Trevor Reese: His Secret Love

by Mallory Monroe

  But it was still a horrifying scene. By the time the car stopped flipping, it had landed right-side up, but all four wheels were smashed against the frame.

  And worse than that, Trevor looked through the rearview mirror and saw, to his shock and horror, a big armored tank, government-issue, heading their way. His eyes popped with shock. “Jesus,” he said.

  They all turned around to see what he had spooked him. When they, too, saw the tank coming, they knew they had to assume the position. They knew they had to act now, or worry about it in their graves.

  They acted. Mick, Reno, and Sal aimed their weapons and began firing. Although all of their bullets were only denting the impenetrable frame, some were having an impact on the window near the top. And they kept on firing.

  Trevor, for his part, turned toward the driver side window and began kicking and kicking it. He kept looking at the approaching tank and kicked harder. He kicked it until it broke loose, and he was able to escape. But he didn’t go far. He went beneath their SUV.

  When Mick saw what he had done, he raised his hand. “Stop firing,” he yelled. “And get down.”

  “What the fuck?” Reno asked. But he and Sal, nonetheless certain that Mick knew what he was doing, did as they were told.

  Trevor, crawling on his belly beneath the SUV, waited until the tank, still hard charging, got close enough to ram the SUV.

  Mick looked up and saw it nearing. “Brace yourselves!” he yelled.

  They braced themselves as the tank rammed their SUV. Just as it did, Trevor ran, stooped down, from beneath the SUV and around the blindside of the tank. And as the top of the tank was thrown open, and the gunman, with a buzz-saw machine gun, lifted up ready to fire, Trevor jumped onto the tank and onto the gunman. They fought for their lives, and for control of that gun.

  The gunman continued to fire the machine gun, even as he fought off Trevor, and the gun was hitting the SUV with a hail of bullets. The gunman then tried to turn his aim at Trevor.

  The additional gunmen inside the tank started firing up at Trevor too, but he was able to knock the machine gun operator out, and then take the reins.

  When Mick and the Gabrinis saw what Trevor was doing, they jumped over the seat, out of the driver side window too, and began advancing on the tank firing as they advanced. Trevor turned the machine gun toward the inside of the tank, and began firing on the gunmen beneath him.

  Reno and Sal jumped onto the tank, moved up to the top, and began assisting Trevor’s cause. They fired on the gunmen too. Mick ran around the tank, looking for backup he knew would be there, and it was. It was coming in the form of the tractor-trailer truck that had incapacitated their SUV. Two killers were in the truck, the driver and a passenger, and the passenger was already firing his weapon at Mick. The truck was now coming full steam ahead. The initial hit had flipped the SUV so far away from the original crash point, that that tractor-trailer was just getting its juice to make it down the road. It was in full juice now, and coming as if it was not going to stop. If it rammed the tank, Mick knew Reno, Sal, and Trevor would be in danger of losing their lives. He had to stop them.

  He positioned himself in front of the tank, pulled out his second gun, and began firing. He hit the passenger first, as he was firing back, and then the driver. The driver fell back, with his hands unable to maintain its grip on the steering wheel. Mick jumped out of harm’s way as the truck jackknifed and then began to hydroplane across the oil-slick surface of the road, and crashed into a tree. Trevor and the Gabrinis, at the top of the tank, shot the last of the gunmen inside of the tank just as the tractor-trailer exploded.

  “Let’s go, Mick!” Trevor yelled as the Gabrinis got inside of the tank. Mick jumped up, made his way to the top of the tank, and got in too. Trevor closed the hatch, and took the controls.

  Reno looked at Sal and Mick with a grin on his face. “This fucker took the fucking tank!” he said, talking about Trevor with admiration in his voice. “That’s what I call a survivor. That’s a fucking survivor right there!”

