Come on, Drea … come take your power back, he begged her in his mind.
“You don’t think my MC’s not going to come looking for you?” Danny asked him now. “You bought yourself, and that bitch, more trouble than either of you could ever handle.”
“Let’s talk about who told you to walk into the interrogation room with Drea.”
The asshole should’ve refused to talk. But the asshole was an asshole, and therefore prone to bragging, even when this was nothing to brag about. But that was the good thing about guys like this—they were consistent. “My idea,” he said with a smile. “I mean, I told them they should put me and Drea in a room together. That I’d be able to get her to confess to her part in the drug operation. You know that, right? That she steals drugs from the hospital and she wanted the OA to sell them? It was all her idea. We didn’t want anything to do with the drug trade. She insisted on doing it—for me—and she just gave me the money to use.”
“And of course, you took it.”
“I had to. I went to the feds about it. They told me not to give anything away.”
And the guy believed his own bullshit. Jem was just about to start beating the crap out of him when the door opened, and Danny’s face paled as he looked past Jem.
“What the fuck, Drea baby?”
Drea closed the door solidly. Locked it. She marched over and slapped him hard across his face. “Don’t you ever fucking call me that again.”
He wasn’t going to have much of a chance to call anyone anything, Jem thought. “Danny, it’s time to tell me everything about the RICO case.”
As he spoke, he pressed the tape recorder behind him. Danny laughed … until Jem slammed him across the mouth with his fist. Blood spurted everywhere, and Jem was pretty sure he’d taken out two of the man’s teeth.
He heard a soft intake of breath and waited, but there were no protests.
Danny spat blood at Jem. “I’m not tellin’ you shit.”
Jem went to town.
*
Jem had graduated from merely beating Danny to waterboarding him. It should’ve been hard for Drea to watch … but it wasn’t. Especially not when he started talking about his plans to get rid of most of the original chapter and replace them with new members who were younger and would follow him unconditionally.
That’s why the RICO involvement was important to him. He could clean house and clear himself.
He’d been friends with some of those members and their families their entire lives. And it shouldn’t have shocked her that he was able to betray them so easily, but it did.
“You have no loyalty, Danny. None. I didn’t like your father, but what do you think he’d say?” she asked. Danny’s father had died for the club—literally. He’d kill his son before he’d let Danny betray it like this. “You’re a goddamned snitch. And you know what happens to snitches.”
“What should’ve happened to you.” Danny’s eyes were more than a little unfocused. “You’re a fuckin’ doctor. You’re not allowed to let him kill me. You’re supposed to save me. Part of your job,” he wheezed, and for a flash, he was that seventeen-year-old who’d intervened when CPS was at her door, trying to pull her away.
She owed him her life in many ways. Until he’d taken her freedom away. Abused it. Torn anything good from himself and attempted to do the same of her. She wasn’t a scared little girl any longer, and somewhere along the way, she’d forgotten just how much she’d accomplished.
Jem had given that all back to her. Willingly. Easily. Gracefully.
Damn him.
“You aren’t a part of anything to me anymore. He’s not going to kill you, Danny. You killed yourself. Remember that,” she added, and then Jem walked her out of the room and into the empty one next door. He turned on the promised monitor; she could see everything in the room, because they’d agreed earlier that it was simply too dangerous for her to be in the room for what would happen next.
She drew a quick, sharp breath when two OA members burst in. Danny looked relieved and then frightened.
One of the men held up a tape recorder, and she heard Jem’s voice—and a voice she didn’t recognize—talking about Danny wanting to off some OA members.
“I’m guessing those two were on Danny’s hit list,” she whispered.
“Most definitely,” Jem agreed. “I don’t think you should watch this, Drea.”
“I’ve come this far.”
“Yeah, you have. You don’t need to see this part. Trust me.” With that, he forced her to put her head against his chest. He must’ve turned down the monitor, because she only heard his heartbeat, and hers, beating in her ears. And then there were muffled noises from next door …
And then there was only silence. She swallowed hard when Jem said, “It’s over, baby. Over.”
Only then did he let her turn to the monitor, to see Danny, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. His eyes were open. Lifeless. Staring at the ceiling.
A waste. Such a waste. Everything could’ve been so different. Should’ve been. “We were so fucked up,” she murmured.
“We’re all fucked up, Drea. Never an excuse.” He closed the computer and pointed to another door she hadn’t noticed.
“What kind of place is this?”
“The kind of place you rent with cash. The kind of place with no security cameras to record what’s happening.”
“Got the picture.”
He turned her into him again. “Do you? Do you really? Because I fucking need you to.”
She stared up into his eyes. “I do now, Jem. And I’ve always gotten you—I promise you that.”
He kissed her then, a hard, achingly sexy kiss that had her up on her toes, and for a few seconds, the night fell away. When he pulled back, he took her hand and led her down the stairs and out of the building, to the safety of his truck.
