’am. Your son, too.” The voice was calm and steady. A professional. Totally the opposite of anyone Scooter had on his team. I realized too late what that meant. These weren’t Scooter’s boys at all.
Taken: Saved by the Billionaire Bad Boy Page 9
