Blyssfully Undone: The Blyss Trilogy - book 3

by CLIFF, J. C.

  I hear a deep voice fading in and out, sounding upset. “She’s in shock.”

  “I know what the fuck she is, Stryker. I’m handling it,” Travis’ voice hisses over my head. I blink a few times and realize I’m being held in his arms. Did I pass out? As my eyes come into focus, I’m met with Travis’ broad chest. I wearily lift my head up, and immediately, I’m met with stark green eyes filled with concern as he searches my face. His voice aches with pain as he asks, “Baby, are you okay?”

  “No,” I whisper despondently, not recognizing my own voice.

  “Travis,” Stryker warns, “we should’ve had this done by now.” My brows furrow together. I’ve never heard Stryker use that tone with Travis before. What’s going on?

  “Fine, but I’m not leaving her side for a second,” he mutters at Stryker, even though he’s still holding my gaze. His lips press together in a hard line, apparently not happy about something. “Jules, we’ve gotta get that implant out of your hip now,” he explains. “I’m sorry. I know you’re out of sorts, but we have to do this, and do it quickly.” Out of sorts? What does he mean? The confusion must be written all over my face, because he asks, “You don’t remember anything, do you?”

  I shake my head slowly, and then flick my gaze behind Travis, noticing we’re in the back of a huge van. “Baby, you passed out after—”

  “Now’s not the time, Travis,” Stryker interrupts with impatience. Travis flashes him a quick and dirty look. He carefully lifts me off his lap and lays me down on the floor of the van.

  “What’s going on?” I surprise myself by being highly compliant, and not being the least bit interested in getting up off the floor, all while demanding answers.

  Stryker comes into view and squats in front of me while he snaps on a pair of surgical gloves. “Jules, we need to get this tracker out of your hip, STAT.” I tense at his terseness. He moves with quick efficiency, and then a big medical bag comes into view. Travis must feel me tensing, because he immediately lowers himself onto the floor and spoons me from behind. He slips his arm underneath my head, which acts as a pillow, and then rests his weight on his forearm as he peers over me.

  He places his lips on the outer shell of my ear, giving me a light kiss. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you,” he whispers, and I find myself relaxing at his words. Travis has always had my back from the beginning; he’s proven it time and again. “Don’t mind Stryker.” He explains, “When he pulls out the medical bag, he gets in his zone. He’s all work and no play.” He pauses to look at Stryker, and then teases him, “It makes him look kinda sexy, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t fuck with me right now, Trav,” Stryker fires back, irritated as he concentrates on filling up a needled syringe. Another needle and more drugs? My eyes go wide. Okay, now they’ve got my attention. No longer feeling safe in Travis’ arms, I begin to struggle, wanting to get up.

  “Jules, dammit, hold still.” Travis wraps his large thigh around my legs while his free hand wraps around my arms, trapping me tightly against his chest. I start to panic, my heart thundering in my chest. I’m feeling claustrophobic.

  “Baby, relax. It’s just local anesthesia. I promise, no drugs,” he quickly reassures me. Then Stryker places his hand on my thigh and squeezes just enough to get my attention. My eyes are wide with anxiety as I look at him. His expression softens significantly as he finally realizes I’m not one of his hardcore men. He makes an effort to speak in a calmer voice. “Please…we’re only trying to keep everyone here alive. I promise I will have this out quick, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.”

  My mouth suddenly turns dry, and I swallow hard. “Okay,” I say with a shaky breath.

  Stryker blows out a gust of air I didn’t realize he was holding, and then he pats the side of my leg in a reassuring gesture. Travis relaxes his hold on me too, and I sink back into the comfort of his chest. “That’s my girl. It’s going to be okay,” he whispers as he lets go of my arms, and begins to stroke my cheek with the back of his knuckles using a soft, feather-light touch.

  I turn to look at Travis, whose eyes look almost sorrowful. “Where are the other guys?”

  “They’re surrounding the van, making sure we’re protected while we do this.”

  Stryker unbuttons my jeans and pulls them down past my hips, and Travis growls.

