by Brook Wilder
Jon stepped between us, tapping his gun. “Go get my money and I might let you have a piece, but not before I do.”
I cringed at the thought. I had to get out of here before it came to that.
“Lopez held up his hands, a grin splitting his face. “Whatever you say. I will be back.”
I waited until Lopez shut the door. “He killed my sister, Jon. You have to let me go after him.”
Jon whirled around, surprise flickering over his expression. “What?”
“Jamie,” I said, my eyes pleading. “He killed her. He told me last night when he cuffed him.”
For the first time since I had woken, Jon looked uncertain, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Alisha. I didn’t know. He didn’t tell me anything about it.”
Not that it would have mattered. While he looked contrite right now, I doubted the news would have stopped his grand plans.
“No matter,” he finally said, dropping his hand. “I’ll kill him for you then. That would make you happy, right?”
God, he was psycho. “Let me go right now and I won’t kill you.”
Jon glared at me. “Kill me? But I rescued you from making the biggest mistake of your life. Why would you want to kill me?”
“You’re joking, right? Didn’t you roofie me tonight? That’s enough to kill you.”
“I didn’t,” he started, stopping himself abruptly. He took a few breaths, and I wondered how in the hell he passed his mental evaluation to become an agent to begin with.
“Okay maybe I did roofie you, but it was for your own good, Alisha. You would have ended up trying to rescue him and that would have cost you your career.”
I had thought about that very same thing, but the cons outweighed the benefits for me. “How did you get Lopez out without being flagged?” I asked instead, knowing the more I kept him talking, the more likely I would get out of here alive.
He grinned, pleased with himself. “That was genius, really. I made up the story that the Aztecas were going to break him out and walked him right out of the front door. Anderson never suspected a thing.”
I couldn’t let him walk out of here alive. It was my duty now to take down his corrupt ass and hand him over to the real feds. “Can you untie me, please? I promise I will behave.”
Jon seemed to have forgotten he had tied me to the bed, pulling out his knife. “Yeah, sorry. I had to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself while you were asleep.”
Relief poured into me as he cut the ropes, the feeling starting to come back into my hands and fingers. I slipped the ropes off my wrists and rubbed the raw skin lightly, not liking how close Jon was to the bed. My service weapon was gone, and I didn’t have anything remotely close to me to bash him over the head with. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said softly, his eyes on me. “You know I don’t want to hurt you, Alisha.”
I sat up against the headboard, trying to look cautious and wary. Inside, though I was trying to find his weak spot so I could get the upper hand. Jon and I had sparred numerous times over the course of our partnership, and while I had bested him a few times, he had won more than I cared to admit.
This was going to be beyond sparring. This would be my life on the line. Jon knew if I got out of here, his life was over with and I didn’t anticipate him going down without a fight.
Jon sat on the edge of the bed, his hand mere inches from my leg, and I braced for his touch. “You know, I’ve waited a long, long time to have you like this.”
I slid my leg out of his reach. “I already told you, Jon. I am not interested in us being anything more than partners.”
“You might not be interested,” he said harshly, his hand shooting out and gripping my thigh. “But that’s what is going to happen, Alisha. I have to show you I can treat you a hell of a lot better than that biker asshole ever could. There’s a reason you left him, remember?”
“Because my sister was dead and I needed to get revenge,” I said evenly, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. I didn’t know what Jon would do if he got angry, really angry, with me.
His fingers dug into the sensitive skin on my thigh and I winced, my body still sluggish from the drugs in my system.
“That hurts, Jon.”
He looked down at his hand. “Tell me you are going to leave here with me.”
“I can’t do that. I don’t want to be with you.”
In a flash he was on top of me, gripping my arms and pressing me down into the bed. I screamed and tried to knee him, but he pushed my legs apart with his and lay on my body. He had me by at least one hundred pounds and no matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t budge him.
“You slut,” he seethed, pinning me down. “I should have known you were no better than those bikers you came from.”
“I hate you!” I screamed at him as he wrangled my hands behind my head, his free hand roaming down the front of my body possessively. “I will never, ever let you have me.”
Jon snarled. “Like you have a fucking choice. I’m going to have you and then I am going to let Lopez and anyone else get their fill until you are begging for your life. Then, maybe, I will take pity on you.”
His words scared me, but I didn’t show it, spitting at his face instead. He let out a sound and ripped open the front of my blouse, buttons popping all over the room.
He was going to do it.
He was going to rape me.
And then, the room exploded around us.
Chapter 20
Seth
“Go now!”
