She had answered her door like she’d taken part in an orgy or something the night before, with the remnants of yesterday’s makeup smeared across her face and covered only by a tiny, silky nightie.
“Ren,” she’d squeaked, looking surprised to see me before she’d stuck her chest out and flashed what she must have thought was a sexy smile. All I’d seen was the most recent Joker.
“I’m not here for anything other than to tell you to stay the fuck away from Maya. You have no reason to talk to her, and the restraining orders served on you and your cauldron cronies means that you aren’t to be within 100 yards of us. If any of you test those boundaries, I promise you I’ll make sure you serve time. I don’t know why you’ve done what you have, but it stops now.”
“How come you can break the order? Because that’s what you’re doing right now,” she’d sneered.
“I’ve got permission. Now, say that you understand me so that I can get the fuck away from you.”
“Oh, I get you, but if you think it’ll ever stop, you’re wrong!”
“Don’t test me, Francheska.” I’d taken a step toward her, and for a split second, she’d looked scared before a smug smile took over. “I mean it, stay away from all of us.”
It wasn’t until I’d gotten back to the hospital that I’d thought about the strange way she’d phrased her reply when I’d asked if she understood me. That bitch’s head was all over the place, though, so I wasn’t going to give it more thought than I already had. Maya was my priority, and she was being discharged today, and that was all that mattered.
Focusing back in on Maya, I could see her looking around the house as we walked in, and didn’t miss her smile when she saw all of the finished work.
“You do good work, My,” Cole said behind me, stealing the words out of my mouth, the shitlord.
“I love my new home,” I interrupted as we made our way towards the staircase. I’d had the option of putting her on the middle floor, but my bedroom now had everything she needed right there. I’d had a bench put into the shower so that she could sit down, and we’d had a small fridge placed beside the bed. I also had body bolster pillows on the bed for her to lean her leg and arm on when she wanted to. A physical therapist had come out to see if there was anything else we needed and had dropped off the foam crap that we’d used in the car to put on the chairs. It would make it easier for her to get up, apparently, once she was a bit more mobile; until then, she had us.
I bypassed the middle floor and took her straight to our bedroom. I’d had the drawer unit filled with just enough of her clothes and crap that she’d think it was temporary, but the rest of her stuff was already in the closet. I’d even had a cupboard installed with the bedding and towels that Tony told me were her favorites so that she had all of her home comforts at hand.
“Oh my God,” she said as we entered the bedroom and she saw the finishes that she’d missed while she’d been in the hospital. “It looks better than I thought. Wait, are those new drawers? That’s my bedding…” Nothing got past this one.
“Yes, it is. I wanted you comfortable. Now, we’re a little ways off your next painkillers, so Mom is bringing up something for you to eat so that you can take them. I’m going to choose something on Netflix so that we can vegetate until you fall asleep.”
I knew that me holding her was hurting her, so I’d been anxious to get her to the bed, but now that I was there I worried that putting her down would hurt her, too. I had no other option, though, so I gently placed her down and supported her back until she was leaning against the pile of feather pillows that Mom had bought for her.
“I’m fine, Ren,” she giggled as I adjusted the pillows slightly and then moved the body pillows on either side of her.
“I’m worried you’ll roll off the bed and hurt yourself.” Maybe I should have bought those toddler rails on either side of it?
Hearing Maya burst out laughing as she held her side and gasped distracted me from my thoughts. “I’m not a baby, just slightly broken for a couple of weeks. I haven’t rolled off a bed since I was like a year old.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t had half your body in a cast before, so how do you know you won’t do it now?” I knew I sounded like a paranoid parent, but I thought I had a fair point.
Nodding her head towards the two body bolsters between her and the side of the bed, she grinned at me. “Well, I’m not going anywhere now, am I?”