  “Whoa there, caveman,” Stryker says, holding up his hands. “That’s as far as I need to go. Just hold her underwear off her hip, and we’re good.”

  “Damn straight that’s as far as you go,” Travis barks back in a predatory tone.

  I take in a deep breath, slowly exhale, and then close my eyes. I so do not want to see this.

  Nick

  “Why does it seem as if you’re on a wild fucking goose chase?” I ask Justin, irritated.

  “That’s because we kind of are,” he responds with frustration lining his voice. I sent him and a few more of my men into Raleigh after the fiasco ensued at Travis’ cabin. I was down three men and pissed off beyond measure.

  “Mind cluing me in?”

  I hear the urgency in his voice as he ignores me, and half-yells at the driver, “Turn left! Turn left!”

  “Justin, what the hell is going on?”

  “Sorry, I’m a little preoccupied at the moment. We had a spray of bullets, some mass confusion, and now it appears we’re chasing them down in a truck.” His voice is wrought with tension and stress.

  “What?”

  “Look, Nick, I have to hang up. I’ll call you back in a few.” The phone disconnects, and I sit here stunned for a second, not believing he actually hung up on me.

  The anxiety grows thick in my chest, as the chase has yet to end. I stand up and stretch, needing to rid my body of this nervous tension. I’ve been at this damn computer all morning, watching my monitor and tracking Julianna’s whereabouts. Things were going pretty smoothly up until five minutes ago, and then it looked as if all hell broke loose.

  Since my nerves are damn near shot, I decide I need a break to stretch my legs and let my men handle this. I take a walk down the different hallways of the facility, stretching my tension-filled legs while trying to clear my mind.

  I have to let these men do the job I’ve hired them to do, but a large part of me can’t help but think I need to be there physically. The team here at the facility felt it was too dangerous for me to step into the line of fire, and the program has already suffered from Travis leaving us. The bastard.

  Travis’ words echo in my mind. You know, a real man would’ve come after his woman, but instead, you sent a team of dysfunctional dumbasses. What does that say about you, Nick? I clench my fists with the need to punch something. I’m used to being the one in the fray of chaos, controlling and dictating orders. I pray to God this group of men is sufficient for the task at hand.

  Just as I round a corner, I hear a scuffle behind one of the doors. I pause in front of the door to listen. It’s room five. Shouting ensues, and my forehead wrinkles with growing curiosity. I hear another struggle, and I figure whatever is going on, it isn’t good. I wave my hand over the sensor, and the door clicks open.

  One of my new men is struggling to contain my female captive, Tara, the one who had it out for Julianna since the beginning. “That’s enough,” I sharply bellow. Both of them stop in their tracks and look at me in surprise and a little fear.

  “I can explain,” he says, breathing heavy with exertion.

  I raise my brows at the new trainer. “I just bet you can.” He doesn’t need to explain. Since Travis has been gone, we lack having someone with his charisma. I thought his job was a cakewalk until he left. I couldn’t believe all the shit he handled while keeping the peace.

  I turn to Tara and eye her up and down, taking note of her disheveled appearance. “You can leave us,” I tell the new trainer, not even bothering to remember his name.

  He quickly leaves without a word, and not sure of what my mood is, Tara cautiously steps forward. “It feels as if I haven�
��t seen or had you in weeks,” she purrs with a pouty lower lip as she runs her long, manicured fingernail down the front of my chest. “I’ve missed you, Nick.” I suppose she thinks the look is sexy on her, and maybe at one time I thought it was cute, but it’s not any longer. I stop her hand from traveling farther south by grabbing tightly onto her wrist.

  “Don’t.” I clench my jaw, feeling somewhat disgusted by her touch.

  “Why? I don’t understand,” she asks confused, and if I’m not mistaken, she looks a little hurt. I used to get hard at the thought of tying her up. Now…now, the thought repulses me. Looking at her now, I don’t know what I ever saw in her to begin with, with any of these women, for that matter, other than they might have filled a void for a time until I could have Julianna.

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” she asks in a snarly tone. “I’ve been yours for the better part of a year, and this…this is how you treat me?” She yanks her hand away from my hold and backs up a step, shaking her head in disbelief. “We have something, Nick,” she then pleads.

