Chapter 22

Chapter

Twenty-Two

BONES

D umping the other car and acquiring a new one hadn’t taken all night, but I was loathe to return to the hotel directly. A part of me half-expected the bastards who’d come after her on the road to be tracking their own vehicles. It would make sense.

People who peddled in flesh tended to be greedy bastards. They didn’t want to let go of their pets or their people. Clearly, they wanted Grace Black in their hands. The repeated attempts to reacquire her made that abundantly clear.

The fact someone had not only tried to take her from us once, but now twice, suggested they weren’t planning to stop anytime soon. Worse, I wasn’t sure whether they wanted her back as a possession or if they wanted to kill her ala, if they couldn’t have her, no one could.

Maybe it was both.

Voodoo and I had been dealing with the attackers in the car efficiently until she got out of the downed Jeep. Considering they’d been taking shots at it, her escape from the interior seemed rational. Smart. It was an acceptable choice.

What wasn’t acceptable was the man who then attacked her. She’d defended herself, while the taser helped her escape, it hadn’t let her get far. The man had struck her—repeatedly.

My intention had been to get him away from her, restrain him, then question him. Then he landed a blow with his elbow and she went down. The fact she’d put her arms up to shield herself had snapped what was left of my reason.

The world narrowed to the target in front of me and the fact he was too damn close to her. Any sudden move on his part could end her. The man was nearly twice her size. For all the spirit she showed, she was not physically a match for the man.

Slamming my fist into his face rather than using a weapon to disable swiftly, I’d ended him with a series of swift blows. The blood spraying from his face offered me a reward in the moment. I could have stopped.

My brain recognized the moment I could have stopped.

I chose not to. They wanted to take her? They wanted to hurt her? Then they deserved no mercy and I showed none. Blood from the assault decorated her face, highlighting how ashen she was. The fact she’d just had a small procedure to remove the tracker probably didn’t help.

The best thing for her was to go with Voodoo while I dealt with the bodies. I loaded them all into our downed vehicle and set it up to burn. I stripped them for any identification, including their phones.

Nothing they were carrying revealed their identities or their employers. Even the phones appeared to be burners. I’d shut them all down and sacked them up. Alphabet could check them and verify for us. After collecting their fingerprints, I headed up to the car where Voodoo and Grace waited.

She looked even worse in the backseat, her eyes too wide and her pupils too large. Not wanting to see fear on her face, I kept my gaze forward. Her collapsing when we arrived at the hotel only added to my aggravation.

Voodoo usually would have handled the car and the resupply. He preferred it. But I didn’t doubt he’d seen the need for me to go and it was better for her if I absented myself and got my temper back in check.

I took my time setting up their vehicle for a trap and spent half my night waiting for the other side to make a move. They never did.

Bastards.

After dumping the car in a junkyard to be smashed, I acquired another and spent the rest of the night across from the hotel, dozing fitfully and keeping an eye on them.

The earlier anger was absent, I had the bones of a plan ready to go and I’d checked in with Alphabet—who was still awake and at his computer rather than resting. Lunchbox said he’d take care of it, but I told them it might be another full day before we made it back there.

“If necessary,” I told Lunchbox. “You two may have to come out and meet us.”

“I’d prefer that,” Lunchbox said, his tone even. “I’d rather just head out and meet you guys now. We could fly to a local airport, pick you up, and get her completely off the grid.”

“Tempting.” Not a hard admission to make. “But we need to make sure we’ve scrubbed all their attempts to recapture her.”

“You planning to put her through another x-ray?” It was a fair question.

“Not immediately, no.” I’d skipped the part about her passing out. She’d had enough to deal with and her passing out wasn’t a life threatening injury. “If we end up with another encounter, we’ll revisit that strategy. In the meanwhile, get the safe room ready to go. If we have to, we can keep her there.”

Lunchbox grunted. It was a noncommittal response, but he didn’t like it. “I’ll do the full check and make sure we get supplies laid in. But I don’t think she’s going to go for being on that much lockdown.”

“She does it with us or she ends up in some truck chained to the wall or worse, and no one ever sees her again. She doesn’t have to be happy about the accommodations.” I didn’t want her to be unhappy either, but living was far better than death.

Or worse.

“You keep telling yourself that.” Then Lunchbox hung up and I leaned my head back. We weren’t in the field, he didn’t have to wait for me to dismiss him. The hang-up though was another sign of his displeasure with me.

At dawn, I went for coffee and food, then headed over to the hotel proper. My temper was in check, I’d cleaned up, and Voodoo hadn’t sent up any alarms after I called to make sure they were secure. If anything, he sounded like I’d woken him up.

If he was sleeping it must have meant she was better. I hadn’t missed how badly she’d been bleeding earlier. Another reason I needed to get out of there. Probably a solid reason to stop thinking about her injuries.

