Impassable Force: Force of Nature Series (5 page)

“I don’t think she’ll hurt me
now. She’ll be reasonable.”
Austin told him he was going to kill him when this was over and there was no such thing as a reasonable female of any species.
“Austin, what am I going to do now? I have all these plans and they don’t include a mate. I want to be free, go where I want, do what I want.”

“And how is she going to make a difference in that?”
Randy didn’t know but said nothing to him.
“You think that CJ and I just sit around the house just waiting for one of you guys to come by? We do lots of stuff. And the great part of it is, I can share all those times with her. Nothing has changed in my life in a negative way. I love her and want to be with her.”

“I don’t love Molly any more than she does me. I just want her.”
Which was true, he did want her.
“She is going to be a cop, and I want to be the best lawyer I can be. But not here.”

“I don’t see the problem.”
Randy did. All sorts of them. When she said something, he looked at her. She was his if he wanted her. Molly would be his mate and carry his children if he would want it. The problem was, he didn’t have any idea if he did or not. He looked at his brother, who was less than three feet from them.

“Ask her if there is anything in the house I can put on. I know you wanted to talk to us both
, but I can’t do it as a wolf.”
Austin asked her, and she said there were Carter’s things still in the house. She turned to unlock the door just as another car pulled up. This time it was Tristian and he looked so excited Randy knew he’d seen the wall.

~~~

They were pinning things to a large piece of plywood when she returned to the office. Molly didn’t want them there, but Tristian, another vampire, begged her to let him show what Randy had done so far. She had gone to the kitchen to find them something to drink and had started talking to her sister’s butler.

“Will you be staying, Miss Molly?
The staff is up in arms as to what we’re to do. Mr. Ravenhall said that we were all to be replaced. Then we were told that he was no longer allowed on the premises.” She wanted to tell him that she didn’t want the house either, but he looked so afraid that she lied to him.

“I want you to stay, all of you. I’m not sure how this works yet…
.” She looked up at him after sitting in the kitchen chair. “There are others here that are going to expect me to run this household like I know what the fuck I’m doing. I’m not even sure where my clothes are, much less my furniture. I have more money now than I’ve ever seen even on a huge bust, and I have a staff that needs me to make decisions for them.”

She didn’t mention that she’d had to find a pair of pants and a shirt f
or the man who’d changed into a wolf not an hour ago, and now he was in the office her sister had used, talking to an alpha as well as two vampires. What did she even feed those people?

“We’ll make sure you don’t fail, miss. We’ll make dinner for them and we’ll…
miss, are you aware that those men in there are not human either?” She looked at Shawn and nodded. “Good, this will make things so much easier. I’m a panther, and my wife is as well. Are you aware of that?”

“No.”
He smiled at her and told her not to worry. “I don’t think I would know where to begin about worrying, Shawn. Right now I can’t tell who is what and what I’m supposed to do with them.” She’d been introduced to Shawn Charles when she had first visited her sister. She had a feeling, though she wasn’t sure why, that her sister had not cared for the older man. She thought it was because Carter had hired him.

“We’ll get there.”
Shawn told her they’d bring in refreshments in a bit and sent her to the office again. When she sat down, she looked at the board as they put things in what to her seemed a random order that made little to no sense. Or at least she thought that was what they were doing. Maybe that’s what they were doing, just pinning things on it to get ready. She also noticed that another man, a vampire she’d been told, had shown up. Myles Kramer was a large, scary man, but she felt as if they had a good deal more in common than she and Randy did.

“I don’t think those are lining up correctly. Some of it
’s missing.” They all turned to her, and she flushed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Myles, a man
she thought she’d met before, turned to look at her. She could see his fangs, too, and wanted to ask him about them, but right then, Shawn came in.

“What is missing? I know you would see things we
can’t. Fresh eyes and all.” She stood up and went to the board. Myles stepped back when she stood in front of the board. It looked like they were making a list of rules and the consequences if they were broken. She looked at the one that was about murdering one of their own kind.

“
I’m assuming you mean like a wolf murdering a wolf, not humans?” Myles smiled and nodded. “Okay. Why would one murder his own kind?” She turned when no one answered and they were all looking at Randy. “Did you do this to someone?”

“No. T
hey’re waiting on my permission to speak to you. I don’t know how to answer that.” She cocked her head at him, and he laughed. “For some reason I think if I told you that you couldn’t talk to them directly, you’d do it anyway just to piss me off.”

