I’m shoved down behind the front seats and I lie there immobile, knowing that this is the cause of the bad feeling I’ve been having all week, but at least I protected Josh.
The man says nothing else and we drive for what feels like minutes but could be hours. I try to follow the route and guess where we are, but he makes so many turns that I’m soon too lost to keep up the effort any longer.
The only advantage I have is that at least I’m not gagged, but if this guy is legit and ready to kill me at the blink of an eye, I doubt that’s a problem for him and he knows it.
“Stop crying, you’re making a damned racket, woman!”
I jerk at his yell and realize I am crying—so loudly that my head is throbbing. I stop immediately and hiccup through my sniffles, not willing to do anything to annoy a man who Jace and Jared have agreed was probably hired to kill me.
Miah has never come right out and said it, but I know that he believes it, too. If they’re going to kill me now, I hope to God they at least leave my body somewhere that I’ll be found so that my family can bury me and Miah can have some closure.
“Please don’t kill me. Just let me go. I have a kid to look after, and a family.”
“Shut the hell up, lady. I ain’t gonna kill you, okay? So you can stop the theatrics for now,” he barks, ripping the sack off and handing me a bottle of water. “My employer sent me to take care of that first guy who was hired to grab you. I took care of him but couldn’t get to you to arrange the meet before now. That man of yours sure knows how to keep you on lockdown.”
He’s annoyed and seems affronted by my assumption that he was going to kill me in cold blood, but honestly, what the heck am I supposed to think here? It’s not as if he came up and issued a friendly invitation, and he freaking knows it.
I don’t trust him. For all I know he’s just trying to shut me up before murdering me viciously and dumping me in the swamps for the gators to take care of.
“Miah loves ma and takes my safety seriously, Mr.…”
“Lock.”
“Mr. Lock. If you’re lying and intend to do me any harm, I would think twice if I were you. Miah won’t stop till he finds me, and if you’ve harmed me in any way, he will hurt you very badly before killing you just as badly.”
That starts him muttering and I almost smile when he looks at me with a little fear and a lot of respect.
“You Lane women have balls, you know that? Relax, sweetheart, I ain’t gonna hurt you. I just have to deliver you for a little meeting and then I’ll drop you off at the nearest gas station to make a call to that animal guarding you. Fuck, they all said Lane was not a man to mess with, but what could I do? I follow orders just like anyone else has to, you know.”
Whatever. I’m not even interested anymore and I think he knows it when he stops talking and starts muttering beneath his breath. After what feels like hours of nonstop driving in the sweltering heat, we turn left onto a gravel rack and bump our way down a long road that takes another twenty minutes of travel before he pulls over and turns the engine off.
“Now I’ll untie your legs and let you walk if you promise not to run. I don’t want you hurting yourself, and there are wild animals in the woods.”
“Fine. Just please let me out of here. My legs are going dead.”
He huffs and gets out to open the back door and I get a look at my surroundings and gasp. He’s right. There are trees everywhere, and enough thick vegetation that I know I’d never even make it to the forest before he caught me.
Another car sits a few feet away in front of us, and I stand still when the door opens and a short brunette with long wavy hair and gray eyes comes towards me.
“Miss Elms. My name is Stephanie Williams. I’m an agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and I would like to talk to you about Jeramiah Lane and his brothers.”
I ignore her outstretched hand and look her up and down in disgust.
“You arranged this kidnapping? What, you don’t have opposable thumbs and can’t use a phone?”
They start laughing and I grind my teeth and resist the urge to take a swing at one of them.
“Miss Elms, I saved you from being murdered by a man hired by a Mr. Nicolas Grimes, so if I were you I’d play nice. I called you here because, despite my many attempts to reach your man and his brothers without compromising their mission, I have yet to make contact. I need to speak with Miah, Clari, before he gets himself killed dealing in something he does not understand.”
That throws me and I stop giving her lip long enough to listen.
“Talk.”
“Your fiancé—”
“Boyfriend.”
“Your boyfriend has been led to believe that there is only one cell in this group of homeland extremists, when, in fact, the rot spreads way further than even we realize. If any of the Lane brothers attempt to expose the department he works in, all of you will be in extreme danger. These men do not believe in mercy or splitting hairs, Miss Elms. They will kill any Lane they can find.”
My mouth must be hanging open because she nods once and hands me an A4 envelope and a bottle of water.
“Mr. Lock will see you to safety. Please give this to Miah and ask him to call me as soon as possible. We’re on the same side here, and I’d hate to see anyone hurt because of one bad apple in the black ops unit he used to belong to.”
She turns swiftly and gets back into the car, leaving me alone with Lock and the envelope I can barely hold because my hands are so tightly bound.
“We need to move before that boyfriend of yours comes looking. I really do not feel like dying today.”
He puts me into the front passenger seat and even buckles me up before starting the car and reversing very quickly back onto the main road.
“Now remember, Clara. Give that package to Miah and get him to at least call us. We need to work together on this to weed out all the bad seeds.”
The gas station he leaves me at is kind enough to let me use the phone to call Miah, but I suspect that has something to do with the cable tie still cutting into the skin on my wrists and the slight pallor I’m still sporting.
