The pickup guy was dead, they ‘found’ his body, and they were in a public place.
They had to get out of there.
This had gone beyond bad, and they couldn’t get caught there.
“Let’s go,” Rogue said, pulling a baseball cap out of his back pocket to cover his hair and face. With that, they headed out of the crowded park and to their car.
Once inside, they had nothing.
“I hope we get something from Cobb.”
“We’re going to have to torture him. Do you have the stomach for that?” Rogue asked.
Did Dakota?
He wasn’t sure.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Yeah, and that didn’t sound like it was going to be a good time, either.
* * * H U N T E R * * *
When he got her out of the bathroom, she was clinging to him like her life depended on it. To Stella, it probably did. It wasn’t like Zayn was going to complain.
If a sexy woman wanted to sit in his lap and share his space, he wasn’t going to say no.
He wasn’t an idiot.
All his life, he’d stood out as the brick shithouse, and maybe now it was finally paying off. Stella appeared to be grateful he was so big.
“You’re safe,” he offered as she stayed against him.
“I feel safe. It’s the first time in weeks. Are you a cop?” she asked softly.
He began laughing.
Stella stared up at him as she brushed some of the ebony hair from her face. “What’s funny?”
“I’m far from the law, Miss Harrington. I’m normally not the good guy.”
He hated to see that unflappable faith in him shattered, but he wasn’t the hero. He was totally the villain in every other story. Only now, he wished he could lie and pretend.
He’d killed one man today, and later, he’d be handling the other. Yeah, he was the antithesis of a cop.
“Then what are you?” she asked, staring up at him.
“I was a soldier,” he stated. “I was a Marine for so many years, but then I decided that being a soldier wasn’t…worthy…of my skills. I went private.”
“Like a…?”
“Mercenary. You can say the word. That’s what I do. I’m a gun for hire. I get a job, I do it, and then I’m done.”
She stared at him. “I see.”
Stella actually moved off his lap.
His heart ached. This was the problem with what he was. There was never going to be a single person who was proud of it. He was a killer, lawless, and the bad guy.
He clenched his fingers into balled fists as he fought through that pain of rejection.
“I’m sorry I was all clingy. This is just the job,” she said, moving to the other side of the couch. “You’re being nice because I’m sure my father is compensating you.”
He heard it in her voice.
There was that hurt.
Only, he didn’t understand it. He was nothing to her. Why did she care?
“He’s not paying us.”
Stella stared at him, braiding her long black hair as she tried to get the knots out of it.
“Then, why do it?”
“When I was a teenager, my sister was abducted and murdered. I’m looking for her killer.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. That had to be incredibly painful for you and your family.”
“She was all I had left, so, yeah, it sucked.”
Stella tucked her long pale legs under the shirt.
“Mercedes is my only sister. We aren’t really close. She’s my half-sister. Do you know who killed her?” she asked about his own sister.
He wished he was chasing rumors.
“All I know is she got involved with some asshole named Chesky Jensen. The man who was watching you helped him. She was lured away by Cobb. I promised to help your father in order to get some assistance from the government on her murder.”
She didn’t speak.
“I’m trying to get her justice.”
“What was her name?” she finally asked.
“Adsilla. It’s Cherokee for blossom.”
“It’s a really pretty name. I’m sorry for your loss. I imagine it was horrible.”
He could tell she was blocking him out, and he hated it. For once in his life, he’d felt good about something he’d done, and he’d made her push him away.
“It was. She was a beautiful soul.”
“So when you’re done, you’re out of here?”
He stared at her. “Yes.”
“Can I take a shower and get to bed? I’m not feeling so well,” she whispered. It was stupid to find herself attached to the man, but he’d saved her. He’d given her the shirt off his back and made her feel safe. Now he was pretty much telling her she was nothing more than one more mercenary job.
Stella wanted to escape.
Again.
“Sure. I can take you up.”
“It’s okay. I can find it. I wouldn’t want to put you out. You’ve already gone above and beyond the job.”
It hung there between them.
“Stella.”
She didn’t look at him.
She couldn’t.
“I’ll be fine.”
With that, she headed up the stairs and away from him. Zayn listened to the shower upstairs kick on, and he started pacing back and forth.
When Dakota came in with Rogue behind him, he was in a rage.
“Uh, are you going to blow?” Dakota asked.
“YES.”
He walked toward a wall and put his fist clear through the plaster and out the other side.
Then he growled and began pacing.
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say something pissed you off?” Rogue asked.
“My life pissed me off. My choices pissed me off! This job has me pissed off!”
He put a second hole through the wall beside that one and then went back to pacing.
“I hope the government didn’t want their money back on this place,” Dakota stated. “I hope the Blackhawks have insurance.”