Civilians did not belong on the field of battle. Whether they should be there or not, they were most often reduced to rubble when the wars we fought ground them down.

Well, not on my damn watch.

At the door, I knocked once to let Voodoo know I was coming in. “Friendly,” I said, then used the key to unlock the door. The last thing I expected to find back in the room was Grace, sprawled in the bed and in a deep sleep. Despite the fact she was under the covers, she was clearly naked.

Equally naked, and next to her, was Voodoo and he had a gun in hand and pointed right at me. He’d already aimed it away before I closed the door.

“Really?” I stared at him.

He shrugged as he set the gun down. He spared a glance at the woman sleeping next to him before he focused on me. “Coffee?”

“Yeah. Breakfast sandwiches too.” I set the food and cups down on the desk. “All fresh.”

“Good.” He shoved the covers back and eased out. I didn’t give a damn about his nudity, I did care that they’d clearly been intimate.

Fuck, this was going to create problems.

He disappeared into the bathroom with one of the cups of coffee. I scanned the room. There were towels spread on the other bed, one on a pillow. Her clothing was absent. The sound of the toilet flushing preceded his emergence from the bathroom.

Downing more of the coffee, he paused to set some clothes on the bed before he set the coffee cup down. Then he was dragging on his jeans. Not a word passed his lips until he was dressed.

I debated how bad things would become if I belted him right now. This was not the decision I anticipated him making. Lunchbox and Alphabet were already compromised by her.

“How soon do we need to be on the road?” That was what he opened with.

“That’s it?” I studied him, unamused when he met my gaze evenly.

“The last time I checked, I don’t clear with you who I have sex with. If that’s somehow changed, understand that I still won’t be doing it.” Nothing ruffled him and as much as I wanted to punch him, I wouldn’t.

“It’s not about clearing with me who you have sex with, jackass.” Like I fucking cared where he got his dick wet. “It’s about the fact that Lunchbox and Alphabet are already invested. I sent her with you because they are compromised.”

He shrugged then took another swallow of the coffee. “I can and will do my job.”

Scrubbing a hand over my face, I tried to ignore the headache pulsing behind my eye. “That’s not the point. She’s a client .”

“No,” he said. “She isn’t.”

I snapped my head up but before I could say anything, a movement on the bed dragged my attention.

Grace was up on her elbow, her dark hair a cloud around her. It looked like she’d been fucked and fucked well. Her sleepy gaze evaporated when she looked over at us and then focused on me.

“Oh.” One single syllable. It held—something that I couldn’t define. She didn’t sound embarrassed or upset, but she also didn’t seem pleased either. “Hi.” With a grimace, she pushed upward to sit and the tightness around her mouth had me straightening.

Voodoo didn’t cross over to her, he just waited patiently until she was sitting. The sheet was locked across her chest, her arms holding it in place as she tried to run her hand through her hair. Aborting the action before she’d barely started it, she let out a pained sigh.

“I’ll help you,” Voodoo offered. “If you want.”

“Yes,” she said after a minute, then took a deeper breath. “But I’d kill for the coffee.”

The shift in her micro expressions suggested she didn’t care for the word play but she didn’t take it back either. Voodoo carried the coffee cup and the bag over to her.

“There’s food too and before you bring up your diet, just eat what we have for now. We can look at calories and requirements later. You need to heal and healing requires protein and sustenance.” After he set the coffee cup into her hand, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “You also need to take some more pain meds, but you need to eat to take those too.”

Nose wrinkling, she looked even less pleased than she had before. “You don’t need to sound smug about it.”

He chuckled. “That’s not what I’m smug about, Firecracker.”

I half-expected her to blush, but she didn’t. If anything, she just looked pleased. Then she took a sip of the coffee. “Thank you for this.”

“Thank Bones,” Voodoo told her as he moved her clothes over to her. “Eat, drink, then we’ll do meds, and I’ll check your wound before we get you dressed. We need to get on the road.”

You’d have thought we did this every single day. The byplay between them was fascinating to watch. His awareness of her was on full display, but he wasn’t hovering.

At the same time, she didn’t seem to like being told what to do but she muted her own objections. The shift in the dynamic made me wonder if we should expect more trouble when she was feeling better.

“Thank you, Bones,” she said, meeting my gaze briefly. The dark, sad eyes were framed by impossible lashes.

“You’re welcome.” It came gruffer than I intended. Voodoo shook his head at me and I fought the urge to glare. “You know what, you two eat and gear up. I’m going to make sure the car has gas and supplies. I’ll be back in an hour. Be ready to go.”

Not looking at either of them, I headed out. The last thing I needed to do was start a fight with Voodoo or take my temper out on the client.

She didn’t deserve it.

But Voodoo was on his own with the guys.

He made that bed, they could kick his ass out of it.