“I could care less if I piss you off.” She turned back to the board and tried to ignore the men behind her.
She knew that Randy was close to her and her entire body seemed to like it. “There are just black and white rules here. You’ve left no room for gray. There has to be gray.”

“Why?” She glanced at Myles and decided that for some reason he knew the answers but wanted her to figure them out for them.
“I like rules. They make my job easier, and it runs much smoother when I know them going into a situation. If I know that this man or that one has killed, I know that it is well within my rights to drain him.”

“Yes
, but what if?” She turned to look at anyone but Randy. He was looking at her again, and she felt all mushy inside when he did. And Molly was not mushy. “
What if
is a game I play when I’m out working. What if you know that this person, this species, killed this other of his kind? But what if he did it because he was…?”

Myles grinned. “What if he had touched his mate knowing that it’s against the laws of any of our kind and did
it just to piss him off. And it got out of hand when the second man kept it up.”

“There’s a rule for that?”
Myles nodded and stood up to come near her. “Why would anyone care if another male touched their whatever?”

“Mate. And it’s a super thing.” He ran his finger down her arm
, and she heard someone growl. She knew before she looked around that it was Randy. And she also knew that Myles was doing this on purpose.

“Get away from her.”
The voice was very close, almost too close, and when she was pulled back against a chest, her entire body seemed to react to his touch like it was chocolate and she was ready to binge. “You keep this up and I’m not going to be able to resist taking you up to the first bedroom I find and claiming you.”

“You don’t want me.
” Randy’s breath on her neck had her moaning, and she wanted to turn in his arms and touch him. “You should leave now before you do something you’re going to regret. I won’t have you blaming whatever happens on me.”

“I want to.
Hell, I need to turn and leave you, but I can’t. Your body, your scent, it’s calling to me.” Molly did the hardest thing she’d ever done and stepped away from him. His growl when he reached for her made her body scream at her to go back, so she took another step away and turned to look at him.

“It’s time for you all to go.”
She looked at Myles and then at Austin and Reid. Tristian stood up and stared at the rest of them as if he expected them to do as she’d said. “I want you to stay away from here, all of you. I…if I need anything, which I have no idea what that would ever be, I’ll contact the police.”

Randy stood there for a long time. She wondered if he’d leave or touch her again. Molly knew that if he did touch her she’d be lost
, and so would everything she’d worked so hard to make work for her. When Austin stood up, she felt his anger and wasn’t sure what she’d done to piss him off and really didn’t care. As soon as he and the rest, along with Randy, walked out, she turned to look at Myles.

“You did that on purpose.” He nodded.
“Why? Why would you make him do something he doesn’t want to do? Some sort of man thing? Or is it a vampire thing you’re trying to show me?”

“Neither. It’s a bonding thing.
Once he has you, and I’m sure he’s on the edge, you’ll be safer and so will he. Right now he’s a time bomb ready to go off at anyone or anything. He needs you.” She looked at the door Randy had left, but then back at Myles when he continued. “When he comes to you, and I’ve no doubt that he will, will you accept him? And all that he is?”

“No.”
He shrugged and picked up his jacket. “Why do you care if he does or not? Aren’t you and wolves supposed to be like these mortal enemies or something?”

“Usually. And the reason I care?
It’s because he is my family. Austin and CJ raised him when he was still a pup. Reid, Randy’s brother, and him would be dead without them. When he comes to you—and as I said, he will—nothing will stop him. Not even you if he tries to make you stay away from him.”

She sat down when she was alone.
The board was there and she stood up to look at it, trying to think of anything but what Myles had told her. Randy would find her and he’d fuck her. And she knew that she’d be no better off with a mate or whatever they were than her sister had been with Carter.

Chapter 5

Carter was going to have to go to greater
lengths than he’d anticipated to get into the house. He had money stashed in it and some jewels. But mostly he wanted back inside because it was his. And the fucking cunt had no right to toss him out like she had.

Mary had been a nobody in high school
. She’d been too shy and backward most of the time around the campus, but she’d really shown when she’d been in a play or something. Not that he’d gone to any of them, but he’d been told so. He and his friends had wanted to get a piece of her but never got the chance. Carter decided that he’d be the one to fuck the bitch. It wasn’t until graduation that things started to fall into place for her and apart for him. He still blamed that on her and had wanted her sister to pay as well. Carter needed Mary and her fame more than he needed his next breath. And still did.

