Savage Burn

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “And you can stop telling me you’re a killer like it’s a bad thing,” she adds. “I’m glad you’re a killer. In fact, it’s rather endearing right about now. You can teach me to be one, too. I want these people to pay.”

  “And they will. At my hand. You have my word.”

  “I might need to do it myself,” she retorts. “Was my mother murdered?”

  “I don’t know, baby.”

  “Do you think she was murdered?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think my father knows she was murdered?”

  “We don’t know that she was murdered,” I remind her, “and I find it hard to believe that your father could know such a thing and still get involved with these people.”

  “I find it hard to believe that he’s the one who pulled you out of the operating room and shoved a gun in your hand, but he did.”

  “I always wanted to fight. You knew that. And I am certain that your father felt like the missions we were running were for the greater good.”

  “But illegal?”

  “He got out when we got off the government books. I did not.”

  “Because he wanted you to join Tag and keep the program going,” she reminds me. “Because of him.”

  “I made my choices,” I say. “No one owns my decisions but me. And thankfully,” I add, “I became the man well-equipped to protect you and him.” Almost as if by his design, I think, but it’s a ridiculous thought I push aside.

  “Pocher all but said that I’m the election and re-election strategy,” she says. “I just won’t live to see re-election.”

  “Because you won’t be married to him and he won’t be president.”

  “I feel trapped.”

  “You aren’t trapped.”

  “Until my father’s safe, I am,” she argues. “You know I am, and when will that ever be?”

  “When I end this. We’ve talked about this.”

  “In the meantime, I have to pretend to be his woman. You know I have to, I know you know, we’re just both in denial right now. I don’t know how I’m going to pretend with that man. How I’m going to let him touch me.”

  “You won’t have to,” I assure her, but she doesn’t hear me.

  She’s still talking, still panicked, her voice lifting with every word. “I need to do something. I need to do it now.” She turns and paces a few steps before facing me again. “We have to do something now.” She holds out her hands. “I’m shaking and that’s not fear. I’m angry. Okay, a little afraid, but angry, too.”

  I close the space between us and catch her hand. “Then let’s go do something. Let’s go shoot something.”

  “Gabriel or Pocher?” she asks, not the least bit of hesitation in her at this idea. That’s the thing about fighting for your life. You become willing to do whatever it takes to keep yours. That’s not who I’ll let her become. That’s who I already am, and then some. The then some part, the dark, ugly part, I don’t want her to see. And I damn sure won’t let her become like me.

  “A target,” I correct. “Let’s go to the shooting range. That’s what I do when I need to rein in my temper and plan what comes next. I practice. I make myself better. Better at shooting. Better at hitting my targets. Better at killing who I want to kill. Did you up your karate training?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “We need to fix that. I need to know you can protect yourself. If you’re going to be in this life with me—”

  “I am,” she says, grabbing my waist. “Do you hear me, Rick Savage? I am. You don’t get to decide that I can’t handle it. You don’t get to walk out to save me. That clearly didn’t work and considering my mother might have been killed, I can’t be a princess in a glass tower. I have to be—”

  I cup her head and kiss her before I say, “A princess by my side with a Sig in her purse?”

  “Exactly,” she says. “One I know how to use.”

  “Now you’re just trying to get me hot and bothered, baby.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Hell yeah, it’s working. I’d show you how well it worked, but we have two assholes inside I don’t care to have watch.” I catch her fingers in my hand. “Come. Let’s go inside and finish up with that audio. Then we’ll go shoot our guns.”

  “But not at people,” she says. “Right?”

  “Not yet, baby,” I say.

  What I don’t say is that a gun is not my weapon of choice. They’re messy in all kinds of ways. Killing doesn’t have to be messy. And I need to end this clean and fast, or Tag will.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Candace

  Once inside, we find Smith still at the table in deep concentration, typing on his MacBook while Adam stands beside the coffee pot, holding a cup and talking on the phone. “I’ll call you back, you bastard,” Adam snaps, and then, ends the call. “That was Asher,” he says, clearly talking to me. “He didn’t think you’d know the military slang. He apologizes for not warning you. He thought the explanation would come after the recording. We’re all lining up to beat his ass when he arrives here tomorrow.”

