Defiance (The Protectors, Book 9)

by Sloane Kennedy

  “Fuck you,” I whispered.

  The man’s mouth pulled into a sneer, but before he could pull the trigger, there was a loud crashing sound as the kitchen window suddenly exploded. I instinctively turned my head away as glass went flying, but I didn’t feel any of it penetrating my body. I heard a popping sound, but didn’t know what it was at first. But when the guy threw himself past me and towards the hallway that led to the main part of the house, I realized I was, in fact, hearing gunfire.

  Just not from his gun.

  I turned in the direction the shots were coming from and watched in amazement as a man calmly stepped through what was left of the large picture window. He had a huge gun in his hand and it, too, had a silencer on it.

  “Get down!” he ordered, his voice loud, but not panicked.

  I instantly dropped to my ass as bullets flew over my head, and I realized the guy was still trying to shoot the man as he escaped the kitchen. The guy stepped past me and disappeared down the same hallway. My gut was telling me to run, but I was in a state of shock at the close call. I had no idea who the guy who’d just shot out my window was, but I had to assume, since he hadn’t blown my head off when he’d had the chance, he wasn’t my enemy.

  I heard more popping sounds, and then a few seconds later, a heavy tread as footsteps came my way. I knew I should try to hide in case it was the first guy coming back, but I couldn’t find the strength to move. My hand hurt like hell, as did my jaw. My side also hurt and I wondered if some of my ribs were fractured.

  I dropped my head back against the wall as I tried to catch my breath. But within seconds, the second guy reappeared and he dragged me to my feet. He was huge…bigger than me, even. I suspected he was older than me by at least fifteen years, putting him well over forty. His short hair was a mix of black and silver and barely looked ruffled, considering everything that had just happened. He was wearing military-style clothes, all black. His upper arms were huge, with muscles bulging beneath the fabric of his T-shirt. I finally noticed that, in addition to the huge handgun he was carrying, he had a second gun hanging by a strap at his hip. It was considerably bigger than the handgun, but not quite as big as a rifle. It also had a silencer on it, and I wondered if he’d used that gun to shoot out my window.

  “We need to go,” he said. He may as well have been telling me about the weather because, despite his declaration, he was utterly calm. I felt sensation spark to life just beneath the surface of my skin where he was holding me by the upper arm.

  “What?” I asked. Was he serious? Go? I wasn’t fucking going anywhere. Not until I got some answers.

  And that was exactly what I told him.

  Chapter 2

  Vincent

  “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on!”

  Figured the guy would be an ungrateful asshole. I shoved him back against the wall and said, “In case you missed it, you stupid fuck, you almost got your ass blown off. When that happens, you typically don’t want to stick around to give them a SECOND FUCKING CHANCE!”

  I forced myself to calm down, though by most people’s standards, I probably appeared completely calm and in complete control. Yeah, I was in control, but I wasn’t calm. I hadn’t been from the second I’d seen the assailant standing behind Nathan, knife poised to strike. I’d still been in my car, so I hadn’t bothered to shout a warning to him. By the time I’d grabbed my guns and darted across the yard, the man and Nathan had disappeared from view, and it hadn’t been until I’d gotten closer to the house that I’d seen them in a death match on the floor. Nathan had managed to break free from his attacker, but he’d been seconds away from death when I’d grabbed my Sig short-barreled rifle and started firing through the window, knowing full well the rounds wouldn’t reach the attacker, but the breaking window would sure as hell distract him long enough for me to get inside.

  The whole thing had been too damn close. And while I didn’t particularly give a shit what happened to the man myself, I did care about the impact it would have on Dom’s nephew. I’d been curious about Beck Barretti after the way Dom had talked about him, so I’d done a little research just to appease that curiosity.

  I hadn’t been appeased.

  At all.

