Dirty Love (Forbidden Bodyguards #3)

by Ainsley Booth

  Maybe I should have done this years ago.

  “Don’t be rash,” he says quietly. “Your fans love you.”

  “Then why haven’t they turned up? We made tickets as cheap as we could make them. Hmm?” I shake my head. “They aren’t my fans. Not really. They love what I sing when it’s on the charts, because it’s easy to consume. Sexy and fun. But once I drop off, poof. They’re on to the next hot single. That’s not to my benefit. That’s maybe to your benefit, if you’re looking to find the next hot young thing.”

  Another flare in his eyes, and holy shit.

  “Grant?” My voice chills. “Are you looking for another client?”

  He doesn’t answer me.

  “Good luck with that,” I say, standing. “Good fucking luck.”

  He snaps his hand out and circles his fingers around my wrist. “Nobody wants an angry bitch, Tabitha.”

  He’s wrong. Wilson wants an angry bitch. And that’s all that matters. “Fuck you, Grant.”

  “This isn’t over.”

  If everything goes according to plan, I might never see him again, and that would still be too soon. But I don’t want the last words between us to be his. I look him straight in the eye. “You were right, by the way. I have been sleeping with him. And only him. For months.”

  Fighting a shudder of revulsion, I slide my wrist out of his grasp and head for my room.

  I don’t look back, not even for a second.

  —thirty-three—

  Wilson

  By Saturday evening, we have no idea how this is going to go down.

  Jason did a friendly reach out to the local Feds, saying he was following a lead on behalf of a client, but they were extra tight-lipped.

  That could either mean they’re about to make a bust, or they have no clue what he was talking about and had totally missed everything I’d fed them.

  We’ve got back up plans. My favorite is the one where I just smash Grant into the ground, but that doesn’t have any long-term benefits for Tabitha.

  Another is a come-to-Jesus confrontation, but that has to be her call.

  No matter what, his hold on her is coming to an end tonight.

  I spend Saturday afternoon holding Tabitha while we both try to take a nap. When we give that up, we order the most ridiculous things from room service, then I get her set up with my tablet which has a Tor browser installed so she can watch the fight remotely.

  “Don’t bet on anyone else,” I say quietly as she pokes around the web interface.

  “How much can I bet on you?” She gives me a sideways glance. “Will it take my black Amex card, or is it some kind of special hacker credits only?”

  “Don’t bet on me, either.” I kiss her cheek. “Just watch. And no matter what happens—even if I get arrested—don’t freak out.”

  “Don’t get arrested. That sounds like a bad idea.”

  “I know. I plan to avoid it.”

  She’s quiet for a long stretch. Then, without looking at me, she says, “I’d bet everything on you, though. Just so you know. Every last penny.”

  I wrap her in my arms and squeeze her tight.

  —thirty-four—

  Tabitha

  My room phone rings an hour after Wilson leaves. I ignore it, but after stopping, it starts again, and I cross the room.

  “Hello?”

  “What the fuck did you do?” Grant snarls in my ear.

  Terror slices through me and I gasp, not even able to scream. I drop the phone at the same time as a bang comes at the door, and the phone handset tumbles off the cradle.

  Hang up and call 911, a little voice inside my head says, but it’s too quiet and I don’t move fast enough. I’m frozen in fear, and everything starts to swim in slow motion around me. I jerk my gaze to the door. The security bolt isn’t on, and even while I’m still standing there, thinking I should scramble for the phone like a complete fucking nitwit, he’s letting himself into the room.

  And he’s not alone.

  It’s been years since I’ve seen his brother Spencer. Not enough time. They’re like two angry, hungry wild animals cornering me as their prey, and I’m still grabbing for the phone.

  “Put it down.”

  I swallow hard and do as Grant orders. I try to stand in front of it in case I have another chance to maybe call 911, but that hope doesn’t last long.

  Spencer grabs my arm hard enough to jerk my shoulder painfully, and spins me around so I’m facing Grant.

