by Rie Warren
I didn’t hear a fricking sound from within.
And something close to the dread I’d felt earlier punched through my heart.
For the first time, I didn’t knock.
I entered on softly padding feet.
The room looked normal.
Nothing amiss.
No sign of struggle.
No sign of Grace either.
I swept through to her bathroom.
No one.
Quickly rifling through her drawers, which I had no business rifling through, I found all the gifts I’d given her . . . tucked away. And when I lifted that first stuffed bear to my nose, the soft toy carried her scent too.
The plan was to storm the brothel and the wife’s practice first—cut Finnegan off at the head—then raid his offices.
I jumped over a banister, dropping to the second landing.
Where the fuck is she?
The pucker factor in this mission just went up a million degrees.
Taking the stairs in leaps, I pounced to a stop on the main floor, nerves so taut a struck match might light me on fire.
“She’s not here,” I gnashed out at Drake.
“Got other issues, Slade.” He jerked his head aside. “Found more young women down below. They’ve been . . .” He hung his head, but bleak eyes lifted to me. “No nice way to say this. They’ve been impregnated too.”
Other issues?
Fuck that shit with a flagpole.
Those women would be safe now.
I needed to find Grace pronto.
Then I heard over the radio someone had jumped the gun and swooped in on Finnegan’s office early. I knew I should’ve called in Bo, Storm, and some of the others for this op.
This bunch of fuckwit wastes-of-space.
What made the news even worse? Roark couldn’t be located, and Grace was most definitely MIA.
Steaming mad and scared out of my skull, I scanned the women being carefully herded from The House of Midnight.
I saw a mass of dark curly hair on the head of one of the ladies being ushered to the door.
“Grace?”
Just as she turned—revealing a face I didn’t recognize—Mistress Bunny spoke up, “She’s not here, like you said.”
“What do you know?” I stomped to her.
“I would’ve told you earlier but you just swarmed inside all hot and macho and, quite frankly, rude.”
“Bunny.” I growled.
“Roark collected her—”
“When?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
“Goddammit!” A harrowing sense of loss settled over me like a black shroud.
Then Bunny added, “But I can track Roark’s phone.”
“How?”
“This app thingamajig?” Pulling her phone from—Jesus Christ—the bodice of her dress, she tapped away on the screen. “I am so tired of being underestimated.”
“Bunny!”
“All right. All right. Keep your pants on. Or not.” After a flirty scan of my body, she went back to her phone. “Ah. At his house.”
“Where?”
Bunny pushed the phone in my face, and I grabbed it.
“I could fucking kiss you right now.” I checked the map app she’d opened.
“Well.” Bunny puckered up. “What are you waiting for?”
Pocketing her phone, I planted a big smackaroo on her.
I was halfway out the door when she sighed loudly, “Swoon.”
Not five minutes later, we roared up at the location, and I dashed out of the SUV before it even stopped.
The team followed, and I ran hell-bent for leather, rifle in one hand, KA-BAR in the other.
Inside, a terrified scream wailed through the building.
My hackles rose, and I hurtled through room after room, navigating deeper into Finnegan’s house.
Over the radio came distant call-backs of “Clear.”
Then I heard her, right on the other side of a closed door.
“Roark! You don’t want to do this. The baby’s healthy! What are you going to tell your wife?”
“Didn’t you hear? She’s been arrested, Gracie.” Roark’s frosty tone made my vitals churn.
He knows he’s been made.
Inching the door open, I peered through the crack.
And what I saw made my blood rise in a hot red rage.
He hunkered over her.
She was naked.
Ankles tied to the legs of the desk.
He wielded a glinting scalpel, easily as sharp as my blade.
Jesus.
An open medical bag sat between Grace’s spread thighs . . . and blood seeped in liquid trails over the dome of her stomach.
Her arms and torso unbound, the great bowl of her belly heaved as she thrashed against him.
Roark forced my woman back down, sneering in her face. “If Rachel and I can’t have it, you’ll die with this bastard fetus, bitch.”
I digested the gruesome scene in a split second.
In the next second, I crashed through the door. “Put that fucking scalpel down before I shoot a bullet clean through your skull!”
With a maniacal grin, Roark cocked his head at me. “Mr. Slade. This is an interesting turn of events. Not happy with Gracie’s talents in bed?”
Way to wave a red flag at a charging bull.
Dropping the gun, I tore across the room.
Whipping the ass-maggot away from Grace, I smashed him into a glass-fronted bookcase. His scalpel went flying, and so did my fist . . . straight into his face.
That time the blood was his, and crimson stickiness sprayed like a fountain as his nose crunched beneath my pummeling blow.
He whined and wheezed, blood dripping between the fingers he clenched over his nose.
“You stay put,” I ordered.
And just to make sure, I punched him again with such punishing force his head snapped back on his neck.
Roark’s howls of pain sounded like music to my ears.
Swiftly turning to Grace, I freed her legs.
Helped her up.
“Are you okay?” I swept tear-tangled hair back from her face.
She nodded.
“The baby?”
“I don’t think he had a chance to get too deep. I think . . . I’m in shock.”
