I crouched, tucking my pistol away, and caught up the phone. “Cain.”
“Ah, Thresh, I assume?” His voice was smooth as silk, lightly accented, venomously cold. “My men are dead, then?”
“What do you want?”
“We are beyond that, which I think you know.” There was a moment of silence. “You may keep running. I will find you. Your friend Mr. Winter is not the only one with skills of a certain technological type, you know. Nor is Anselm the only one adept at the finding of people. Have fun with Dr. Reed, Thresh.”
The line went dead, then.
Shit, shit, shit.
Did he know where we were going? How could he, though? I didn’t even know exactly where we were going.
Not good, not good, not good. I dropped the phone on the ground and crushed it under my heel, just for good measure. I wasn’t sure how Cain intended to find us, which meant my only real option was to continue with the plan and hope either Cain wasn’t as good as he seemed to think, or that I’d be able to handle whatever he sent our way.
Didn’t like our odds either way, but hey…you do what you gotta do.
When I turned around, Lola was staring at me, at the two dead men. Pale, trembling, hand over her mouth.
Then she bent over double and vomited, collapsed to her knees, and started sobbing.
6: FOUR-WORD WRECK
Without the banter Thresh had kept up—intentionally, I surmised, to occupy my mind—it all just kind of crashed down on me. The guy in the car, knocked out. The guy I’d watched Thresh kill with a knife in one move, as easily as I’d administer an injection. Then these two guys…the danger became all the more real when guns started going off and bullets hit the Jeep. Thresh had handled it calmly enough, which was freaky in itself.
Top that with the fact that I was running for my life with a man I knew nothing about, someone who was clearly, utterly capable of bloodshed without even flinching.
And only minutes ago, he’d been touching me…touching me in ways I’d not been touched, even by myself, in years. Making me feel things I hadn’t felt in years. I’d nearly had an orgasm, and he hadn’t even been touching my flesh.
And then he just stopped, leaving me on the edge…to kill people.
I don’t know why I vomited, honestly. I don’t have a weak stomach. I’ve seen some ugly shit in my career. I think it was the shock of it, really. It was just so sudden. The noise, the abrupt mess.
And then the tears? God, I hate crying. Hate it. HATEHATEHATE. I don’t cry. Haven’t since…since everything that happened. I swore I wouldn’t cry, after all that, and I hadn’t.
And now, in front of Thresh, I was sobbing, and I couldn’t seem to stop. I felt Thresh come up beside me, more hesitantly than usual. Worried I was going to be afraid of him, I guess. And I should have been, shouldn’t I? He could kill without compunction. But, I felt no fear of him. I expected it, was prepared for it, but it never came. I just knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t ever hurt me. Maybe I was being naive, or stupid, or maybe my ability to judge people was just broken—god knows that wouldn’t be a shock—but the fact was, I trusted Thresh.
It seemed stupid to trust him, though. Wasn’t it? Who would trust a killer? Stupid-ass Lola Reed, M.D., clearly.
Hormonal, emotionally unstable, sexually fucked up on an epic scale, and stuck in the middle of nowhere with a giant, terrifying, deadly brute of a human being…one who also was stupid sexy. He just…did things to my head, to my hormones, to my body. I just…reacted to him. I had no control over it. He got close to me, touched me, spoke in my ear in that throbbing bass rumble of his, and I just…went to pieces. Everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I wanted and didn’t want went out the window.
Even now, as his arm slid around my waist and pulled me against him, I reacted. The sobs quieted, and my breathing evened out, and…he was just…there. Huge and solid and reassuringly powerful. Just holding me.
He looked down at me and asked, “Can you make it back to the Jeep?”
All I could do was nod.
He turned me toward the Jeep, opened the passenger door, waited till I was in, and then closed it behind me. He got in the driver’s side, turned over the engine, looked at me and said, “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
We continued on our way south and west toward Plantation Island, neither of us speaking for several miles.
“You all right, Lola?” he asked, eventually.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I didn’t want you to see that.”
