Chapter 21

Twenty-One

The delicate warrior perched on the kitchen counter while Locke doctored the wounds on her feet demanded all of my attention. A storm brewed in her deep gray eyes. The kind of storm where most men would need to seek shelter.

For some reason, whenever we’d talked, I’d pictured them as blue. Like a summer sky, but they were the color of lead and steel. Dark, and turbulent. They absolutely suited the warrior whose gaze kept moving, assessing, and searching for answers.

She let out a hiss of sound and Locke flicked a look up. “Sorry, almost done.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him, white knuckling her way through the treatment. She was in pain. Assholes had done a real number on her.

Locke used care and an economy of motion to tend to each cut before he layered gauze against the bottom of her right foot and sealed it into place. Finished with the first, he worked on her left foot.

“Are you hungry?” Remington asked. It was the question I should have asked. Dammit.

“I haven’t had a lot to eat in days,” she admitted in a voice that gained in strength each time she used it. A voice that normally held soothing strength, confidence, and sass to keep me in line.

That something broken had etched a mark even on her voice ignited a raw kind of fury in me. Remington seemed remarkably cold despite his dedication to finding her. Suited the sniper. Locke seemed to be managing to keep his temper in check.

Me? I just wanted to put my fist through a wall. Or better, go back to the installation and drop enough C4 down the shafts until it crushed everyone inside or flushed them out.

Either would work for me.

For now, I moved to the other bedroom. There were two beds in here and only one in the room we’d left for her. In the two-bedroom cabin, it was clear we would need to balance watch with rest. One of us could sleep while the other two kept watch.

Depending on how long we were here. But we couldn’t keep driving without doing a full assessment of her injuries and treating them. Unzipping my bag, I dug down through the clean clothes until I found the heavily insulated socks.

Beneath those were a pair of old sweatpants with a drawstring that I’d cut the ends off of years ago. They worked for sleeping in. The fabric was worn to total softness. I liked the damn things too much to toss out.

Never really thought I’d need them for someone else, but they’d cover Patch’s ass. None of us had anything resembling panties. The last thing it occurred to me to grab for her at her place was her clothes.

After stalking back out to the kitchen, I arrived as Remington set a steaming mug of coffee next to her and Locke packed away the medical supplies. She had just reached a trembling hand for the cup when I held up a finger.

I needed to not focus on why her expression tightened or her knuckles had gone white. Even more, I needed to not think about what they’d done to elicit this reaction from her. For now, I packed it away because her condition made me homicidal enough.

“Socks,” I told her holding them up and setting the shorts on the counter next to her. With care, I pulled the thick socks over her feet and up her legs. She grimaced despite how gentle I’d tried to be. “Sorry.” The gruff word popped out.

“You didn’t hurt me,” she said, her raw voice scraping across me. “I just realized my legs haven’t been waxed in forever.”

I paused, glanced at the baby fine hairs that I hadn’t even registered. With a shrug, I flicked a look up to catch her weak smile. “They look fine to me.”

Her skin was soft too. But that was a conversation for another day. Once I had the socks on her, I held up the cutoff sweatpants.

“Not quite panties, but they will cover your ass and the drawstring can keep them up.”

The tremulous smile, while faltering, was the first real glimmer of improvement I’d seen.

“Will you help me?” The fact she even needed to ask told me more than anything, we had some work to do.

“Yes.” I didn’t dress it up in flowery words or dip it in sugar. She was already rallying, on her feet,—despite all her obvious injuries—and ready to plan. While I wouldn’t be opposed to coddling her, I didn’t think she’d appreciate it.

Rather than let Locke or Remington help, I tugged the shorts up her legs. When they were most of the way up, I gripped her waist and raised my brows. At her nod, I lifted and she tugged the shorts all the way up. Once she had the tie fastened, I carried her right out of the kitchen and into the living room.

“Bringing coffee,” Remington announced as he followed us. He waited while I set her on the sofa and then Locke tugged one of the throw blankets over her legs.

I took a seat on the other end of the sofa. That left the guys with the pair of armchairs or the loveseat to choose from. I could have moved, but I didn’t want to. After handing over Patch’s coffee to her, Remington set empty mugs on the table then filled one for me, Locke, and himself.

“Thank you,” Patch said and there was more ease there. Clothes helped. Showering helped. Coffee would help. Reclaiming her sense of self and power would also help.

Vengeance would help all of us.

“You’re welcome,” Remington said, taking a seat on the chair nearest her while Locke took the loveseat. We were all circling her in gradually decaying orbits. It was enough.

For now.

“You wanted to be briefed,” Locke said without preamble or avoidance. In our respective worlds, information was power, gossip was currency, and ignorance a death sentence. We did her no favors holding back.

“Yes, please.” She took a sip of her coffee and it transformed her whole expression to something resembling orgasmic. Not something I should have focused on so I down a mouthful of the bitter brew. It definitely braced a body.

Glancing from Locke to Remington then to Patch, I realized they were all waiting for me to start. “I finished my last mission, took me a few days to get clear where I could call in. You didn’t answer.” I lifted my shoulders, because the fact she didn’t answer was a clarion call to battle. “It took me some time to work up the transport, but I headed back—immediately.”

“Similarly,” Remington stated. “Your lack of answer alerted me to an issue. It took some time and resources, but I made my way to the States and Colorado.”

“Same,” Locke said. “Probably shouldn’t admit that I’d been filing away little things you said and did, but—finding you was more important than personal privacy. I knew some people, had some sources. Did some tracking. The fact all three of us were looking though, created some conflicts.”