“Miah?”
“Clari? Jesus, babe, where the hell are you?” he yells, making me wince and pull back the phone.
I give him the name of the gas station and put the phone down with a sigh. Out of all of this madness, the one thought that keeps sticking with me is that now I’ll have to tell Miah about Nick and what that FBI chick said, and I’d so hoped to keep this under wraps a little longer.
If Nick is indeed as dangerous as she says, and willing to hire a killer to come after me in my bed, then he’s not about to give up anytime soon.
My thoughts are halted when I hear the squeal of tires and see Miah, Jared, and Jace running my way.
I almost fall before he reaches me and hugs me tightly to his chest with a curse.
“Babe—”
“Josh? Is he alright?” I cut in, needing to know that he didn’t flip out when that agent took me.
“Fine. He called Jared right away and we went to the school to get him. He’s shaken but settled down right away once Jared got him home. Are you okay?” he demands, holding me at arm’s length and cursing at the state of my wrists.
Jared grabs the package and Miah cuts me loose, growling when he sees blood oozing from my bruised wrists. It’s not that bad, but I am a fair-skinned woman and tend to bruise easily.
“Hush, let me speak. Please,” I say when he starts yelling again. “That envelope you’re holding is a package from Agent Stephanie Williams of the FBI. She wanted me to give that to you. She also let me know that the first man who broke into my house was hired by Nick to kill me. The second guy was there to get rid of him so that he could bring me in.”
Jared narrows his eyes, leaning down to get eye level with me.
“Stephanie Williams? She a short brunette with slate-grey eyes and a big rack?”
My lips twitch at his description, and I nod, ro
lling my eyes.
“Fuck. Miah, man, if Williams went to all this trouble to get to us, we need to at least look into it. She’s a good cop, and I owe her a debt for a favor she did me back in Kabul.”
Miah starts cursing and runs a hand through his hair before picking me up and walking back to his SUV.
“Take a look at the package and get in touch with her. I want her to answer for scaring Clari this way, and then I want to know what the hell is going on.”
He’s agitated and looking too unsettled for my liking when he gets into the back with me and tosses Jace the keys.
“Babe, I am so sorry. I should have—”
“Hush, Miah. I swear you seem to get more upset about these occurrences than I do,” I chide, putting my fingers to his lips to stem the tide of apologies I know are forthcoming.
“Told you so, bro.” Jace chuckles from the driver’s seat.
“Shut up and drive, asshole,” he snarls before looking down at me with guilt. “I keep failing you. It’s my job to protect you, and yet every time I turn around you keep getting hurt.”
“Uh, I’m doing alright for a chick who got snatched right in front of her kid brother, Miah, so just quit your guilt already. You can’t protect me twenty-four hours a day. Really, Miah, you take the blame for the strangest things. Now if you want to get upset about something, let’s focus on Nick and his plans for me. That man sent someone to hurt me and then had the audacity to show up at my workplace, demanding I go back to him. And he hasn’t stopped calling since.”
I wait for him to explode at the news and sigh in relief when he just kisses me softly and shakes his head.
“Jared, take care of this, would you? I’m not leaving Clari and Josh to fly down to Philly to take care of that SOB, and I want him off the streets before he tries something again.”
Jared nods and whips out his phone, murmuring into it so softly, I can’t make out a word.
“Done. You want me to read this now or at home?”
“Now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Miah
I’m so relieved to have my girl back and for her to have done the right thing and put in for a leave of absence. After getting home and spending the rest of the day just holding her, I finally went down to Jared and Jace and had my brother tell me everything about this Williams woman.
It turns out that instead of needing to kill the woman, I owe her for saving my family and opening up a whole other avenue in our investigation.
The extremists basically made me from day one, as well as Dobson and his crew, because if Agent Williams is right, we have a leak in the SEALs and were in danger of walking into a straight-up trap.
My first inclination is to get Roman the hell out of there and just wash my hands of it all and leave the colonel to take care of this mess he was so willing to get me into. But Roman, it seems, is in and getting closer to the big dogs as we speak. He’s convinced that he can gather enough names for us and the FBI to start unraveling what appears to be a hive instead of just one cell operating out of New Orleans.
So yeah, Roman can stay right where he is and keep this thing going while I focus my attention on bigger fish, like that idiot Nick Grimes and whoever the hell he’s working with. The man disappeared off the face of the earth yesterday morning and hasn’t been seen since.
“If Williams is right then it’s a good thing you officially resigned from the SEALs. Dobson might believe that you left to pursue a life of crime like him and his buddies.”
“We can hope. I put in leave for the next month just to see if my absence helps Roman’s cause, and I’m hoping that we can get something good soon. I don’t like having this kind of crazy right in our back yard.”
Jared nods and looks at the framed photos of Josh and Alex standing on Pop’s desk, his frown deepening dangerously.
“I second that. This shit will not come near my nephews. I say we just start going rogue and follow the shit to the root. To hell with Williams and her Justice League mentality. These assholes don’t deserve prison.”
While I agree and would normally just let Jace and Jared have at this type of filth, I can’t risk losing the other players and a lead on the guy leaking intel from my old SEALs unit.
