American Heroes: The Complete American Heroes Collection (A Contemporary Romance Box Set)

by Teagan Kade

  That sensation, that small ball of heat, becomes a furnace.

  “I can’t,” he bellows, “…fuck.”

  His orgasm arrives. He slams into my backside, yelling obscenities as he pumps his release. My head snaps up and my climax follows, his body flat against me as I step from the precipice and allow myself to fall into the abyss. I convulse there, my body squeezing, milking him of everything he has with each punctuated contraction.

  I try to close my mouth, but my jaw’s locked open.

  He thrusts forward one final time and I give a short gasp in return, a final flutter humming through me.

  I let myself collapse onto the table, quivering through the final dregs of my orgasm. My heart won’t stop pounding, my hair matted around my face, my mouth so dry I’m not sure it’s ever seen moisture.

  I finally get up and turn to face him, this man who makes me feel like no other. I expect to see him soft, flaccid, secretly relishing the opportunity to coax him back to life.

  But there’s no need.

  He’s already hard.

  *

  Lynna arrives by herself a little past nine in the morning. Thankfully that was more than enough time to scoop up random clothes and underwear around the place and generally detox the prevalent sense of ‘someone’s been at it.’ If this warehouse was Google Maps last night, we were Dora the Explorer. No room was safe from our sexual escapades.

  We’re seated at a round table in the small kitchen downstairs, Lynna on one side, Ethan and me on the other, three Starbucks cups holding semi-cold coffee between us.

  “It’s very simple,” Lynna is saying. “I want to find Joseph, and I want to arrest him.”

  “My father’s not going to just hold his hands out,” I warn.

  Lynna taps the melamine table. She doesn’t look like she’s slept in a while. “We have more than enough evidence to hold him, thanks to you. As long as we can get that evidence to the right people, we’re good to go.”

  She’s making it sound so easy, but I know this is going to be a hard fight.

  I shift in the chair, sensations awakening from last night at the tender space between my legs.

  Ethan’s remained quiet, leaving it to us females to hash it out.

  “You said you think your former mentor’s safe to trust?” I query.

  Lynna rocks forward. “He’s a solid guy, absolutely incorruptible given his God-fearing ways. I know he’ll come through.”

  “You want to contact him?”

  “I can’t do that until we know where Joseph is, because we have to be ready to move as soon as the out-of-state agents arrive. It’s the one piece of the puzzle we need and do not have.”

  “His location.”

  “Right,” she confirms, easing back.

  Ethan speaks. I think all the sex last night has calmed him down, quelled the fire, in a way. “How do you think one would go about finding him, Agent?”

  I answer instead. “I’m aware of all his known hangouts, everywhere he frequents better than anyone. If anyone can find him, it’s me.”

  Ethan pushes himself back in his chair, that fire flaring right back up. “You can’t be serious. We can’t go out there looking for him.” He points in the direction of the front door. “You do know what’s out there, right?”

  “People trying to kill us, bad guys, the boogeyman, baba yaga… Yes, I know, but this has to be done. I can’t let him get away with what he’s done.”

  But Ethan’s not finished. He stands, hands planted down on the table. “So let them go,” he says, jerking his head towards Lynna. “They’re trained to deal with this kind of thing.”

  He’s right, but we’re stretched thin as it is and I know Mark and Lynna would stand out too much. I know how to get around these places, all the ins and outs. Explaining it to the others would take too long.

  “Maybe you should listen to him,” says Lynna. “You’ve done enough. We can’t ask for more.”

  I firm my tone of voice. “You don’t need to ask,” I say, directing my gaze at Ethan, “because I’m doing it, and I’m doing it alone.”

  “No way,” the both of them say in tandem.

  “This isn’t time for that hero, fall-on-your-sword bullshit,” says Ethan. “Not after we’ve come this far. If you’re doing this, and I’m pretty sure not hell nor high water is going to stop you, I’m coming.” He looks at Lynna. “You going to join this love-in, or you got better places to be?”