“The shooting stopped, so I thought…” I paused to take a deep breath, and to wipe my eyes.
He touched my chin, lifted my face so I was looking up into his pale blue eyes. “Remember what I told you, back at your condo?”
I nodded. “I remember. It just doesn’t make it any easier watching you do those things. Even if I can recognize that you’re only doing it to protect us, it’s…ugh. Horrible.”
“It’s not pretty, no. But it’s what I do. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I got you into this.”
I shrugged. “Who was on the phone?”
A growl of unhappiness. “Cain. He hinted that he’d be able to find us as easily as Lear or Anselm can.”
“Who are they?”
“Lear is a hacker. Works for Alpha One with me. He’s the one who got your address for me. And, by the way, that’s the only piece of information about you I let him give me.”
“There was more?”
He laughed. “Babe, if he went looking, Lear could tell you things about yourself even you didn’t know.”
“Well, that’s unnerving.” I looked over at him. “And you didn’t let him tell you anything about me? Why not?”
He grinned over at me for a second. “Because, as I told Lear, I intend on finding all that out the fun way.”
I swallowed hard. “Oh, yeah? How’s that?”
His eyes on the road, his grin faded into something fiercer, hungrier. “You’d be surprised what you can find out about someone after a couple orgasms.”
“A—a couple?” Like, in one day? I’d read about that, but didn’t think it was real.
His eyes narrowed and his features reflected suspicion.
“You’ve never had a multiple O before, have you, Lola?”
“You have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve even had a single O?” Now why the hell did that come out of my mouth?
“How long?”
I tried to stop myself from answering, but apparently I had conflicting ideas about what I wanted. “Three years.”
He just blinked at me for several seconds, his expression utterly blank. “You—you haven’t had an orgasm in three years? Jesus, Lola, what kind of losers are you dating?”
“The nonexistent kind?”
He tilted his head to the side, understanding beginning to filter in. “Um. So…you’re saying you haven’t had any sex at all in three years?” I shook my head, not looking at him. “What about your fingers? Or a vibrator? You haven’t tried to make yourself come, either?”
This was getting dangerously close to topics I’d studiously avoided even thinking about, much less talking about, for many years. I decided it was time to move the conversation away to safer, less painful topics. “And Anselm? Who’s that?”
He sighed. “Avoiding the subject. Sure sign there’s something fucked up you don’t want to talk about.”
“Sort of like why you lost your temper that one time?”
He winced. “Touché. I’ll let it go, but not for long.” He paused, letting out a short breath, then went on, “Anselm is…uh…well…it’s hard to talk about Anselm with any accuracy. He’s a spook. A former spy, you know? Nobody knows dick about his past, who he worked for, what exactly he did, where he came from, nothing. He can blend into any crowd, disappear like smoke in the wind, and find anyone anywhere, anytime. Combine his spy skills with Lear’s hacking abilities? Those two scare the fuck out of me. I mean, I
can lay out major damage with any weapon created, including my bare hands. But…I’m not exactly the subtlest of dudes, obviously. I can sneak around, do urban combat and woodcraft and shit like that, but what those two are capable of? It’s freaky. It’s on another level. And Anselm is just…cold. You think I’m cold? I’m like a warm, fuzzy little puppy compared to that fucker. But he’s my friend, and I trust him with my life. All the guys I work with, I trust that way. Which is why the thought of Cain going after my buddies? Oh, no. Fuck that. Shit’s gonna get hot real fucking fast.”
I reflected on what it might mean if a man like Thresh claimed to be freaked out by something—the thought made me shudder. To ignore those shudder-inducing thoughts, I decided to push Thresh, a little, about his past. See what I could get out of him.
“So…in the hospital you mentioned you played football for Florida State. Did you graduate from there?” I wasn’t just pushing for info, though, I was honestly curious. What shaped a man like Thresh?
He didn’t respond very quickly, and when he did, it was obvious he was choosing his words with care. “No, I didn’t. I…pursued other opportunities.”
“Like what?”
