Love Lies Beneath_Barefoot Bay

by Jen Talty

  Mitched hit the number and waited two rings.

  “Hello, Marcus.”

  Mitch reached for the wall, bracing himself so he didn’t collapse to his knees. His mother’s voice entered his body, sending terror through his veins. He’d never been afraid of much.

  But he feared her.

  “Mother,” he said, grabbing Riggs’s arm so he wouldn’t take off and barge into Ashley’s room.

  “You disappoint me, son. Soft, just like your father was.”

  Mitch didn’t remember his dad since he’d been killed when Mitch was only two years old in some drug deal gone bad.

  “I’ve been a disappointment from the moment I was born,” he said, holding Riggs’s biceps tight, shaking his head. “I want to talk to Ashley.”

  “She’s fine, for now,” his mother said in that sing-song voice she used to mock him as a child. She’d never been a loving woman. The stories she told him at bedtime were about how to run a drug cartel, or how to kill someone with their bare hands. To this day, it amazed Mitch he hadn’t been traumatized by his childhood. “But I can’t promise she’ll remain that way.”

  “It’s not her you want, it’s me, and I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

  “That’s a good boy, coming running to your mama.”

  The phone went dead.

  “I’m not sitting on the sidelines.” Riggs yanked his arm free. “That’s my daughter that lunatic is holding hostage.”

  “I know, but I need you out here, devising some kind of plan while I’m in there making sure she doesn’t touch Ashley. I promise you, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure nothing happens to her.”

  “I can’t let you go in alone.”

  “You have to, and you know it.” Mitch stared Riggs down. He hated talking to an officer that outranked him in such a tone. “She wouldn’t have come alone. She’ll have more men on the premises. I need you to find them and take them out.”

  “I can do that.”

  “My mother will kill you the second you step into that room, and that isn’t going to help us. My mother likes to talk a lot, let me keep her distracted, and I’ll find a way to get Ashely out if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “I’ll call the director,” Riggs said with moist eyes. “Be smart. If you don’t come out alive, I’ll have to deal with a daughter with a broken heart. I don’t want to do that.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Mitch stuffed his phone in his back pocket. Sucking in a deep breath, he headed down the hallway, key to Ashley’s room in hand. His pulse beat out of control as adrenaline pumped into his blood stream. Missions weren’t supposed to be personal, making it easier to his job.

  This would be the hardest mission of his life.

  He swiped the card and pushed back the door. For a second the room spun when his eyes caught a glimpse of Ashley bound on the bed, her face pale and her eyes wide with a combination of rage and horror.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, ignoring the woman sitting on the chair with her feet up on the bed waving a gun in his direction.

  “Define okay,” Ashley said behind a tight lip.

  “Spunky one,” his mother said. “I think she’s out of your league.”

  “Way out of it,” he said, stepping into the room, his hands on his hips. “You look well, Mother.”

  “You really think it’s a good idea to antagonize me by calling me that? You know how much I hate it.”

  “I’d rather not call you at all but seems someone told you I didn’t die that day.” He cocked his head. “How long have you known?”

  “Imagine my surprise when I get an anonymous package yesterday with all sorts of information on one Mitchell Harrison, Navy SEAL.” She shook her head. “At first, I was impressed. I mean, my son, a hero for his country.”

  “Who sent it?” Mitch asked as a red laser beamed through the window, landing dead center on Ashley.

  His mother smiled. “You thought I’d come alone?”

  “I know you better than that,” he said. He focused on the angle of the light. The roof. Exactly a place he’d put a man.

  Riggs, and whatever team he could assemble, would be able to take him out. Now, the question was how many more and where, exactly.

  “I want to know who gave me up,” he said, glaring at the woman who gave birth to him, though he often wondered if blood actually flowed through her body.

  “Why is it so important to you?”

