Stand & Deliver

by Rhenna Morgan

  One of those reproving sighs reserved for exasperated husbands and fathers around the world streamed through the feed. “What are you prepared to do?”

  “What do you mean? To clear my name?”

  “No, I mean about Beckett.”

  “What can I do? He’s the one that posted my bail. His brother’s the one coordinating my defense attorneys. If I leave him, who knows what will happen to me.”

  He waited only a few beats—just enough to make sure his answer carried the right impact. “You could let me take care of you.”

  “Wow,” Ted said through the headset. “Nothin’ says love like some good old-fashioned coercion.”

  “No shit,” Knox said. “And he’s such a classy asswipe, too.”

  “You’d do that?” Gia’s voice was so soft it was hard to hear. “After what I said? After all the times I told you no?”

  “I told you, Gia. I’m not giving up. Never will. We’re right for each other.”

  “That’s creepy,” Danny muttered.

  “Leave him,” Judd said before Beckett could tell the crew in the van to shut their yaps. “Pack your things and come stay here with me. I’ve got more than enough money to take care of everything.”

  “More like your daddy does,” Knox added.

  Judd kept going. “I’ll talk to your dad. He’d be better at your defense anyway and I’ll call in some favors to get to the bottom of who set you up.”

  “But—”

  “Let go, Gia.” Movement sounded, the unmistakable rustle of someone moving on a well-cushioned surface. “Let me take care of you. It’s what I’ve always wanted. What you’ve needed. All you need to do is let it happen.”

  Beckett strained his head from side to side, stretching the taut muscles along the side of his neck. Not that it did much good with his hands balled into tight fists and the burn searing beneath his skin.

  It wasn’t real. None of it. Just a hoax they’d concocted to lure Judd into taking action. But the banter felt too real. A custom-made nightmare from his deepest fears.

  The silence stretched for too damned long, the white noise in his headset eating at his control.

  Gia’s quiet sob nearly broke him. “Okay.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gia stood beside her car outside the high-rise that housed Judd’s condo and stared down at the key in her palm. With Judd wedging her between the open door and the driver’s seat, there was little room to move. A fact that went against everything in her. Made her want to shove him out of reaching distance and fill her lungs with something other than Judd’s expensive yet overpowering cologne. At this point, though, it’d take a good thirty minutes in a scorching shower to escape the scent.

  “The code’s seven-one-five-two-zero-five.” Judd coiled his hand around hers, forcing her fingers to close around it. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything. You pack up some things from your place and bring them back here. I’ll set things in motion on my end and meet you back here. You’ll be safe.”

  Set things in motion. Another phrase that rang every warning bell and instinct to flee. If she’d had any doubt about Judd’s involvement in the suspicious things that had happened to her lately, they were gone now. Eradicated by almost an hour’s worth of his probing questions about Beckett and his brothers’ professional lives and their comings and goings. Particularly anything that might be drug-related. As if he were looking for a particular spin.

  She’d sat through it all. Forced a meek and defeated response and allowed Judd to hold her in the crook of his arm when what she really wanted was to cram Judd’s nuts down his throat and get back to Beckett. If she’d had to sit through Beckett sucking up to another woman for as long as Gia had been with Judd, she’d have gone mental or beat the hell out of God only knew how many innocent bystanders.

  And there was no doubt Beckett was close. With every word that had been spoken—every silence—she’d been painfully aware of him listening, but the second Judd had insisted on walking her to her car, she’d felt him. Known down to her soul he was watching over her.

  Thank God, they’d had the foresight to park her car in the visitor lot before they’d put things into motion. Gia nodded her head and gently tugged her hand free. “Where are you headed?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about.” Judd cupped the side of her face and eradicated what space was left between them. “But I promise you—when I’m done, Beckett and his family will be too busy with their own problems to mess with you.”

  His fingers tightened, holding her head immobile as he lowered his head.