  The mental issues Dom had alluded to had included a suicide attempt. I’d hacked the computers of the psychiatric hospital the young man had been admitted to and learned that Cade had been the one to find Beck and had managed to cut him down just in time. I hadn’t gone digging beyond that, because even the little bit of research I’d done had felt like a violation, not to mention it had brought back some pretty shitty memories for me. I’d had what I’d needed, anyway. Beck Barretti needed a shot at a better life and he was going to get it, even if I had to keep this ungrateful ass in one piece to do it.

  But as soon as I grabbed Nathan by the arm again, he jerked away from me.

  And immediately stumbled.

  I managed to catch him around the waist before he fell, and I really did not like the feeling of awareness that went through me at the sensation of his body pressed up against mine. I quickly reached out with my foot to grab the leg of one of the kitchen chairs and jerked it over. Nathan wasn’t much shorter than me and I figured when he was at his normal weight, he’d give me a run for my money in the overall size department. The fact that he’d managed to survive the brief, albeit intense, attack from his assailant was proof that he had some decent muscle built up, along with the instincts to fight back against someone with better training than him.

  “Sit,” I murmured as he continued to resist me.

  “We have to call the police,” he said, even as he sat down and put his uninjured hand up against his head.

  “So you know who attacked you?” I asked as I went around to the kitchen and snagged a clean-looking hand towel that was draped over the oven door handle.

  “No,” Nathan murmured as he lowered his arm so it was resting against his leg. The move allowed him to keep holding his head without having to keep his arm in the air. It was testament to how quickly he was crashing after the adrenaline rush.

  I tore a wide strip off the hand towel and knelt down in front of him. He winced as I wrapped the strip around his hand and used enough force to stop the bleeding. The wounds on his palm and possibly the ones on some of his fingers would need stitches, but I didn’t have time to deal with it now. “Hold pressure on that,” I said as I motioned to the binding. I climbed to my feet and went to the window. The frame was still intact, so I pulled the large retractable blind down in the hopes passersby wouldn’t notice the window was actually missing. Although both the assailant and I had used suppressors on our weapons, the sound of shattering glass would have been hard to miss. I could only hope like hell this was one of those neighborhoods where everyone assumed someone else was calling for help.

  “Then you have an idea of who attacked you?” I asked, knowing full well what the answer was.

  Nathan, predictably, remained mute.

  “Let me tell you how this is going to go,” I bit out as I stood before him. I expected him to look up at me, but when he didn’t, I bent down so I could look him in the eye. Because I was giving him one shot at this. Dom or no Dom, I couldn’t help someone who was too stupid to help himself.

  “You call the cops and the first thing they’ll do is start digging into every aspect of your life. And considering who you are, I don’t think you want that. Because you know what happens the second even one cop talks to a reporter to confirm Nathan Wilder was attacked in his own home by a gun-wielding fanatic.”

  Nathan’s eyes lifted enough so he could look me in the eye, but he still didn’t say anything.

  “You really think when the press gets wind of that story, they’re going to have any interest in your political views? You think voters will?”

  Nathan finally reacted by looking away. There was a slight hardening of his jaw. God, he was so fucking predictable. Threaten his life and he wanted to argue
, threaten his career and he couldn’t shut up fast enough.

  “So what, I’m just supposed to go with you?” he finally asked. “I don’t fucking know you, man.”

  “You don’t need to know me,” I ground out, hating that my irritation was starting to get the better of me. “All you need to know is that you stay here, you die. You come with me, you might have a chance. That’s assuming I don’t shoot your ass myself for being such a pain in mine.”

  Before Nathan could respond, there was a knock at the front door.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, because I knew exactly who it was. “One of your worried neighbors coming to check on you, no doubt,” I groused as I left the kitchen and went to the front door to confirm my suspicions. There was a small window next to the door and I could see a man through it, dressed in pajamas, a red bathrobe, and slip-on shoes. Nathan appeared beside me.

  “Your choice,” I said. “You’ve got two minutes to either get rid of him or tell him to call the cops. I’m going to go check the rest of the house.”

