Promise to Defend

by Diana Gardin

  The word whore in reference to Olive nearly makes me lose my shit. She’s not that, she never has been. And this man, the one who once said he cared about her, who apparently wants her back, isn’t worthy to breathe the same air she does. And he won’t, not ever again. “She prefers not to be anywhere near you, Oakes. Especially after what you did.”

  He leans against the end of the bar, and I can see the anger flash in his eyes before he responds. “What I did? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I did hear that you and the lady were in an unfortunate traffic accident last week, though. She okay?”

  He seems almost genuine in asking if Olive is okay, which is complete bullshit. “Let’s not play games here, all right? We both know you had a part in that accident. And you know what? If it was just me, I wouldn’t waste my time on you. But this is about her, and I’m not going to let you hurt her again.”

  He pushes off the bar and crosses over to me. “You’re just a temporary distraction for her. She doesn’t belong to you, Shaw.”

  I lift my chin. Olive does belong to me, but not in the way he thinks. He thinks of her as something material to possess. I think of her as something precious to protect. She belongs to me because she wants to. Not because I’m forcing her to stay.

  But Mick Oakes won’t understand that, so I don’t bother to tell him.

  “If you want her so bad, why would you put a hit out on her?” My tone is even, but all I really want to do is wipe the stupid expression off his face.

  Mick’s face fills with rage. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Is that what she thinks?”

  I’m filled with confusion, but I merely quirk a brow. “Isn’t that what you did?”

  Mick glances behind him, like someone could be watching, before turning back to me and licking his lips. “I didn’t. I don’t want to hurt her. That shit doesn’t even make sense.”

  Stepping closer, my eyes narrow and my jaw clenches so tight my back teeth snap together. “Then who would?”

  Mick goes rigid. His eyes wild, he rolls them toward the ceiling like he’s trying to solve some kind of puzzle.

  When he finally speaks, it’s like someone tosses a bucket of ice-cold water all over me.

  “Dead girls don’t talk,” he whispers.

  I move before I have a plan, shoving barstools out of my way and flying at him like a fucking rocket. Grabbing his collar, I shove him up against the dull wooden bar. Drawing my gun, I cock it and press the cold metal against his temple. My voice goes low and very, very dangerous.

  “What the fuck did you just say?”

  27

  Olive

  From upstairs, we hear a series of loud thumps and then the sound of hysterical laughter.

  Rayne’s eyes roll upward. “Seriously. They can’t get a simple bedtime task done without losing their minds.”

  Grinning, I tip my head toward the stairs. “Should we go check on them?”

  As we walk past the front door, I eye the keypad on the wall beside it. Earlier, I watched as Rayne put in the four-digit code: her and Decker’s birthday numerals.

  Following Rayne upstairs, I would normally smile at the sound of Decker’s and Jeremy’s raucous laughter, mixed in with Night’s joyful barks. This house, this family my sister treasures, is special and happy. I can almost taste the memories being made here. From the dreamy look in Rayne’s eyes, it’s clear how much she loves them.

  But right now, all I can think about is Ronin and how I can get to him. He might not need me right now, but I sure as hell need to be with him.

  Rayne turns to me. “Should we get into our pajamas and then go down and watch a movie?”

  Another time, big sister. I smile and nod. “Sure. Let me just use the restroom first.”

  As soon as the bathroom door is closed behind me, I fling open the cabinet and search the contents. I haven’t thought this through, but I know I need to get out of this house. I love my sister and Jeremy so much for wanting to protect me, but I know in my heart that I should be with Ronin. There’s a deep feeling of dread lining my belly, something that started the second he walked away from me and has only been growing stronger since. If M.J. wants me, he already knows he has to get through Ronin to do that.

  Ronin needs me. I need to protect him this time.

  My eyes land on a pair of nail scissors, and I yank them out of the cabinet. Holding them in my fist, I dig the blade into the palm of my hand and drag it across my skin.

  A thin line of blood appears, compete with the bite of pain that signals my freedom. Opening the bathroom door, I call out, “Hey, Rayne?”