They pulled away, Jem driving and making some quick calls as they barreled along. They were simple conversations, and when he hung up, he said, “It’s done. The top leadership for this charter’s dismantled. Your cover for today puts you in a jail cell, held on charges for refusing to give up any information on the OA. You can thank Ethan for that.”
She really hadn’t—all she’d done was explain Danny’s violence toward her, which, in and of itself, sadly would never be enough to trigger any kind of investigation. “So many lost years.”
“They put you on the right track,” he reminded her.
“Right. Forgot you were such an optimist.”
“I am,” he protested, and you know what? He actually was.
“I saw a lot of women who’d once been like me,” she admitted. “They told me that I reminded them of themselves when they first found themselves dating an OA member. Most of them were around my age, maybe a little older. Pretty little hot mamas who thought they’d found everything in those bad, leather-wearing men.” She shook her head sadly. “Some of them were only a few years older than me, but they looked as if they’d lived a lifetime, Jem. They were haggard. On drugs. Half the time, they bore bruises of the most recent fights—either with their man or a bar fight with another woman while they fought for their man. They always fought for their men.”
“You fought for me,” Jem pointed out.
“You do look damned good in leather,” she purred. They both laughed, and then sobered quickly. “You’re the best kind of bad boy, Jeremiah.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you believe in do not harm. You really do. We’re so much more alike than you think,” she whispered.
He pulled the truck over then, in front of the hotel they were staying at, and put his head down against his hands on the wheel. She rubbed the back of his neck, threaded her hands in his hair and waited.
Finally, she urged him out of the car. Held his hand on the elevator up, opened the door for him and ran a bath for him. He sat there on the bed, drained. Emotional.
It was her turn to be the logical one. She’d provide the care and co
mfort only a doctor-girlfriend could give. She undressed him, and he didn’t fight her. She walked him to the bath, helped him in and ordered room service. When she came back, he was lying lazily in the hot water, his eyes half-closed.
“Drink this.” She held out a soda and he drank it dutifully. “When’s the last time you ate?”
“While ago?” he murmured. “What day is it?”
She rubbed some damp hair off his forehead, sat on the edge of the tub and, using a washcloth, soaped him up and rinsed him off with the handheld hose as she drained the water.
He was loose now. Much more relaxed and tired. She got him into bed just as the food came.
“This doesn’t count as my breakfast in bed,” he murmured sleepily, even as he ate.
“This isn’t even breakfast.”
“See?”
She grinned. He nibbled on some of the food, and she took it away when he dozed. It wasn’t strange that he’d crash. What was strange was how energized she felt. Because Jem had truly freed her, and for the first time in forever, she was on her own. She could make her own choices. If she really, truly wanted to, she could walk away from Section 8—and they would let her—and she could apply for a job in any big-city ER and go on with her life.
But her life? It was beside this man in bed next to her. She’d never been more sure of anything. She could only hope he would still be feeling the same, come the light of day.
Chapter Thirty-four
Jem was waiting—in the dark, in the backseat of their car—for the two agents who’d interviewed Drea. They got in, talking about a movie one of them had seen or some such bullshit, both holding bullshit coffee and pretending they were allowed to go on like they hadn’t crossed a moral fucking boundary in a quest to take down an MC that would, in reality, never die.
Jem could never let this stand. So before they could do anything more than put their coffee down, he hit the remote that he’d wired to lock them in and stop the car from starting. “Great to see you both again.”
They whirled around, one of them spilling coffee. As the scent spread through the car, the male agent howled as the hot liquid no doubt seeped into his balls.
“You really have to be careful about leaving your doors open,” Jem cautioned. “You—hush,” he told the guy, who was just whimpering a little now. “And that burn’s your fault for spending that much goddamned money on a coffee.”
The female agent had drawn her gun on Jem and he cocked his head and stared at her. “You ever want to see Danny again?”
“Where is he?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “Last time I saw him, he was in some trouble. Too bad protective custody doesn’t mean what it used to. For instance, there’s no longer protection.”
On the last word, he pushed forward, right into her face. The move allowed him to grab the gun from her and put it next to him in the backseat.
“I wouldn’t make any emergency calls. Unless you want everyone to know what you did. Then again, you’d probably get a promotion for it,” Jem continued.
“We need Danny,” the female agent said tightly. “I’ve put the last four years of my life in this—I’ve given up everything.”
“Funny, so did Drea. And then you gave her up.”
She paled slightly. “That was a mistake. Not our fault. You saw the video we sent to Ethan—the cop in the supply room opened the door for Danny. Danny paid him off.”
“Right. Ethan mentioned that.” He shrugged. “Danny might’ve made a mistake too.”
“Whatever you’re trying to pull, we don’t make deals with rogue mercenaries,” she warned.
“Is that what I am? I guess you’re right.” He rubbed his chin with his forefinger. “Okay, well, no problem, then. There was never any deal anyway. Except …”
“What?”
“If you don’t find Danny, then the intel I’ve got is probably pretty useful.”
She sighed. “You want us to leave Drea alone.”