  I pulled my gun from my waistband and began sweeping the rest of the house. Not for the assailant, but for clues. But having seen the guy’s moves and the hardware he’d been carrying, I doubted he’d been careless enough to leave anything behind that would offer up any clue to his identity.

  Nathan’s house wasn’t big, so it didn’t take me long to check it out. I heard his muffled voice as he spoke to his neighbor, but had no clue what he was saying. I almost wanted him to choose the cops because then I’d be rid of him.

  I tried to reassure myself it was because I hated politicians and everything they stood for, but the sensation of Nathan’s body pressed up against mine for those brief seconds as he’d stumbled was peppering my mind. It wasn’t so much that I was surprised that I was attracted to him, since he was a good-looking guy; it was that the physical stirring I was feeling was driving my thinking.

  That just wasn’t acceptable.

  People who made decisions based on emotion or lust didn’t survive long in my business. And I hadn’t come this far, put down so many men and even a few women who’d come after me, just to give it all up because I’d liked the way a guy had felt in my arms.

  I made my way into what I could only assume was the master bedroom. It wasn’t a huge room, but it was comfortably decorated with neutral colors and masculine furniture and bedding. But there was very little in the house that spoke to the man himself. The pictures on the walls were all generic-looking paintings and art prints. There were no knick-knacks or photos, save one on the nightstand. The light on the nightstand was on, so I moved closer to the bed and picked up the framed picture. It was of Nathan and his brother. They were standing in front of a small lake and there was a little boat behind them. One twin had his arm around the other. My gut was telling me the one putting his arm around the other was Nathan. I didn’t know how I knew, I just did…there was something in his eyes that was just a little bit different than the other boy’s.

  Pride, maybe?

  The other boy, Brody, was smiling wide and holding up a decent-sized fish. I guessed the twins to be around ten in the picture.

  I knew from my research that Nathan was the older twin, and looking at the picture, I could see that. There was a certain protectiveness in the way he held onto his brother. I felt a shimmer of pain go through me. I’d had that once…the weight of an arm around me that said, I’m here for you.

  I sensed rather than heard that I was no longer alone. I turned to see Nathan standing in the doorway, his eyes on me. I silently cursed the awareness that went through me.

  “I told Mr. Deville that I accidentally broke the window when I was trying to move some furniture around.”

  His statement should have irritated me, since I knew what it meant.

  It didn’t.

  And that just pissed me off.

  I didn’t want to be stuck with him. Didn’t matter why.

  I returned the picture to the nightstand. “You have two minutes to pack a bag,” I said as I strode past him. When he grabbed my arm, I instinctively reacted and shoved him back against the doorjamb. He sucked in a sharp breath, but didn’t try to get away from me.

  “Don’t,” I muttered, feeling stupid for my reaction. I released him and pushed back. I had to force myself not to move away from him like I wanted. Mostly to prove to myself that I didn’t need to. That his proximity to me didn’t bother me.

  Fuck, when the hell had I decided it would be a good idea to start lying to myself?

  “I can’t just leave,” Nathan finally said. “I have responsibilities, commitments.”

  “What you have is a target on your back,” I returned. “I know your job is to lie to people, but don’t pull that shit on yourself. It’ll just get you killed.”

  Nathan stiffened at my words, but didn’t say anything. He hung there for a moment, and then he did the damndest thing.

  He checked me out.

  Not in an obvious way.

  No, his eyes quickly swept my body from head to toe.

  And my body reacted in a big way.

  “You have a minute and thirty seconds left,” I snapped before I stepped past him and went back downstairs. I returned to the kitchen and pulled out my phone.

  I dialed and smiled to myself when a groggy voice said, “Yeah.”

  “Jesus, Ev, it’s only eleven. How fucking old are you?”

  “Fuck you,” he murmured. “We can’t all be GI Joe.”