Those guys are my family, too, and if someone is putting them in jeopardy, I can’t let that slide.
“I want to know who the leak in the colonel’s unit is first, and then you can have at those SOBs with my pleasure.”
“So what now?”
“We wait, bro, and let things play out till they either make a mistake or hang themselves with the rope we provide.”
I leave them grumbling in disgust and unsatisfied with my verdict to seek out my girl. I find her in bed upstairs smelling fresh from her shower and drinking a hot chocolate Ma liberally laced with brandy and marshmallows.
“Babe. Too much of that stuff and you’ll be knocked out.”
“I’m already almost out and I only had four little sips.” She laughs, setting the steaming mug down on the nightstand with a sigh.
“Are you okay?”
“No. I’m pissed and I feel guilty about this because I’m the one who accepted the assignment in the first place. I should have let it go and just let someone else take it on, but I’m too arrogant and cocky, so now everyone is being forced to stay at home and my brothers and I are more than likely to get our asses killed before this is over. Oh, and to top it all off, I lied to my family and hid not only Bolton Conrad, but his mother, too. They’re both supposed to be dead, by the way.”
I’m rambling in frustration and I see Clari’s eyes narrow before she gets to her knees and crawls closer to me where I’m sitting at the edge of the bed.
“Say that again.”
“Bolton and Lynn are both alive and locked away in their worst form of hell. They know about Bolton but not that I moved him somewhere worse, and Lynn, well only Jared, Jace, and Roman know that I kept her alive and put her away in a dark little cell in the nuthouse I wouldn’t leave my dog in. So yeah.”
She sits back and considers me silently before tilting her head.
“Why?”
“Bolton…I wanted him to suffer for what he did to Ellie and Wyatt. I knew that no matter how many happy years pass for them, neither will ever forget it because Wyatt feels guilty about it and Ellie is just too scarred by it to ever truly be healed.”
Clair smiles and shakes her head.
“I’d do the same if given the chance, and I hope he is suffering every day for what he did. Lynn?”
I swallow and look away with a guilty shrug.
“She knows more than what she told Ellie the night she took her, and I’d rather keep her alive and try to pump her for information on the other Lanes than let her die and be free of the trouble she’s caused with her hate. See, I’m too arrogant. I—”
“You’re not. You’re just the guy who loves everyone enough to carry the burden of guilt they can’t carry themselves. Let it all go, Miah, and try to live for the moment. This was always going to happen, so stop blaming yourself and just give yourself a break. You’ll get it all together in the end. I have absolutely no doubt. Now stop worrying and come to bed. You look tied, and I’m a little too tipsy to be of any use to either of us right now.”
“God, I love you, Clari Elms, and I want to marry you when you’re ready.”
Her smile is so brilliant that it lights up my heart and makes all the ugliness disappear for this one moment in time.
“You’re so romantic, Miah Lane, and I would love to marry you…in a year or two. Now shut up and kiss me. I feel myself sobering up and I may be of some use, after all.
Epilogue
Lynn
None of them know what I know. None of them are even aware of the things that I set in motion all those years ago when they took my son from me and tried to give that murdering little tart everything that should have been my Bolton’s by right.
But I’ve planned it all very well and don�
��t even care anymore that I won’t be there to see the destruction of my sanctimonious brother and his family.
They will all pay for killing my boy, every last one of them.
I’m a shadow of myself, anyway, unable to move past the slight twitches I get from my arms and legs or the turning of my neck. Miah, that little bastard, keeps me alive because he wants me to suffer.
Unbeknownst to him, I don’t care one wit about living the life I once had or making them feel better about themselves.
I live now because I know that my family will do what is right and get rid of them all, including Ellie, the girl who set this all in motion when she chose Wyatt over my darling boy.
They will all suffer. The best part of the game is that they will never suspect the direction their deaths will come from, because my partner is one who knows how to hide.
***
Jace
I have too much work to do. Yet here I am again, sitting outside Tracy’s house and watching her like some lovesick little asshole who can’t forget his first real love.
But I did. I managed to leave her alone for a long fucking time and do my job the way I was always meant to do it, since my mom was killed and my father planted the seeds of discord that I’ve been fighting since I was a boy.
I don’t love Trace anymore. How can I when I don’t believe in love and believe even less in what little we did have all those years ago?
I’m just infatuated. This is what I tell myself when she walks by her bedroom window in a skimpy satin robe that stretches across her breasts and makes my dick get hard and insistent.
No, I don’t love Trace. Even if I wanted to love her again, I can’t let myself because I’m about to use her to further the mission that me and my brothers are killing ourselves to complete.
Tracy just so happens to be the daughter of a very straitlaced and well-meaning senator, one I need to get to so that I can get the intel I need to stop this shit once and for all.
With that decision firmly in mind, I call Jared and chuckle when he answers with a curse.
“Please tell me you are not sitting outside Tracy’s house again, Jace. That shit is just creepy as hell. Come home and drink if you need to forget, but for God’s sake, stop doing this to yourself,” he begs, making me chuckle all the harder.
Miah (Lane Brothers #2) Page 12
