I felt like an idiot. He was right. My belief that there was good in everyone had led me to the position I was in right now. And what about Tony and his company? What would they risk to get me out of here when they found out that I was being held hostage?
“You see, I know that Tony is in love with you. I watched him come to the realization that he wanted you. I followed you both out to your parents’ house. There is nothing that man won’t do for you, and I’m counting on him to help get my brother out of the situation he’s in right now. And if he really loves you, he’s going to do what I say.”
I was terrified of what would happen when Tony showed up. Deep down I knew that he could take these two with no problem, but that didn’t stop me from worrying about him. He was my whole world and if anything happened to him and it was my fault, I didn’t think I could ever forgive myself. I just had to pray that Tony was prepared for whatever he walked in on.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Tony
We were just pulling in from our job when my phone rang. It was Cap, probably calling to check up on us since it was our first job since we’d been cleared.
“We’re fine, Cap.” I made sure to put a good amount of irritation in my voice just to piss him off.
“Rogers escaped.”
“What did you say?” I couldn’t have heard him right.
“They don’t know how, but he escaped right before transport. No one knows where to look for him.”
My heart thudded loudly in my chest. I knew exactly where to look for him. I wasn’t certain, but it would make sense. “Where’s Molly?”
“Why?”
“Where the fuck is Molly?” I asked urgently.
“She’s at her apartment, I think. She said something about packing this morning.”
“Go to Molly’s now!” I shouted at Coop.
“Why?”
“Rogers is out.”
He spun the truck in the other direction and headed for Molly’s place.
“Why the fuck are we going to Molly’s?” Storm asked.
“Because he knows I’m with her.”
“But why-”
“He had audio from her apartment. I hadn’t thought about it after the trial because she was staying with me. But the defense attorney knew shit from a conversation I had with Molly in her apartment. He must have tapped the place.”
“Okay, just calm down,” Storm said. “You don’t know that he’ll go after her. There’s no way he could even know that she’ll be there.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? He’s going to want revenge and Molly’s the only vulnerable one. Everyone else is locked up at Reed Security!”
“That still doesn’t mean that he’s there,” Storm said calmly. I glanced at Coop who wore the same scared expression that I did. I couldn’t calm down if I wanted to. If he was there with Molly, she was in serious danger, and I couldn’t handle walking in on what I had with Delaney and Becky. There was no way I would survive seeing Molly on the ground like that.
He pulled into her parking lot just minutes later and I jumped out of the truck.
“Hold on,” Storm said, running up to me and grabbing my arm. “We need a fucking plan.”
“My plan is to go in there and kill the fucker.”
“And what if he has Molly by the throat? What the fuck are you gonna do then?”
“Look, I can stand down here and plan all I want, but in the end, I won’t know a damn thing until I get up there. I’m armed, probably way more than he is. And I’m fucking trained. I’m not worried about it.”
I took off for the building, running up the stairs. I was about to break down the door when Coop grabbed onto my arm. “Look, I know you want this guy, but I have as much at stake in this as you.”
“Becky’s still alive,” I hissed, jerking my arm out of his grip. “He killed Delaney and now he’s got Molly. You really want to fight me on this?”
I knew that he did, but he nodded and stepped back, allowing me to approach the door on my own. I took a deep breath and pulled my gun as I headed for her door.
I raised my fist to knock, but then thought better of it. If I was doing this, I was going full on RED on this guy’s ass. I turned to Coop and smirked. He shook his head, his eyes slipping closed. I raised my foot and booted in the door. It flew inward, banging off the wall as I entered with my gun raised. There was a man holding Molly from behind with a knife to her neck, but the fucker was stupid enough to leave his head wide open. I took the shot, hitting him directly between the eyes just as I felt a rush of air from behind. I spun and grabbed Rogers’ wrist as he thrust a knife at me. Thrusting his wrist backwards, I felt the satisfying snap of bone and watched his eyes go wide with fear.
“I imagine this is how Delaney felt when you went after her,” I growled. “How does it feel to know that you’re about to die?”
He didn’t get a chance to say anything as I directed the knife toward his chest and plunged it in deep. The shock of pain covered his face, but he didn’t make a noise. I yanked it out and slammed it back into his chest again, this time getting a moan of pain. His knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground. I yanked the knife out and went after him again, slamming the knife down repeatedly in his chest until the blood drained from his face and all that was left was a gurgle of blood in his throat.
I left the knife embedded in his chest and took a step back, heaving slightly as I looked down at the fucker. Relief washed over me and I imagined that Delaney was finally at peace. A body crashed into me from behind and arms wrapped around me, squeezing me tight.