  Lynna smiles. “Oh, I think you two have proved you can handle yourselves. I’m going to make sure the rest of the pieces are in place, make sure everything’s ready to go when the time calls for it. It has to be done right. We can’t slip up, not even a little.”

  She’s certainly right about that. This isn’t the sort of thing you get a second chance at. My father will be extra-vigilant now he knows I’m alive, though maybe we can use that to our advantage.

  “Alright.” Lynna stands and hands me a burner. “Stay safe, okay? I don’t want our next visit to be at the city morgue.”

  I take the phone. “Likewise.”

  “You find Joseph, you call it in. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “And you,” Lynna eyeballs Ethan, “keep her safe, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replies.

  Lynna shares a final look between us before leaving.

  Ethan comes around to my side when the front door closes. “You are absolutely, one-hundred-percent sure about this? We’d be headed straight into the viper’s nest.”

  I smile. “But that’s the best place to find a viper.”

  *

  The car Lynna provided smells like cancer. I can practically feel the nicotine seeping into my skin through the leather. The backseat’s completely taken up with old clothes that add to the stench. I really hate to think where, and who, she procured it from.

  Ethan’s got the window down as he drives. “I really hope we find your father soon. I’m starting to lose my sense of smell here.”

  It’s been a long day already. We started with the houses, being sure to keep a safe distance with baseball caps in place.

  Nothing.

  We tried Dad’s favorite restaurants next, but again, there was no sign of his entourage.

  “Think,” says Ethan. “Where would he go to ground if he knew the heat was on him?”

  I rack my brain, my poor, still-recovering brain that continues to pulse with phantom pains. “You know, there was this old bar downtown, Dirty Peter’s? Dirty Paul’s? It looks like a real hole-in-the-wall dive bar inside, but there’s this secret area out back, from prohibition and all, that’s like another world. My father used to take me there sometimes when I was little, had the bartender make me a Shirley Temple while he talked business.”

  “Fond memories?”

  “He was a good father—during the precious little time we spent together.”

  “And you’re really prepared to send him to prison?”

  It’s something I’ve been wrangling with internally over the last forty-eight hours. The short answer is ‘no,’ because no child wants to do that to their own parent, their own flesh and blood. But the deeper I delved into my father’s dealings, the more that veil was drawn back, the more I realized I’d been living with a monster. “Yes,” I reply. “He has to be stopped.”

  “Alright. You know where this Dirty Pablo’s is?”

  “Dirty Paul’s,” I correct, “and yes. Take a left.”

  *

  It’s mid-afternoon and the streets are fairly deserted. Ethan finds a spot on the opposite side of the road from the entrance to the bar and parks. He looks across through the passenger window. “Anything?”

  “We always parked around back, but it’s a private lot. We can’t get in, even see in.”

  “So we wait. See if anyone comes out.”

  “Yes.”

  We keep a close watch on the entrance to the bar, but so far only two men have entered, none of which I know. One man walked o
ut, though ‘stumbled out’ might be a better way to phrase it. He almost got flattened by a passing bus before hobbling his way across the road shouting about the Second Coming.

  Two hours in and I’m not sure this was a great idea. There are countless places my father could be. He might not even be in the city anymore, even if my gut tells me he is.

  “Do you regret this?” I ask Ethan, rubbing the center console. The plastic’s worn out there, which means whoever owned this car probably spent quite a while staking places out in it too.

  “Regret what?” His eyes are full of interest.

  “Meeting me, getting caught up in all of… this.”

  He reaches across to my thigh. “Not for a moment. Not if an entire army was coming down on top of us. Not if I died today.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true. I’m glad I met you, even if it was a little unfair given the whole head-injury thing.”

  I laugh. “Because I couldn’t go anywhere, or because I couldn’t talk back?”

  “On both accounts I’d say I was pretty lucky, though being turned down isn’t really my deal, you know.”

  I roll my eyes. “Wow. Listen to you, Mr. Dating God. And here I was thinking you were so humble.”