“Lunchtime, kids!” Mom called, walking into the room with a tray filled with sandwiches and this soup that Maya liked. I dunno what it was called, but the one time I’d had it, I had enjoyed it until I’d gotten a mouthful of green shit that she’d then told me was seaweed. That seaweed was still in the bushes at the back of Cole’s house where I’d spat them out while we sat on his porch. Why would anyone eat that shit?
Thanking Mom and setting up Maya’s medication beside her on the side table, I got onto the bed and started eating a sandwich while we flicked through Netflix. After negotiations on both sides, we settled on watching The Fast and the Furious 5, which I was happy about because I got to look at the cars and add them to my list of must-haves.
“Damn, he was amazing,” she said, beside me pulling me away from the engines, horsepower, finishes and other car stuff that was going through my head.
“Who?”
“The god of life himself—Paul Walker.” Her eyes never left the screen as she said this with an undercurrent of ‘duh,’ making me frown. Who watches this movie and doesn’t see the cars and odd hot chick? “In fact, I think Brett looks kinda like him.” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was go and punch Brett for looking like ‘the god of life himself.’
“Nah, Brett looks more like that guy in the back there.” I indicated a passerby who looked like they weighed one hundred and ten pounds wet.
“That’s a woman,” Maya said, giggling as she sipped at the nasty soup that Mom had put in a large cup for her.
“Exactly! Now sit back and watch the movie.”
Maya was out cold after taking her pain medications. Ebru had said that the painkillers affected the appetite, so we were to get her to eat little and often. I needed to come up with a plan for that, because she’d only had half of her watery seaweed soup.
Making my way downstairs with the dishes, I heard my family sitting in my lounge watching a game on TV.
“No, you stupid bastard, go left, go left,” Cole shouted as Mom told him off for his language. She claimed she and Dad had spent a small fortune on our education, and we’d come out with the biggest range of swear words she’d ever heard. Personally, I thought that our ability to conjugate all swear words and use them appropriately was pretty impressive, but it wasn’t the doctorate that she’d hoped we’d get.
“Hey, nut licker—keep the noise down, My’s asleep,” I said, taking the tray into the kitchen. Again, I’ll admit Maya had done an outstanding job on it; it had all of the mod cons that you could think of, and was more luxury than merely functional. Too bad I couldn’t cook anything that didn’t go on a grill. Putting our dishes into the dishwasher after cleaning out all of the green shit from Maya’s cup and trying not to gag, I washed up and went through to the lounge.
“A word?” Brett said as he stood and nodded towards the door, making my heart sink at the expression on his face. His security led us out with Dad and Cole at my back, nosy shit.
“We don’t think the attack on Maya and myself are linked,” Brett began, leaning his back carefully against the railing as he faced us.
“So, it was just an accident?” Cole asked, moving closer towards one of the security guards and discreetly sizing himself up against him. Obviously deciding that he could take him, he gave a nod and crossed his arms across his chest with a smug smile on his face.
“No.” One of the security guys walked forward and shook his head. “It definitely wasn’t an accident. Mr. Montgomery's SUV has cameras fitted on the front and back, and the driver
clearly pursued, then engaged. What amount of damage he intended to inflict, we are unsure. However, given the location, we can only assume that the aim was to inflict maximum damage.”
“This is Jake Coleman,” Brett said as Cole snorted beside us.
“Cool name, fella, I like it,” the twunt said, walking forward with his hand out.
“Why?” Jake said in his deep monotone voice, shaking Cole’s hand. None of us missed the wince that Cole gave during it.
“Cole,” he said, pointing at himself, “and Coleman.” He looked expectantly at Jake, finally freeing his hand from the vise that Jake had apparently had it in.
Jake looked back at him with a blank look on his face and then dismissed him, turning back to us. “Do yourselves and Mr. Montgomery have any enemies or previously disgruntled customers or employees?”
Dad went quiet as he stared ahead, thinking this over. “I don’t think so? We all have people that we have disagreements with, obviously, but any that would cause them to go to this extreme? No. George would also have told me if he was having issues. We don’t have any enemies of this severity.”