  “Because after I make sure you’re hauled off in handcuffs, I’m going to—”

  His mother laughed that same sinister laugh that haunted his dreams. A lot of servicemen’s nightmares were mirages of what happened in the field. But not Mitch’s. Late at night, when he let his guard down, his mother visited his mind, reminding him she’d always have a hold over him.

  “I avoided cuffs the first time you tried to set me up.”

  She was the master of deflection, and he wasn’t going to feed into her game. “Tell me who informed you I was still alive.”

  “Derek, if you must know.”

  “Mother fucker,” Ashley muttered, her gaze narrowing as she stared at Mitch, her eyes filled with the kind of wrath that made even the strongest of men shake. “I’m going to kill him myself.”

  “Really?” his mother mused. “This I’d like to see. Perhaps I misjudged your girlfriend.”

  “I wouldn’t underestimate her,” Mitch said, controlling his breathing, making sure to keep it even, holding his pulse at a certain range. “Or me.”

  His mother frowned. “I did that once, and I had to make sure the bullets tore through your flesh, not mine.”

  Mitch inched forward, sitting on the edge of the bed, resting his hand on Ashley’s foot. His mother seemed amused by the gesture.

  “Tell me, Mother, when did you find out I’d been informing the FBI of your dealings?”

  “Three days before the raid. When I found out, for a second, I was shocked. How could my boy betray his own mother? But my real mistake was thinking I could make you into a real man.” His mother dropped her feet and shifted to the bed, the gun in her hand touching Ashley’s leg. The red dot was still on the center of her chest.

  “You think a man is someone who has no heart. Someone who is willing to kill because they are told, no other reason.”

  “Isn’t that what you turned out to be? A trained killer for our government, only you get to ride your high horse, believing what you do is for the greater good.”

  He winced as his mother ran the gun up and down Ashley’s leg. He made eye contact, wishing he could convey everything would be alright.

  “Let her go, and I’ll come home.”

  His mother leaned back on the bed, raising the gun to Ashley’s temple.

  “Home? You think I want you to come back to me? Silly boy. You’re as dead to me as when I thought I buried you. I just want you to suffer.”

  “Take me home, make me work for you, then you could watch me suffer every day.”

  “I might do that, after I kill this one. You’re quite smitten with her.”

  “Not really,” he said, swallowing the lie raising up in his throat. “Short fling between deployments.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the laser had disappeared for a second, but then reappeared.

  “How do you feel about what he just said, Ashley?”

  “Fine. It was a mutual arrangement, and now that you’ve enlightened me on who he really is, I’d say the fling just ended.”

  His mother raised a brow. “Feisty girl. I like that.”

  Slowly, the red dot moved from Ashley’s chest to her arm.

  Taking a chance that was some kind of signal that the man on the roof had been taken out by one of the good guys, he stood, making sure he covered the window with his body. He held his breath, waiting for shattered glass, but nothing.

  The cavalry must have arrived.

  “Are you trying to get yourself shot? Because that won’t save your girlfriend.” His mother
slipped from the bed. Her gun no longer pointed at Ashley, but at the ceiling.

  Mistake number two.

  The first was thinking he’d ever let her fuck with him again.

  He turned to face his mother, hoping she’d stand directly in front of him. He towered over her five-foot-nine frame. Something that surprised him as he remembered her being larger than life. He’d been seventeen the last time he’d seen her and not fully a man, but now he could reach out and snap her neck in seconds.

  He played out the vision in his head like a movie in slow motion.

  “I should thank you for one thing,” he said, shifting his stance. If his calculations were correct, if the bullet passed through his mother’s body, it could hit Ashley in the leg. Not a great option, but better than either one of them getting killed.

  “And what’s that?”

  “The ability to use another person as a human shield.” He jumped two feet to his right and three seconds later, the glass shattered, and a bullet tore through his mother’s shoulder, tossing the gun to the floor.

  “Fucking ungrateful little shit,” his mother said, crawling on the floor, reaching for the gun with her good arm, but he stepped on her hand.

