Page 24 of Owen (Blue Team #1)

Fuck me.

Fuck everything straight to hell.

I wasn’t sure which part of the goddamn scene I hated more, the fact that while Natasha spoke she’d done it with no hint of emotion, not a speck of inflection in her voice.

Totally dead and void. Or if it was the way she’d stared at me, her face bleached of color, eyes dull and hollow, looking at me as if she were waiting for my wrath.

Waiting for me to turn into the fucking monster her father was and strike her down—physically or emotionally she’d been prepared for the blows.

Fuck me . She actually looked like she hoped I would.

No, the part I hated the most was the fact that was her life.

Had been her life. Had been, past tense. That would no longer be the case.

Never fucking again would she vet a motherfucking John for Wilco.

She’d never play another hand of cards. She’d never pay her dead mother’s bills, witness another murder.

She’d never even breathe that piece of shit’s air.

And she would never fucking again be forced to prove her loyalty by selling her body.

Fuck that .

Fuck him.

Never again.

My gut clenched at the thought of Nat being used. The knots that were already formed in my stomach tightened and I had to breathe through the anger.

There was knowing then there was knowing .

We’d known some of what Natasha had told us.

For instance, we’d known her mother was not living in the house in Massena, we knew the corporation that issued her paychecks was bullshit.

We’d known her father had called a hit on her aunt and the woman’s death was not an accident.

And finally, we knew the cop that had taken the mysterious call from a dead woman was on the take and he wasn’t good at hiding it.

However, we hadn’t known Nat knew as much as she did.

We hadn’t known, though we’d assumed she’d played some sort of role in the family business.

I still had questions but they’d have to wait until I was in the right frame of mind to ask.

Additionally, a dead FBI agent put a new spin on the situation.

Zane had to be informed. So that was what I was going to concentrate on instead of my overwhelming desire to kill Wilco Pollaski.

Not only from the crimes he’d committed but for the dead, cold, empty look he’d put in Nat’s eyes.

For the hurt he’d caused her. Then there was that goddamn hopeful look that I’d lash out and shred her.

What the fuck was that?

Blood roared in my ears as I pulled my phone out. It took every ounce of willpower I had to stay outside and make the call I needed to make and not rush back into the house and demand everyone leave so I could drill Natasha for answers.

I didn’t remember dialing Zane’s number. I barely took in his greeting before I launched in and laid it out. Not until I was done did I realize Zane hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t even grunted. Which was very unlike Zane Lewis. He always had something to say .

“You get all that?” I asked.

Still nothing.

“Z?” I called out.

“Give me a minute,” he returned. I gave him the minute he requested and I did it silently.

Each second that ticked by infuriated me. I was impatient to get back to Natasha. Anxiety gnawed at my insides. I had to get back to Nat and just when I was ready to tell Zane to hurry the hell up or call me back he spoke.

“I think I know how we’re gonna take down Pollaski—”

“Take out,” I corrected.

“Same thing.”

“Not even close, Z, you say take down , like we’ll be turning him over to the authorities. I say take out, as in, out of breath, dead, put to ground.”

“You let me handle Pollaski. You take care of your girl.”

“Zane—”

“Listen up, Owen, this isn’t my first rodeo, it isn’t even my fifth.

I know how this goes. You got your head so full of Natasha you’re not thinking about anything else.

This is the part in this game where you’ll get all touchy-feely and shit and threaten me with bodily harm if I don’t pull out all the stops to protect your woman.

Save it. One, you’re in the middle of Idaho, nowhere near me so you can’t do shit but flap your gums. I got this under control.

You know I do, Myles knows I do. I always have shit under control unless it’s my woman getting kidnapped.

Then I get cranky and lose my shit, but that’s only happened once, so there is that.

However, this merry-go-round we’re on, I’ve been here before so I know how this is gonna play out.

Keep your shit, see to your woman, and leave the rest to me and your team.

Whether or not Wilco is breathing at the end of this does not matter as long as he’s neutralized for good. ”

“It goddamn matters to me.”