“I told her I was a mercenary and now she thinks I’m being paid to watch her.”
Both men stared at each other.
This was bad.
Zayn was a powder keg waiting to go off, and it appeared over a woman he’d just met.
Um…unstable came to mind.
Dakota needed to get this under control, but how?
“For once, I don’t want one person to look at me like I’m a killer! Is that so damn hard?”
“You are a killer,” Rogue stated.
Zayn grabbed him by the jacket and lifted him off his feet like he was weightless.
“Okay, down! Stop manhandling the team. We didn’t do anything, and he’s right. You just killed someone before. He was pointing out a fact.”
Zayn dropped him.
“Jesus! Someone has temper management issues,” Rogue said.
Dakota pointed at him. “You should talk.”
He had a point.
“I’ll take another shot at this,” Rogue said, opening his mouth.
Dakota pointed at him. “He will kill you.”
“I’m just going to say it appears he likes the girl. That’s all. He’s all stirred up and after only meeting her.”
Zayn growled.
Both men stepped back.
Dakota raised his hands in surrender. “We didn’t do this. We have our own mess.”
It seemed to calm Zayn down. “What?”
“The kidnappers killed the homeless guy, who picked up the bags, and he was our only witness as to who hired him.”
He saw the frustration in them.
“Well, then I guess that means one thing,” he began.
“What?” Dakota asked.
“It’s a good thing we have Cobb downstairs. We have some intel to get.”
Dakota pointed at him. “Don’t kill him! We need him.”
He cracked his knuckles and grinned.
“Then I better not go first.”
Dakota sighed.
What the hell had become of his life?
* * * H U N T E R * * *
She stood in the shower located on the fifth floor of the very old, luxurious building. Stella was accustomed to wealth, but she liked this place better than her own home.
It had a soul.
She could feel it as she entered the room.
Now that she was washing her hair with the shampoo she’d found in there, her mood was improving. It was someone’s private bathroom, but she didn’t know whose.
She’d headed up and kept going to put space between her and the man who saved her. Stella knew she shouldn’t be upset, so she wrote it off as the whole abduction thing.
Outside the shower, she wasn’t alone.
Odin was lounging.
After stripping out of his shirt, she’d grabbed the razor on the counter and shaved her legs and armpits. It felt nice to be clean. While her captor allowed her to bathe, he always watched her lecherously, and it made her ill.
At least here, she felt semi safe.
Then she laughed.
Yeah, with the mercenaries.
Her life was totally screwed up. How was she ever going to go back to medical school and do her rotation? She was scared of everything.
Everyone.
As she finished washing her body, she began crying in the shower.
Nothing would be the same.
She knew it.
After what had happened, she couldn’t be that perfect child, that smart doctor, and that ideal woman.
She’d been broken inside.
Battered.
Bruised.
And she didn’t know what to do.
It looked like her emotional roller coaster was far from over for the night.
She should be ashamed of herself.
Stella was stronger than this.
After she finished crying, she dried herself off and pulled his shirt back onto her body. The scent made her heart ache.
What had she expected?
Some fairy tale?
So?
He saved her.
No big deal.
He’d get his intel on his sister and be gone. All her life, she’d waited to get that feeling when she saw that one person, and of course it had to happen with him.
Her salvation.
The hired man.
The second she opened her eyes and saw him, she felt that attachment to him. There was something about the large Native man that made her heart skip.
It was crazy.
She was crazy.
Stella wiped her eyes, trying not to think about his silky black hair and how it felt to hide beneath it and against his body. She tried not to think about the way he cradled her effortlessly against him.
He was a giant.
And he’d felt safe.
Until…until she became only the job.
It seemed that he was definitely good at it. Stella had been a fool to believe his kindness was anything more than him doing the job.
She was an idiot.
A silly girl.
And now she’d have to pretend she didn’t find him amazing, sexy, and alluring.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
She’d fallen for Zayn when he saved her once, and now there wouldn’t be a second chance.
She was out of luck.
Again.
* * * H U N T E R * * *
He’d heard about them finding her. Well, that wasn’t going to work for him. He had to get her back. That loser Cobb had fucked this up, and again, he was going to fix it.
When she’d called her father, he’d heard about it through the door.
He’d heard her tell him all about it.
Well, fortunately for them, he knew where to find them. The one led him there after he left the house with the money. So, now it was all about taking her.
He’d kill whoever, and then he’d get this plan back on track. The other two were safely tucked away, earning him money. Now he was going to get the one who was the old man’s favorite.
Oh, Danforth was going to pay.
With his rich daughter’s life.
Chapter Seven
Saturday
Eleven PM
T hey worked him hard. First, Dakota tried the legal approach that he’d used as a US Marshal. He’d even used a little of the Elizabeth Blackhawk method of working an interrogation room.