  He gets right in my face. The skin around his mouth is white, and his eyes have gone a little crazy. “What. Did. You. Do?”

  Okay, a lot crazy.

  I have two choices here. I could lie, and try and save myself. Or I can be brave.

  That’s not a trite idea. It’s not easy. I’m shaking so hard my teeth are chattering, but I don’t blink and I don’t look away. “You can’t be surprised, Grant.”

  “You bitch.”

  “You stole my life,” I whisper. “You had to know at some point I’d take an opportunity to return the favor.”

  “I gave you a career.”

  “I didn’t want that. I wanted him.”

  Without warning, he backhands me across the face. I’m stunned silent, which maybe was his goal. He’s never hit me before.

  “Come on,” Spencer bites out from behind me. “We don’t have much time.”

  Grant gives me a hard look. “You’ve got a fight to get to, baby girl. Big, tough man thinks he’s going to save you from me. You’re going to set him straight.”

  —thirty-five—

  Wilson

  Cole: En route. He looks…edgy.

  Wilson: Acknowledged.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m trying not to look for Grant in the crowd of anonymous faces filling the warehouse. After dropping Grant off in his role as a driver, Cole isn’t going to come inside—he’ll stay outside, with Jason, providing perimeter eyes and ears.

  Tag should be in here, too, but he’s on my radio frequency, so he could just say something if he wanted to let me know they’d arrived.

  So far, radio silence.

  Part of me doesn’t want to be distracted. I’m last up for the fights tonight—and if the Feds bust us up before that, I won’t be disappointed—but I take the bouts seriously and just in case Nix is going into the ring, he’ll come out with his undefeated record intact.

  I do a quick check of my phone, and Grant just placed his first bet. Except that was my my bot, as scheduled. It tells me nothing.

  I should have tried to get Tabitha to put a GPS tracker on him.

  Shoulda, woulda, coulda. No place in a plan for any of that.

  I type in her number to check in, but before I hit call, I see him. I slide the phone back into my pocket and start to track him.

  He does look edgy, and he’s searching the room quite deliberately.

  My pulse picks up. He’s not confused or overwhelmed by the scene. Damn it. His gaze shifts closer, and I tense.

  I see it, the moment he recognizes me. His pace slows, his jaw sets.

  I’m not pretending this is a coincidence. Fuck it all to hell.

  On the far side of the crowd, I make eye contact with Tag. He gives an imperceptible nod.

  Grant stops ten feet from me. We’re on the outer edge of the circle of people, but they’re all facing the ring.

  Nobody is really paying us any attention—yet.

  “Whatever you were planning tonight, it’s not going to work,” he says, raising his voice enough for me to hear him over the din.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “Bold statement if you aren’t sure what I’ve got planned. I’m just here to fight.”

  “Lies!” He screams it at me, wide-eyed and unhinged. “You think you’re saving her. She’s not worth saving. Joke’s on you.”

  I growl and step closer to him. “Watch what you fucking say about her. I wouldn’t hesitate to kill you.”

  He laughs. “Too late. What’s the point? She’s already gone.�
�

  Blood rushes to my head. “What did you do?”

  “Me?” He shrugged. “Nothing. My brother, on the other hand, noticed some suspicious monetary transactions yesterday. Called me about it. Gave me shit. Thanks for that, motherfucker. I had no idea what he was talking about. So he flew down.”

  “He didn’t.” My heart is pounding. We were watching Rook. He didn’t go anywhere.

  “He flew himself.” Fuck, the look of pride on Grant’s face disgusts me. And the thing is, it’s justified. They’ve bested me.

  “He’s got Tabitha?” I swallow my anger, my rage, and I force it down, hard, until it’s a hard, cold pack of computational fuel. I need data and I need it fast.

  “Picked her up from the hotel just before you sent your buffoon to get me. They’re watching together now, but not for long.”

  Sick, cold fear slides into my stomach. “And where did he take her?”

