What About Love (Club Decadence Book 6)

by Maddie Taylor

  She blinked, momentarily stunned before she retorted in an incredulous voice. “Excuse me? Weren’t you the one who dumped me?”

  “Rebounded fast, didn’t you sweetcheeks?”

  Dan surged to his feet behind her, or as much as he could, his movement coinciding with a fast moving Cap who had positioned himself between the two angry men. It was the crack of Angie’s open hand connecting with T’s cheek and echoing off the metal walls of the truck that halted everyone dead. A brief silence followed until her hurt filled whisper replaced it.

  “You can stop now, T. You’ve already accomplished your goal of driving me away.”

  “Go up front and ride with Jonas, honey,” the general ordered, also on his feet. Although his tone was pitched softly, it rang firm with authority.

  She nodded and headed that way without casting any of them a second glance. As she squeezed through the narrow opening in the Plexiglas that formed a safety barrier behind the tall front seats, she heard Dan’s angry growl, “That was a shit thing to say, Minelli.”

  T’s response was succinct. “Fuck you, Ogilvie.”

  *****

  Cap took Angie’s vacant seat and with a truly baffled expression directed his query at T. “What the hell was that?”

  “He’s got his head up his ass, obviously.”

  “No,” T snapped, moving forward in his seat toward Dan. “You’re confused. I’m not the one who’s been panting around her like a randy bull since we got on a plane for a fuckin’ rescue mission.”

  “No, you’re the stupid prick who keeps playing games with her head and throwing her away. Don’t bitch at me for having the decency to offer her a shoulder to cry on.”

  “It looks like you’re offering more than a fuckin’ shoulder.”

  “What’s it to you if I am? You dumped her, dumb ass, remember?”

  T was out of his seat again and halfway at his teammate’s throat before Cap and the general grabbed him and hauled him back.

  “Both of you, shut it.” Cap no longer appeared puzzled; he was pissed. “T’s right about one thing. We’re not heading for a Sunday picnic at the beach, for Christ’s sake. I need your heads in the game.”

  The two adversaries were locked in a stare down battle for only a moment. Dan broke it first, his words another challenge as he did so. “You’ve got my attention, boss.”

  Cap stared at T awaiting a similar response.

  His eyes slid to his leader and met them unwaveringly. “I’ve been with you for ten years and you have to ask?” He shrugged off their hands and slid back in his seat knowing no further comment was necessary. Cap surprised him by saying, “Since watching you stew in your own jealousy juice for the past two hours, yes, I do.”

  “I’ve got it locked down, Cap.”

  “See that you keep it that way,” he barked as he took his seat. The usually unruffled Cap speared his fingers through his hair. “At least we won’t have to deal with this shit for long?”

  “Why is that?” Pete asked.

  “She’s transferring to L.A. after the op.” Cap’s narrow-eyed glare collided with T’s. “Evidently, she finds the working conditions recently to be untenable.”

  A bitter pain invaded his chest, like an icy cold fist had closed around his heart and twisted it ruthlessly. You did this, a voice inside him accused. All to keep her at arm’s length when you want nothing better than to fuse yourself to her for all eternity.

  “Surely you can convince her to stay,” he heard Dan say.

  “I tried. Someone else will need to do the convincing. After talking to her after our meeting this morning, she seemed pretty set on leaving San Antonio, pronto.”

  The group lapsed into another silence. Shockwaves of emotion rippled through T: loss, loneliness, anguish, and intense guilt at acting like the dumb ass Dan had rightfully accused him of being.

  *****

  Sweat trickled down the back of her neck, slowly making a track down her spine. It tickled, the need to scratch against the bark of the tree she had taken position in nearly overwhelming, but Angie didn’t dare move. Through the night vision scope she watched as the six man team—having met up with Dex and Kyle earlier at the rendezvous point—stealthily invaded the compound. It was up to her to protect and provide cover for Dex, Jonas and Dan. The general was in a tree somewhere to her left, no more than one hundred yards or so away, doing the same for Kyle, Cap and T.