He’d been a high school quarterback
, all pro, and had colleges looking at him like he was going to be their saving grace. He’d eaten it up too, letting them woo him and tell him what they were going to give him. Then one night after leaving a party a little too drunk, he’d lost it all. Even now, all these years later, he knew that had he not gotten caught, he would have been famous. Endorsements alone would have given him all he wanted.

He’d wanted her
…not because she was anything special, but because she told him no. And as far as anyone knew, no one had had her yet either. It was a dare that had gotten him drunk at the party. Not that he’d needed the alcohol to go after her but because she hated it…that and any form of drugs, which included smoking a little pot before a game. Few girls had ever turned him down, and all of them he’d had anyway. Carter liked the feelings drugs gave him during sex. If a girl got hurt, she’d not be on his list the next time he wanted to fuck someone. There were plenty of girls who never told him no. Carter didn’t like it when he was told he couldn’t have something he wanted.

Mary had
been at the party with her sister, the lying fucking bitch Molly. The two of them were like looking at wet dreams and held a promise that said when they gave it up, it would be well worth the wait. He wanted them both. But he’d tangled with Molly once before that night and had crossed her off his list. She was simply too mean and much too butch for his taste anyway. But not Mary.

Mary had turned him
down so many times that when he would walk up to her, she would put out her hand and tell him no. He wouldn’t even have to ask her anything. He wanted to mark her off too, but his buddies got wind of her rejection and he had to make her his just to prove he could have her. It was simply too good of an angle to ignore. Then one of his friends had bet him he couldn’t get into her pants that night. That set the stage.

Mary was coming out of the bathroom when one of his friends had tried to get her to go back in with him. It was the plan
they’d come up with. He’d try to rape Mary and Carter would go in and be the big guy. It was working perfectly until Molly showed up. Carter had wanted to be her knight in shining armor, but her sister had been. Molly had knocked his friend out and had taken her sister out of the house before Carter could get his wits about him. Drugs also made his thinking slower, he thought. Carter followed them as they were making their way back to their home by walking.

“Get in the fucking car.” He’d hung his head out of the car as he’d been driving by them.
Another girl, her name still eluded him, had joined Molly and Mary, and she told him to go home. “I said for you to get into the car. I’m taking you home.”

“Fuck off. We’re less than three blocks from home.”
Molly put her arm around her sister as she continued. “You should know that I’m going to tell your coach in the morning. You’re a fucking drunk.”

Mary was crying
, and he’d stopped his car and moved toward them. Carter was never really sure how it had happened, but his car started moving as he approached the girls. He should have tried to stop it, but he didn’t want to hurt himself before the last game of the season, and the car, like his shoes and coat, didn’t really mean anything to him as they were a gift from a college, one he had already decided not to attend. The car was so last year.

But the girl, whatever her name was
, had slipped and the car had run over her before she could be helped up. Carter had watched in horror as her blood splattered over the three of them and her screams were suddenly cut off. He’d never sobered up so quickly in his life. And wiping the blood from his face, he looked at the girls standing there with him.

“And then she married me.” It wasn’t as easy as that and he was well aware of it. He’d blackmailed
Mary by lying to her…had told her that he was remembering so much of that night a few weeks after it happened, and that her sister, Molly, had pushed the girl in front of the car. All lies, of course, but Mary loved her sister.

“You know that’s not true.
We all tried to get away from you.” Molly had been away at college and was not there to defend herself. Mary was all alone and he was going to make her give him what he wanted.

“So you say. But who do you think they’ll believe
? A girl from the wrong side of the tracks or a big famous football star like me?” But he wasn’t famous, at least not like he’d planned to be. He was now the town joke. He’d found out that morning that all his hard work was for nothing. His future career as a football star was down the fucking drain. All thanks to Molly and Mary.

Molly had
done just what she said she’d do and had gone to the coach and told them he was drunk. When that hadn’t worked, she’d gone to the papers. The police, who had that night told him that he had to keep his mouth shut, had hidden that he’d been a minor and drunk when the accident happened. Once the paper broke with the news, everything came out, including the fact that most of the colleges that had been wanting him had paid him something in return for him promising to sign with them. He’d never had so many things change in a heartbeat as he had in that crowning moment. Even his dad, the biggest supporter of him taking what they’d offered him, and who had—on more than one occasion—bought him his beer, had kicked him out of the house.