Jake’s eyes flicked to Brett and then to the men of his who were standing amongst us before coming back to Dad and I. “You do now.”
“What do you mean?” I was getting a bad feeling about this.
“When we investigated the accident site alongside your friend Mace’s contacts, we moved one of the beams and found a very small explosive device that hadn’t exploded. Because of this, and as part of protocol, we took samples of different areas of the site to rule out possibilities like woodworm, rot, and rust. One of the tests taken from the cloth that had contained the message came back positive for explosives.” Jake took a deep breath. “Our weapons expert examined the explosive device, and with the assistance of the other team, we were able to identify it as a device that is only available to and used by the United States military. It also required someone to detonate it by pressing a remote, so they had to have been standing by and watching the whole time. With all of this information, we know that this means that it was someone who was physically in town, and may well still be.”
“Holy shit,” Cole whispered.
“Jesus Christ,” Dad barked.
“What does this mean?” I needed to know if Maya was still in danger and if it had been personal.
“We don’t know any more than what I’ve just outlined there. However, we do have men inquiring about hotel guests and strangers that may have been seen here around the time of the accident.”
“That won’t help; they were gone immediately after it so that they could go after Brett,” Cole said.
“Unfortunately, this is not the case,” Jake replied. “We have security footage from around Brett’s apartment block and the office of the SUV that pursued him. They appeared to have been waiting for an opportunity, suggesting that it is not someone close to Brett or who works for him, as they’d have known he was in Dubai.”
“So we’re dealing with more than one person?” Dad asked.
“This is a possibility,” Jake confirmed before clearing his throat. “However, at this moment, all of the evidence leads us to believe that the two events aren’t connected.”
“What the fuck?” I’d been worried when Jake had first started telling us what had happened, but now I was fucking pissed. “You mean there could be two different parties out there gunning for us?”
“It’s the most likely explanation, Ren,” Brett said.
“Unfortunately, there’s more,” Jake said.
“More? How much more can there be?” Cole snapped, making us all turn and glare at him for tempting fate.
“We followed up a lead on an Andrew Lamar. I believe he was involved with Maya at some point. Mr. Lamar died in a car accident around three weeks ago—a day before Maya flew to Tampa. The police report cites faulty brakes as the cause; however, when Josh looked at the remains of the car, the brake lines had been tampered with.”
Feeling dizzy, I leaned against the wall of the house. Someone had killed Andy. I thought about when I had gotten into the car today; I hadn’t even thought to check it to make sure that it was okay, and then I’d had Maya in it. What if there had been a bomb or my brake lines had been tampered? Then I realized I was going to have to tell Maya about Andy’s death. Fuck!
Walking up to Jake, Dad said, “I don’t care what you have to do or how many men you have to bring in. Find these bastards and keep my family safe. I’m not losing any of them, and we’re not going through what we went through with Maya again.”
“Yes, sir!”
Deciding I’d had enough, I walked back into the house and went up to the bedroom. I didn’t want Maya to be out of my sight right now, and I also had to figure out how I was going to tell her about Andy. Things had just gotten even more real.
Chapter Thirty-Two
?
“A niece, Maya Price, and the eldest were injured when it collapsed. My man tells me she’s out of the hospital, and Luke Montgomery is still in a coma,” the voice said into my ear, making me smile. “Do you want us to proceed?”
“No, let him live for now. Continue as you are.” I hung up on him. The phone rang again immediately, pissing me off until I saw the number on the screen.
“What have you got for me?”
“I took out the oil Townsend. He’s down but not critical.”
I’d never seen the fuck I was currently talking to in person, but his voice was enough to inform me that I really didn’t want to.
“Excellent.” This time, the phone was hung up on me, but that was okay.
Looking at the panting beast beside me, I stroked his head and reached for one of his treats. “It’s all coming together, Jonas, my boy. Soon, very soon.”