  He kicked the gun away and pushed his mother to her back, straddling her body. “I’m going to enjoy watching the life slowly fade in your eyes.” He took both his hands and wrapped them around his mother’s neck, squeezing slowly.

  She grabbed his forearms, struggling under his weight.

  When he increased the pressure, she gagged.

  “Do it,” she whispered. “Be the man I raised you to be and kill me. Right here. Right now. In cold blood.” She smiled. “Do it, Marcus. I know you’re capable.”

  His vision blurred. Every muscle tensed with the pain of his childhood. All the shame and anger that came with being Renee Nuniez’s son.

  “Mitch, stop,” Ashley’s voice rang soft and sweet, reminding him who he really was.

  He leaned forward. “You’re not worth it,” he whispered, releasing his grip just as Riggs stormed through the door with three other men, all pointing guns and yelling.

  Mitch pushed back, letting one of the men in suits, who indicated he was FBI, deal with his mother.

  The next few moments ticked by in slow motion. He heard the agent read his mother her rights. He watched Ashley’s father carefully cut off her restraints and hold her in a tender hug. It was like he stepped out of himself and observed from a distance, like he wasn’t even there.

  He slipped into the hallway and leaned against the wall, rubbing his temples. The world was going to know he was actually Marcus Nuniez, not Mitch Harrison. Just like when he was a teenager, everyone would look at him differently. People would once again fear him, instead of respect him. If recognized in public, women would cross the street and men would stare him down, mentally killing him on the spot.

  He’d lived that life for seventeen years.

  “Mitch?” a man in a dark suit with a pen and paper asked.

  “Yes,” he answered, though he thought about correcting him, saying his name was Marcus. God, he hated that name. Made him sick to his stomach just to think it.

  “We need to get your official statement.”

  “Al right.” He glanced into the room. Ashley sat next to her father while another man in a suit spoke to her. His mother had been cuffed, but the medics had been called to deal with her shoulder wound.

  She glared at him. “Don’t you dare think this is over, Marcus.”

  “Fuck off, Mother,” he muttered, pushing from the wall. “Let’s go downstairs for my statement, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” the man said.

  Mitch followed him down the staircase, the burn in his knee reminding him he no longer had a place to hide. Being deployed had given him a sense of security.

  Now he needed to get out from under what he knew would be a public shit storm. He could see the headlines now: Marcus Nuniez alive and well.

  Maybe he could find work in the private sector, going on missions overseas, where no one knew him, or his mother.

  And far away from Ashley.

  Chapter 10

  ASHLEY WRAPPED HERSELF in the blanket her father offered in his room. She couldn’t stand being in the room where Mitch’s mother had spilled her blood on the carpet, ruining the intimate moments she’d shared with Mitch only an hour before.

  “Where is he?” she asked her father as she stared at her phone. Mitch hadn’t answered a single message since he stepped out to give his statement. She’d wanted to go to him right away, but her father needed to know she was okay too and since Mitch backed off a little, she figured he needed space.

  But it had been two hours, and Mitch was nowhere to be found.

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure he’ll be in touch soon,” her father said, handing her a cup of hot tea. “There might not be any love lost between him and his mom, but she was still his mother, and we have no idea the hell he lived in as a boy.”

  She shivered, imagining what being raised by a monster would have been like. The entire time she’d been held captive, she stared at Mitch. His face contorted with pain. His eyes gave way to the deep wounds his mother had left. It amazed Ashley that Mitch turned out to be such a kind and caring man. Even with fingers curled around his mother’s neck, she knew he’d never be able to kill her. In that moment, Ashley saw the young man wanting justice for everything that woman did to him

  And others.

  Mitch was everything a man should be, and she was too blind to see it from the beginning.

  She’d make up for it in the future.

  If he’d return her damned text.

  “I’m going to call him again,” she said.