  He laughs. “You’ll never find out.”

  Then he pulls out a gun.

  Whoa. Rule number one of this very real fight club is no guns. Like the Red Sea, the crowd that hadn’t been paying us any attention parts around us. Nobody runs, nobody panics, but the mood is very tense and the focus is now entirely on us.

  I can use that.

  Fuck.

  You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Or fists. Usually not a good plan. But they’re all I have. That and my brain. Think, asshole.

  I let out my breath, then inhale again, slowly stepping to the left. Moving both of us, because he’s following me in the circle, so he’s not pointing his weapon at anyone other than me.

  And I’m closing the gap a bit, too. Just enough he won’t notice. “This is a bad idea, Grant. You don’t want to do this here. Lots of witnesses.”

  “Nobody here will stick around to speak to the cops.”

  “You sure about that? That’s not a smart bet to make, and you’re a smart guy. Look,” I hold up my hands, palms out. Little closer. “This is just a disagreement. Nothing to see here. Let’s go outside.”

  His eyes dart to the door, but he doesn’t want to move. Why not? Outside would be a better place to shoot me. The second he pulls that trigger, he’s going down, he’s gotta know that. Outside he has a chance to run.

  My brain spins, trying to see this space, this situation, from his perspective. Where did he come in from? Not the door behind me. The far end of the warehouse. The parking lot of the building next door.

  That’s where he plans to run, when everyone is stampeding out this exit.

  He’ll never make it. Idiot.

  I need more from him. “How about we call your brother? I’ll explain to him that this was all on me. I’ll explain that to the police, too. We’ll straighten this out for him, and for you, and the only person who will take any kind of fall will be me.”

  His shoulder pulls up when I mention the cops. Okay, I won’t do that again. But he’s frowning, too, like he’s not sure what to do. Poor planning, guys, if it’s this easy to create confusion.

  And again, he’s reluctant to be moved away from the line-of-sight of the far exit. He doesn’t go as far as to look in that direction, but there’s a strong draw there.

  What could be over there, specifically? Then it clicks.

  His brother.

  My woman.

  Okay. I need to test that, then I need to take him out. But I don’t have a lot of time. He’s getting tense, and the acrid stink of fear is rolling off him now.

  “The only thing that matters to me,” I say softly, “is making sure that Tabitha isn’t hurt.”

  Flinch.

  “Is that what he’s going to do? You can stop him. You’ve never hurt her in ten years. You’ve been cruel and unkind, but you’ve never physically laid a hand on her. I see you. I see how you’ve protected her in your own way.” Fucking hell, that’s hard to say.

  I’ve never struggled to lie in a situation like this before.

  The truth has never been so important to me.

  “You’re angry with her.”

  “She ruined everything.”

  “She didn’t understand,” I say softly. Closer again.

  He gives me a tortured look. “She told you about the bastard kid.”

  “Your child.” Does he care?

  A sneer. “Maybe.”

  No, he doesn’t. Damn. I clench my fists at my side.

  “We were never going to let her have the kid. If she didn’t have such a good voice, we would have just gotten rid of her completely.”

  I was never directly involved in interrogation, but I know some of the basics. I know why people suddenly admit to crimes they haven’t been accused of, boasting even. Why they ramp up the bravado.

  He’s getting to the end of his limit.

  Well, motherfucker, so am I.

  He sees the rage in my eyes. I know he does. He gets this smug fucking look on his face, like, ha, he’s hurt me.

  He has no idea what pain is.

  “Ten years too late,” he spits out. “But we’re going get the job down now—”

  I explode into the air, spinning my body to the side in a three-hundred and sixty degree sideways turn that’s hard for him to track with the gun. As I come out of it, he’s directly in my path, and my boot connects with his face.

  The gun goes off, and I hear the discharge, the zing of a bullet, a crack against concrete.

  People are moving now.