  Her heart tumbled and kicked in a painful, irregular rhythm and her throat constricted to the point barely any air slipped through.

  Too close.

  Move.

  Move.

  Move.

  She stopped him with a hand to his chest. “Not yet.”

  As in never.

  Judd frowned down at her, his face still uncomfortably close. “I won’t let you play me, Gia.”

  “It’s not a play.” She dropped her gaze and cuddled closer. Job or not, she didn’t think her body would make it through the farce of his lips on her. No matter what it meant for her future. “This is just too important to rush.” She petted the line of his sternum. Imagined the powerful thrum of Beckett’s heart beneath her palm. She lifted her gaze to Judd. “Definitely not something that should happen for the first time in a parking lot.”

  His thumb skated along her jawline and the stern line of his mouth curved into a sly smile. “Fair enough.” He studied her a second more then stepped back and opened the car door wider. “Get your things and I’ll meet you back here.”

  She fought the nearly uncontainable urge to jump in the front seat, slam the door shut and peel out of the lot, and gave him a shy smile instead. Forced herself to settle in and buckle her seat belt with the hesitancy of a woman who didn’t want to walk away from a new and blossoming relationship.

  Judd watched her from the wide walk that fronted the building, his hands anchored in the pockets of the track pants he’d worn to the gym and the gentle autumn evening air tousling his blond hair.

  She slipped her phone from her purse along with her keys and tucked it face up beside her thigh.

  Circle one block west and park. The van will be right behind you.

  No name. Just an unknown number, but there was no question it was Knox. Beckett wouldn’t have taken his eyes off her long enough to bother with a keyboard, but he’d sure boss his brother into doing it.

  She started the car and backed out of her spot, making sure to cast one last longing look and a wave at Judd. Only when she was on the street and taking the first turn to the direction she’d been given did she open the center console and dig out her headset. She’d barely settled the earpiece in place when her phone vibrated against her leg.

  “We’ve got eyes on him,” Knox said without waiting for a hello. “Just got in the elevator heading back to his floor. We’re pullin’ out of the garage now.”

  “Where’s Beckett?”

  “On foot, rounding the block opposite you.” She’d known Beckett a long time, but she’d never heard his voice so grated and ripe with tension. Like a man who’d clawed his way up from the bowels of hell driven only by the slim hope of saving his soul.

  “You pick up anything on the router?”

  “Not yet,” Knox answered, “but I wouldn’t expect he’d have it on him. I’m hopin’ that’s what he had to go back for. Not thinking tonight’s turn of events was what he’d planned for.”

  “No shit,” Danny said. “And now we’ve got a key and a code if the burner approach doesn’t pan out.” Quiet registered just long enough for Danny to remember he had a Fed in the van and another two following in an unmarked car of their own. He cleared his throat. “Not that anyone here would access a propert
y without proper authorization in advance.”

  Knox and Ted snickered.

  On Gia’s right was a parallel slot about two thirds down the block. She whipped her convertible into it and shoved the gearshift into park.

  “Coming up behind you,” Danny said.

  She killed the engine and reached for the door handle, but before her fingers could close around it, the door whipped open.

  Beckett’s hand closed around her forearm and he all but yanked her from the driver’s seat just as the van pulled up beside them. Three seconds tops and she was inside, her feet never touching the ground before she found herself on Beckett’s lap in the shadowed rear of the van and tucked tight to Beckett’s chest.

  She splayed her hand against his sternum and tried to gain enough distance to see his face, but his arms had zero give. Beneath her palms, his heart galloped like he’d sprinted twenty flights of stairs. “Beckett,” she whispered. Forgoing the rigid muscles in his torso, she smoothed one hand from his elbow toward his shoulder, her fingers dipping beneath the arm of his tee to maintain skin-to-skin contact. “I’m right here. I’m fine.”

  His biceps flexed and his fingers dug into her shoulder and hip. The warmth of his heavy exhalations feathered against her temple. “Where is he?” he all but growled at Knox.