  She appears in her bedroom doorway. “Yeah?”

  Holding out my hand, I’m satisfied to see the blood oozing from the shallow wound. “Where’s your first aid stuff?”

  Her eyes widen. “You cut yourself?”

  Nodding, I try to appear sheepish. “Yeah. I just need to clean it up and put a bandage on, though. No big deal.”

  She tilts her head, looking at my hand. But I know my sister, and she hates the sight of blood. She averts her eyes, and triumph swells inside me. “Downstairs in the kitchen cabinet above the desk.”

  Nodding, I walk past her and head down the stairs. I won’t have much of a head start, but it’ll be enough.

  As soon as I walk into the kitchen I pause only long enough to pull the dishtowel off the counter for my bleeding hand, grab the keys to Rayne’s SUV and enter the alarm code into the keypad by the garage door. Also muting the system so that the door opening doesn’t cause a chiming sound. I’m quickly out of the house and into the garage.

  My heart thrums, beating like a wild bird caged, as I start the ignition and press the button on the visor to open the garage door. And then I’m backing out of the garage and racing down the street, the engine revving in my effort to get to Ronin as fast as I can.

  28

  Ronin

  Oakes struggles against my hold, but I’m hanging on to his collar with a vise grip, leaving him pinned against the wall like a fly caught in a web. I shove the gun even harder against his sweaty skin. Bennett casually moves to the end of the bar, leaning against it and folding his arms like he doesn’t have a care in the world. But I know that if I looked at him, I’d see the intense scrutiny in his eyes as he assessed the situation.

  “Say it again.” My teeth grind together as I stare into Mick Oakes’s dark eyes. My insides tremble like jelly, but my hand is steady as my finger inches toward the trigger.

  He swallows. “I said, dead girls don’t talk. It’s my uncle’s motto. He doesn’t trust women, never has. Not since his wife tried to take what she knew about his business to the cops. He ended up killing the cop she confided in right before he killed her.”

  My grip tightens, and he winces as the muzzle digs into his flesh. I suck in breaths like I’m running out of oxygen, because it feels like I am. I stare at Oakes for a second longer, then I release him and pace away.

  Bennett, still behind the bar, keeps pace with me. “Talk to me, Shaw.”

  I holster my gun. Lifting my hands, they rake through my hair over and over again. The only way Oakes could know that line, was if…if his uncle was the one responsible for Elle’s murder. Whether he killed her himself or had someone else do it…it doesn’t matter.

  I watched Mick while he spoke. The rage simmering in my stomach wasn’t enough to kill every instinct I ever learned as a trained interrogator. The man didn’t have a single tell that would have signaled he was lying. He’s tense, and he’s scared because he’s a coward piece of shit, but he’s telling the fucking truth.

  Finally. I know who murdered Elle.

  Turning to Bennett, I look him directly in the eye. “His uncle killed my wife.”

  Bennett’s eyes go wide, and then he drops his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Jesus fuck.”

  “Hey.” Oakes’s voice is sharp. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I turn slowly to face him. “About seven years ago, did you know
a woman by the name of Elle Shaw?”

  Oakes’s face goes pale.

  I take a step closer, the rage inside me boiling to a dangerous level. “Tell me what you know.”

  Oakes sinks onto a barstool. “She…I was introduced to her through a friend of a friend. Apparently, she’d racked up a shitload of debt that she didn’t want her husband to find out about.”

  I close my eyes briefly. “What kind of debt?”

  Mick Oakes looked at me warily. “Credit cards. She said it was bad. I offered her a job with one of our family businesses, told her she could work for us to help pay the debt. She worked on the books, in addition to her regular bookkeeping job. But she came across some numbers she shouldn’t have seen and got it in her head that she could pay off her debt in one fell swoop if she received a big payout from my uncle.”

  I close my eyes. God, Elle…why? Why would you get yourself into that shit? You should have come to me. “She demanded a payoff.”