  “No, we never had anything. It was never permanent. You knew this. You’ve been promised to Rick Meyers after I’m done with you.”

  “You don’t mean that,” she softly whispers. “You can’t let me go…you just can’t.”

  “Sometimes, when we want something we don’t have, it isn’t everything we imagined it to be once we get it, but that wasn’t the case with Jules. She is everything and more, and now that I’ve had a taste of her, there is no comparison, and I’m hungry for more.”

  She steps forward and raises her hand to slap me. I stop her by twisting her arm around behind her back, making her spin around. I lean in over her shoulder and growl into her ear, “That was a bad move on your part.”

  “You arrogant bastard,” she hisses.

  “I’d watch what you say,” I calmly state. I let go of her, and at the same time, give her a slight push forward. She winds up losing her balance and falls to the floor. Unfazed by her cry of pain, whether mental or physical, I don’t care. “I will deal with you later.” With that statement, I turn around and leave her to herself. I have better things to be doing right now, and that is getting back to the man-chase at hand.

  As the door closes behind me, I hear her let out an anguished cry of distress, and I shake my head. She’s tried to tell me she loves me on many occasions, but I wouldn’t let her. I never led her on, but I guess she thought she could sway me.

  One would think I had a fucked-up childhood to be this way, or to be in this sort of business, but I didn’t. I had a normal childhood with normal parents.

  I have found over time that there is no rhyme or reason as to what makes someone turn out for the better or the worse. I’ve always wanted to be king of a mountain, an entrepreneur, and on the leading edge of something big, so here I am. I’ve accomplished every task I’ve set out to do. Anything I’ve ever wanted, I’ve been able to succeed and then some.

  Somewhere along the way, however, I found myself getting sidetracked, obsessed with a young woman. I never saw myself getting into this predicament with my emotions, but there you have it. Julianna owns me.

  I walk into my office to see Jared sitting in one of my overstuffed chairs, reading a stack of lab reports.

  “Hey,” he greets, not looking up from his papers. “Thought your hands were magnetized to your keyboard. Things must be going well.”

  “I don’t know how things are going yet. Last I heard, they were in a chase.” Jared lets out a low whistle, and before he opens his mouth, I shut him down. “I don’t need to hear your shit either.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything. I’m just damn glad you aren’t destroying your office right now.”

  As I sit down at my desk, I reply, “I’ve known you too long. Every time you let out a low, long whistle, your mouth then becomes engaged with words.” I key in a few numbers and pull up the tracking software program to see where my men are in the scheme of things. The small blinking light illuminates on the screen, and I feel a slight relief course through my body. As I watch the screen with intensity, one minute later, the light fades out.

  “Fuck!” I blurt out, and then tap my fingers on the side of the computer screen, thinking it needs a little prompting to redisplay the little light I’ve been watching all day.

  “What’s wrong?” Jared asks, looking up from his paperwork.

  “I don’t know,” I say with irritation, and tap a little harder this time, as the computer didn’t seem to get my message. Still, no luck. “What the hell?”

  Curious, Jared gets up from his chair and comes over to stand behind me. Peering over my shoulder, he leans in and clears his throat. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “Yeah, me neither.” I refresh the browser, and nothing changes. “She was all over the damn radar for the last hour, and now there’s nothing.” I clench my jaw in growing frustration, and then pick up my phone, getting ready to dial one of my men. My cellphone rings at that very moment, so I hang up the phone’s receiver and grab my cell. It’s Justin.

  “What’s the news?” I gruffly ask.

  “I’ve got some bad news, boss,” Justin says with hesitation, and my gut twists with dread. I stay silent for a moment, letting his words sink in.

  “Looks as if they discovered the tracking device in her hip, and then removed it. After chasing down and scaring the shit out of a Coca-Cola truck driver, we searched his truck from top to bottom. Found your device pinned underneath the bumper.”

  There is nothing for me to say. I’m speechless. With my hands beginning to shake, I disconnect the phone call. I close my eyes as my stomach drops to the floor, and a wave of nausea washes over me.

