“Or confident,” Carolina added. “After all, you throw knives almost as well as I do now. I ordered you your own engraved set.”
She’d ducked her head. “I shouldn’t find that funny. Or awesome. That’s not normal!”
“You’re about as normal as any of those Section 8ers you fell in with. I think you found your people,” Carolina informed her.
“Right. I just need to remember them.”
“That’s the easy part,” Carolina assured her. “When your mind’s ready, you will know everything.”
“Until then?”
“I suggest you not strip in front of Jem again unless you really and truly are ready for something to happen between you two. He’s not known for his self-control, and I doubt he’d walk away so easily a second time.”
Chapter Five
Jem found Key waiting up for him when he dragged himself in. He’d almost stopped at a million bars along the way—and he’d also almost gone back to take Drea up on her offer.
But hell, Carolina would definitely come after him with a shotgun. Or worse.
He didn’t want to think about the “or worse.”
“That bad?” Key asked when Jem walked in.
Jem had never been able to school his face well around people he loved, unless their lives were in danger. “She took her shirt off. I kissed her and then made her put it back on.”
Key whistled. “You’ve got it way worse than I thought.”
“Do we have anything to drink around here?” Jem asked as he riffled through the kitchen of the rented apartment he and his brother shared, about two hours from Carolina’s house. And that location had been chosen purposely. The others—Dare, Grace, Gunner and Avery—also had places in the same building. It wasn’t luxury, but it was unobtrusive and it was a locked building. And it wasn’t anything they wouldn’t mind leaving behind for good, if it ever came down to that. This was transitory.
And they were rarely home that often these days to begin with.
“You threw out all the booze, remember?” Key reminded him, unable to keep the slight edge of glee out of his tone. And yes, Jem did remember, because when he got drunk, which admittedly wasn’t very often, he got morose. Or he wanted to fight.
Then again, he did that when he was sober too. “Liquor stores have to deliver, right?”
“What if we just go out to dinner and get hammered?” he suggested as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “We can bring Gunner and Dare along.”
“If we really want to keep control of ourselves, we can bring Avery and Grace.”
“That’s why I didn’t mention them. Figured we could call them if we get into trouble, or if they need to post bail.”
Jem pointed at him. “And that’s exactly the reason we’re not leaving this apartment tonight.”
Key sighed and leaned back against the couch. They all definitely needed some downtime, but the jobs were coming fast and furious, and when the opportunity presented itself it was foolish to wait. Besides, they were all far happier when they were actively rigging explosives and killing human traffickers.
“Is Carolina okay with Drea staying there longer?” Key asked now.
“Yeah. They’ve become close.” Jem felt the familiar spiral of his mind—when he thought too much, he was more apt to lose it. More apt to do something completely, unnecessarily crazy just to make himself feel better. But tonight, he’d tie himself to a chair so he wouldn’t go out and do anything stupid.
“Hey, Jem?”
“Yeah?”
“I wouldn’t let you do anything stupid. You know that, right?”
Jem smiled as he looked out the window. “I know, Key. Thanks.” He and Key had gotten closer than ever while they worked together all these months. At times, their relationship was rocky, as it was with anyone you knew inside out. But there was an unbreakable bond there, one that had gotten stronger every day. “You like her, right?”
“Drea? Yeah, I like her a lot. I think she’s really good for you. It’s just that … is all this good for her?”
And that was definitely the million-dollar question, and one that Jem couldn’t give the right answer to if he tried.
Chapter Six
Two weeks later
The hum of an incoming motorcycle quickly turned into a steady, roaring drone, and it made Drea panic. She closed the window hoping it was just a random rider on the road outside Carolina’s house. But something inside her wouldn’t let her settle in, wouldn’t allow her to believe that.
She edged toward the window, moved aside the heavy curtain and glanced out. Being on the second floor, with the house being built on a hill, gave her the advantage, and she was able to look down onto the road that wound around the back of Carolina’s property. She saw the man on the bike—he was dressed in black leather, and while she couldn’t make out the name of the MC on his rocker, her gut told her that there was danger.
“Carolina!” She called the woman’s name over and over as she raced down the stairs. As her bare feet hit the first-floor landing, the sound of gunshots rang through the slightly open windows in the foyer. She panicked, hit the floor and crawled toward shelter. Behind Carolina’s heavy desk, she reached up for the phone. When she brought the receiver to her ear, there was no dial tone.
Shit.
She maneuvered around to the front of the desk, stayed lower than the windows the way Carolina had taught her, and she found the gun hidden in the secret panel. Carolina had wasted no time in showing her how to shoot a gun. It became apparent that Drea had also been taught at one point in her life. She was a quick study, and now she raised herself up slightly, took the safety off the weapon and moved toward the door.
A single glance at the side window told her the man she’d seen on the bike was not the only man on the property. There were two of them, both in black leather, they had come in far more stealthily than the man on the bike and they appeared to be blocking the path that led to the front of the house. She saw no sign of Carolina.