I wasted no time kicking in the motel door, my gun in my hand as the smoke bomb filled the room. Rivet had tossed it through the window right before I forced entry, hoping to disorient whomever was in the room with Alisha.
But as the smoke cleared, I felt rage like I had never felt before. Jon was all over Alisha, attempting to pull her pants down while he fumbled with his own.
There was no doubt what he was about to do to her.
With a snarl I pulled Jon off Alisha, catching a glimpse of her torn shirt before I was throwing him to the ground and pummeling his face with my fists. He made a sound when my fist caught his upper jaw, blood spurting out of his mouth, and I ducked his own wild fist, crashing another fist to his side.
“You fucking bastard,” he snarled. “I am going to kill you.”
I hit him again. “Not if I kill you first.”
He caught me off guard by shifting his legs and I found myself being thrown into the table, crashing against the cheap wood. Jon was on me before I could react, but I clocked him cold, forcing him to fall back against the bed in a heap. That gave me the advantage and I rained down on his face and upper body with my fists, taking out my frustrations.
The sound of bones breaking didn’t stop me as I hit him over and over. He had touched my girl.
“Seth! Seth stop!”
I could feel Alisha’s hands on my shoulders, pulling at me, and I stopped, looking at the bloody mess on the floor.
“Please, stop. You are going to kill him.”
“He deserves to be killed,” I growled.
“Yes, but I can’t get you out of a murder charge. He’s not going to get up from that.”
I blew out a breath and pushed off Jon, his breathing ragged. Good. Maybe I broke his windpipe, too.
Turning around, Alisha jumped into my arms, burrowing her face in my shoulder. “You came.”
I wrapped my arms around her tightly, breathing in her scent. “Hell, yeah I came. Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“No, I’m just…” she started before pulling back, a puzzled look on her face. “How did you get out? Oh God, Seth, that was a federal pickup.”
Hell, I knew that. It had been on my mind since the moment I stepped off that truck. Having busted out of federal custody meant we were in a whole other world of shit.
“Are you okay? Shit man, he’s gonna need a face transplant after that beating.”
I caught Corey’s eye over Alisha
’s shoulder. “Nice timing as always, Ironsides.”
He grinned, shrugging. “Want me to take out the trash?”
“Wait,” Alisha said, pushing away from me. “I need to take him to Anderson and explain everything. He should pay for what he did.”
“I agree,” I answered as Corey picked Alisha’s partner off the ground. “We will drop him off at the ATF office.”
“Dude, you look rough,” Corey grinned as he pushed Jon forward. “You might want to get that looked at.”
Jon lunged at Alisha and I grabbed him around the neck, wanting to snap it in two.
“You will lose everything,” he wheezed, his face starting to swell. “Including her.”
“You never had her,” I growled, pushing him toward Corey. “Get him out of here.”
Corey forced Jon outside as I turned back to Alisha, who was gripping her torn shirt together.
Without even thinking, I pulled the borrowed t-shirt over my head and handed it to her. “Here, put this on.”
She took it, her hands shaking, making me wish I had killed him.
“Thanks.” Shedding her shirt, she slipped it over her head. “How did you get out of jail?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Alisha looked at me. “Of course. I’m not going to call the cops on you if that’s what you are worried about.”
Glad to see the spark come back into her eyes, I told her about the Hell’s Bitches intercepting the transport truck and how we had learned she was here with Jon. “I knew I had to come get you, no matter what.”
“He was going to rape me,” she said after a moment, swallowing hard. “Then he was going to kill me. There’s no way he could leave me alive after what he had done to me.” Her mouth parted. “Lopez. He’s out, too. We have got to find him.”
“We will,” I said, placing my hands on her shoulders. “But I need for you to take a moment and breathe, Alisha. You’ve been through a shitty experience and it will catch up with you.”
“I’m fine,” she said, though her lower lip trembled.
“Sure, you are,” I said softly, pulling her toward me. The moment her hands collided with my bare chest she let out a sob and I pulled her tightly against me, letting her cry it out. A lesser woman would have lost it some time ago. and I was surprised how well she had held on for this long.
Her tears wet my skin and I let them, wanting to kill her asshole partner over and over again for having her cry like this. “He can’t get you now.”
“I know,” she said, her arms tight around my waist. “I know.”
I ran a hand up her arm until I had her chin lightly in my grasp, forcing her to meet my eyes. “You did good, Alisha. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
She shivered against me. “Please, Seth, kiss me.”