  As she scanned the area for threats—up ahead, their flanks, and on their six—her finger hovered over the trigger. They made it to the first outbuilding and took cover. She watched as Jonas set an explosive charge, one of eight the team would plant on the outskirts of the compound. Once detonated and chaos had ensued, they would take the main building where the hostages were being held.

  Heart slamming against the wall of her chest, Angie felt the tension well up in her throat. Breathing deeply in through her nose, she blew it out slowly through pursed lips to maintain her calm.

  “Angie. Status.” Tech called through her ear piece. Tech was Jonas, one of at least a dozen nicknames they had for the computer and electronics specialist on the team. Sometimes someone, usually T, would come up with a new one and Angie would have to ask for clarification.

  “I’m green,” she answered, wondering at his concern.

  “There’s interference on your headset.”

  “Pursed lip breathing,” T’s voice broke in. “She does that when she’s concentrating. Move your mouth piece away a bit so we can hear, Angie.”

  “Uh, roger, that. Sorry.” Leaving her finger on the trigger and her eye trained down the scope, she moved her mic away with her other hand. She’d worry later why the fact that he’d noticed such a little thing about her made her quivery inside.

  There was silence in her earpiece as they moved forward in the dark, undetected. A few minutes passed until anyone spoke again.

  “We’re a go.” It was Cap. “Dex?”

  “Go.”

  “Pete?”

  “Good to go.”

  “Angie?”

  “Hooah.” Her response was met with silence, then a few chuckles with Dan the lone Marine in the bunch correcting, “She meant ‘oorah’. Didn’t you, honey?”

  “Cut the shit,” grumbled T.

  “I’m ready, Cap,” Angie answered after that.

  “Let’s get this done. Move out.”

  The next twenty minutes could only be described as chaos with explosions, panicked shouts, and a barrage of gunfire from Angie’s rifle as well as the general’s off to her left. Not all of it was cover. As she scanned the area for potential threats to the team, she picked off two armed men who appeared on the roof of the main building.

  She could hear the men communicating back and forth as they moved forward into the compound.

  “Pete,” Cap called. “Two on the roof of the outbuilding across from the main doors.”

  “On it,” was the general’s reply. The next minute she heard a hoarse cry and two thuds through her headset. “Targets neutralized,” called the four decade veteran, his voice cool as ice. She didn’t take her eyes off her assignment, but an image of bodies falling from the building flashed through her mind.

  Movement on the right came in as a shadowy blur.

  “Shooter, Dex,” she called. “Coming up along the fence at one o’clock. He passed behind the storage shed on the right and I lost him.”

  “We see him, Angie.”

  She watched as Dan peeled off and approached the shed from the opposite side. A minute later he ran around the front of the shed and rejoined them.

  “We’re clear,” he reported.

  “Sniper on the main roof,” the general called. “I don’t have an angle. Angie?”

  Swinging her rifle to the left, she scanned. “I don’t see him.”

  “He’s on the move. Check your eleven o’clock,” he directed.

  At that location, she spied Cap and Kyle pressed flat against the far end of the L-shaped building
, two bodies lying at their feet. They were pinned down to their position from gunfire up ahead. Moving on with her search, she scanned the area for T. When she didn’t immediately locate him, her heart lurched painfully, but she didn’t stop her scan, sighting further along the building. When she came to the corner, she angled right, beginning to track along the front, trying to get a lock on the source of the fire raining down from the roof. A large, dark shape moving along the bushes caught her eye. It was T, she had no doubt, advancing in a crouched position. As she moved passed his position, still sighting down her scope, she saw a ray of red light. It was a laser target and it had a lock on his chest.

  “T! Down. Shooter!” she called while following the trajectory upward. As soon as she located the sniper, she fired, hearing a rifle shot echo back in the distance. She kept her aim locked on the shooter, watching as his weapon flew out of his hands and he slumped forward. With one lurching step, he somersaulted forward, dropping the twenty feet to the ground below, landing head first at a fatal angle.