She slid over to glance out another big window, this one facing the back of the property. The original biker she’d first seen on the road was there, his red hair making him easy to spot.
Red hair.
She thought back frantically to Danny, to the OA members she’d known when they were together. But something about the redheaded man churned her memories. Without thinking, she raised her gun and shot through the partially open window. The bullet blasted through the screen, cutting it like butter, and she swore she heard it whiz through the air. The biker heard it too. He turned around, just in time for the bullet to hit him in the throat.
It was far more satisfying than she’d ever thought. The blood didn’t bother her, and when he fell to the ground she immediately went back to the other window, prepared to take out the other men she’d seen. But Carolina was coming around the corner. She must’ve come to the back door, and she was holding her side and bleeding. Drea immediately went to her, put an arm around her and hustled her to a safe room.
“Drea, honey, there’s big trouble outside,” Carolina said, took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Drea noticed with relief that the fight was still there. “I called in the cavalry. I’m not sure when they’ll make it here. In the meantime, we need to get to the panic room.”
“Suppose they come into the house shooting?”
“That’s what I have insurance for.” Carolina pulled herself up and together the women moved toward the panic room. Drea had only seen it once, and she backed away, because even though it was slightly bigger than a walk-in closet, the fact that there were no windows and only one way in caused her certain panic.
However, if she had to choose between certain panic and death, she’d pick panic every single time. “There are medical kits in there?” she asked Carolina.
“Of course.” Carolina hit a few buttons on the alarm pad, and the heavy steel doors closed with a resounding thud. Then Carolina hit more but
tons, which brought up cameras. Drea saw the entire perimeter of the house scattered across the small screens, and noted the dead man she’d taken out.
She also saw several other men that Carolina had killed. “How many of them are there?”
Carolina handed her a black medical bag and sat in one of the chairs. “I’d say at least twelve. I don’t know how they got past the security system. If they were all riding those bikes, I would’ve been warned ten minutes before they got on the property. They must’ve come on foot, and were prepared to bypass my systems. The bike must’ve been a way to distract us while they broke into the back of the house.”
“You really think a biker gang could do all that?” Drea rifled through the bag and began pulling out supplies. Rubber gloves on, she placed a drape over Carolina’s legs and started to cut through the fabric of the woman’s shirt.
“This is Gucci, honey.”
“It’s already ruined,” Drea pointed out.
“Someone owes me a new shirt. I’ll take it out of their hides.” She smiled for a moment, then shifted so Drea could get a better look at the wound. “The bullet went straight through.”
After a quick examination, Drea agreed. “You still need a transfusion, rest and a course of antibiotics.” She began to put pressure on the wound, using wads of gauze. She knew it had to hurt Carolina, but when she looked into the woman’s face, Carolina was smiling. “What’s that for?”
“I guess you’re remembering that you’re really a doctor.”
Drea sat back on her heels for just a second, staring at the blood on Carolina’s shirt and then back up into Carolina’s face. “You’re a horrible patient.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
*
It took Jem twelve hours to get to Carolina’s house. He’d gotten the 911 signal almost immediately and stood by helplessly for the next several hours as the private plane flew him back from a private island in the Caribbean, one of those small uncharted ones owned by millionaires but rarely used for anything on the up-and-up … until Carolina reported back to him. She’d called in a few favors with former agents she was still on good terms with. They’d rounded up upward of ten Outlaw Angel bikers in the house and around the property, trashing everything in sight. Carolina and Drea were safe inside the panic room, but Carolina had been shot.
Suddenly, the safe house wasn’t safe any longer. But Jem was relieved that backup had come in so readily to help Carolina and Drea.
Even so, he was cursing the fact that he hadn’t been close.
He’d been forced to leave Key and the rest of S8 behind. They’d been reconning an important job and they’d barely been able to lose him for the time being. But there had never been any question of Jem’s coming to help Drea—from him or them.
Now he walked up the path, his arms in the air, waving at the security cameras so Carolina—or Drea—wouldn’t shoot him. After five minutes, the door opened and Drea stood there. In the sunlight, her amber-colored eyes looked nearly translucent. Her hair was tousled, her eyes slightly wild and her shirt bloodstained. She looked relieved, and more than a little bit angry.
“Carolina’s packing. I told her she should check into a hospital—or at least a hotel. She needs to stop moving so she can stop bleeding.” Drea pointed in the general direction where he could hear drawers opening and closing.
“Are you okay, Andrea?”
“That’s a really stupid question, Jem.”
Yeah, she was all right.
“And why are you calling me Andrea?”
“Because you told me once that only your friends called you Drea. I don’t know what category I’m in now,” he said … and she didn’t argue. He motioned for her to follow him down the hall, and she closed the door behind them and did just that.
“She finally let us come out of the panic room,” she tossed out.
Ah, that was it. That small space was likely to make the most nonclaustrophobic person climb the goddamned walls. “She was being cautious,” he said.
“Seriously? You think I don’t realize that? I might not remember you, but that’s pretty much all I don’t remember.”
And this is going well.