He glanced at me. “Well, I got recruited, if you really want to know. NFL. Made it through training camp, played an entire season with the Carolina Panthers.”
I gaped at him. “You played pro football?”
He wouldn’t look at me. “Yep. I had the size, strength, speed, and talent. That season, man…I wrecked shit right up. It was a good year. Lots of fun, lots of money, lots of bitches—women, I mean.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Why censor yourself now, Thresh? It’s not like I’m unaware of your status as a professional-grade player.”
He shrugged. “I’m not trying to censor myself, I just—”
“You want in my pants, and you think I’m less likely to let that happen if I’m constantly being reminded that you’ve probably perfected the art of the hump and dump?”
He frowned at me. “Okay, now hold the fuck on a second. That’s not entirely fair. It’s not like that, okay? I’m not like that. Can I say I’ve never humped and dumped before? No. I was an animal in college, and that year with the pros. But things changed. I changed. I don’t play it that way. Do I do monogamy? No. Not even really serial monogamy. I’m a soldier, and I have been my whole life. I travel too much, and I’m constantly in and out of gnarly situations. It would be stupidity of the highest order for me to try to saddle some poor chick with my freight train of shit.”
He sounded genuinely upset at the accusation I’d leveled at him. “I lay it out before I even step up to the plate with a girl. You don’t get to first base with me until you understand the game. It’s not that I don’t want to stick around, and it’s not that the girl isn’t worth it, or anything like that. It’s the nature of my job. Just the way my life is right now. I’m gonna move on. We can have fun until I’m called away, but that’s it. It ain’t gonna be more than that. Can’t be. Won’t be. Even if it could be—and Doc, there’s been a few times where it could have been something—that can’t happen. I won’t let it. No point. No chick is ever gonna be fine with me hopping all over the damn globe getting shot or stabbed or whatever. But I don’t fuck and chuck, okay? I don’t play that way.”
I met his eyes. “I’m sorry, Thresh, I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just…how you come across, I guess.”
A shrug. “I get that.”
“So, only the one season, huh? What happened? Injury?”
His expression shuttered, just shut down. “No. I could’ve kept playing. Probably should’ve.” He twisted the leather of the steering wheel. “I felt the call to serve my country, that’s what happened.”
“You left the NFL to join the Army?”
He glanced at me. “Hell the fuck no. I left the NFL to join the goddamn Marine Corps. Shit was going on in Iraq, and I was having drinks after a game in the hotel bar with this guy. He was Recon. Real deal badass, hard as fuck, and made it seem cool. Told some sick stories, and got me thinking. He didn’t make it seem all honor and glory, you know? He told it like it was.”
A moment of silence.
“Never told anyone this. You got one hell of a bedside manner, Doc, if you’re getting me to talk about this bullshit. He told me I wasting my potential playing football. ‘Sure, you’re a monster,’ he said. ‘Sure, you’re fast and tough and can sack QBs like nobody’s business,’ he told me. ‘But is that what you really want to use your size and strength and toughness on? Football? A goddamned game?’ And the shit of it was, I realized he was right. So I finished the season, joined the Marines at twenty-one. I played for FSU my freshman, sophomore, and junior years. Got recruited to play for Carolina my junior year, played with them the next season. Joined the Marines. Made Recon by the time I was twenty-three. Never looked back.”
“So you were a Recon for…what, fifteen years?”
He laughed. “You’re really fishing, Doc. No. I was Recon for four, five years? Then I got recruited onto a black ops team. Real hush-hush sort of shit. Did that for a while, and then—” He let out a slow, pensive breath. “Then I got out. Some shit happened that made it obvious it was past time to get out. I’d done a few missions with my current boss, Harris. He’d gotten out before I did, worked private security for Valentine Roth. Ended up starting his own security firm, and hired me the second I turned civvie.”
“Civvie?”
“Civilian.”
“Oh.”
I watched him, watched the way his brow tightened, the way his fist clenched the wheel. “I’ve upset you, haven’t I?”