  His fingers dance in the air. “Mere illusion.”

  “To what?”

  He grabs his dick. “The main course.” He looks past me, letting go. “Hey, you know that guy?”

  I look out the window and jump back in my seat.

  It’s Dimitri, standing outside the entrance of the bar in his prized leather jacket trying to light a smoke. Given his other arm’s in a sling, however, it’s proving to be quite an ordeal for him.

  “Motherfucker!” I hear him yell when the lighter doesn’t catch.

  He tries again and finally gets it to work, sucking on the cigarette like it’s the last one earth.

  “It’s the guy from the motel, isn’t it?”

  “Dimitri,” I reply. “One of them. Fredek must be inside.”

  “And your father?”

  It’s hard to tell, though usually they followed my father everywhere he went, were his right-hand men when they weren’t tasked to looking after me.

  I watch Dimitri not sure whether I should be sorry or relived he survived the shot.

  Dimitri puffs out smoke, flicking the cigarette ash to the pavement and looking up at the sky. Even as a kid I remembered him going through three, four packs a day. Along with my father’s habit, I’m surprised my own lungs don’t look like honeycomb by now.

  I watch him, reminded of better times, of the secret birthday party Dimitri and Fredek organized for me and my friends when I was eleven and Dad was out of town. Dimitri had tried to make me a Barbie cake but it had ended up looking like a pink Swamp Thing instead. But I had fun. It felt like I was a real kid with real friends. I remembered thinking, ‘This is what it feels like to be normal, to have a normal family.’

  Another figure emerges from the front of Dirty Paul’s—Fredek.

  Speak of the devil.

  He pulls up beside Dimitri and asks him for a smoke. There’s a bit of back and forth before Dimitri reluctantly hands one over, passing the lighter along with it.

  Fredek says something about his arm and Dimitri tells him to fuck off, or at least I imagine that’s the gist of it. I can almost smell the nicotine, or maybe it’s just the interior of the car again.

  “Is that—”

  “Yes,” I reply, “that’s Fredek.”

  A large truck passes by, obscuring our view for a moment.

  When it clears, Fredek is looking directly at us.

  He squints, lowering his head, before flicking the cigarette away.

  I know immediately we’ve been seen.

  Ethan’s already starting the car when Fredek reaches for his piece, lining it up and starting to cross the road.

  “Go,” I say calmly.

  Ethan drops the handbrake as the first round is fired, but it hits a passing car.

  “Go!” I say with a bit more urgency, but the car stalls, the engine grumbling to a sudden stop.

  Ethan tries to turn it over again, but it’s taking it’s sweet time to start.

  Two more shots, pinging into the trunk.

  My body’s tight. I see Dimitri trying to get his gun out.

  Fredek’s halfway across the road now, closing the gap between us fast and firing at will.

  The engine kicks over. “Got it!” shouts Ethan, shifting to drive us out.

  The moment we pull out Fredek brings two hands up and fires non-stop, bullets dinging into the bodywork, one sent skimming across the roof.

  Another horn blast as we cut a car off, the driver yelling something beside us.

  I’m sure Fredek is yelling something, his face lit up by the muzzle flash.

  He’s so close.

  “Go!” I yell, and Ethan plants his foot, the car snaking around a sedan in front of us and gunning through a red light.

  Ethan runs a hand through his hair, still hard on the accelerator. “Jesus, that was close.”

  But I’ve gone cold, my hands moving down to my side.

  He looks across to me. “What? What is it?”

  I see the bullet hole next to the door handle beside me, follow its path.

  Oh no.

  I bring my fingers up wet with blood.

  “Shit,” says Ethan, swerving, another horn blast.

  And then everything simply washes away.

  I’m sent back to the fog.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ETHAN

  I’m doing my best to drive with one hand and apply pressure to Sofia’s wound with the other, but it’s clear she needs medical attention as soon as possible. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”

  She’s shaking her head, her forehead sweaty. “No. We can’t. We have to go back to the safehouse.”