“I knew you could take him,” Molly whispered.
“Now that’s RED,” Storm said as he walked through the door and assessed the situation.
“I told you fuckers I could go RED.”
Coop stepped in and let out a low whistle. “Damn, I’m not sure you got him. You want to try again?”
I turned away from the fucker on the floor and took in Molly’s face for the first time since I barged into her apartment. Half her face was swollen and she had dried blood on her face, but other than that, she looked okay.
“Are you okay?”
“I have a little bit of a headache, but I’m okay.”
I rested my forehead against hers and let out a sigh of relief. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. He came after me because I was stupid.”
I pulled back and looked at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
She gestured to the man on the floor who had been holding her. “That’s Matt. He’s Ben’s brother. He was watching you all ever since his brother was arrested. When you came home with me, he started following me around, watching us together. He knew that I was a sucker for a good cause and used that against me. He planted bugs in my apartment that night I brought him here to stay. This is-”
“Don’t,” I said fiercely. “Don’t ever apologize for being the way you are. It’s one of the things I love about you. I mean, we’re going to have a serious discussion about who you let around you, but I still love you just the way you are.”
I kissed her lightly, not wanting to hurt her already busted lip. I heard the sirens in the background and stepped back to take care of business. Sean was the first one up the stairs and when he stepped inside, his shoulders slumped.
“You know, just once I would like to beat one of you to the scene so that I can see some action.” He nodded to the two men on the floor. “So, how’d it go down?”
“I killed them,” I said, taking all the blame. “That fucker had Molly by the throat,” I gestured to Matt.
“And this one?” Sean asked, shoving the toe of his boot against the corpse.
“It was self-defense.”
Sean bent forward and examined the body. “You stabbed him like twenty times.”
“He was very aggressive,” I stated frankly.
He looked at me and then back down at the fucker on the floor, then back to me. “You d
on’t have a single mark on you.”
I looked to Coop and he shrugged, letting his fist fly into my face. My head snapped to the side and I rubbed where Coop’s sledgehammer of a fist had just hit. That fucking hurt. I turned back to Sean. “Like I said, it was self-defense.”
Sean sighed and ran his hand over his beard. “You’re going to have to be a little more convincing when you give your statement.”
“I’m sure I can come up with something.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Molly and Tony
Molly
“Alright,” Susan smiled as she placed her apron around her waist in my new house. She was giving me cooking lessons and today was my first lesson. I figured that if I was going to be a proper wife to Tony, I needed to learn to take care of him properly. For some reason, everyone around here thought that I was just one meal away from putting him in an early grave.
“That’s really great,” Susan smiled at me as I put the finishing touches on my meal. I was pretty pleased with myself and all the hard work I had put into this lesson, and Susan was a great teacher, always patient with me.
“Thank you so much for doing this, Susan. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the help.”
“Well, I’m just happy that someone wants me to teach them. It seems that everyone around here already knows how to cook.”
“Except me,” I laughed.
“You’ll see. This meal will turn that all around.”
“I hope so. I want Tony to have a really good meal tonight, especially when I tell him the good news,” I said, rubbing my hand over my belly.
“You two really didn’t wait long.”
“Well, when you know, you know,” I shrugged. “Besides, it was pretty much inevitable.”
“So, how are you going to tell him?”
“Ooh,” I said excitedly, clapping my hands together. “I got him this really great present. He’s going to be so surprised when he sees it. It’s a picture of him helping to deliver Maggie’s babies on the side of the road. Apparently, Cap took some photos and got one of Tony helping to deliver one of them. He told me that would be the perfect way to tell Tony what was coming. He said that it was a really special moment for Tony, so I had it framed and I’m giving it to him tonight. Although, I have to say, it kind of felt like I wasn’t in on what was really going on. Do you know anything about that?”
“No,” Susan shook her head. “But I doubt it was anything bad. I’m sure Sebastian had the best of intentions in giving you that photo.”
“I sure hope so.”
The timer dinged and I jumped off my stool, excited to pull out my creation. Tony would be home any moment and then I could finally tell him what I had known since yesterday. It was going to be so magical.
✯✯✯✯✯
Tony
“I still think you should have stayed in the bunker,” Storm grumbled, helping me haul the last of my boxes into the bed of my truck.
“Believe me, I wanted to, but I couldn’t just come out and say that I wanted to stay there so I didn’t have to eat her cooking. She would have been devastated.”
“You know, you’re way too fucking nice. That’s what got you into this mess in the first place.”
“Actually, you got me into this mess,” I reminded him. “Everyone just had to play a joke on me, and make me the punching bag of the group.”