While locating her place in Estes Park shouldn’t have been so easy, I doubt it would have been without our personal knowledge of her. Our skills. The horror crossing her expression as we detailed finding her place and I found the first kernel of regret in having violated her privacy.

“I’d apologize,” I told her. “But finding you was more important than maintaining distance. As it is, I am sorry it took us as long as it did to track you. First, we had to find out who’d taken you and that—required more than what we all knew. We found the signs of a struggle—and the drives you kept as backup.”

“None of us were altogether keen on sharing, but the fact that potential assassins tried to eliminate us on the same evening told me we’d irked someone.” The faint note of smugness in Remington’s tone was deserved. We had, in fact, been targeted. He had also been the one who warned both Locke and myself.

“Chances were they picked us up at your house,” Locke said with no more apology in his voice than I’d offered. “Makes sense that whoever took you would want to know if a cleanup team would come after them.”

Expecting a trap and triggering a trap were two different things. The fact the trap had withdrawn to hit us after we separated also said they weren’t prepared to deal with us as a group. It could also suggest they weren’t clear on our alliances.

Wise.

We weren’t clear on them. Except where Patch was concerned. As Locke picked up the threads of the story, including invading the MD Outfitters facility to get data and to search through their files, I kept my gaze on her.

She cradled the coffee mug in her palms, almost self-soothing if I were to guess. It was taking me some time to reconcile this damaged wisp of a woman to the vibrant warrior who’d tracked me through war zones. The confidence she wore like a cape, wreathing her voice in the kind of siren song I needed when I’d had to wade into fields of blood.

Despite the “fragility” brought on by the dark smudges beneath her eyes, the tautness to her lips, and the way her hands continued to white knuckle even as she forced herself to calm, I would never mistake the very gentle and feminine air of her for anything other than the definitive badass she was.

“That brought us to the swamp,” I said, catching the threads easily. “We worked out a plan. Remy to cover our exit, I would go in and handle the muscle while Locke took care of their security—you managed to undercut that plan by already being on your way out.”

“Sorry,” she murmured with the wryest of expressions. “Not sorry.”

No, I didn’t expect her to be sorry. “Survival is always the first rule.” For just a moment, our gazes locked and I read the absolute understanding in her eyes. Of course she understood. She’d been my first call after I’d gotten out of a prison in some backwater where a miscalculation landed me for three weeks.

I’d been tortured then too.

I understood the shadows drifting in and out of her gaze. They would be there for a while. They might not ever go away. Killing every single person that laid a finger on her might help.

But it was a plan for another day. Right now, however… “We need to know who it was that had you. That was a black site. Covert. No identifiable marks. Tucked away from prying eyes.”

The level of security alone suggested government if not military contractors.

“I’m more interested in why the three of you decided to work together,” she said. “You are all far more likely to be loners…”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Locke said, smiling for the first time since this conversation began. “We are civilized.”

“Are you?” The challenge rolled off her tongue in a retort to Locke, but her gaze flicked to me.

“Sometimes,” I answered. “Where you are concerned, however, no. As long as you were missing, I’d work with the devil himself to get you back. These two were hardly that bad.”

Remington actually snorted and Patch couldn’t hide her smile behind her coffee swiftly enough. “You know, I think Locke might take that as a challenge.”

“Maybe,” Locke responded. “Then again, we’ve clearly proven we’d work with the Muppets if we had to in order to get you back.”

Muppets?

I glared at him, but Patch laughed.

My sugar bear laughed and it pissed me off even more that Locke had gotten her to make that sound.

“Food,” Remington said abruptly as he rose. “You need to eat and then brief us on the ones who took you.”

“I—” She started but the assassin didn’t pause to let her deflect or distract.

“You needed extraction. That has been achieved. Now that you’re safe, we require that you remain secure. That is our next objective. While I’m sure the three of us could figure it out on our own, it will proceed far more swiftly with you directing us.” He fixed her with a look.

While she turned neither mutinous nor agreeable, I didn’t think she’d conceded the fight yet. That was fine. I liked Sugar Bear with teeth.

“We’ll eat first,” Remington continued as though they hadn’t just had some silent argument. “Because you need nutrition and to heal. Then we need a list of targets, tactical information, and threat assessment.”

Just like that, he pivoted on his heel and strode to the kitchen. If I hadn’t seen him stitching up a long slice along his ribs while she’d still been sleeping, I wouldn’t have known.

I didn’t think Locke knew, he’d been in the shower at the time. Somewhere during our excursion, Remington had been shot, but he didn’t mention it or bring it up. He barely even moved like it bothered him.

Which was fine, I’d been shot plenty of times. Hurt like a bitch, but when the fight was still on, you didn’t have time to fuck around. Of the four of us, Patch was in the worst shape. We were all capable of carrying her as needed. Hell, she didn’t even have to point a gun.

What we couldn’t do was replicate her mind or her thought processes. That—we would need from her.

“I don’t know that I’m ready to talk about it,” Patch admitted finally and it pulled my attention back to her. “I know what you need to know…”

“Then we keep it to a mission briefing,” I told her. “It can be hard to divorce yourself when you were the one who suffered. We just need names.”

I’d considered adding more to the list, but no, we really just needed names. We could figure out the why and the where later. The who—that was important.

Who they were. Then next would come the how.

How we would eliminate the threats.

The faintest of frowns tightened her brow and she looked from me, to Locke, then toward Remington in the kitchen then back to me.

Yes, Sugar Bear, you have three loaded weapons right here.

Just point us in the right direction.

Or any direction you want us to go.