  Mick nodded. “Yeah. My uncle…he didn’t play games like that. She paid for it.”

  Stopping, I turn and slam my hands down on the bar. “You motherfucking bastard! You should have told her to go to her husband!”

  My long strides eat up the distance so that I can look Oakes in the eye. “Did you sleep with her?”

  He shakes his head immediately. “No. No, I didn’t. She wasn’t down for that, and I was all wrapped up in Olive at the time. Still am.”

  Was I supposed to believe him? Like he was some stand-up guy who wouldn’t emotionally abuse his girlfriend? I can’t even process all of this right now. I knew Elle had debt. So he seems to be telling the truth about that at least. I found out about the extent of her debt after she died but I never knew why. Was she lonely while I was gone? She was apparently afraid to talk to me about it and decided to get another job behind my back.

  Goddammit. What kind of husband must I have been? The kind whose wife couldn’t trust him with her own financial stress? And now she’s gone. I’m never going to be able to ask her about it, never going to be able to reconcile with the fact that I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. I wasn’t there to stop her from getting involved with the fucking Margiano family.

  What am I supposed to do with this?

  My cell phone buzzes in my pocket, and I think about ignoring it until I remember that my team is listening in on this conversation. Yanking it out of my pocket, my answer is clipped. “Yeah.”

  “Swagger.” Grisham’s voice is a mixture of sympathy and urgency. “Olive just pulled up in Rayne’s SUV. Want us to grab her, or do you want—” He’s interrupted by the sound of squealing tires, which I can hear over the phone and coming from directly outside the bar. “What the fuck?”

  Grisham’s curse ends in a shout, and I end the phone call and sprint to the front door, gesturing for Bennett to stay with Oakes. My heart thumping wildly, I throw open the door of the bar and burst into the night. Just in time to see a black SUV nearly tip on two wheels as it peels out of the parking lot.

  Grisham is out of the truck, weapon drawn, staring at the vehicle as it speeds off into the night.

  Glancing around the otherwise empty lot, I spot Sayward sitting in the passenger seat of the NES vehicle she and Ghost rode here in, and I see Rayne’s SUV parked a few feet away. But I don’t see Olive anywhere.

  Grisham turns, and his face says everything I don’t want to know.

  “What the hell just happened, Ghost?” I bite out the words, silently pleading with him to tell me something other than what I’m thinking.

  God, no. No. Please, no.

  Grisham’s response is grim. “Had to have been Margiano’s guys. They took her. We can follow, but they’ve got a pretty good head start. Might not find them.”

  Shaking my head, I glance toward the bar. “No. I have a better idea. Meet me back at NES.”

  When I storm back into the bar, I go straight for Oakes and this time, I grab him by the throat. Squeezing until his eyes bulge, I make sure each word is said slowly enough for him to understand.

  “Where. Did. They. Take. Her?”

  I can’t tell if his eyes are wide from fear, or if it’s because I’m slowly squeezing the life out of him. But I won’t get an answer if I don’t loosen my grip, so I let go and throw him backward. He stumbles back and then reaches for his gun.

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  When I glance at Bennett, he’s already holding his pistol, aimed at Oakes’s head. “Keep it holstered, Mick. I’ve wanted to shoot you for too long…don’t give me a reason.”

  Mick swallows, fury flashing in his eyes. Then he turns to me. “What are you talking about?”

  His phone buzzes. He ignores it, focusing on me, but I dip my head toward his pocket. “Take that.”

  Eyeing me with suspicion, he pulls it out and reads the text. Then he curses and shoves the phone back in his pocket. “I gotta go.”

  I run through all the scenarios in my head but I know I have to let him go. It will be our best bet to find Olive. But letting him walk out of this bar is going to be one of the hardest things I’ve done in a long time.

  Turning on his heel Mick is out, gone through the back exit, before I glance up at Bennett.

  “Start talking,” he says.

  When I tell him what happened in the parking lot, and the plan I have for letting Mick go, his eyes burn with rage. “I’ll close this bar down. And then I’m coming with you.”