“Yeah, but you turned out to be such a good punching bag.”
“You know, I think I should at least get to keep the nickname TNT. That name was fucking awesome.”
“Yeah, but it would always mean something else.”
“Doesn’t matter. I was a fucking rockstar for a short time.”
“For one day,” he reminded me. “Not even a whole day actually.”
“Whatever. I felt like I was on fire.”
“Look, it doesn’t really matter. Coop was right. TNT is just too long to say.”
“You know, that doesn’t even make any sense. It’s just three letters.”
“Yeah, but it’s the number of syllables you have to say. T-N-T. Tacos. See? It’s so much shorter.”
I stared at him, completely dumbfounded that he was coming up with such a stupid fucking reason not to call me TNT.
“Hey, I’m just saying…”
“Whatever.” I slammed the tailgate and got into the front of my truck, driving over to my new house on the east side of the property. Rocco and Brooke were my neighbors, but we were still far enough apart that I didn’t have to actually interact with anyone if I didn’t want to. Plus, they had that crazy fucking house that shot at me, so I wasn’t really interested in being any closer to them.
I grabbed a box out of the back of the truck and walked toward the front door, swinging it open and instantly smelling what could only be described as the worst fucking smell I’d ever encountered.
“Honey, I’m home,” I said jokingly. I set down the box in the entryway and walked through the house until I reached the kitchen. Susan was standing next to Molly with a fake grin plastered on her face.
“Molly made you dinner,” Susan smiled.
“Yeah, I can smell that,” I grimaced, making sure to turn that frown upside down as soon as Molly looked my way. “What’d you make, Molls?”
“Shepherd’s Pie,” she said excitedly. “Are you ready to taste it?”
I nodded, but caught the wide-eyed look and slight shake of Susan’s head, warning me against eating the food.
“Uh…yeah, let’s dig in.”
“Oh! Before we do, I have a present for you.”
“Oh yeah?” At this point, I would take anything to get me out of eating this meal. “What’d you get me, baby?”
She pulled a rectangular present out from behind the counter and handed it over to me. I tore into it, excited to see what she had gotten me. But what I didn’t expect to see was a picture of me helping to deliver Maggie’s kids. I paled just thinking back to what happened that day. There was no way I needed the reminder of what happened. And this picture was everything I wanted to forget, not that it captured what actually happened, but it was pretty fucking close.
“Why would you give me this?” I asked, feeling like I was about to pass out. I gripped onto the counter to steady myself. Sweat was already dripping down my face and my vision was starting to tunnel.
“Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to have a baby!”
I slowly looked up at her, shaking my head slightly. I heard her. I knew what she was saying, but there was only one thing I could focus on right now. There was only one way she could have gotten this picture, and that was from Cap. He was fucking with me, just like he had with those fucking cookies that he asked Molly to make for me. It barely registered that I was going to be a father. All I could think about was that fucking truck on the side of the road and all the shit that I had seen and done that day. And Cap had just ruined my good news, fucking with me in any way he could.
I tossed the picture down and stormed for the door. Cap was about to have his ass beat, and I was pretty sure that I could get Sinner to join in on it with me when I told him that Cap had taken pictures. I would beat his ass and then I would come back here and celebrate my little peanut that I had created with Molly.
“Tony!” Molly shouted. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going RED.”
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For The Love Of A Good Woman Series:
Jack: A romantic comedy
Cole: A romantic thriller
Logan: A revenge novel
Drew: A new beginnings romance
Sebastian: A mystery/thriller romance
Sean: A Love Triangle Romance
Ryan: A Contemporary Romance
The Reed Security Series:
Sinner: A Reed Security Romance
Cap: A Reed Security Romance
Cazzo: A Reed Security Romance
Knight: A Reed Security Romance
Irish: A Reed Security Romance
Hunter: A Reed Security Romance
Whiskey: A Reed Security Romance
Lola: A Reed Security Romance
Ice: A Reed Security Romance
Burg: A Reed Security Romance
Gabe: A Reed Security Romance
Jules: A Reed Security Romance
Sniper: A Reed Security Romance
Jackson: A Reed Security Romance
Chance: A Reed Security Romance
Phoenix Rising: A Reed Security Novel
Alec: A Reed Security Romance
Storm: A Reed Security Romance
Wolf: A Reed Security Romance
A Mad Reed Security Christmas
Rocco: A Reed Security Romance
Coop: A Reed Security Romance
TNT: A Reed Security Romance
Nightingale: A Reed Security Romance June, 2020
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TNT Page 31