  “What did you expect?” Mick asked. “My niece chose him. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  Trevor inwardly smiled as he drove that tank and listened to them. To have Reno Gabrini first, and then Mick the Tick also, commend his decision-making was major in his eyes. But his smile wasn’t long with him. Because he knew he still had an obstacle to face. He still had his brother, his own flesh and blood, to deal with.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  They took a different road with the tank. They had to bypass the Bonsecours Market and make their way along even more less-traveled roads that led, in an around-about way, to the Bunker. Which turned out to be, to Mick, Reno, and Sal’s surprise, what looked like an abandoned schoolhouse. But what was even more surprising to them was the fact that Trevor drove all the way up to the door, and then kept driving.

  “Get on the gun!” he yelled, and Sal, with pleasure, took control of the machine gun. He was ready to open the hatch and start firing.

  But what they encountered, instead, when the tank burrowed its way through the door, were men in suits, sprawled around the floor. All of them dead.

  “What the fuck?” Reno asked as they opened the hatch and got out of the tank. They weren’t fools. Their guns remained drawn.

  “Who the fuck are they?” Sal asked.

  Trevor was staring at each and every one of them. He knew them all. “The fuckers,” he said.

  Reno frowned. “The who?”

  “The men who had the power of life and death over my head. The station chiefs who yanked my chain.”

  “All of them?” Mick asked.

  Trevor nodded. “All of them,” he said. “Except my brother.”

  They all looked at him. And that was when they began hearing footsteps down the hall. They looked. Hammer Reese was walking toward them. He wore a t-shirt and jeans. Built like a bodybuilder. Looking nothing like the former head of the CIA they all expected a man in that position to look.

  They all stood guard, with Reno still looking around, just in case.

  “What took you so long?” Hammer asked his brother as he approached.

  “We had guests,” Trevor said. “Curtesy of a big tractor-trailer and this big-ass armored tank.”

  “Yes,” Hammer said, looking around at the fallen chiefs, “they thought you would try to make an appearance. That tank and that truck were their carefully placed boobytraps.”

  But Sal and Reno were doubtful. “How do we know they weren’t your boobytraps?” Sal asked, and Reno looked at Hammer too.

  Hammer smiled. “You don’t, Sal,” he said. Then he looked at Reno. “Hello, Reno. I don’t know you as well as I knew your father. I was a kid when he was boss. He was a good boss.”

  “Now I know your ass is crazy,” Reno said. “My father was the nastiest sonafabitch I’ve ever met.”

  Hammer smiled. “A good boss,” he responded, “just like I said.”

  Reno shook his head and looked at Sal. “Check this fucker out.”

  But Hammer had already turned his attention to Mick. “Mick the Tick Sinatra,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Ever since you tried to send me up to Canaan. Yeah, real long.”

  “You ought to kill him for that alone,” Reno said. “He ain’t Fed no more.”

  “He was doing his job,” Mick said. “I can’t kill a man for doing his job.” Then Mick stared at Hammer. “Unless I feel like it.”

  Reno and Sal smiled. Trevor moved the conversation along. “What happened?” he asked his brother. “You took out every name on the list.”

  “They set you up,” Hammer said. “I called them to a meeting, a meeting here, and eliminated them. They came, of course, expecting to eliminate me. Thus the bloodshed.”

  “Dodge said it was you who set me up,” Trevor said. “Big Lou said the same thing.”

  “They were correct,” Hammer said, and Reno, Sal, and Mick immediately raised their guns to Hammer’s he
ad.

  Hammer was surprised by their reaction. He was surprised that ruthless gangsters like them would be this willing to defend his brother. Even against the kind of power they had to know he held.

  Trevor’s heart dropped. He couldn’t believe it. “What do you mean it’s correct? You’re telling me it’s true?”

  “It had to be true,” Hammer said. “I’m telling you there was no other option. Every operative with any hooks in you had to believe that I had turned on you. They wanted to take you out.”

  Trevor frowned. “Why?”

  “Because you gave the Gabrinis and Mick the Tick a beforehand warning that they were on a kill list.”

  Trevor was still perplexed. “What did that case have to do with them? It wasn’t their list.”

