by S. K. Lessly
So I only had enough time to put my gun back in my holster before the “little” shit was on me.
I honestly expected the man to stop when he saw me, realizing that his escape was covered. But all he did was smile and move faster. He took a meaty swing at my face and I ducked, pivoted, and caught him right on the side of his knee with my ankle boot. It wasn’t a devastating blow, but it was enough to make him squeal like a girl and go down on one knee.
I quickly sprang into action. I grabbed him by his thin hair and gave him a savage knee to his face. The blow caused the man’s head to snap back and blood gushed from his wrecked nose. I wasn’t done. I took advantage of his momentum and wrapped my legs around his neck in a triangle choke submission.
I took him down hard. Not only was he unable to break his fall, but just as the wind was knocked out of his lungs, I clamped my legs tighter around his neck and yanked, shifting his arm that was in my grip in an awkward upward motion. In this hold, I could do one of three things. I could choke him until he passed out or died from lack of oxygen to the brain I could dislocate his shoulder or snap his neck. That was four options, but the point was that I had options.
The man’s feeble attempts at hurting me were comical at best as his thick fists pounded weightlessly against my thigh. I almost considered doing the latter on my list of choices when Shane squatted down next to me. He still had his gun in his hand as he regarded the now red-faced man in my hold.
Shane sucked his teeth and smacked the man lightly on his puffy cheek with the barrel of his gun.
“Jared, Jared, Jared, I told your sorry ass not to run, didn’t I? Now look at you. I bet this is the first time your fat ass has ever been between a woman’s thighs, isn’t it? And here you are, on the brink of passing out, and you can’t even enjoy it. Do you feel that power between these thighs, Jared?” Shane rubbed my thighs and made an “O” shape with his mouth. “Damn, right? Oh, by the way, this is Misty, my partner. Hot as hell, isn’t she? And badass as shit. I didn’t think she would take you down like that. I figured maybe a blow to the knees and throat or a blow to your toddler’s size penis, but no. My baby loves the theatrics.”
I grinned as the man between my thighs looked over at me. I winked at him.
“Now,” Shane continued. “Are you going to cooperate or am I going to have to get rough?”
Shane tapped my thigh and I release the hold on the man’s neck just enough for him to breathe out and say, “Yes.” His voice was strained and scratchy.
I tightened my thighs again just to remind him what could still happen if he didn’t cooperate. Then I loosened my hold and used the sole of my shoe against his face to roll him off of me. Shane had his silenced pistol to the man’s head as he turned and climbed to his hands and knees. The CIA agent stayed there, looking pathetic, and whimpering between coughs and gasps for air.
Shane helped me up from the floor, smiling. He grabbed me by the back of my neck and said to me, his voice deep and gruff, “You are so fucking sexy. Do you know that?”
I had no words. Actually, all I was capable of doing was holding on to his arm as he aggressively pulled me to him and kissed the hell out of me. Hell, the man seemed to not care at all that we were standing in the middle of Jared’s living room with his gun to his head. No, for some reason, Shane needed to get his fill and he didn’t care who was around when he got it.
Once I figured he had satisfied his need to taste me, he released me, but kept me close. I could feel Jared’s eyes on us, probably trying to figure out who were these crazy, horny people in his living room.
Without looking in Jared’s direction, Shane motioned with his gun toward the couch. “Don’t get cute,” he said derisively. “I’m a very good shot, so don’t test me. Go sit down over there and do it slowly. I don’t need to see you in order to kill you where you stand.”
I saw Jared move out of my peripheral slowly and fall onto his dark floral-pattern couch. He brought his hand to his throat and massaged.
Shane placed a chaste kiss on my lips and stepped back from me and turned a hell of a fury on the large man sitting in front of us. Jared didn’t look like much. He was overweight, his bulk stuffed in a pair of pants and button down shirt that seemed to be a size too small. The small amount of hair he had was all over the place, but that could’ve been my fault.
“Jared, haven’t I been nice to you? I mean with the shit I have on you, I could have ended your career and sent you to prison, but I chose not to. I figured you and I could work together for the betterment of the world. So far, our relationship has been on the up and up, right?”
“Fuck you, Cooper!” he yelled through his busted nose. The color from Jared’s face had returned and despite the blow to his face I gave him he was showing a bit of balls. “I’m done being your puppet. You want to tell on me? Fine! Go ahead because I don’t care anymore.”
My eyes rose at the outburst and I looked at Shane who seemed equally taken aback.
You see, men like Jared didn’t have balls. They didn’t speak to people who had them by their balls unless they had leverage or in this case, he felt he had some cards to play himself.
Shane shot him. Well, he didn’t shoot him exactly. He could have, though, if the man hadn’t moved from his original spot. There was now a nice size hole in the couch where Jared’s chest once was.
“You son of a bitch!” Jared barked nasally.
Shane suddenly moved on the man with lightning-fast speed. Jared, being double the weight of Shane, couldn’t get away fast enough if someone had laid out a smorgasbord of food and placed an all-you-can-eat sign in his face. The sound of Jared’s nose breaking permeated the room right along with his wails of pain. I cringed at the sound and the subsequent blows to his face, gut, and balls.