  “It’s three in the morning.” Her father sat behind the desk, swiveling his chair, literally twirling his thumbs, like he always did when he was forced to be patient. Something her father didn’t do well.

  Neither did she. “Fine. I’ll text him.”

  Ashley: Please let me know you’re okay. I’m worried about you.

  This time a bubble appeared on her phone. Her heart fluttered. She wasn’t sure if she was excited he might respond or scared to death. The feelings she had for him were stronger than she expected. She wanted to lust after him, not care for him, but if she were being honest with herself, she’d started to care for him the first week he’d been under her care.

  Mitch: I’m okay.

  Ashley: Where are you?

  She tapped her finger on the back of the phone, waiting for his response.

  Nothing.

  Ashley: I need to see you.

  Now she sounded desperate.

  She let out a long breath, willing him to tell her his location. She closed her eyes. “Come on, Mitch.”

  “Why don’t you climb in bed and try to get some sleep,” he father said softly. “He’ll call you when he’s ready.”

  “He texted me he’s okay, but now he won’t tell me where he is, and I know him, Dad. Better than I thought. He feels alone. I saw that on his face when he walked out of the hotel room to give his statement. He needs to know he’s not alone.”

  Her father nodded. “Don’t push too hard.”

  “Now you sound like Mother.”

  “I married your mother because she’s smarter than me, so maybe some of it is rubbing off.”

  Ashley’s lips curved up in small smile, but at the same time her heart tumbled into a pit of hell. She’d had a loving childhood, one filled with hugs and kisses. Mitch’s childhood consisted of abuse and terror.

  Her phone buzzed.

  Mitch: I’m at the beach.

  Ashley: Don’t you dare move. I’ll be right there.

  She jumped from the bed, splashing her tea everywhere, but she didn’t care. “I’ll call you in a bit.”

  “Ashley,” her father said.

  She glanced over her shoulder, her hand gripping the handle. “Yes?”

  “I like this one. I think he’s a ke
eper.”

  “Good, because if I have anything to say about it, he’s going to be sticking around for a long time.”

  ***

  Mitch wondered if he would have texted had his mother not tried to escape, which forced the FBI to put a bullet in her head.

  He stared at the bottle of whiskey he’d snagged from the bar. He’d taken it with the intention of getting about as drunk as a man could get, hoping to expel the memories of what it was like to be Marcus Nuniez. God, he hated that name with a passion. His gut twisted into knots just thinking about it.

  Yet he had no remorse for his mother’s death. She knew they’d shoot to kill if they had to, and she made her choice. Besides, she probably would have gotten the death penalty anyway.

  He raised the dark, rich liquid to his lips, but couldn’t bring himself to indulge. No amount of alcohol was going to change what happened. Leaning back on his elbows, listening to the waves crash on the sand, he stared at the stars.

  The FBI had gone looking for Derek, only to have found him hanging from the light fixture. An apparent suicide.

  But Mitch knew his mother most likely had him murdered.

  He had no idea how many of her men she’d brought with her, but the Feds had captured five in total. None of them were talking much, but they would. They always talked if it meant they could cut a deal.

  The FBI had told him his name would be kept out of everything. No one, but a handful of people would know who he was.

  Mitch could only hope his mother’s pride had remained the size of Texas, and she’d told no one of her son’s betrayal. Her mission had been to take him out. Put him six feet under for real this time.

  He took in a deep breath, expecting the smell of salt to tickle his nose, but instead he got a good whiff of a fresh tropical soap.

  Ashley.

  He turned his head and there she was, strolling down the beach, her sandals in her hand and the moon at her back, shining down on her raven hair as it floated in the slight breeze.

  “Hey,” he said as she sat down beside him. He’d planned on renting a car and leaving Barefoot Bay without saying goodbye. Then he walked passed the bar and decided getting drunk was a better. By the time he made it to the beach, all he could think about was Ashley. She’d wormed her way into his heart, and she wasn’t letting go.