  “I thought he was watching Gabriel?” I ask. “Please tell me he’s not coming back.”

  “Yeah, what the fuck?” Rick asks, his hands settling on my shoulders, and his touch grounds me in a calmer place despite my panic. I’ve just learned that my mother might have been murdered. I don’t want to see Gabriel right now.

  “Gabriel isn’t coming back,” Adam assures me quickly. “We have a couple of guys doing surveillance in place of Asher.” His eyes lift and collide with Rick’s. “Asher’s the guy we want right here at our backs if this turns nasty.”

  Rick steps to my side. “He’s not wrong. Asher’s a warrior.” He walks to the donut box, pulls out a glazed donut, and adds, “And a righteous bastard, but so are all Navy SEALs. Right, Adam?”

  “Somebody has to be with the likes of you around,” he retorts. “For instance, I won’t beat your ass with your girl around. That’s how righteous I am.”

  Rick snorts and makes a squawking sound. “You mean because you’re afraid.” He downs half a donut. “What did we miss on the audio, fish man?”

  “I’m your man on that one,” Smith pipes in from the table. “I’ve listened to the entire recording, but Asher’s team is also transcribing it now for everyone to review.”

  Smith has officially pulled my attention away from the donut eating man-fest by the counter. I step to the table across from him, leaning on the wooden surface. “What was on the recordings?”

  Rick is instantly right by my side again, already done with his donut. If this was any other time, I’d laugh. Rick is just such a food whore and he’s such a big personality. Such a big talent, too. The man’s skill in the operating room was something whispered about in the hallways of Fort Sam. My father knew this and yet he pushed Rick into combat. Why? There feels like there is more to all of this, something that we’re missing.

  “Candy, baby,” Rick says, his hand settling on my back. “You’re making Smith squirm, which isn’t that hard since he’s such a pussy, but he really does look a little scared.”

  I blink and realize that I’ve been lost in thought while staring at Smith, who isn’t exactly squirming, but he is arching an expected brow at me. I straighten. “Sorry. I got lost in my own head. “What did you say was on the audio?”

  “I didn’t,” Smith says. “But bottom line, there was a lot of conversation about you.”

  “A lot of talk of you and your father being used for political arm candy,” Adam adds, joining us and setting his mug down in front of the chair he was in earlier.

  “I thought there wasn’t talk about my father?” I challenge. “Isn’t that what you told Rick earlier?”

  “No substantive talk about your father,” he clarifies, his gaze collides with Rick’s. “A lot of shit we think you’d prefer to read rather than hear. The transcript will be over any minute.”

  “Oh really?” Ricks says. �
��Because I’m that delicate? How about this? I’ll read it right after I go play with unicorns in the backyard and sing nursery rhymes.” He scowls. “How about you just tell me before I throttle you?”

  Certain Adam has a good reason for this suggestion, I join Team Adam. “Maybe we should read the transcript, Rick,” I say.

  “No need,” Rick says, “when Adam and Smith can tell us now.”

  I catch his arm. “Rick, please.”

  “No need to say please,” he assures me. “You can play with the unicorns with me, baby. I’d never deny you that fun.” He pats my hand and eyes Adam. “Right after Adam tells us what we need to know.”

  Adam’s expression tightens, right along with his voice. “The audio includes Gabriel’s claim that Candace loves him with all her heart and soul.”

  I can almost feel Rick flinch. He grabs the chair in front of him, both hands clutching the top, fingers digging into the leather. Or fake leather. I’m not really sure. The world around me seems ten shades of real and fake right now, including my feelings for Rick and Gabriel. Rick, I love. Gabriel, I have to pretend to love. I remind Rick of this fact now. “I never loved him. You know that.”