I leaned down and brushed my lips over hers once, then twice until she was whimpering against them. I wanted to shut the damn motel room door and kiss her all over, wipe away any memory of what had happened to her and replace them with good ones, but we didn’t have that kind of time.
“Don’t leave me,” I said instead, pressing our foreheads together. “We will figure it out, I swear it.”
She let out a breath and stepped back, scrubbing her face with her hand. “We can, we will talk about this later, but thank you for coming to rescue me.”
“Thanks for crying on my chest here.”
Alisha blushed and took her torn shirt, wiping off her tears from my skin. “I’m sorry.”
I gripped her wrist. “Don’t ever apologize for crying on me,” I said softly, pressing a kiss to the soft underside. “That’s what I am here for.”
“Chuckler.”
I swore and turned back to Ironsides once more. “What?”
He held out his cell phone, a grim look on his face. “It’s for you.”
I snatched it from his hands, holding it up to my ear. “Yeah?”
“We’ve spotted Lopez. Figured Alisha wanted to be the one to arrest him.”
I looked back at Alisha. “They know where Lopez is at.”
Her eyes widened and she was already pushing toward the door. “We have to go. I have to make sure he gets placed in custody. It’s the only way to end this once and for all.”
Corey let her pass, his eyes on me. “She’s on a mission, isn’t she?”
“She’s trying to save our asses,” I said as I walked past him and into the sunshine.
Alisha was right. There would be plenty of time to discuss our future, but if we didn’t get Lopez in custody and explain what happened to the court, we would be in prison for real.
I couldn’t be separated from Alisha like that and I knew no one else in the council cared to spend five to ten in the slammer either.
“Well, alright then,” Corey muttered, shutting the door behind me.
I found Alisha already at Mama Bear’s bike. “Whose bike is this?”
I motioned for her to get on, swinging my leg over the bike. “Does it matter?”
Her arms went around my waist. “I guess not, as long as it gets us there.”
Grinning, I gunned the engine, glad I didn’t have to explain to her how I ended up on Mama Bear’s bike in the first place.
“They are at the old compound,” Corey called out. “He’s hiding there.”
“Thanks,” I shot back before taking off onto the highway.
Alisha rested her head against my back and I swallowed, hoping her indifference to me asking her to stay wasn’t because she was still planning on leaving.
I didn’t want her to leave. I wanted her to stay, and not only just stay, but stay with me.
Chapter 21
Alisha
I didn’t know how to feel. I had nearly been raped by my partner, rescued by the very man who should have been on his way to Dallas, and now I was about to capture my sister’s killer.
My life was a hot mess.
Seth zoomed toward the old compound, a former stomping ground for the cartel, one that had housed their weapons and drugs as they moved it from one place to another. The ATF had raided it years ago, and though the buildings were still in police custody, it was now used by the homeless and the druggies.
And apparently by the commander of the Aztecas to hide his filthy ass from those who would have him meet his maker.
I was ready. I had waited far too long to take Lopez down, and while I wanted to kill him, I knew I couldn’t. If I did, it would serve no purpose to the hundreds he had killed over the years, including my sister. He should have to pay for what he had done, at the hands of the court of law and not the end of my gun.
And Seth. I couldn’t think about Seth right now. His plea back at the motel had torn me apart. Now was not the time to sort out our love life. We had to close this chapter first.
As the bike zoomed up the dirt road to the compound, I mentally walked through the steps I would take as an ATF agent and not as Alisha Poole. It was hard rectifying the two inside me.
There was a tiny part of me that knew I should call for backup, do it the right way, but after what Jon had done to me, I couldn’t trust anyone right now.
No, I would be the one to bring in Lopez and Jon.
The compound crested over the hill and I sat up straighter, whispering a prayer for safety and restraint. Seth pulled the bike to a rest near the others, all waiting for the word to go.
“He’s holed up in the main building,” one of the Jesters said, pointing to the large building in the middle. “As far as I know, there are no weapons.”
“Oh, he has something,” Seth said as he climbed off the bike.
God, he looked like a Greek god without his shirt on, his tanned skin glistening in the afternoon sun. I wanted to watch him move for hours, to explore his body with my fingers and slide them over that golden skin.
He looked back at me and arched a brow, causing me to flush. There’s no way he could know what I was thinking, but I still felt like he could read my mind.
“What
’s the call, Agent?”
I swung off the bike, holding out my hand. “I need a gun.”
“Alisha,” Seth said softly. “You’re not going up there.”
“The hell I’m not,” I fired back, shaking my hand toward him. “I need a gun if I am going to make an arrest. Oh, and some zip ties, too.”