“I want her name erased from your fucking databases.”
“You know we can’t do that.”
Jem growled, “I don’t know shit. I’m not a fed. Never was. But I know how to fuck up your investigation.”
He unlocked his door and began to get out. But the female agent’s arm shot out. “No. Wait. Fine—we’ll do it.”
“Do it now.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I’ll wait with Mr. Coffee here. As collateral. Right, buddy?” Jem patted his shoulder as the man had taken to pulling down his pants and wiping himself with paper napkins. “I hope there aren’t any paparazzi around—this’d be a pretty big scandal.”
When the female agent came back twenty minutes later, handing him codes to check the files himself, he discovered that she’d actually followed through on her word. To be safe, though, he told her he’d give her the intel he knew in two months’ time.
That would give S8 plenty of time to find their next mission and get the fuck out of the country.
This was something he wouldn’t tell Drea. Not because she couldn’t handle it. Not because she’d worry. But because he’d finally realized that her accepting him didn’t mean that she had to take all of his crazy, his trouble, and put it on her conscience.
He could live with that. And he would.
*
Drea woke to Jem between her legs, his mouth on her sex, working her slowly. She groaned, spread her legs wider for him, reveling in this.
He’d left sometime before midnight, telling her that he had to do something important. She realized that always meant dangerous, but he was here, right when he said he’d be—right where he said he’d be, in fact, and she should’ve known to take him at face value.
“Jem, please.” She arched, pushing his tongue more deeply inside her. He added his fingers too, and she brought her hands up to her own nipples to play with them.
And he was watching all of it. God, that was hot. Hot and good and sweet and no, Jem wasn’t going to change. She’d take all his crazy if it meant waking up to him … if it meant waking up like this.
When she came, a hot, tight orgasm that coiled from low in her belly, she cried out his name, practically sobbed it. And then he made his way up her body and sheathed himself inside her, and after they both came, he murmured, “It’s done, baby. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”
It would never be easy, but she’d never wanted easy. She’d wanted wild and passionate … she’d wanted this. She wrapped her arms around him. “Not leaving you.”
“No,” he agreed. “You’re not. Ever. So don’t even think about it—because you had your chance.”
“Don’t want that kind of chance.”
“Good. ’Cause this ride’s far from over.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Four days later
“I think we’re ready to get out of here,” Jem announced.
He and Drea had spent the majority of the past few days in bed, alternately calling room service and making love. There’d been some time to check in with the rest of the team too.
“It’s going smoothly, according to Ethan,” he assured her.
“Good. So it’s official.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m part of Section 8.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“Does that mean we’re headed to the next S8 mission?”
“Nope.”
“Huh. So, what do you do during the downtime?”
“We try to relax, but … something always comes up.”
She grinned. “I know what you mean. I just can’t figure out if I really didn’t have time to relax, or if I didn’t want to give myself any time, any quiet time to think about things.” To realize how alone she was.
Jem considered that for a long moment. “I haven’t even had a real apartment or house … Ever. It was hotels or safe houses or places like this that were really temporary.”
“None of my apartments ever felt like home either,” she admitted. �
��I’m not sure I’d know what to do with myself. I can’t remember the last time I took a vacation, and I’m not talking about a vacation where I’m recovering from amnesia.”
Jem laughed. “Point taken. Want to try?”
“Is that okay?”
“What’s the worst that happens? Ethan gets pissed?”
Ethan was still going to provide them their cover—and protection. By allowing them to take out some OA members and pull Danny from the feds, he’d upped his credit to both the agencies and the team members. They might not be on the steadiest footing yet, but Jem figured, if nothing else, Ethan would make a great fall guy.
Then again, he knew that Ethan was probably a much better operative than they knew yet. But there would be a chance to learn more, since he’d lived up to his end of the bargain. For now, Ethan was funding S8—and keeping them safe from government harm. The only one unhappy with that was Key, although he’d grudgingly agreed to go along with it for the moment.
Jem’s voice softened when he said, “Look, Drea—like I told you—it’s always going to be dangerous. But what’s more important?”
What was more important was that the danger stop dictating her life. Jem would bring guns. They would be protected. “Where would we go?”
“Someplace I haven’t been for combat.”
“Yes, let’s go someplace nonconfrontational.”
Jem shrugged. “We can certainly try, Drea. No harm in that.”
She groaned against his chest and he simply laughed.
Chapter Thirty-six
On the first day of their vacation, they tried just lying on the beach. Drea’s bikini was really damned distracting, though, and Jem kept pulling her back to the room. And when they finally settled in again, a woman went into anaphylactic shock after being stung by a bee and Drea went into action, helping her, taking the EpiPen from the panicked lifeguard and injecting the lifesaving drugs into the woman’s thigh.
And of course then Jem had to pull her away before people came out of the woodwork to see the “hero.” And it didn’t really matter, because a doctor didn’t have to be the one to administer an EpiPen, so she was just playing the role of a concerned fellow vacationer.
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