“I know.” Goddammit, I know.
I carried her to the couch on the far side of the room, did a quick inspection of her belly. The blood bright, the incisions hasty and non-medical, and thank motherfucking god only surface deep. I quickly found a roll of gauze from my med kit, tightly wrapping the absorbent mesh around and around her stomach.
She hissed, and my eyes scrunched up.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
Finnegan taunted behind us, “I have more connections than you could ever dream of, you thug. Why don’t you come over here and give me a real fight instead of coddling that cunt?”
Jaw hardened, I drew a blanket across Grace’s form.
I clenched her hands in mine then kissed her forehead.
Then I rose to my full height, stalking back to Grace’s torturer.
He weaved back and forth, pulling up his bare knuckles.
Like he had a chance against me.
I had a fucking freight train full of wrath steaming right through me and just waiting to run free.
“Funny.” I ducked when he took his first swing, missing by a mile. “I have more. I’m your worst fucking nightmare, flesh trader, but first—”
I dropped all my weapons, one by one.
“First?” He bounced back and forth, blood congealing beneath his crooked nose.
I slammed my fist into his ribs beneath his upraised arms.
I loved the sound of him yowling.
Grasping his hair in two hands, I yanked him down and blasted my kneecap up.
“First, Finnegan, I’m gonna beat the holy hell out of you.”
His nose now smashed at the opposite angle—ouch—he s
hook his head as if the dizzies attacked him.
Good.
I rounded as he circled me, and he lashed out with an open-palmed smack.
Laughing between gritted teeth at his pathetic strike, I said, “Never met a criminal who didn’t know how to street fight.”
“You goon!” Finnegan sounded all nasally and whiny—no surprise.
He only surprised me when he came at me with a pistol he must’ve kept taped to the underside of his desk.
“Killian!” Grace screamed.
With the barrel pointed precisely at my forehead, the fucker inched back the trigger.
“She’s not going to like seeing your brains spattered all over my desk.”
“Yeah, that would suck.” I smiled, listening to the chamber click the round. “But I’m all about embracing the suck.”
A quick kick-spin, and I knocked the hot weapon from his grip.
The gun fired harmlessly into a wall, and I was on Finnegan. I plowed him back and down. Down to the floor.
Furniture bowled over, and I hammered at him like a punching bag hanging in the gym.
Crack.
His ribs fracturing.
Bang.
The back of his skull against the floor.
Smash.
His cheek caving in.
His eyes pin-wheeled.
Blood spewed.
Tissue swelled.
Bones broke.
I could’ve easily killed him. Shot him dead. Slashed him open to his entrails.
But nothing was as satisfying as pounding his smug face over and over until his features resembled a bucket of chum.
“Killian?”
The sound of Grace calling for me pulled me from the violent miasma.
Turning, I left Finnegan wheezing weakly.
I rushed to Grace.
I held Grace.
I might’ve been ashamed of her seeing me act so viciously if I wasn’t still strung-out on the near-catastrophe I’d stopped.
Picking her up in trembling arms, I wrapped the blanket all the way around her.
Leaving a crumpled body behind, I carried her from the room.
“I’ve got her,” I muttered into the radio receiver. “Bringing her out now.”
I didn’t want to get any more blood on her, so I held her carefully, handled her cautiously.
And her eyes burrowed into mine.
Saved.
I couldn’t even wipe away the tiny tears that dropped from the corners of her eyes and down to her temples for fear of leaving crimson tracks on her skin.
I carried Grace through the house.
Out the front door.
The entire property barricaded by Fed vehicles, I walked down the path.
Men and women I barely knew—all dressed in black just like me—holstered their weapons, nodding when I stalked past.
And at the ambulance, I set Grace down so softly on the stretcher ready and waiting for her.
One of the paramedics advised, “Let’s get her in and cleaned and warm.” He began readying the O2 and a blood pressure cuff. “Check her over once we’re en route.”
Grace’s hand shot out, and she grabbed my arm. “Don’t leave me.”
Done deal.
“You’re not taking Grace anywhere without me.”
As I climbed into the rig, Drake shouldered forward. “Where’s Finnegan?”
“Inside.”
“Alive?” he asked.
“Maybe.” I kept hold of Grace’s hand. “If he’s lucky.”
Chapter Fourteen
SLADE . . . AGAIN
IN SPITE OF MY best efforts to bleed that motherfucker out like a stuck pig, Roark Finnegan survived.
I’d try harder next time.
As soon as Grace was settled in the hospital—her and the baby being meticulously monitored—statements were given, but just to provide further corroborating evidence. Due to Justice’s diligent investigative prowess back at Force-Reckon HQ, the illegal prostitution ring and baby-selling scam connected seamlessly.
The more intel I learned, the more I wished I’d plugged that Finnegan fucker’s body full of bullets. As Drake had said—and Justice warned—Grace wasn’t the only one forced into pregnancy. Just the only one with his baby.
In the days following, the would-be politician and his OB bitch wife were brought down hard in the full view of the public eye. Careers destroyed, humiliation written all over them . . . there’d be no coming back from that kind of social stigmatism, let alone the jail time they’d serve.