“Christ Almighty, baby Jesus, I figured you’d be further along than you are. You haven’t pulled your head out of your ass yet. Let me help you with that.”

“Don’t—”

“When your dumb ass is lucky enough to get a taste of sweet, you taste it. When you’re lucky enough for all that sweet to look like Natasha, you better figure out a way to keep it.

But more than that, when you get a woman who’s been through hell and still gives you that sweet, you find a way to smooth all those sharp edges.

You bust your ass to give her good, show her how life should be.

You do not do that by killing her uncle and landing your ass behind bars. ”

“I’m sorry, I’m confused, does this ‘smoothing the sharp edges’ also include sawing off a man’s dick—”

“Yeah, yeah, that was in the heat of the moment. In hindsight, I should’ve shoved it down the fucker’s throat. He had my woman goddamn near-naked, threatening to do vile things to her. When that happens to Natasha, I give you my permission to saw off a dick. But until that happens—”

“That shit is never gonna happen,” I ground out. “Not fucking ever.”

“Right, and since it’s never gonna happen, you take care of your woman. You don’t plot revenge. You don’t make a move unless I tell you to make it and certainly not until I tell you to. We’re in a holding pattern, but this new intel is about to catapult us straight to lightning speed.

“I know someone who’s gonna take an interest in this new intel, and from what I know about him, Cruz doesn’t fuck around, not with dead undercover FBI agents and not just because he nearly died when he was undercover and so did his woman, but because he’s FBI and he’ll be rabid to take down a man who killed one of his own.

It’s also known far and wide Cruz has a personal mission to staunch the flow of drugs.

His hatred goes beyond the normal—his ex-wife got caught up with drugs and he was forced to watch a woman he cared about spiral out of control.

So, my guess, Cruz will be all over this.

Bonus is he lives in San Antonio so he might already know some of the players or know of them.

Either way, I’m calling Tex and Cruz and we’re setting shit in motion. ”

All of that sounded good, except for the takedown part. I wasn’t pleased with the prospect of Wilco not being buried.

“I still think Wilco needs to find himself in the dirt.”

“Christ,” Zane sighed. “My two-year-old pays better attention than you do.”

“Your son’s not two.”

“Whatever, don’t tell my wife I don’t know how old my son is, she’ll take exception to that. My point is, you’re not paying attention.”

It couldn’t be said that Zane wasn’t highly intelligent—it was part of what made him so dangerous—but he was annoying as fuck.

“I goddamn am.”

“No, brother, you’re not. Sarah Pollaski knows nothing but loss.

She was born into shit and did what she could to survive.

I’m not happy she’s sat on this information for as long as she has, but I get it.

She couldn’t trust any of us. She still doesn’t trust us but she trusts you .

Now you need to take on the gargantuan task of proving to her she made the right call.

And you need to start by giving her and only her all of your attention because it’s the only way she’ll be able to prove to you that you can trust her .

Until then you’ve got nothing but spent condoms… you are using condoms, right?”

“This conversation’s over.”

“You have no sense of humor. I can already see you’re not going to be any fun. Myles will be a blast and Kevin, he’s easy to get riled up. I bet they’ll appreciate my condom speech.”

“I find that to be doubtful.”

“Yeah, you’re right, no one thinks it’s funny until it happens to the next guy, then y’all get it. In the meantime, trust me, glove up, and use this time to convince Natasha she loves you.”

Loves me?

Love?

Who the hell said anything about love?

“Oh, and tell Myles I emailed him the report he wanted. Talk soon.”

Zane disconnected and I growled in frustration before I shoved my phone in my back pocket.

“He hang up on you?” Gabe asked.

Sneaky bastard.

“Yep. Asshole always gets in the last word.”

And that was the God’s honest truth. I’d never ended a conversation with Zane another way. He always snuck in some wisecrack then hung up before you could respond. Something else that was annoying about my boss.

“What he’d say?”

I filled Gabe in on the important parts and left out the rest. I didn’t need Gabe horning in on the condom topic—he was being irritating enough as it was. And I was never going to say the word love in front of him.