  “Main roof sniper, neutralized,” she called, tracking back to where she’d last seen T. He wasn’t there.

  “Man down!” came Cap’s cry. “He’s taken one to the chest.”

  Angie’s heart rate doubled. She aimed her search lower toward the ground all around the location she’d last seen him. That’s when she saw Cap bending over his motionless body.

  “What’s his status,” she cried out.

  “Angie, focus,” the general directed softly in her ear. “Your team needs your cover.”

  He was right. Three other men were depending on her. She blinked to clear away the mist from her eyes and refocused, still doing her job although she wanted to fling herself from the tree and run to her man.

  She located her assigned half of the team; Dex, Dan and Jonas were closing in on the entrance. “I’ve got them.”

  “Good girl,” came a familiar, but raspy low voice.

  “T?” she cried out, shaky with relief. “Thank God!”

  “I’m fine, darlin’. Took one in the shoulder. It’s not bad, merely a flesh wound.”

  “I’ve got it tied off,” Cap murmured, obviously talking to T. “You hang back.”

  “The hell with that,” was his reply.

  “You’re still bleeding and not slowly,” Cap warned.

  “It’s fine. Let’s get this done and go home.”

  “If you pass out and I have to lug your heavy ass back to the truck, I’m not gonna be happy.”

  “I wouldn’t jeopardize the mission if I couldn’t handle it, Cap. Seriously. I’m good to go.”

  The general broke in next. “The compound is clear. You should go now.”

  “Right. Let’s move out,” Cap ordered.

  For the next several minutes a series of simultaneous explosions lit up the night and she and the general were kept busy keeping the path to the main entrance clear as the six men on the ground entered the building.

  “Nice shooting, rookie,” the general acknowledged while they waited. “You blew his gun hand clean off.”

  Angie didn’t respond.

  “Angie? You okay?”

  “Yeah, uh, don’t tell anyone, but he was moving.”

  “And?”

  “I was going for a kill shot to the head.”

  There was a pause. “Uh, newbie. The mics are still live.”

  She knew that, however, in all the excitement, she’d forgotten.

  “Shit,” she whispered, which most likely couldn’t be heard over the general’s soft laughter.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Groggy and heavy headed, T struggled to wake through a dense fog surrounding him. Disoriented, he tried to open his eyes, the lids feeling as if they were weighted down. He managed to crack one open and found himself squinting up into harsh institutional grade lights overhead. Rolling his head toward the source of the incessant humming in his ear, he saw a pump with tubing attached to an IV pole.

  Blinking, he tried to put it all together. Last he remembered, they were evacuating nine scared college kids out by chopper. They’d left a mess behind, but the general with his contacts in Washington and Cap with the Senator’s assistance would somehow clean up after them. Their mission accomplished, the adrenaline rush had faded and so had T. He recalled lifting off and leaving Guatemala behind while Angie fussed over him, staunching the bleeding wound in his shoulder as best she could with the limited supplies in the first aid kit. The concerned look on her face that produced twin creases between her brows and the way she bit her lip while taping the bandage in place was his last memory before blackness had overtaken him.

  A dull squeaking to his left drew his attention. Angie was shifting in the ugly ass tan vinyl chair she’d pulled close to the bedside. She squirmed for a moment, then settled back into a sound sleep.

  His eyes roamed her face. In sleep, the frown she’d worn on the chopper persisted. He noticed immediately how tired she appeared, and pale, more so than he’d ever seen her. She had dark smudges shadowing the skin beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there before. It didn’t detract from her beauty; he doubted anything could.

  As he observed, she wrinkled her nose against the loose tendrils of hair that fell across her face, having worked free sometime prior from the high ponytail at the back of her head. The rest of it hung long and lustrous across her neck and over her chest.