  I fall on top of him, my fists flying, and I smash him into the ground. Blood slicks my fists as bone and skin give way.

  Hands grapple against my arms, trying to get a purchase on me.

  “Not yet,” I growl. I said I’d kill him and I meant it.

  “Carter, leave him.” Tag hauls me off Grant’s prone body and shoves me toward the door. “We need to get out of here.”

  “No.” I shrug him off and twist, looking for the Glock he had. It had skittered across the floor, and I sweep it up, taking off at a sprint in the other direction.

  Footsteps follow, but I don’t look back to see who’s with me.

  There are two sets of steel doors between us and outside. They slam open, ka-bang, ka-bang, and I’m out into the night before either set slams shut again.

  I spin in a circle, getting my bearings. We’re at the end of a row of warehouses, around back where the loading docks are.

  It’s cold and dark and quiet.

  Tick.

  Where are you, Spencer Rook?

  Tock.

  In the distance, there’s a siren. Another. We don’t have much time.

  An annoying prickle of concern scratches at me. Something is out of place and until I sort through my mental catalog of my surroundings, that heightened sense of impending doom won't settle down.

  I don't want it to.

  I trust that instinct more than anything else.

  Something isn't right, but it doesn't matter.

  If this goes sideways, it'll be after I get to Tabitha or die trying.

  I’d walk into Hell to stand between her and Lucifer himself.

  I see a flash of light a second before I hear the shot snap through the air and hit the wall a few feet from me. “Sniper!” I yell, sprinting ahead. Into Hell indeed.

  “Seen,” Tag’s voice snaps in my ear, over our radios. “Southwest corner of the warehouse.”

  No, that’s wrong. “Southeast,” I correct. “Flash was definitely from the front of the warehouse. Repeat. Southeast.”

  “I have a visual on the southwest roof. Prone sniper.”

  “Maybe there’s two of them.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. The door in front of me is locked, but the window’s glass. I turn my face away and slam my elbow though it, busting the shards as wide as I can so I can twist my hand and flip the lock. “Jason, you copy? The Feds need to know this is an active sniper situation. They’ll want to kill federal agents. This is a setup, and maybe not just for us.”

  I’m in the building now, and there’s a staircase. I take the stai
rs two at a time. I’ve got Grant’s Glock, and I check the magazine. Maybe twenty rounds. Time to start counting bullets.

  —thirty-six—

  Wilson

  One sniper might be directly above me, in the southwest corner. The flash of light I saw was at the other end of the roof, so they’ve got at least two corners covered. Maybe there are four of them, and they plan to try and hold the building by picking people off, but then why not have an entire militia of crazy psychos to keep me from getting in in the first place?

  The stairwell rises up onto the roof, the doorway in a small jut-out in the sky. I turn the handle, then swing the door wide, inviting shots first before I roll out, covering the entire arc of visible space with my weapon as I pivot on my back.

  No shots come, but directly in front of me, I see a body with a rifle—and I hear whimpering.

  Dread slams into me.

  “Hold your fire,” I hiss into the comms. “Hold your goddamn fire.”

  “Report,” Jason says back, far too calm.

  I can’t report. Not fucking yet. I spin around, checking out the far corner of the roof.

  I see Spencer now, but he’s hunched down behind his rifle and the wind is quite loud up here. He may not have heard the door open, as it was facing away from him behind that jut-out. I grab it before it can swing shut, and silently put it back in place.

  “Visual confirmation. Southeast corner, Spencer Rook with a sniper rifle. Southwest corner—” My voice cracks. “His hostage, bound and placed next to a rifle. He wants her shot dead. She may be injured. I need cover.”

  “Ninety more seconds and you’ll have it, the Feds are moving into position.”

  A minute and a half.

  I tell myself to take the time to deal with my hands and elbow, all bleeding. To catch my breath and force myself into a place of calm discipline.

  It doesn’t work. I spend every second until that megaphone crackles to life below freaking the fuck out about whether or not she’s injured already.