6
H e found me.
Shit.
Run.
Hide.
How did he find me?
“Breathe.”
A hand wrapped around the back of her neck, and Rose fought against it. She’d never be trapped again. She dug her fingers into the hand.
“Hey, easy baby. It’s me, Caleb.”
I must get free.
She whimpered and kept struggling as the fingers stroked the side of her neck. Her chest hurt with the need for air, but she couldn’t seem to draw any into her lungs. Panic engulfed her, sweeping past all the training she’d forced herself to do in the previous months and overriding what she’d hoped would have become second nature so much for all the self-help books she’d bought, which were supposed to build confidence. When the crap hit the fan, a person would fall back into what they’d always done—in her case, fall apart at the drop of a hat.
“You’re safe. I got you. Easy. You’re safe,” the voice crooned close to her ear. “I promise I’ll keep you safe. It’s Caleb. Look at me, baby. Look at me.”
Why does he sound so calm and not angry? He never ever sounds calm or nice.
She blew out a shaky breath, striving for calm.
“Breathe, baby,” the voice crooned. “Look at me.”
The words finally sank in. She couldn’t resist the order and did as the voice asked. She lifted her eyelids, then reared back when she met hazel eyes instead of the brown she’d been expecting.
Who—?
“It’s Caleb. You’re safe.”
Fudge freaking buckets. I screwed up.
“Ca—Caleb?”
“Yes, Caleb,” that soothing deep voice confirmed. “I’ll help you figure it out and get safe from whoever that fucker is and whatever he plans to do to you.”
She inhaled a shaky breath. It was sweet that he wanted to help. But it was safer for everyone, including him, if he stayed out of it. “You can’t. He keeps finding me.”
“Okay, it sounds like there is something you are doing which is helping him?—”
She shrank back from Caleb’s hand as it smoothed her hair back from her face. “This isn’t my fault. It’s not?—”
Caleb put one finger to her lips. “I know it’s not your fault. What I mean is he must have some way of tracking you, which you haven’t figured out yet.” He stroked his finger down her cheek. “I’ll help you find out what it is and make sure it stops happening.”
She decided right then that Caleb was going to find someone to love and make her feel coddled, protected, loved, and safe at some point in the future. It was a crying shame that that woman wouldn’t be her. “Why? Why do you want to help me?”
“Because a pretty woman shouldn’t have to run from everything and everyone she knows just to be safe.”
Is he for real?
He can’t be.
Knights in shining armor are for fairytales, and we all know my story is filled with a beast and not a dashing knight.
“Hold tight for a minute.” Trev interrupted any words she might have been able to scramble together. “They’re circling around. I’m gonna call in backup.”
“Just Kace, Trev,” Caleb ordered and pulled a face. “Let the others keep on partying.”
“Not on your life, asshole. I’m not having Nem pissed at me because I didn’t follow protocol.” Trev’s annoyance was more than obvious in his tone. “You’ll just have to deal.”
“Shit,” Caleb whispered softly.
She didn’t want to be the reason he was upset or angry; she couldn’t figure out which he was. “What’s wrong?” she asked softly enough that she hoped Trev wouldn’t hear.
“I don’t normally ask for assistance outside of work.” He leaned forward and peered out the window. “I don’t normally need it.”
Ugh, now she felt like she was putting him out. She didn’t want to do that. Remembering he’d said to only reach out to one, her curiosity got the better of her, and she asked, “So why Kace?”
“He’s my brother.” He scratched the side of his head, then scrubbed his palm over his scalp. “He doesn’t count.”
“And the rest of us are your brothers in arms.” Trev was back on the phone again. “We all fucking count, asshole.”
She didn’t understand what exactly was going on between the two men, but she nodded as if she did. “I can walk from here.” She put her hand on the door handle.
“No,” both Caleb and Trev barked.
“Stay put, and let us help you.” Caleb reached for her hand, intertwining their fingers. Funny how it didn’t feel like she was trapped when it was him and not Janek or John, as he preferred to be called on this side of the Atlantic, holding her hand.
“Backup is on route, ETA ten minutes,” Trev supplied. “Stay in place until then.”
Ten minutes. She could do ten minutes, right? She swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut tight. “O—okay.”
“We’re going to help you figure this out,” Caleb promised again. “We’ll make sure it’s safe for you to live without looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life.”
Oh, how she wished she could believe him. But she knew better. Her stupidity would get them all killed. She could not allow that to happen. She would disappear again before she’d allow that to happen.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Caleb shifted in the driver’s seat, turning toward her. “You don’t want to get us involved because you don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Damn straight, mister.
“Yes.”
“You don’t know who we are, do you?”
“Friends of Draven?”
“Teammates,” he corrected. “All of us are former military. If there is one thing we do and do well, it’s getting out of shit when the bullets start flying.” He lifted one shoulder and shrugged. “We’re pretty damn good at dodging bullets, too. I promise.”
“What Caleb isn’t, and never has been,” Trev said dryly, “is modest.”