  “Went into his apartment about the time we turned onto Cedar Springs.” The answer registered in real time only, the feed to her headset dead, which meant Knox had given them an extra layer of privacy.

  Knox glanced at the two of them. The glow of the monitors wasn’t strong enough to break the shadows that kept her and Beckett cocooned from everyone else, but was sufficient to spotlight Knox’s worry for his brother. His gaze locked on her hand for all of a beat before it slid to her.

  “I’ve got him.” Gia quietly answered the unspoken question in his eyes, slipped her other hand beneath the hem of Beckett’s tee at his back and stroked the length of his spine. “He’ll be fine. We both will be.”

  Danny backed the van into a parking spot but left the engine running, the low rumble filling the awkward silence.

  Much as she hated anyone outside of family even getting a hint at Beckett’s vulnerability, she couldn’t find the will to fight the closeness. Needed his strength and scent to wipe away the remnants of Judd’s presence as much as he needed her touch to guide him back from the edge.

  Time ticked past in a warped push and pull, part of her grateful for the cushion it provided Beckett to recalibrate and the other all too aware of the Feds’ watchful eyes and the lack of activity from Judd. Bit by bit, Beckett’s unrelenting grip shifted from one of frantic desperation to the protective strength she’d come to appreciate and crave. He speared his fingers through her hair and sucked in a long, stabilizing breath. “What he said about Renner—he wasn’t wrong. We dredged his past back out into the open, but not for the reasons he told you.”

  So, that was it. Of all the bullshit and questions she’d sat through with Judd, she’d thought it would be Beckett’s possessive alpha side that would’ve triggered him. Not the fear he’d lose her to Judd’s inane chatter. She leaned back, letting him brace her head and back with his strength and met his worried gaze. “You can’t seriously think I’d believe a thing that came out of his mouth.”

  He studied her, taking in every feature as though looking for any sign of insincerity. “Other people have.”

  Silly man. So strong and fearless in the face of everything. Hell, he’d all but raised himself with only Knox and friendly neighbors to cushion his time alone and made an amazing life for himself in the end. And yet, where she was concerned, all his shields were laid low.

  She traced the hard line of his jaw and savored the soft tickle of his whiskers beneath her fingertips. Her voice was gentle, but her words cut straight to the point. “I’m not leaving you, Beckett. I know you. Enough to know you’ve got honor and a solid reason behind every action you take. What Judd said bounced off me before he even finished his sentence.”

  His fingers tightened against her scalp and the relief behind his blue eyes poured over her like sunshine after a damp and drizzly winter morning. His lips crooked with the promise of some witty response brewing on his tongue.

  “He’s on the move,” Ted said before Beckett could speak.

  Everyone perked to attention and the van’s speakers hissed backed to life. “Who’s taking point?” a man from the Fed car asked.

  Gia slid off Beckett’s lap, but only managed to get as far as a thigh-to-thigh before his arm banded around her back and his hand clamped onto her hip.

  “We’re up front,” Knox said. “The router’s only got so much range and I can’t risk a blank spot.”

  “Check your app, McGillis.” Ted typed out something on his keyboard at a speed that rivaled Knox’s. “The GPS on Rainier’s car is active and transmitting.”

  “Roger that,” the man said. “We’ll run parallel.”

  “How much leeway have I got?” Danny asked.

  “A block. Block and a half at most,” Knox said, his focus trained on his screen. “I’m not as worried if he’s in motion. Not like he’s gonna be able to do much with web connectivity while he’s driving and I can trace his calls via carrier when he’s in motion. It’s when he stops that matters.”

  Ted twisted enough to meet Danny’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “He’s pulling out.”