Mistress Bunny became a witness. Not a suspect. In her limited role, she’d looked after the women as much as she could. In fact, I later learned she’d banked all the extra money she’d charged from the clients—opening accounts on behalf of each girl.
A nice nest egg for Grace. For her future and her freedom.
She wouldn’t need me anymore.
That was all fucking fantastic, but the best moment for me was when Grace finally woke for the first time after the whole ordeal.
I’d been sitting as still as if I’d been on overwatch duty, machines beeping and bleeping and buzzing all around. I’d been assured she wasn’t in any immediate peril, but that didn’t stop me from worrying and holding her hand so my fingertip rested on the pulse in her wrist just so I could feel the continual beat.
“Killian?”
I about shot off the hard little chair I perched on so I could kneel beside her, so I could see the slow fluttering of her lashes as her eyelids opened. “I’m right here, sweetheart.”
A small smile had curved her lips, and her tired eyes landed on mine.
Jesus, I felt tears welling up from deep within.
Bending over her hand, I kissed her knuckles. “It’s all over. Promise.”
“The baby?”
I’d pulled her palm to the bulge of her belly. Such warmth and vitality poured off her, regardless of her shock and pain and fatigue the health of the baby couldn’t be mistaken.
“It’s okay now,” I murmured. “All good.”
She’d sniffled once before salty wet tracks poured down both her cheeks. I bundled her up against me, using my body to bolster hers. We locked fingers across her tummy—the surface wounds taped closed—and sat there while she cried and I comforted.
In the end, her hand had rasped against the thick stubble on my jawline, and I’d wanted nothing more than to crawl right onto that narrow bed beside her.
“I’m so tired,” she admitted wearily.
“Good thing sleep is just what the doctor ordered.”
And I’d kept my vigil during her entire stay.
Both her and the baby fine.
Me?
Not so much.
She didn’t come home with me.
Why would she?
I didn’t have a home.
I had a bedroom and a bathroom and a balcony above a freakin’ bar.
After a real reunion with Mercy—tears and all—while Grace was hooked up to so many machines in the hospital ward I had panic attacks on the daily, she asked if she’d be imposing too much if she stayed with Mercy and Angel for awhile. And Mercy had practically thrown a party at the idea.
Made sense.
Made me shit scared about the future of us.
Christmas fucking sucked. I didn’t even get a chance to give Grace the presents I’d bought. I wanted to do the gift-giving thing in private.
We were never alone.
Barely had the chance to ask her how she was doing and to kiss her cheek during the commotion of Sol’s Christmas feast.
New Year’s Eve?
Same.
I mean, not like a pregnant woman would be cool with hanging around a bar filled with a bunch of roughneck bikers and hookah-smoking dudes, but . . . damn. I missed her.
And if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t much like sharing her.
And I wasn’t much into the holidays at all, but I’d have a redo of Thanksgiving with Grace every damn d
ay of the week if I could.
After the first week in January, I was chomping at the bit.
On the second Saturday of the new year, I pulled out my thumb, decided maybe I needed to get my pussy-card stamped, and trudged on over to Mercy and Angel’s because it looked like I was going courting, or dating, or whatever the hell this thing was. I couldn’t stand another damn second without Grace or not knowing, and shit, I had officially become a teenage girl.
Fuck it.
I didn’t care.
But didn’t I just feel like a dickless wonder standing on the stoop of Mercy and Angel’s house, which was about a forty-second walk from my digs at the bar. I balanced a square cardboard tray in one hand and a gift bag filled to the brim in the other.
Some of the stuff I’d wanted to give Grace couldn’t actually be carried down the road. Like the padded custom-made rocking chair I’d ordered for when she started breastfeeding. Which I’d had delivered to the back entrance of the courtyard, lugged upstairs myself, and draped in a sheet just in case any fucker busted into my room unannounced.
Wasn’t even sure I should tell Grace about that particular present. Might seem a little creepy possessive stalkerish, and I guessed she’d lived through enough of that kind of misery what with her captivity at the Lair and the bordello.
Also, I did not need to be thinking about Grace breastfeeding. My groin tightened at the mere idea of her breasts swollen with milk.
Hell, my cock hardened at the mere thought of seeing her again and maybe having some alone time.
I rang the doorbell.
Mercy opened moments later, an easy smile tipping up her lips. “Killian!”
She reached for a hug I sort of fumbled through with both my hands full.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“I brought hot chocolate.” I immediately started rambling like an idiot. Correction. An idiot in the painful grip of love. “No caffeine, you know. It’s for Grace, and I read caffeine isn’t such a good idea for the baby.”
Mercy compressed her lips, and I suspected she was biting back a grin.
Or a laugh.
Then of course Angel notched his head outside next to her. “What you got there? Anything good? Come to think of it, you never got us a housewarming present.”
I was really beginning to hate everyone right about now.
My goddamn cheeks heated. I hoped they’d blame it on the cold.
“Nothing for you. Not sorry.” Although I do have a new blade I wouldn’t mind trying out, I didn’t say. “Hot chocolate for Grace.”