“I’m a Hunt,” Caleb tossed the words back. “We don’t go down unless it’s fighting, and don’t you forget it.”
He doesn’t go down unless it’s fighting!
Well, that’s a shame!
Get your mind out of the gutter, sister. That’s not what he meant, and you know it.
This is not the time to be thinking THAT.
“What?” Caleb peered at her and quirked up one eyebrow. “Tell me what put that pretty blush on your face?”
She brought her hands up to cover her flaming-hot cheeks. There was no way she could talk herself out of this one. “Nothing.”
“Hmm.”
Mortified at where her internal slut went, she could tell he didn’t believe her. Hell, she wouldn’t believe someone who squeaked like she just had, either. She closed her eyes to block out the heat she was imagining in his eyes. Not that it helped much, as her imagination took over, and she could still see him behind her eyelids.
“You have incoming,” Trev warned before she could make a bigger fool out of herself. She had no idea who or what was incoming, but as long as it wasn’t Janek, she’d take it.
“Good.”
He could think it was good that the people she assumed were his friends were arriving. To her, it just meant more people she’d have to avoid as she left as soon as their backs were turned. No matter what they said, there wasn’t a hope in hell she was putting them in Janek's path. Not any more than she already had. These people didn’t deserve that.
A large, jacked-up black pickup, the sister of the one she and Caleb were sitting in, came to a stop in front of them, blocking their way out of the parking spot, and her heart almost stopped.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s the guys.” He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. She didn’t think he realized their fingers were still interlinked. She tugged, and he growled low in his throat. “Don’t…”
Movement through the window drew her attention back to the truck, the men climbing out of it, and the one behind it. Her eyes widened. She’d thought two, maybe three of his friends would come—not eight of them. She sighed.
“It will be okay,” Caleb promised. “Stay here.” He released her hand and got out of the truck, closing her in behind him.
For a minute, a full sixty seconds, she counted in her head and watched him talking to the others. She decided she didn’t want to hide in the car when they were talking about a problem that was of her making. Well, Janek’s making, which was basically the same thing. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and got out of the truck.
At the sound of the closing door, they all spun around, and Rose stepped back from the menace she could feel pouring off them.
Caleb shook himself, scowled at his friends, and gestured to her. “Come here, baby.”
There he went again, calling her baby. What was all that about, and why the heck did she actually like it?
He must be one of those people who calls everyone baby.
That had to be it, she thought as she took one look at all the muscles between her and Caleb and went around the back of the vehicle, squeezing between the wall and the end of the truck and walking to him. She tramped down the uneasy feeling that urged her to run now that she was free of the truck, but she reminded herself that fit and her didn’t belong in the same sentence, and there was no way she could outrun one of them, never mind all of them.
“What’s going on?” the man she recognized as Draven’s boss, Dalton, barked. “Who is following you?”
“I—I…” Why was he angry with her? It was her fault Janek’s man was following Caleb, but she hadn’t asked Caleb to stop and pick her up.
“Nem.” Caleb tucked her into his side. “Ease up, man. Don’t scare her.”
“I thought he was Dalton,” she whispered to Caleb.
“He is,” Caleb answered. “He’s also Nemesis.”
I’m so confused. She thought nicknames only happened in the movies. Apparently, she was wrong, and Top Gun was right. “Um…”
Dalton opened his mouth as if he was going to ask another question, but the man standing next to him hit him with his elbow and said, “If our exfil is clear, why don’t we go back to the hotel or to my place? At least there we aren’t out in the open.”
One man went to the second truck and grabbed something out of it, which he handed to Caleb. She couldn’t see what he did with it as his hand moved to the side of his head opposite to where she stood. It would have been rude to lean around him to check.
“Okay.” Caleb nodded. “Let’s go.” The men parted around them as he guided her around the truck again and opened the door for her. She climbed in and turned as the rear door was also opened, and a large man climbed into the back behind Caleb’s seat.
“I’m numb-nuts’s brother.”
“Shut up, asshole,” Caleb snarled at the man as he leaned in to strap her into the seat. “You good?” he whispered to her.
She nodded. “Numb-nuts?”
He winced and tossed a scowl at the man behind them. “I’m gonna kick your ass, Kace.” He winked at her. “Don’t mind my brother. He’s a jerk at the best of times.”
Ah, that’s his brother.
“You and whose army?” Kacey muttered under his breath as Caleb closed the door and went back to the driver’s side before climbing in and starting the engine.
She looked at Kace curiously before his piercing gaze sent shivers down her spine. She turned forward again and smiled weakly at Caleb as he patted her knee, then released the handbrake to follow the first truck, with the second one falling into line behind them. She didn’t know where they were going—either the hotel or someone’s house. “If you all turn out to be axe murders, I’m going to be so freaking pissed.”
They are friends of Indy’s and Lizz, so they have to be safe.
She was so tired of trying to stay ahead of Janek and his goons. So fricking tired of it. At this point, if Caleb turned out to be a creep, maybe she should just sit her ass down and say have at it. Anything he could do to her had to be better than the hell she was trying to stay one step ahead of. It had to be!