Nada.
The man refused to break.
So, Dakota had little choice. He tagged out when the man wouldn’t even speak to him.
When he passed him off to Rogue, there was no luck there either. The suave man used his gift of gab to try and get intel, but that wasn’t working either.
Finally, Zayn had enough.
When Zayn headed in, there was screaming, begging, and some colorful language as someone’s ‘nuts were put in a vice’.
Dakota hoped that was a euphemism for something totally different than the actual picture in his head.
If not…
When Zayn came out, he had blood on his hands, and it was clear that it wasn’t his.
“What?” he asked.
“Is that his blood?” Dakota asked.
“I told him I would peel his dick like a banana, so I kinda had to follow through. If you don’t, what kind of message does that send to other assholes?”
They both stared at him.
“Did you really…?”
“Yep.”
“Uh, is that why he was screaming?” Dakota asked.
“Well, actually, no. This is from when he got a nosebleed. I was holding him upside down over a bucket of water. It’s my version of waterboarding, and I get to work my upper body.”
They stared at him.
It made him laugh.
“If you’re interested, we got a name. It seems that there’s a plant on his security team. Logan Best is his name, and spying for Austin Sharp is his game. So, there is another lead for tomorrow.”
Dakota was impressed.
“We’ll drop Cobb off at the police station with a note for Ethan Blackhawk.”
Zayn shook his head. “Um…no can do.”
“Why?”
“Well, after the whole banana thing, he was slippery. Would you believe he slipped out of my hands as he was hanging upside down and I ‘accidentally’ drowned him in the bucket?”
Rogue began laughing.
“What?” Rogue asked when Dakota was staring at him. “He told you he had to go last for a reason. I hope you didn’t think the big guy was kidding.”
“I say what I mean and I mean what I say.”
Dakota sighed.
Good to know.
“Well, we have to dump him in the river. We can’t have him coming back to us. It’s a good thing the Mississippi is two blocks away.”
He couldn’t believe he was saying any of this. Clearly, chasing Bonnie had warped his sense of justice.
“Tomorrow, we’ll have to find Austin Sharp and Logan Best. Once we get to them, we’ll start pulling the security team apart.”
Dakota had to put this out there. He shouldn’t have to, but considering the two men that he was working with…
Yeah, it was better to say it so they were all on the same page.
“We can’t kill everyone you interview in this investigation.”
Rogue raised his hands and laughed. “Wrong Indian to direct that one at.”
They both stared at Zayn.
“You’re sending mixed signals. You told me to get information. That’s how we worked in the Marines. Blame the government on my training.”
He was about to argue that when there was a blood-curdling scream from upstairs and then barking.
“Stella!” Zayn said, racing toward the stairs.
Everyone followed.
Something bad was going down.
* * * H U N T E R * * *
Upstairs in the room, she’d
sent Odin out in the hall and cuddled up in the mass of bedding before she closed her eyes. It had been weeks of being afraid to sleep, only because if she closed her eyes, he’d come into that cell and try to touch her.
Now she could sleep without that fear. All she could hope was the nightmares didn’t come. As she began slipping into sleep, she could hear talking downstairs.
It lulled her.
There were mercenaries to protect her and a wolf outside the door.
She was safe.
As she gave up the struggle against staying awake, she didn’t hear the window in the bathroom sliding open, or when he landed on the tile floor in the bathroom.
What alerted her was a soft beep.
It sounded like a phone.
When she opened her eyes, there was someone in the room with her. Immediately, she tried to move away from him and the knife in his hand.
She screamed and kept screaming until she could get free of the blankets. As soon as she did, he tried to pull her toward the window.
Stella fought with everything she had, getting cut in the process. Her arm was too slippery for him to hold onto her.
He let her go as he heard the footfalls heading toward the room.
“STELLA!” Zayn said, booting in the locked door. He was in time to see a man trying to get out the window. He went for him, as he slipped away into the tree that was in their courtyard.
“He tried to take me,” she sobbed as Rogue knelt beside her.
“It’s okay. We’re here. Odin, find!” Dakota said, pointing at the door. The dog immediately ran to the main floor.
“Shhhh, it’s okay,” Rogue said, trying to lift the sleeve of the shirt she was swimming in.
She wouldn’t let him touch her.
He got it.
They were strangers to her.
Zayn nearly went nuclear all over again. Someone put their hands on her. He dropped to his knees and she scrambled into his body.
“I’m not safe. Oh God! I’m not safe.”
He held her.
Dakota pointed at Rogue. “We’re going to track him. Let’s go. Zayn will hold down the fort.”
Atonement: The Hunter Mercenary Series (Book One) Page 10