Jared was on the floor at this point grabbing his nuts and his face as he rolled and cried. Shane stood above him, gun in his hand, pointing it directly at Jared’s rolling form. He squatted down close to Jared and spoke with a calm tone in his voice. “You think this is a game? You think I’m playing with you?” Shane waited as if he was going to get a reply from the whimpering man. When the whining continued, Shane added, “I’ve been very patient with you, Jared. After the lies you’ve told me, I should fucking kill you right now. But you see, I’m trying to understand why you lied to me. All the way here I was thinking that maybe you were stressed or someone had threatened you or your poor mother and father that you have hidden in that piece-of-shit nursing home in Florida. I thought to myself, that you’d probably been placed in a very awkward situation and should be given a chance to explain. Now, I think you were pointing me in the wrong direction on purpose. So in light of that, consider your sorry fucking ass done.”
Shane grabbed the guy by his hair or the little bit of strands he had and placed the barrel of his gun underneath his chin.
“Wait, please!” Jared yelped, his eyes wide and his face a deep crimson.
“Oh, now you want leniency?” Shane rebutted, leaning his own red face down into Jared’s, but he did not move the gun.
Jared’s frantic eyes fell on me.
I shook my head. “You better start talking.”
And he did. As a matter of fact, the more he talked, the more my stomach turned. This shit was worse than we had ever imagined. We’d thought we were on top of things and that we had a handle on the threat. However, it turned out we were behind the eight ball like two weeks. Cupid had a head start and whomever he had sent to do his dirty work was already in D.C.
Shit!
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kenya
I looked at my phone for the third time in ten minutes. I was debating if I should call Misty or just do what I had planned to do on my own. I had started to tell her everything that I had learned about Cupid and so much more when we were standing outside of the conference room. However, I never got that chance. Josh came out of the conference room with concern etched all over his handsome, worried face, and everything was forgot
ten.
He started fussing over me, falling into protective mode, trying to send me home with security detail. I did manage to calm him down, but it was at a price. I had to promise I would make a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow morning before he would let me be.
He had the right to be concerned. During my last doctor’s visit a couple of weeks ago, we learned that my blood pressure had elevated to a level that my doctor didn’t like. After the news that I had just heard, I was sure it had risen ten times over. Regardless, I wasn’t going home, especially not after I had just found out my fears had come true.
I should talk to Misty. I had been waiting in my office for her to come back upstairs, but she was taking entirely too long. Are Misty and Shane knocking boots inside his truck? I wondered silently.
That was plausible. Judging from the heat I had witnessed between those two a short while ago, I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear them getting it on all through the building. Josh and I had sneaked away multiple times to the parking garage to have sex. Granted, it wasn’t the ideal place to do it, but when the mood struck you and you wanted to get down, the garage was a pretty quiet place to do your thing.
But honestly, Josh and I always found a way to get off. We even did it in my BMW SUV one day. It was tight in my truck car, but damn, it was oh so good. Well, that’s what he said anyway.
So I really didn’t want to interrupt her if she was getting her freak on. From the sparks that they were shooting each other, I bet things were getting very steamy down there. I almost thought things were going to get steamy right before my eyes. Josh and Malcolm were completely oblivious to what was happening, but Shane was about to change all of that. I knew that look in his eyes. I’d seen it in Josh’s eyes moments before he was ripping my clothes off me.
That’s why I had warned Misty. I wasn’t sure if she wanted everyone to know about her and Shane and I doubted she wanted them to find out by him jamming his tongue down her throat. Actually, I didn’t understand Misty’s hesitation when it came to her and Shane becoming a couple. They looked good together, and I knew for a fact that Shane had feelings for Misty.
No, he had never told me outright he had feelings for her. I just saw it in his eyes every time he looked at her in my presence. We could be in a meeting at the office or at dinner at his parents’ house. It didn’t matter. Whenever Shane thought that no one was looking, he’d let go and all of his feelings for Misty would come through his tough exterior. I even remember the first time I caught him. I almost burst into tears it was so beautiful to see, especially when I caught Misty doing the same thing. There was so much love and desire in their eyes for the other. It would be a shame if they didn’t get it together. The way I saw it, they were made for each other, hands down.
My mind snapped back to my crazy dilemma and why I needed Misty. The additional research that I conducted, after I learned about Dennis Simon, had paid off handsomely. I researched everything I could about ONW bank and its members and learned more than what I could handle.
The list of members banking with ONW consisted of about twenty people. Coincidently, the members were some of the worse people in the world as well as some of the most prominent people in the world. What made my blood run cold and made me keep secrets from my husband, were two names that were long-standing members of ONW, besides Dennis Simon. After the meeting we just had that list of two names has just stretched to three.
I hated to make this all about me, but I really needed Misty on this. I couldn’t go to anyone else with what I had but her. She wouldn’t freak out when I told her about the information I’d discovered. Sure, she’d give me an ear full; I expected nothing less. What she wouldn’t do was treat me like a child or some weakling incapable of handling myself. In any case, I was going to do whatever it took to protect my family and my husband. If I had it my way, my girl would be with me. If for some reason, I didn’t get my way, I was going forward with my plans regardless.