“All of that sounds good but I’m sensing you’re not happy,” Gabe noted when I was done.

“Not a damn thing to be happy about.”

“Right.”

“Gotta get back inside to see to Natasha.”

“Wasn’t lost on you,” Gabe mumbled and I stopped staring out over the view and looked at Gabe.

“None of it was lost on me. Never seen a woman shut down and go blank like that. It was like she was reading that shit from a script and it was not her life.”

All of that was worrisome, but it was the look she gave me—the pleading in her eyes for me to punish her that turned my stomach.

“Shocked she said as much as she did. ”

I was, too. I’d waited a long time for her to come clean and now that she had, I wished she hadn’t.

“Brace, brother,” Gabe continued. “There’s a fuckton more she’s hiding. I suspect she gave us what she thought we needed to help further the investigation, but the rest, the real hurt, she’s still got buried. You better learn cool and do it quick if you want her to give you the rest.”

“Learn cool?”

Gabe didn’t make me wait before he laid it out.

“Twice she’s opened up and twice I’ve seen you lose your cool.

Which is not like you. Never known you not to have a tight hold on your control.

I give you the first time, total sneak attack thanking you for buying her her first pair of sneakers then laying it out and calling herself pussy and further hammering it home that her father was a piece of shit and so is her uncle.

I get why you stormed off needing a minute.

Fuck, man, I wanted to let my anger loose, but you didn’t see her after you left.

She doesn’t understand why a man, especially one that cares about her, would lose his mind hearing that shit.

And she doesn’t understand because no one has ever cared about her.

Period. No man, no woman, no one. She’s either silent as a mouse scared to death to speak or she’s blurting out the most jacked-up shit and she does it unknowing that it will set you off.

“My guess—this morning she woke up and for whatever reason decided today was the day she was going to open up. No warning. No slow lead-in. No head’s up.

She just let that shit fly and when she did you didn’t hide your reaction.

Not only did your expression scream fury, that room was filled with your anger. ”

Goddamn right, I needed a minute after Nat had referred to herself as Pollaski pussy.

Not until I left this earth would I forget her pretty mouth uttering the words, ‘pussy was to accept whatever form of appreciation offered, be it lewd comment, invitation to dinner, or a fuck in the coatroom.’ So, fuck, yeah, I’d left the room so she wouldn’t see how angry I’d been that she’d been used and abused.

I reckoned she’d seen enough ugly in her life and she didn’t need to see mine, not when I couldn’t lock it down, not when I couldn’t get the image of my beautiful Natasha dressed like Call Girl Barbie dripping in Pollaski diamonds while getting fucked in a goddamn coatroom.

That alone had me seeing red, all the rest of it, whacked.

Her not being allowed to dress the way she wanted, forced to live a life she didn’t want.

She’d been sold and bought and been treated worse than a dog.

There was no way to play that cool. There was no chance I’d be able to hide my fury from her.

No one has ever cared about her .

There was my answer.

“I need to talk to Nat.”

“Think you should take another minute before you go inside. You’re breathing fire, brother. You don’t even have a loose hold on control, you flat out got none.”

“Nope,” I agreed then warned, “She doesn’t need control, she needs to know straight to her soul I care.

The only way I get that across is by showing her.

Me locking my anger down doesn’t show her I care, it shows her the opposite.

She doesn’t understand I’m shielding her.

She sees it as me shutting her out. I don’t need a minute, she really doesn’t need any more time in her head without me there to pull her out.

She needs me breathing fire. She needs to see I will scorch the earth for her.

She needs to know I’m the man who will take her back and feel her pain.

And that’s damn well what she’s gonna get and she’s getting it starting now. ”

“Righteous.”

“Glad you approve, Gabe, but here’s a warning—no more pushing. My head has been successfully extradited from my ass, now you let me play it my way.”

“Got it.”

Use this time to convince Natasha she loves you .

Jesus, fuck. I was going to do this.

Natasha was not Naomi. She wasn’t other women. Not even close.

She was mine.

I knew it the moment I laid eyes on her in Alaska.

I might be slow on the uptake but I would not be slow to win.