  Aside from Ted’s periodic directional updates, the next twenty minutes ran eerily quiet. While they used the GPS to stay out of Judd’s immediate line of site, every now and then Gia caught glimpses of his Audi as he passed cars moving too slow for his liking. The black A7 might have been one of many in Dallas’s upscale Turtle Creek, but the further he drove down Lemmon Avenue toward Love Field, the more out of place the gleaming luxury car fit.

  “Heading west on Northwest Highway,” Ted said.

  Freddie twisted in his seat and zigzagged a look between Beckett and Knox. “Don’t you two have an office on Northwest Highway?”

  Knox glanced at Beckett then refocused on his screen. “About a mile and a half west of here, just past Webb Chapel.”

  Freddie nodded and faced forward again, but for once he didn’t have the smug attitude he’d nursed since taking Gia into custody.

  Five minutes later, Judd turned off Northwest Highway onto a side street and pulled into a run-down self-storage lot.

  Danny turned into the parking lot right beside it.

  “How much authority have you got on this, Fred?” Knox asked, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

  “Why?”

  “Because Storage King doesn’t exactly have the most secure network and I’m curious if browsing through customer lists falls under your list of no-nos.”

  Freddie twisted enough to share a look with Ted.

  Ted started up with his own typing. “You don’t have jurisdiction, but I do.”

  “We’ve got a visual,” the man from the Fed car said just as they pulled into a parallel spot on the street in front of them. “He just went through the gate, but it’s already closing. Any chance you can trigger it through their network?”

  “Hold up and see if we get a lock on the ID,” Freddie said before Ted could answer. “No point in tipping our hand yet.”

  The flashing dot stopped near the back of the storage lot.

  Tipping their hand. Gia huffed out an ironic chuckle, planted her elbows on her knees and dug the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. They’d bypassed tipping their hand and darted right into long-shot territory the second she’d agreed to this plan.

  Beckett’s hand at her hip slid up and stroked the line of her spine.

  “Uh...” Ted typed a few more words then froze. “Hey, Beck. Any chance you’ve got a long-lost account at this place?”

  “Do I look like the kind of guy who’d keep anything at some offsite
place with shit for security?”

  Knox shifted for a better look at Ted’s screen. “Holy shit.” He dragged Ted’s keyboard out from in front of him and entered in a few lightning-fast keystrokes. “It was opened a few weeks ago.”

  Gia sat upright. “What was opened?”

  “A ten-by-twenty space. Y-10.” Ted yanked his keyboard back and motioned Knox to his own. “See if you can find a facility map. McGillis, see if you can get authorization to search.”

  “They’re not gonna buy it,” Freddie muttered with something close to disgust. “Gia’s too wrapped up tight on this one. It’s gonna take something definitive to push them off dead center.”

  “I got it!” Knox jerked ramrod-straight in his chair, his voice still careening through the van. “Device ID is a match. Got a call going through now.”

  Gia froze, her heart squeezing to match the death grip on Beckett’s thigh.

  Freddie spun in his seat. “Knox, get a trace on that call. Ted, I want that gate up. McGillis, move in. Hold your approach until we’ve got access to the storage unit.”

  “Gate’s going up. Call just connected with the same guy he used before in Baton Rouge.” Knox twisted enough to shoot a grin at Beckett and Gia. “Sweetheart, your long shot just paid off big-time.”

  The next five minutes went by in a blur. Freddie sharing rapid-fire intel with his higher-ups on the phone. McGillis and his partner moving in. The shouts and pounding feet against concrete as Judd tried to escape. The surreal visual as Danny steered the van to the back of the storage lot and Gia got her first look at Judd facedown on the hood of his Audi, one Fed cuffing him while the other kept their gun trained in place.

  It had been Judd the whole time.

  Logically, the evidence had pointed to it. She’d even thought she’d accepted the probability of it. But seeing the truth play out—watching her childhood friend’s cool veneer fall away as two more unmarked cars screeched to a halt on either side of his Audi and other men stormed the storage unit—it was all painfully real. The difference between imagining the sting of a knife and actually feeling the point pierce your flesh.