Oh, the hell with it! Fifteen minutes for a quickie was enough. I picked up my phone and brought up my contact list. I looked for her number and hit send. I placed my phone to my ear to wait for her to answer. When the ringtones switched to her voicemail, I turned off my phone. Welp, I tried.
I stood up, grabbed my purse and phone, and headed out of my office. I strolled toward the exit as quickly as my legs would allow, looking around, hoping I didn’t run into any of the bossy men in my life on this floor. If you didn’t know who the bossy men were in my life, here were the actors in that drama series called “Kenya’s Life”. There was Ivan, Stan, Curtis, Jesse, and all three of the Cooper brothers. Nickels and Junior had become co-stars too. Traitors...
I made it successfully to the elevator and took it to the main floor of the building. I still wasn’t out of the woods yet. I still could run into someone in the lobby or the parking lot. I started to think of an excuse to use if anyone were to ask where I was going. I was pregnant, so, of course, my excuse would be that I was going to get something to eat. That would work since you rarely caught me without food of some kind in my hand. I was always eating something.
I pushed through the front entrance to the building and looked around the parking lot. So far so good. Once I made it to my SUV, I started rummaging in my purse for my keys. I felt someone approaching me from my blind spot and I looked up and noticed a woman with dark short hair walking in my direction. Our eyes met and no lie I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.
I held back a shiver as I stared into these blank brown eyes. Goodness, she was scary. Almost as scary as Misty and that was saying something believe me. I tried to smile at her and she did return my smile, yet I saw no warmth in her eyes. No trace of the elements that made that simple human reaction so…human. I moved quickly into my truck with my hand securely closed around the .380 that I had in my purse. It was a Christmas gift from Josh last year right along with training on how to use it, clean it, and kill with it.
I watched in my rearview mirror as the woman moved to a bland-looking sedan a few rows back from me. Without hesitation, the woman climbed inside her car. She didn’t look my way again, which was a good thing. However, I still watched her for a second longer before I started my truck and peeled out of the parking lot.
I continued to watch for her as I drove, noticing that she came out of the lot a little bit after me. I didn’t think anything suspicious when she made the same turns I did either. The direction I was heading would be the direction anyone would go to get to Route 1. After I merged onto Route 1, she was no longer behind me. Thank goodness. I definitely didn’t want to have to make a scene and call in the cavalry for a misunderstanding.
During the short drive, a few miles north of our office building, I made the necessary phone calls I needed in order to set my plan into motion. I had confidence at the time of making the calls that things would go my way. Once I got to my destination, I wasn’t so confident. Well, at least I made it safely without being followed. That’s a plus, right?
My destination was the market district along the Potomac River just minutes from the heart of D.C. The district stretched for blocks and blocks and were loaded with stores and boutiques that sold anything from clothes, arts and crafts, homemade furniture to fresh fruits, vegetables. There were also some butcher shops that sold fresh beef, poultry, and seafood.
To the outside world, the warehouse I parked in front of looked like one of the many average-looking market warehouses located in the market district. When you walked inside the warehouse, there were hundreds of vendors peddling their farmed goods, dairy products, meats, and more. It was loud and bustling all day with people unaware that miles below their feet was a state-of-the-art secret facility, owned and operated by the DSO that housed some of the deadliest criminals they could ever imagine.
In order to gain access to the facility, I had to walk through a large group of aggressive shoppers to the back of the building. From there, I walked through a pair of revolving doors, bearing
the words, “Employees Only” mounted above the doorway. Once through the doors, there were three doors on my left with security keypads as handles. One of the doors truly belonged to the maintenance crew working the large building. One, I was told, led to a place I didn’t want to know about. The third door was the one that led to the facility.
Josh had informed me that from this point, there were serious security measures in place. All three doors were made from the same material as bank vault doors. They both were created to withstand any caliber bullet and a minimum amount of high grade C4. There were hidden security cameras and probably other fun things like facial recognition software and a panic button linked to the closest DSO office that aided in keeping this place secure.
I had asked if anyone had ever tried to break into any of the three doors, trying to identify the secured facility and I was told no. However, the look in my husband’s eyes told me that wasn’t a true statement. It also brought up another point. If he was lying to me, that meant the truth was something bad and it wouldn’t be in my best interest. Needless to say, I didn’t press the issue.
Deciding to leave my things in the truck because it would be easier to flee if I needed to, I stuffed my purse underneath my seat, turned off the engine, and slowly climbed out of the truck. I threaded my way through the warehouse crowd and came to the three doors.
It wasn’t difficult to gain the access I needed to get through the first door, and once I was through, I walked down a small hallway and came to another door. This door had no door handle that would unlock it. Instead there was a secured keypad mounted on the wall next to the door. I punched another set of security codes into the keypad and prepared myself for the door to disappear behind the wall. What I wasn’t ready for was the loud sound of the mechanical hydraulics rescinding the door. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