  He doesn’t look at me. “What else?” he asks. He’s focused on Adam, talking to Adam.

  “A warning,” Smith chimes in.

  “Smith,” Adam bites out, issuing a warning of his own.

  “It’s easier to hear it from us than to listen to it on the audio,” Smith argues. “You just said that yourself.”

  “I said he should read the damn transcript,” Adam reminds him. “Let him read it.”

  “Time isn’t on our side,” Smith says, dismissing Adam and focusing on us. “Pocher warned Gabriel about his campaign manager. He told him to get her out of his system and stick with you, Candace.”

  And there it is.

  A verbal poke of the angry bear standing next to me.

  And still, that bear doesn’t look at me, his mood whipping and cutting through the air, a blade of fury, ready to kill someone. I get it. He’s probably embarrassed. I’m the woman he’s declared his love with and on the surface, it seems as if I didn’t love him the way he loved me. “I don’t love him,” I say, because while I’ve said this to Rick, I think everyone fighting or me, and him, needs to know. “Eight years later, I just needed to replace my heartache with something stable, but I never loved him. I loved Rick. I love Rick, but all that said, it’s rather painful to know that my desperation to move on with life, lead me to such stupidity and that monster. And on that note, I’m ready to go shoot something. I’m going to get my purse.”

  Embarrassed and ashamed, I walk away, exiting the kitchen, and I both want Rick to let me go and crave the moment he stops me, the moment he tells me that the past doesn’t have the power to carve us up and destroy us. But he doesn’t stop me. He lets me go like he did eight years ago. Because that’s how easily Rick Savage can be convinced to stay away from me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Candace

  In a rush of adrenaline, and what threatens to become a volcanic messy eruption of emotions that I don’t want to feel, I rush toward the bedroom. I will myself in check, but considering that Rick’s now back, a stunning development, my father’s gone and in danger, and my mother might well have been murdered, the collision of past extremes with present extremes is well, extreme. But so what, right? Life happens and this is one of those times when my father might say “suck it up, buttercup, eat chocolate cake, and come out punching.” The problem is that at the root of my volcanic eruption is my fear that he will never bring me another chocolate cake. I think if I could just hear that he’s okay, I’d be about a million times less emotional.

  I round the corner to the bedroom when Rick’s suddenly there, catching me to him and pulling me around in his arms. And as always with this man, heat rushes over me with his touch, but there is more, too. All the emotions, the fear, and the pain fade as second to him. It’s then that I realize that I’ve been living with a hole in my soul that this man fills.

  “Rick,” I whisper, and when I would say more when I would dare to just be vulnerable and tell him how much I can’t stand the idea of losing him, he’s claiming the moment.

  “You have to know that conversations about that dickhead fucking you and marrying you is killing me, woman. If it didn’t, why would you even want me?”

  He’s right. I need him to care. I want him to care, but I don’t want him to hurt. We’ve had enough pain between us and so I repeat what I’ve said, what I know he needs to hear again. “You know I thought you weren’t coming back. Ever, Rick. And you know I didn’t, and don’t, love him.”

  “But you told him you loved him. That’s the part that keeps fucking with my head.”

  “I did and maybe at one point, I even believed it because I’ve told you this. I convinced myself that it wasn’t that intense, breathless wonderful thing that I remembered with you.”

  “And now?”

  “And now, I know better. I love you, Rick Savage. I know you know I love you. I know you feel it.”

  “I love you, too, baby,” he murmurs, his voice a masculine seduction. His mouth closes down on mine, and then he’s kissing me in that way only Rick Savage has ever kissed me: like I’m the reason he can breathe like I’m the reason he exists. The kiss is a perfect drink of a perfect man, one that is over too soon and when his lips part mine, leaving my knees weak and my body hot. The only thing that keeps me standing is his arm around my waist. “The idea of another man touching you kills me,” he confesses. “That thought is what made me and vodka such good fucking friends to start with. He doesn’t touch you again.”