  The safehouse is five minutes away. I remember finding a fairly extensive first-aid kit in the cupboard downstairs, but it’s nothing compared to the facilities of a hospital, though she does have a point. Hospitals are the first place they’ll look.

  “Alright,” I say, the car picking up speed., “I’ll do what I can, but if it’s anything serious we’re going to a hospital regardless, deal?”

  She nods, her eyes fluttering closed and open. She’s paler than normal but otherwise okay. “Okay.”

  “Hold on,” I tell her. “We’re almost there.”

  I manage to keep her conscious until we arrive, carrying her inside.

  I sweep the kitchen table clean and help her up onto it, lying her down and running across to the cupboard for the kit.

  “I’m really sick of getting shot,” she says, head rolling to the side.

  I find the scissors in the kit and use them to cut open her top, examining the site of the wound. “Well?” she asks, gritting her teeth.

  I switch my cell to flashlight mode and hold it up to better examine the area. “You’re lucky. Very fucking lucky,” I tell her. “It hasn’t hit anything vital, buried itself nicely into the soft tissue, but it’s still going to hurt like hell getting it out.”

  Her hands splay out, gripping the sides of the table, her chest lifting up and down.

  I find a pair of tweezers in the kit, sterilizing alcohol. She winces hard when I apply it.

  I can’t help shaking my head as I work out how best to approach this. I’m looking down at the wound and my mood swings to anger. “How could you be so reckless?” I tell her. “I told you this wasn’t a good fucking idea!” I don’t know why I’m shouting. I know how to keep my cool in front of a patient.

  But this is no regular patient, is it?

  No, nothing about this is regular.

  A tear runs out from the corner of her eye. “Why are you shouting at me?” she pleads, that single tear becoming a torrent. “Ethan?”

  “Because… because…” My heart rate is elevated, my body still trying to dump the adrenaline that has be
en keeping us going these last few days. “Because I fucking love you, okay? I love you and I can’t lose you, not now, not after everything.”

  She looks up to the ceiling breathing hard, her eyes turning towards me.

  “I know,” I babble, lost in it now. “I know it’s too soon to be feeling that way, but, hell…”

  She lifts herself from the table and kisses me, hard, the salty taste of her tears on her lips, her skin clammy. She breaks away still holding my face, but she’s smiling. “It’s not too soon, you idiot.”

  Her head drops back and she winces in pain, her features pulling purse-string tight. “I felt it with you when I first woke up, when your voice brought me back from the dark.”

  I nod. “I know.”

  She looks down at her side. “Now, rom-com aside, can you please get this bullet out of me?”

  I’m about to ask her if she can handle it, the pain, but I know she can. I know she’s much stronger than I ever gave her credit for. She’s not the damsel in distress I thought she was. “Hold tight,” I tell her. “I’m going to be as quick as I can, but I need to be sure, okay. Curse, scream, do whatever you have to.”

  She grips my arm tight. “Go.”

  *

  The bullet itself couldn’t have been in a better spot, but there was some tissue damage and swelling around the entry point. The cheap stitching kit in the first-aid box wasn’t exactly A-grade material, but it did the job—albeit a rough one.

  I was sure Sofia would pass out at some stage, but she held on, clenching her teeth and bearing it like a trooper. In the Army I’d had grown man calling for Mommy with lesser wounds.

  I set her up on the old couch in the corner of the kitchenette, wrapping the wound and giving her a big-ass dose of pain meds from what I have to admit is a pretty darn extensive first-aid kit. I wouldn’t have been half surprised to find an EKG machine in there somewhere.

  But I know I’ll need to keep a close eye on her. She was extremely lucky, but that doesn’t mean she’s out of the woods yet.

  I add another blanket and crouch down beside the couch. She’s still sweaty, looks like a drugged-up dance festival drop-out, but there’s color coming back. I hate seeing her in pain like this. It’s breaking me.

  And after everything you’ve seen, a simple bullet wound would do it?