Why couldn’t she just take off her shirt again? Because women were complicated enough when they hadn’t been screwed out of their memories.
He turned his attention to the other woman, who would no doubt yell at him for something soon enough. Especially after he said to her, “Why are you lifting things?”
“Jeremiah, I’m not made of glass. Now the two of you, leave me alone to pack.” She was understandably irritable as well.
“Make her sit,” Drea told him.
Carolina smiled. “No one can make me do anything.”
Jem simply shrugged and went to check the cameras. “How long have you been all-clear for?”
“Six hours.” Carolina closed the lid of the suitcase with a definitive snap. “Drea, I packed your things too.”
“What? I was going to do that.”
“What were you waiting for?”
“To make sure you didn’t bleed to death.” Drea’s tone was both calm and wry. Carolina smirked at her and then the women shared a smile.
Women … Going to be the death of him. And Drea still had her shirt on.
He was going to try more conversation, ask how many OA guys had been here, when the screech of tires echoing through the security cameras (the street side) told him that soon they’d no longer be alone. It wasn’t anybody he’d called in and he wasn’t wasting any time being the Welcome Wagon. Instead he grabbed the bags that Carolina had packed and he ushered the two women out the door and into the big black truck he’d parked there.
There was unsurprisingly no bickering, just calm, cool and collected—with a lot of resignation on Carolina’s part—marching to the truck.
“I hope it’s bulletproof, Jem,” Carolina said as she eased herself into the backseat. She was pale, breathing hard, and Drea shot him a concerned look from the passenger seat.
“We’ll be safe and sound, ladies. Just hang on.” He gunned the truck. It took hold of the dirt with its large traction tires, hugging the road like a long-lost friend. He found the small dirt road opening that would take them three miles east and dump them out on the main road and well beyond the intruders. For a long while, none of them spoke. When the truck bounced onto the asphalt and slid in between several semis, he took a deep breath.
He looked over at Drea, who in turn looked back at Carolina. “She fell asleep. I can’t believe she fell asleep during that drive.”
Jem shot back, “My driving is perfect for rocking a baby—or a pissed-off operative—to sleep, honey.”
“Maybe she just passed out,” she surmised, and he snorted. “There’s no way that the bikers I knew could’ve pulled something like that off. What’s going on?”
God, if he never heard those three little words strung together again, it’d been too soon for him. “Near as I can tell, your bikers are working with the feds to bring you in. Maybe not officially, but the OA have taken it upon themselves to find you.”
“Those are not my bikers,” she said angrily. “And why would the OA take that chance? What if the FBI believed me?”
It only took a minute of his silence for her to understand. She whispered, “Maybe the OA figured it’s better to kill me than to chance it. Would Danny do that?”
“I’m not sure if you really want an answer.”
She shook her head. “Where can you leave me now that’s safe?”
“I can’t leave you anywhere that’s safer than you are with me.”
“You’re really taking me with you?”
“For the moment, yes.”
After that, she stopped talking.
Chapter Seven
About four hours later, they finally stopped. Jem carried Carolina into the small but well-armed home in the middle of nowhere with Drea leading the way, until she ran into the barrel of a rifle pointed straight
at her head. She stopped dead in her tracks, but Jem must’ve known this was going to happen, because he didn’t run into her, merely stopped and drawled, “Hey, man, good to see you again. Carolina’s gotta stay here for a few days, all right?”
Drea looked up into the face of the man who hadn’t moved the shotgun. He narrowed his eyes at Jem, which seemed to be a common occurrence whenever Jem was involved in anything, and she could certainly understand why. When the man looked down at her, she smiled and said, “Hey, I’m Drea.” And then the man’s craggy face actually broke into a smile. He looked back up at Jem and noted, “Girl’s got some balls.”
“That she does,” Jem agreed, and only then did the other man lower his shotgun.
“While you gentlemen discuss how hot you think Drea is, maybe I could get some water before I literally die.”
“You look pretty good for someone who’s dying,” the man told Carolina.
“You always did need glasses, you sorry bastard. Stop waving the shotgun around—you never did know how to use one correctly. And, Jem, put me down, dammit. I’m not an invalid, although after your driving technique it’s a wonder I’m not.”
“Everyone’s a damned critic.” But Jem did put Carolina down on the ground, and she took a few shuffled steps forward, only to grab onto the kitchen table in obvious pain.
Drea was by her side in a second, helping to lower her into a chair and asking her if she wanted more pain meds. “They’ll help you sleep it off. And since you don’t seem to want to sit still, that’ll do the trick painlessly.”
Carolina stared up at her. “I’m not sleeping around this one.” She pointed to the man with the rifle—he and Jem were now deep in conversation.
“You know him?”
“Aiden and I have what you might call a history.” Carolina rolled her eyes.
“Now, that’s a story I’d like to hear.”
“And that’s exactly why you won’t,” Carolina said. “You’ve got to go with Jem, honey. I’m in no shape to take care of you right now. And honestly he’s the best man for the job.”
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