He made a visible effort to shake it off. “No, Doc. You just…brought up memories I usually keep in the box, is all.”
I huffed. “Yeah, well, then that’s two of us.” I shot him a grin. “So have you met Valentine Roth?”
He tipped his head side to side. “Yeah, a few times. He’s cool. Richer than all fuck, but he’s cool about it.”
“I’ve read a few articles about him. He seems like an interesting person.”
He laughed. “Interesting is one word for it. Honestly, there’s not many people like him. He’s a real one-of-a-kind. He’s no pussy rich-boy who’s inherited his daddy’s money even though, from what I understand, he did come from serious money.”
“Tell me about the rest of your team.”
“All right. But you gotta answer some questions in return.”
I swallowed hard. “Fair enough. But…don’t lead with the hard stuff, okay?”
“Now would I do that to you?”
I scowled at him. “Yeah, I think you might.”
He laughed. “Actually, you’re right. But I’ll be nice.” He reached out, tugged the end of my braid; and no, I didn’t like it, not one bit. “How about family, is that a safe enough opening topic?”
I sighed. “Not really, but then, I’m not sure what would be, so we’ll go with it.” I took a moment to gather myself, and my thoughts. “My mom died when I was sixteen. She was in a car accident, and she should’ve recovered, but she got an infection and…she never left the hospital. Dad always swore it was negligence on the part of the hospital, and talked about suing, but he was just too lost without her. So that’s when he turned into a hermit.”
“Jesus, Lola, I’m sorry. That’s rough.”
I nodded. “It was. She suffered for two weeks before she finally passed and, when she did, it was kind of a relief in some ways, because finally the agony was over. That feeling of helplessness, watching her suffer…that was what made me want to be a doctor. If I could help anyone, lessen anyone’s suffering, help them heal, bring families back together when mine was ripped apart…”
“What was your mom like?”
I stared out the window, watching the green fields pass by. “She was…amazing. She was a therapist. She could make you feel better just by being in the same room as her. She could get anyone to talk about anything, and when you were done talkin
g, everything just…made more sense.”
“And your dad?”
“Oh, Dad. Dad is something entirely different. He’s Samoan. He grew up there, lived there until he was…thirty? Moved to the States on a scholarship to FSU in ecology. Met mom at FSU, had me when he was…thirty-five? Thirty-six? Spent most of my childhood studying the ecology of the Everglades. It was always an obsession with him, part of the reason we always spent the summer down here. He loved it. Mom used to joke that he’d retire to the Everglades, and never come back out. Well…when Mom passed, he did just that. Couldn’t handle life out here, the people, the questions. He’s this massive guy, you know? Like your typical huge Samoan guy? That’s my dad. Not quite as big as you, but close. I guess that’s partly why I’m so attracted to you, if you want the real psychology behind it. You’re nothing like my dad, but the sense of size, being close to you, it makes me feel safe. Comforted.
“My dad is…private. Hates people, hates crowds, hates civilization. When he speaks, it’s softly, and you listen, because he’s got this way of just…cutting to the heart of things. He’s this big guy, but he’s painfully shy. Mom was really the only person he ever actually got close to, but that’s how Mom was. That’s why they worked together, I guess.”
I had to stop, because it was just so hard to think about Mom, and how Dad just sort of fell inward after she died. “Dad taught me to lift, taught me to love working out. I look like him. I’m nothing like Mom, physically. She was small, petite, like five-five and thin. She was so tiny next to Dad. I’m like her in personality in some ways, though. People like to talk to me, but I’m more like Dad in that I don’t really want to talk to them.”
“You lift?”
I laughed. “It figures. Out of everything I just spilled, that’s what you seize on.” I patted his bicep, which was sort of like patting a tree trunk. “Dad loves to lift. He was religious about the gym until Mom died, and I’m the same way, even still. It’s all that keeps me sane, some days. Can’t handle people anymore, and if I can’t deal with the bullshit—I go to the gym.”
Thresh: Alpha One Security: Book 2 Page 8