It had taken time to plan, but so far it was going perfectly.
“?”
Hanging up from the asshole, I looked toward the hospital. I was glad that the female had survived, because she was hot and might come in handy in the future if I was without entertainment. I wonder if she enjoyed my gift? It had been a pleasure organizing it.
As it was, I’d been watching my beauty in Piersville since I took this job. All that was holding me back from taking her was that the contract was still ongoing, and I couldn’t have any complications.
Looking at my watch, I saw that it was time for her to leave work, and then she’d go home for her bath. I never missed that show.
With the other one injured, I didn’t have to worry about missing an opportunity; I could take my time and enjoy it as she washed herself for me. There were some jobs that you hated, and some that you loved; this one was most definitely the latter.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Maya
I ’d been out of the hospital now for a week, and my side wasn’t hurting me anymore. I’d only had a couple of bad headaches, and it wasn’t easy getting around with a broken leg and arm, but Ren had set everything up so that I never got stuck. He’d had a meeting that he couldn’t get out of today, so I was being babysat by Cole, who had insisted on watching Casino Royale and was currently comparing his base jumping abilities to Bond’s.
“I could do that,” he said as Bond jumped from one crane to another.
“Uh-huh!”
“Meh, I’d have knocked him out in three punches. One to the gut, one to the jaw, and then bam, one on the side of the head and nighty noodles, out he goes. Look at all the shit it caused because he doesn’t have that skill,” he bragged, pointing at the screen.
Rolling my eyes and turning back to the screen, I caught sight of something huge crawling up the wall and screamed louder than I thought I’d ever screamed in my life. It was like an eight-legged dog!
“What? What?” Cole yelled, jumping up and standing on the bed with his arms in a karate pose.
“That…that…what the shit is it?” I sounded hysterical, but come on, it was the size of Dash, who was now running around the room barking up at his boyfriend.
An even higher-pitched scream than mine pierced the room, and my head snapped around in the direction it came from. Cole was standing with his hands on either side of his head with his fingers tangled in his hair. “Kill it…kill it!” he screeched, dancing on the bed and pointing his finger at the beast on the wall.
Call me ridiculous, but his reaction was so hysterical and unexpected that I forgot about the Tyrannosaurus arachnid behind me and lay staring at him as he jumped up and down, squealing before bursting out laughing.
“Why are you laughing? It’s going to eat us!” he shouted, jumping up and down hard enough that my body was bouncing with him on the mattress, sending waves of pain through me. It didn’t distract me from the show in front of me, though. “Oh my God, it has stripes! It’s trying to trick us like those fake sharks! It’s in my hair, it’s in my hair,” he squealed as he bounced.
I was trying to get air through the laughter and pain, but so far all I could get were these tiny little gasps. I couldn’t stop laughing as he continued on about tigers and one pretending to be a house cat before it ate our brains. Just as I was about to start panicking at the lack of oxygen in my body, I heard Ren’s pissed-off voice shouting over Cole’s theatrics. A thud followed, and suddenly the bed stopped moving, and Ebru was beside me telling me to breathe.
“What the fuck were you thinking, you goddamn fucking Skippy McTaintlicker?” Ren roared in Cole’s face.
“There’s a fucking Rottweiler on your wall,” Cole yelled, back flapping his hand in its direction.
As calmly as I’d ever known was possible in the presence of a spider as big as a horse, Ebru walked up to it, smacked it onto the floor, and stomped her foot before turning around and raising a brow in Cole’s direction.
“Well, then, I won’t call Animal Control,” Cole said with a sniff and walked out of the room.
“I guess now is a bad time to take your blood pressure and pulse, then?” Ebru sighed as she went over to her bag and started pulling out what she needed. Cole walked back in with a shovel and a garbage bag in his hands and made a huge production of scraping the Stegosaurus corpse off the floor. Wiping it with an antibacterial wipe and depositing all of it into the bag, he headed back towards the door.
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