  “What if it had been?” Hammer asked. “You were compromised. They wanted you terminated. That’s when I ordered my men to tell you that the target was General Chekov. The target was always Celletti. He was getting too close to exposing one of our operatives. But they knew you might balk at a hit on the Mafia’s own. So I gave the order to put General Chekov down as the dummy target, and Celletti as the actual hit. I told them I’d set you up for the kill if you didn’t go through with it. I thought that would take the hunt off. But they surprised me. They had the set up ready before I could object. I was pleased that you got out of it.”

  “But you said you set him up?” Sal asked. “How does what you just said translate into you setting him up?”

  “When I found out that he had escaped, and put two and two together,” Hammer said, “I put the word out that I was going to take it out of the operatives’ hands and set him up myself. He would want to meet with his station chief, to find out what happened in San Diego. I gave them permission to handle it with their own people.”

  Reno frowned. “You gave them permission to kill your own brother? What kind of perverted piece of shit are you?”

  Hammer smiled. “The sweetest kind,” he said. Then he looked at Trevor. “I knew you’d get out of it.”

  “Kick his ass,” Reno said, and he and Sal pointed their guns again. “You have our permission.”

  But Trevor smiled. “It’s okay,” he said. And then he looked at Sal and Reno. “This is how it goes in our world.”

  “That’s a fucked-up world,” Reno said.

  But Trevor was thinking about Carly. “What about Carly?” he asked his brother. “Why was she on their kill list?”

  Hammer folded his big arms. “She wasn’t.”

  Trevor frowned. “But you told me she was.”

  “She was on a kill list,” Hammer said. “But it wasn’t the agency’s.”

  Trevor and the others stared at Hammer. “Whose?” Trevor asked.

  “Reggie Dell’s,” Hammer said.

  “Fuck!” Mick said.

  Trevor was still stunned. “Reggie tried to kill Carly?” Then he frowned. “Why?” he asked.

  “She was hired.”

  “By whom?”

  “She won’t say,” Hammer said, “but I’m fairly certain it was one of the operatives. I just didn’t get the chance to ask which one, given that they came with all barrels blazing. They had to have paid off your men, too, Trev.”

  Trevor exhaled. He would find those men someday, and take care of them one by one. “Where’s Reggie now?” he asked his brother.

  “She’s out,” Hammer said. “Gone. Carly is no longer on her list. I saw to that.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Sal said. “Where’s the bitch?”

  Hammer’s jaw tightened at somebody calling Reggie Dell the B-word. Even Sal Gabrini. “She’s not a bitch,” he said.

  “Where is she?” Sal asked again.

  Hammer looked Sal dead in the eye. “I took care of her. She’s no longer a threat to Carly.”

  Sal and Reno weren’t sure if they believed it. But they knew Trevor loved Carly. They looked at him.

  Trevor nodded. “My brother handles Reggie Dell. No other human being can. She doesn’t answer to anybody. Except my brother. If he says he took her off the scent, she’s off for good.”

  But Mick had a different question. “Why did you tell Trevor she was on the agency’s kill list,” he asked, “if she wasn’t?”

  “I had to warn him that forces were out to get his lady,” Hammer responded. “He needed to increase protection around his lady. She made the mistake of going to his office and showing herself. He knew she was involved. I had to convince him she was agency-involved. I had to make sure he didn’t go after Reggie.” Then a troubled look appeared in Hammer’s eyes. “She’s off limits. Nobody touches her. But me,” he added.

  When they made it back to Boston, they all wanted to believe that the worse was over, and they did to a degree. They were cautiously optimistic. But as they got out of the limousine, and made their way toward the safe house entrance again, Mick pulled Trevor aside.

  “I know you trust your brother,” he said, “but I don’t trust Reggie Dell. Watch your back.”

  “I will.”

  “And more importantly,” Mick added, “watch Carly’s back. If she is in any way harmed, that’s going to be on you.”

  Trevor looked at Mick as if that went without saying. “Absolutely,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It felt good. That was the only way Carly could describe it. She was in bed, Trevor was inside of her, and they were making love.