  I snorted at that. “Whatever you say, Grandpa. You’re not even sixty yet, Ev. Next thing you know, you’ll be eating dinner at five and trying to stay up late enough to watch that reality dancing show you like so much.”

  “Hey, that show kicks ass. Speaking of…”

  I shook my head. “He’s alive,” I said.

  Everett chuckled. “I should hope so. But if you’re calling this late, it’s not just to give me shit for my television viewing choices.”

  “Need you to take care of something for me.”

  “Fuck, Vincent, how many?”

  “None, you asshole,” I responded, knowing he’d assumed the worst. That I’d left bodies in my wake as usual.

  Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been such a stretch of the imagination.

  “The only casualty is a window. Can you get someone over here to fix it…and ignore the bullet holes all over the kitchen?”

  “Yeah,” Everett sighed, and I heard him moving around. “Address?”

  “624 Birch Street.”

  Everett paused, presumably so he could write the address down. “So I take it no bodies means the threat’s still out there?”

  “Yeah,” I murmured.

  “You taking him to your place?”

  God, the last place I wanted to take Nathan to was my house. But it was the safest place, so I’d just have to get past the idea of having someone I despised in my private sanctuary. When I didn’t answer, Everett said, “Give him a chance, Vincent. He might surprise you. I did.”

  I smiled at that. Yeah, Everett had been a big surprise, in more ways than one.

  “You’re the exception, not the rule,” I said. “I gotta go,” I added when I saw Nathan enter the kitchen, small bag in hand. “Talk to you later.”

  “Later,” Everett said just before he hung up. As I was tucking my phone into my pocket, I saw Nathan grab his off the floor.

  When he went to put it in his shirt pocket, I shook my head and said, “No, that stays here.”

  “I need my phone,” Nathan said.

  “You need it more than you need to breathe?” I asked impatiently. “Because it’s traceable.” I reached for it to take it away from him, but he stepped back. I got into his space and ripped the phone from his hand. “Is your career really more important than your life?” I ground out. “Because it sure as shit isn’t more important than mine.” I dropped the phone to the floor and made a move to crush it under my heel, but Nathan suddenly lunged forward.

  “Don’t!” he yel
led. My instincts took over and I grabbed him by the arms and swept his legs from underneath him, taking us both to the floor. He let out a whoosh of air as my body crashed down on his. Too late, I remembered the way he’d been holding his side after the earlier attack.

  But I didn’t apologize.

  “You lay your hands on me one more time-”

  “My brother’s messages!” Nathan shouted, his voice thick with emotion.

  “What?” I asked, startled.

  Nathan drew in several breaths. “I want the phone because it has my brother’s voicemail messages on it,” he whispered. His whiskey-colored eyes met mine. “Please,” he murmured.

  I suddenly became very aware of his hard body sprawled beneath mine. During the scuffle, one of my legs had gotten wedged between his, putting our cocks precariously close to one another. I had his hands pinned to the floor and I could feel his body trembling beneath mine.

  I knew it was likely just the lingering shock, but I couldn’t deny what having him completely at my mercy was doing to me. Especially since he wasn’t fighting me. I hadn’t given much thought to whether or not Nathan was gay like his brother, but I sure as shit was thinking about it now.

  “Please,” Nathan repeated, and a perverse part of me wondered what he was actually asking me for. I knew I needed to get off him, but I found myself reluctant to move. Nathan’s fingers flexed, drawing my gaze to them. It would be so easy to move my hands up to link my fingers with his. I shifted slightly to take the pressure off the knee that I had wedged between his legs, but the move caused my dick to brush his. I jerked my eyes to Nathan’s when I heard him let out the tiniest of whimpers.

  “Let me up,” he suddenly said, and then he was pushing at me. I could have easily kept him there on the floor like that and taken what I wanted…a taste of him. But I shifted off him instead and then snatched his phone off the floor. Nathan struggled to his feet, but didn’t try to grab the phone again.