Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

Nick

My arms burn from holding the hose, but I only hoist it higher, aiming it toward the burn. We’ve almost got it under control, keeping the fire isolated to a single building. Across the street, I see Zeke lowering the ladder from a different truck while shouting at civilians to stay back. He catches my eye and we trade a nod.

We didn’t speak on the way back to the fire, but there was relative peace between us. Not to mention, I think we were both still reeling from Penny asking to be taken to her aunt’s house. It’s only our second night having her all to ourselves and we risked the newfound happiness only she can give us. Fair to say it scared us pretty damn good. What I said to Penny was true—there will be times the possessiveness rears its head and gives an animal roar—but there’s no question that the possibility of living a life without her will always roar louder.

God, I just want to get home to her. It’ll be dawn by the time we walk through the door and she’ll probably be sleeping, but maybe there’ll be enough time to at least make out with her. Yeah, I said make out. I’m a forty-year-old man and I want to dry hump Daddy’s little girl on the couch. I want to watch her eyes widen in disbelief when I make her cream in her panties. And afterward…yeah. Afterward, I want to watch a movie with her on my lap, feeding her popcorn. Comforting her during the scary parts.

Zeke will be there, too, won’t he? She’ll want to watch the second half of the movie from his lap. But I’ll rub her feet. Or hold her hand. That image of us three—instead of two—doesn’t bother me as much as before. No, it’s dangerously close to satisfying. Because I can see Penny’s relaxed smile and I’m growing more and more confident in the fact that she needs me and Zeke equally.

Something tugs at my conscience, though. The fear I’ve been living with since the fire. There won’t be any contentment until the man who killed Penny’s father and wants to do the same to her is handled. If that means killing him, so be it. I would do anything to keep my girl safe. The thing is…so would Zeke. Something needs to be done before this motherfucker comes after what’s ours.

Resolved to speak with Zeke after we finish for the night, I go back to working the hose. Twenty minutes pass before another fireman comes to take over and I return to the truck for a drink of water.

That’s when all hell breaks loose. Surround sound ringing of cell phones, fire department pagers going off. Dispatch comes in over the truck radio and I grab it up, listening over the mayhem on the street. And what I hear makes my blood run cold. It’s the code for a fire in progress and it’s…no…

“No. No that can’t be the right address,” I shout into the radio. “Repeat.”

Terror snakes through my blood when the dispatcher says the same numbers, her voice crackling in my ear. I drop the radio and jump off the truck, a shout waiting in my throat, but an ashen Zeke is already running toward the truck, cell phone in hand, along with several other firemen.

“Penny,” he rasps, battling his way into the truck and strapping into the passenger seat. “Please, God, no…”

I block out everything as I climb into the driver’s seat and start the engine. Waiting for our full squad to get in the truck almost kills me, but in reality it only takes twenty or so seconds and then we’re speeding toward Zeke’s apartment building, the siren screaming in my head.

She can’t be hurt. She can’t be gone.

If something happened to Penny, I’ll throw myself into the flames along with her. All I can see is her sweet face as she tells us she loves us from the couch, her green eyes catching the light. She’s the light. She’s everything good. Oh fuck, I can barely drive the truck, the pain in my chest is so severe. At the same time, though, I would kill someone for trying to take the wheel from me. We have to get there. Have to save her. The universe wouldn’t do this to me when life just became worth living.

“It’s the fucking Russian,” Zeke shouts from the passenger seat. “I knew they wouldn’t leave her alone when they didn’t get her the first time.”

Shock hits me square in the stomach. “How do you know the man who killed Penny’s father is Russian?”

Zeke’s brows slash together. “How do you know he’s a man?”

“I spoke to a cop friend.” Concentrating on the conversation is almost impossible when Penny is in danger, but I force myself to focus through the mounting anguish. “Boris Volkov. He has several known locations where he’s been known to lay low, but he moves. Between his multiple properties in Florida, his siblings all over the state, his club up north—a place called Tatiana. But I’ve had no luck yet.”

“Tatiana.” Zeke’s eyes close slowly. “Penny’s aunt mentioned that name to me, but I thought it referred to a woman. I didn’t know what the hell it meant, let alone that it was a location.”

“I would have known if you’d told me. I would have known if you hadn’t gone to see Penny’s aunt without me, goddammit.”

“Same way you went to the cop without me?” Zeke bares his teeth. “Tatiana. That’s the most recent place he’s been. That’s where we’ll find him.”

“Jesus,” I breathe, excruciating pain lancing my solar plexus. “If she’s hurt or worse, it’s because we killed her. This is on us. We both wanted to save her and we did the opposite, both wanting to be the fucking hero. One conversation and we could have found him before now. Before…”

“No.” Zeke pounds the dashboard with his fist, looking as if he’s considering launching himself through the windshield. “Fuck.”

I’ve been telling myself that the importance of sharing Penny with Zeke is about making her happy. About keeping her. It’s about more than that, though. It’s about trust. Not just between Penny and me. Or Penny and Zeke. No, from the beginning Penny has been begging us to understand that all three of us needed a ring of trust that nothing can compromise. No secrets or vitriol or competition between us. Just love. And now the worst thing has happened, because we failed to see why that trust was so necessary.