  They were in the spoon position as they made love, and Carly couldn’t help but think about how wonderful it felt to finally be free of the craziness. She still worried about Reggie Dell lurking about, but Trevor made it clear that his men were on the hunt for her and would find her someday, despite Hammer’s warning to stay away from her. But life was good. Life was finally back on track.

  “Oooh, Trevor,” she said as this part of life got good too. “Oooh.”

  They were in sync, with their bodies moving in perfect rotation that had Carly on the verge. Trevor was squeezing her breasts, and pushing deeper into her, as the grind became musical. And when she came, he came too, right behind her, as it should have been.

  He wasn’t trying to break any records or prove any points. But the release he felt as he poured into her, and as he stretched his entire body to fully experience that release, was as close to incredible as he’d ever felt.

  After they showered and dressed, they made their way outside, to Carly’s Lexus. Security was still tight at Carly’s estate, and the lawn care crews were being closely monitored. Ever since the gas station mishap, Trevor had not allowed Carly to return full-time to her condo yet, except to pick up clothes. She thought she would object. But spending all of her waking moments with Trevor had been a Godsend. She was happy to spend time with him.

  And even now, as they prepared to go back to work for the first time since the gas station incident, she was still feeling that pull toward Trevor. And although the emotional scars were still healing, Trevor’s presence made her journey easier. What had been an awful event was the precursor to bringing them closer together.

  Carly was surprised, however, when Trevor helped her into her vehicle, closed the door without kissing her goodbye, and did not wait around. That wasn’t like Trevor.

  But it was even more telling when he walked around the front of her car and got in on the passenger side. Carly was, in fact, stunned. “What are you doing?” she asked him.

  “We’re going to work,” Trevor said, as he pulled out his cellphone.

  Carly was confused. “Together?” she asked.

  “Together,” he said.

  Carly shook her head. “But, Trev . . .”

  He looked at her. “We’re a couple. You’re my lady and I’m your man. No more bullshit. I tried to shield you from my other life, but it didn’t work.” Carly could see the storminess in his eyes. “There’s no point anymore in trying to keep the secret going.” Then he smiled. “I’m out of the closet,” he said. “I’m in love with one of my employees.”
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br />   Carly smiled, too, leaned over, and kissed him on the lips. When she went to move back, Trevor pulled her back and kissed her again. Their kiss lingered. Then Trevor smiled. “Now drive,” he said. “I’ll write you up if you’re late.”

  Carly laughed, but drove.

  When they arrived at Reese Marketing, Trevor began to head toward the cafeteria. “Want a pastry?” he asked.

  “Not this early in the morning,” Carly replied.

  “See you later, gorgeous,” Trevor said, and Carly blushed and looked around. She was unaccustomed to this. Trevor headed for the cafeteria, she headed for the elevators.

  When Trevor entered the cafeteria, Oscar Rellen, one of his talent recruiters, was waiting in line at the pastry bar. Trevor stood in line behind him. “Long wait?” he asked.

  Oscar smiled. “You’re the boss. You own this joint. If anybody can skip the line, you can.”

  Trevor shook his head. “Nope. I can wait.”

  Then Trevor looked toward his right and saw his former employee, Dallas Shephard, walking toward the cafeteria’s exit. “What’s she doing here?” he asked, and Oscar looked to.

  “She was fired, wasn’t she?”

  “Yeah,” Trevor said, as he continued to look at her.

  “Then who knows,” Oscar said. “Maybe she wants her job back. Or maybe she wants revenge.”

  Trevor looked at Oscar. “Revenge?”

  “For firing her, yeah.” He smiled. “I’m just joking, Trevor. Lighten up. You know what kind of drama queen Dallas was. She’s just putting on a show.”

  But Trevor couldn’t lighten up. Because suddenly pieces began to fit. Revenge. That was it. Revenge! And it had to do with Dallas.

  He quickly pulled out his cell phone, put in his pin, and pressed on his employee directory. And there it was. Maiden name: Campbell. But could it be? That was tenuous at best! But he kept searching. He kept looking. And when he saw it, his eyes widened with disbelief. “I’ll be gotdamn,” he said, his heart dropped, and he took off.