  I run my hand over my face in a show of loss and frustration, and lean back in my chair with an untold amount of tension vibrating through my veins.

  “What’s the verdict?” Jared asks concerned, still standing beside me.

  “I’ve lost her, Jared. I’ve fucking lost her.” My voice is empty and devoid of emotion as I stare up at the ceiling and shake my head in disbelief. I can’t even describe the mixture of anger and loss I feel. It’s causing me to have this massive pain in my chest that won’t go away.

  I reach out to grab my computer monitor with both hands, having every intention of smashing it to smithereens, but Jared stops me. He quickly puts his own hands on my monitor, and reassures me with conviction, “She will resurface. She has to.”

  “I know better. With Travis in charge, he’s too smart and cunning to let her resurface. They’re headed underground. I can feel it.”

  Jared leans down, placing his elbows on my desk, and looks at me through those thick glasses of his. “Travis may want to take her into hiding, but as we both know, if Jules doesn’t want to do something, she’s going to find a way around it. I have a very hard time believing she would willingly go with him and leave everything she’s ever known behind. You know as well as I do that when she gets something in her mind, she can be a hot one to handle. She’s like a dog with a bone.” I rub the scruff on my jawline, contemplating Jared’s words. “And the man is going to run out of Blyss, if he hasn’t already. That sure as heck won’t help his cause.”

  “You may be right.” But then again, he might be wrong. At this point, what choice do I have, but to keep my ear to the ground and wait?

  “Do you want me to call Lance?” Jared offers.

  I shake my head. “I’ll let him know.”

  The new trainer steps into my office. “Sir, we’re having trouble in room five.”

  “Again?” I ask, put off by the insipid intrusion.

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “I’m not running a half-assed operation here. You either need to start learning how to handle this shit, or I need to get someone in here who knows what the fuck they’re doing, and can make things start happening yesterday. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, sir. Very clear.” He turns on his heel and quickly lea
ves out my door.

  This shit is not going to crumble around me, dammit. I’ve worked too long and hard to get this far in the game. The amount of scientific knowledge and technological security we had to put in place in the very beginning was astronomical, and I’ll be damned if I let this multi-billion dollar opportunity begin to falter, all because I don’t have God’s gift to women here in the facility—Travis, the bastard. I have no one qualified or charismatic enough to work these women the way he did. The motherfucker. Since he’s been gone, I haven’t been able to replace him. Everyone is supposed to be replaceable.

  I’m trying to keep a cool head and not lose my shit like last time, but it’s damn hard. All I can think about is him fucking her, and I want to destroy something. Knowing how much she loves her father and Jake, I hope Jared is right. He’s pretty sharp at reading people and understanding the human psyche. I have to hang on to that little bit of hope that she will surface at some point.

  “I’m going to need a stiff drink, Jared.”

  Jules

  I rest my cheek against Travis’ shoulder as he holds me in his lap like a child. He spreads open his legs on the bench seat of the van, and my butt slinks down onto to the soft leather cushion. I’m at the perfect height to rest my ear against his chest, and with the bulletproof vests removed, I can now hear the steady rhythm of his heart. I close my eyes, enjoying the safety of his strong arms. I’m totally spent, too tired to even ask where we’re all headed.

  Once the implant was taken out of my hip, Stryker immediately passed it off to Quinn, who apparently stood guard right outside of the van doors. I didn’t ask what he did with it; all I could assume is that he smashed it to smithereens. Then, Stryker had to put a couple small stitches in before he bandaged me up.

  All of us have been in the van for the better part of an hour now, and everyone has been quiet except for a few one-sentence comments here and there. I can assume the men don’t want to say too much of anything in front of me. Either that, or they’re coming off an adrenaline high and are now dealing with the aftershocks. I’m not sure who took down the man who held Travis at gunpoint, nor do I dare ask right now. Either way, it’s just another nightmare for me to live with. Those images are permanently etched into my mind, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget them. I snuggle farther into his broad chest, inhaling his familiar scent, trying to seek comfort for my troubled soul.