  As he continued his perusal from there, he noticed her nipples standing out in hard relief against the thin cotton t-shirt she wore. She was chilled, the air in the room blowing down from a vent directly above her such that she’d curled on her side, her arms pressed close to her body and her hands tucked between her blue jean covered thighs.

  He wanted nothing more than to scoop her up in his arms, carry her to bed and tuck her in, crawling in after to cuddle up with her and keep her warm. He should cover her, he thought, and shifted to sit up. As he did, a sharp pain shot through his shoulder.

  “Fuck,” he hissed as he twisted his head, angling it down to the bulky white bandage covering his shoulder, chest and most of his arm.

  “A mere flesh wound my ass,” a sleep husky voice purred. He looked around to find Angie perched on the edge of the chair watching him. “Do you need something for pain?”

  He shook his head. “No, it was the sudden movement. It’s easing off.” His voice was dry and raspy. Without asking, she got up and poured him some water from a pink pitcher. “How did I get here? And where exactly is here?”

  “You’re at County Hospital in San Antonio. You don’t remember?”

  He shook his head, stilling abruptly as the movement jarred his wound. “Last thing I recall was you patching me up.”

  “You’d lost a lot of blood.” The frown was back. “You had no business finishing the mission with a bullet in your shoulder, you know?”

  “We got the kids out?”

  “Yes, you were the only one wounded.” She shrugged with a grimace, and corrected that statement. “On our side that is.”

  “That proves I had every business going in.” He closed his eyes, feeling suddenly tired. “And when we got out, what happened?”

  “We arrived stateside at 2 a.m. and they took you immediately into surgery to remove the bullet. It’s almost noon, now.”

  “I lost a lot of time.”

  “That’s from the blood loss. They’ve transfused quite a bit back. Rest,” she urged softly, taking the cup from his hand. “You’ll feel better when you wake up again.”

  His eyes popped back open, meeting hers. “Will you stay with me, darlin’?” He waited for her reply, but it didn’t come. “Angie?” he prodded weakly, reaching for her with his uninjured arm.

  He felt her hand in his and a moment later the coolness of her other one upon his cheek. It moved upward over his forehead, lying flat for a moment as if checking for fever, as his mother had when he was a kid. It felt nice and he surrendered to the pull of sleep.

  While he was drifting off, he felt her li
ps, light and soft, brush against his own as she whispered, “I love you, T.” Warmed by that reassurance, he relaxed into the drug-induced oblivion that beckoned him. His heart lurched the next moment when he thought he heard her add, “But I can’t stay, baby. It hurts too much.” He struggled to open his eyes, but was too far gone to respond as the blackness consumed him once again.

  *****

  As if swimming up from the dark, murkiness of a deep sea dive, he opened his eyes. This time he knew where he was instantly, recognizing the same hospital room. Searching for Angie in the bedside chair where he’d last seen her, he found his mother in her place.

  Her face drawn with concern, she moved toward him and wrapped her fingers around his forearm. “Tonio,” she murmured. “How are you feeling, bello?”

  “Where’s Angie?”

  A pained look crossed her face as her eyes darted away.

  “Ma?”

  “She left a while ago, after you woke the first time.”

  “I remember, vaguely.” His hand came up to rub his forehead, his good one, although with all the tubes attached to him, it wasn’t easy. A strange sense of foreboding swept through him as he tried to recall their brief interaction before he drifted off again. It came back to him as swift and painful as the bullet that had seared his shoulder. Shifting back to his mother, dread filled him as he saw tears ready to overflow.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s packing for L.A., I imagine. She told me she has a flight out later today.”

  “Hell,” he muttered, a stab of pain not remotely related to his shoulder, assailing his heart.

  “What happened? Did you fight? You were so happy and at ease with each other last Sunday, and when we had lunch.”

  “Yes, lunch. I heard all about lunch.” His eyes narrowed on her.

  “I know I shouldn’t have.”

  “No, Ma. That was private and not yours to tell, but I get it. She’s a skilled detective.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “She’s a trained interrogator and can be quite persuasive.”