  I nod.

  When Bennett goes to the office in the back of the bar and returns with a heavy-looking duffle bag slung on his shoulder, I glance at him, impatience bleeding out of me. “You leaving town?”

  He shrugs, heading for the front door. “We might need this. Trust me.”

  Not sure what that means, I let it go. Bennett could be carrying a dead body in that bag and it wouldn’t mean shit to me right now. All I want is to find my girl and bring her home.

  I need to get to her. Now.

  Bennett and I run out to the parking lot and we ride in silence as we speed to the NES offices.

  I have so many thoughts running through my head. I’ve just learned the identity of the man responsible for my wife’s death. And at some point, I’m going to have to deal with that. I’m going to have to grieve for Elle all over again, and I’m going to have to come to terms with the fact that the one thing I’ve been searching for the last seven years of my life has been found. I never thought far enough ahead to say what I’d possibly do when the investigation was finally closed.

  But now? Now I have something real and true to live for. Something I never thought I’d find again. And maybe I haven’t found it again. Maybe I’ve found it for the first time, because, what I’m finally accepting, is that what I have with Olive is completely different from what I had with Elle.

  Once we pull up to the NES offices Bennett’s quiet as I use my hand to open the front door, and he mutely takes in the surroundings of the office as we head straight for the conference room.

  When we walk in, everyone is already assembled. I look to Grisham. “You get it?”

  “I did. Tracker is on Oakes’s car, and as soon as he stops driving we’ll have a location.”

  Jeremy speaks up. “I’m sorry, man. As soon as we realized she’d left, I went after her. I called the guys, and they told me what had happened.”

  I shake my head. “Not your fault. She’s stubborn as hell. Now I just want to bring her stubborn ass back home safe and sound. I need you all to help me do that.”

  Jacob speaks up. “You know we will. Almost every man at this table has been where you are right now, and it’s always come out in our favor. That won’t change tonight.”

  I nod, thankful and ready to go after her. “Thanks.”

  Jeremy points to the screen situated in front of Sayward. “See this blip on Viper’s screen?”

  Sayward stiffens at the nickname, but then she relaxes and a tiny smile curves her lips upward. Then her eyes stray to Bennett, and
they stay there.

  “Oh, shit. Sorry, man. Everyone, this is Bennett Blacke. The guy I told you about. Bennett, this is the team. Can we do intros later?”

  Bennett gives the room a lift of his chin, pulling his bag up higher on his shoulder.

  Jeremy glances at it. “What you got in there?”

  Bennett’s lips twitch. “Tools.”

  I lean in, looking more closely at Sayward’s laptop. “That the tracker?”

  Jeremy nods. “Yeah. Real tiny, I just got them in last week. Ghost stuck it to the bottom of his muffler, the asshole will never be the wiser.”

  Sayward speaks up, finally bringing her eyes back to the screen. “He keeps making all of these roundabout turns, going in circles sometimes. I think he thinks you’re following him.” She snorts.

  “Then he thinks I’m a fucking amateur.” I watch the blip on the screen.

  “What’s the plan when he stops?” Dare asks seriously. He looks to Grisham and Jacob, but I speak up.

  “Then Viper tells me the location, and I go get her.” The decision has already been made in my head, the plan already final.

  Both Ghost and Boss Man shake their heads simultaneously.

  “Hell, no,” Grisham says. “This is Olive, and her life is on the line. Do you really want to just run in there half-cocked?”

  “Ronin.” Jacob’s voice is commanding, and I’d usually listen when he speaks, but this isn’t the woman he loves. She’s mine, and I know what I’m capable of. I go to refute Jacob but he says, “There will be a plan. You will follow it. Now listen to what Grisham has to say.”

  Every eye in the room turns to Grisham. Bennett relaxes against a wall, watching this all go down. Deep down, I know that when it comes down to it, he’ll have my back. He’s not a member of this team, and his loyalty lies with me.

  “Talk. But when that beeping stops, I’m out.”