  I don’t argue that point, but we both know that protecting my father may come down to me spending at least a little more time with Gabriel’s ring on my finger. I don’t want to think about what that means about who is or is not, in my bed. “No,” Rick says tightly, catching my face in his hands. “I know what you’re thinking, and you will not fuck him again. Not even to save your father. Gabriel won’t live through it.”

  I’d laugh if I heard those extreme, guttural words from anyone else, but this is Rick, and he’s not joking. “I have to save my father.”

  “That’s why you have me. I will save your father. I’ll fuck up anyone who even thinks about hurting him. I’ll do that for you and I will not let you down. But you will not fuck Gabriel again. End of discussion. Agreed?”

  I could push him. I could argue, but I don’t. I don’t fight him over what comes next with Gabriel. It’s not like I want any outcome but the one he wants, too. If anyone can save my father, I believe it’s Rick. And the truth is that this man demanding I be only his melts me like butter on a hot Texas sidewalk. “Agreed.”

  “Good.” He strokes my hair, his touch possessive and yet tender. “Let’s get out of here. We both could use that firing practice right about now.”

  “Yes,” I say, wholeheartedly. “Please.”

  “Grab your purse. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  I nod and he kisses me again before setting me away from him. “Hurry.” He turns away and then suddenly his hands are on my arms again and he pulls me to him. “You’re mine now, even if you don’t know it yet.”

  “I never stopped being yours, Rick Savage. You just don’t know it yet.”

  “You can prove that to me later. Naked.”

  My lips curve and I turn away, walking toward the bathroom, the burn of his stare following me as I disappear through the door. Once I’m there, I peek around the corner and watch him exit the bedroom. I’m smiling all over again, all those volcanic emotions—at least for the moment—transformed, into lust, when my cellphone buzzes with a text message. I jolt ridiculously with the sound. Some silly part of me hopes it’s my father. I yank my phone from my pocket and read a message from Gabriel: Send me a sexy photo to remember you by while I’m gone.

  Disbelief hits me seconds before my temper flares hot and fast. This man believes
that I’m sick and this is the message he’s sending me? I think incredulously. While banging another woman? I walk into the bathroom, set my phone down and press my hands to the sink. Fuming. Clearly, he wants to show my photo to Pocher or some sick story like that, perhaps as a way to prove he’s got me under his thumb. Or as a way hold me captive, to blackmail me. Thank God, I’ve never done such a thing with this man. My cellphone rings and it’s him, of course. I don’t even consider who might be listening in. I answer with a repeat of my thoughts. “Are you serious right now, Gabriel? I’m sick and that’s the message you send me?”

  “Are you actually mad that I wanted to flirt with my fiancée?”

  “Your sick fiancée, Gabriel.”

  “You don’t sound sick right now,” he snaps.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I do. I sound like someone sick and riding an adrenaline rush of anger. You’re such a fucktard.” It’s Rick’s word and it’s out before I can stop it but I don’t care. Rick makes sense a lot more often than not.

  “Did you just call me a fucktard?” he demands, his tone indignant.

  “Yes, Gabriel,” I say. “I did. I called you a fucktard.”

  “You’re the future first lady and that’s how you’re talking?”

  “I can send you naked photos, but I can’t call you what you are? I’m a military brat. I know that word, but what’s sad is that a man who wants to be president is the one who inspired me to use that word. Act like a man who deserves to be president and actually cares about the people around him.”

  He clears his throat. “I don’t like how you’re talking to me.”

  “Good. Maybe I’ll wake you up. You need to at least learn to fake being more sensitive or the press will eat you alive. And so will your opposing party.”

  He’s silent a moment. “Fair enough. You have a point.”

  “I’m glad we agree. Can I go throw up now and be left alone to get well for this weekend?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  “Goodbye, Gabriel.” I hang up.