We’ve endangered the life of the girl we love beyond reason.

It seems like centuries pass before we reach the building and I don’t think, don’t follow procedure, I simply throw myself out of the truck and take the stairs, three at a time. Zeke is right behind me, shouting her name, his voice raw and panicked. It echoes my own.

When we reach the top of the stairs, fear like I’ve never experienced takes hold. The burn is rampant. The smell of gasoline is so strong, it makes my eyes tear, but I step back and kick the door open, shielding my face with the sleeve of my turnout coat. Zeke charges into the smoke shouting Penny’s name and I move in behind him, sprinting for the bedroom.

“Penny!”

“Baby, where are you?”

I throw aside the bedcovers that prove empty and lunge for the closet, throwing it open, but there’s no Penny in sight. I don’t know whether to hope she’s inside the apartment hurt or gone, taken. Jesus, I have no idea what’s worse, but either option makes me bellow into the engulfed apartment.

“Come on, sweetheart,” I shout, ditching the bedroom for the living room—nothing. “Don’t do this to us.”

* * *

Zeke

Nick and Ireach the bathroom at the same time and shove through the door together—and there’s Penny on the floor. Not. Moving. The world starts spinning again when our simultaneous roars of utter denial rouse her, but she only moves a little. Her hand lifts and drops. But Nick and I are beside her in an instant. He secures a makeshift mask over her face and I scoop up her limp body, already vowing to kill the man who dared touch her.

Touched what’s ours.

A lump rises in my throat when I see the blood caked in Penny’s hair. “Her head.”

“I see it,” Nick responds, rage and grief warring on his face. “Motherfucker hit her over the head. He was already dead, but now we kill him slowly.”

“Damn right we do.”

The bathtub is still full of water, telling me she never made it to the bath and for some reason, that makes me even angrier. Since the night started, our poor girl has been scared for our safety at the fire, nearly accosted by a group of strange firemen, fucked by two insatiable men without a hint of mercy and now someone has locked her in an enflamed apartment. She needs a vacation.

“Baby, wake up,” I rasp, following the path Nick is clearing out of the apartment. As we move out into the hallway, men rush in with axes and masks, dragging a hose up the stairs. I don’t see any of them. There’s only her. Nick is frantic to hold her, too—I can see it in his eyes every time he turns around to make sure she’s all right. When we have to stop on the landing to let through the rush of firemen, I hand him Penny and he makes a hoarse sound, cradling her to his chest.

“She’s all right,” I bark, unashamed of my jagged tone. “She’s fine. Right?”

“She has to be.” Nick keeps moving, going down the stairs at breakneck speed, Penny still boneless in his arms. “Got to get her outside. Now.”

Cool, clean air fights its way down my lungs when we hit the sidewalk. I run alongside Nick to get Penny to an ambulance, in a sickening déjà vu of a couple weeks prior. I suck in a breath when Nick climbs into the back of the EMS truck, laying her down on a gurney.

“Fuck, she’s so pale.”

“Penny, sweetheart. Please. Look at us.” An EMS worker puts oxygen over her mouth, but Penny flutters her eyes at that exact moment and struggles to sit up. Nick and I sag with relief, him cursing up at the sky, me whispering prayers I didn’t know I had in me. She’s okay. Thank you, God, for making her okay. The EMS worker begins to clean the wound on Penny’s head, revealing a nasty gash, and the need to murder blares at full volume through my system.

“We got to you as soon as we could. Never should have left you alone in the first place.” I take her hand and press it hard to my mouth, my pulse spiking over the icy temperature of her fingers. “You scared the shit out of us,” I whisper in the understatement of…ever, while frantically trying to warm her fingers.

With an unsteady hand, Nick presses the oxygen to Penny’s mouth, just as the doors of the truck close behind us and we leave the scene, heading to the hospital. “Take it. Get the bad shit out of your lungs for us.”

Penny notices Nick’s still-shaking hand and lays her own on top of his, so she’s touching both of us, her eyes full of tears. After allowing the EMS man to secure a bandage over her wound, she slowly removes the oxygen mask, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I thought it was you at the door…”

“Shhh.” Nick gathers her close and I don’t hesitate to cage her in from the other side, pressing kisses to her hair. “You didn’t do a damn thing wrong,” Nick continues, his voice low, capturing her mouth for a tender pull. “We were both working on finding the man who took your father. The man who tried to take you. If we’d worked together, this never would have happened. I’ll never forgive myself.”

He tucks a sooty strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “We didn’t act worthy of you, Penny. That’s going to change.”

“We’re your men. Forever,” I breathe into her ear. “You get a hundred percent of us. And that means we have to work together to make you happy, keep you safe. We’re on the same team from now on.”

Nick drops his forehead to her shoulder. “Team Penny.”

I press a kiss to her temple. “Say you believe us.”

Penny seems to battle a smile. “I might need…oh…forty or fifty years of convincing.” When we growl into relieved kisses of her neck, she laughs, but breaks into a cough that distresses me and Nick. “I love you, Nick and Zeke.”

Two sets of arms close around our girl and hold tight. Hold her like we’ll never let go. And we won’t. “We love you, too, Penny. We’ll never, ever stop.”