“I’ll tell you what
…you say you’ll marry me and I’ll make sure that your sister stays out of jail. Her scholarship won’t be revoked and she won’t have to pay back all that money they gave her to go to school.” He was proud that he’d remembered that Molly had graduated from high school two years before him, though she was three years younger, and had won a chance to go to college because her grades had been that good. Mary looked at him as if he made her skin crawl. He didn’t care. He’d have her, divorce her, and be able to have the bragging rights that he’d fucked the ice queen.

“And she’ll never hear about this?”
He nodded. Like he gave a shit if she heard about it. He told her that he’d keep his mouth shut so long as she was his wife. “I’ll do it. I hate you and always will, but I’ll do it.”

Three weeks later they were married.
And a week after that Mary Ravenhall got her first speaking part in a motion picture. After that, things went from good to fucking fantastic, and he found he loved being married to a famous actress almost as much as he loved fucking one.

“And now she’s dead and I got nothing after all the times I had to work on not hitting her where the camera would see it.” He laughed at his own joke and wished he’d popped her a few more times in the face for all the good it had done him.
Mary had been so good at hiding what he’d done to her until that last time Molly the cop had come home and found her sister in the hospital.

“You fucking bastard.”
He’d been in his office, a special little place that he would watch porn all day and suck up his wife’s money by buying whatever came up on the shopping networks. Molly had crashed into his office and caught him getting a blowjob while watching his favorite DVD. His secretary was just about to get her throat lubed when Molly came in the room.

“I’m about to come. Can you give her a minute?”
The woman at his dick had looked up at him, and he pressed her back to his cock. “Suck it or get fired. Up to you.”

Molly pulled her gun out
, put it to his head, and told the girl to leave. The woman got up quicker than she’d gone down on him, and Carter felt his cock grow soft when Molly put her gun to his balls.

“You’re going to tell me why you’re hitting my sister
, or so help me I’ll redecorate your office with your balls.”

Carter had never hated her as much as he did at that moment.
Not only had she caught him at his fun, but she had left the door open so now everyone stood watching. Two of the people who worked for him even had the nerve to laugh at him. He ordered them to get out, but Molly only laughed.

“They don’t answer to you, do they? No one does. Just my dear sister Mary.”
He glared at her as two more people walked in. “Shall I call my sister here? Oh wait, she’s in the hospital. And you put her there. Did you really think that I’d not find out that you beat her up whenever the mood struck you?”

“She gets what she deserves.
I can’t help it if she likes to get knocked around a little.” The gun barrel felt as if it were a part of his body when she rammed it harder into his nuts. “You know that fucking hurts. And when I’m finished here, I’m going to make you pay for this.”

“Oh
, you’re finished. I talked to my sister, you motherfucker. You actually threatened her into marrying you?” He looked at her and wondered how much more his dear soon-to-be-dead wife had told her. But Molly knew it all. “And I’m going to tell everyone I know what a sadistic fuck you are. I’ve even talked her into divorcing you.”

“She’s tried that before. I know more dirt on people than they even know. I’ve stopped it before
, and I’ll do it every time. She’s fucking mine and what she has is mine. Till death us do part.”

Molly laughed.
He felt as if she were raking her nails down a chalkboard and wanted to beg her to stop. But he never begged anyone.

“I got news for you,
fuckwad. She’s not only going to go through with it, I’m going to help her get you out.”

That had been ten days before he’d had her killed. They were supposed to
take out Molly as well. In fact, she was the one he really wanted dead, but she’d survived. Now, due to some twist of fate, he had lost it all again. And once again, it was Molly’s fault.

“Mr. Ravenhall, there’s a call on line one.” He reached for the phone just as his
secretary closed the door behind her. He was glad now that he’d had this little enterprise set up before he’d hired a gun for his wife and sister-in-law. It was keeping him afloat until he was back to his home. He’d stashed away the money to keep this going, but that, too, was running low now that he didn’t have an endless supply of money at his fingertips.

“Someone ha
s moved into your house.” He tried to wrap his mind around what his man was talking about when he continued. “Yesterday there was a few trucks pulling up and they were there for some time. I thought they were moving your shit back in that had been taken out the week before. Then today, a delivery truck came by from a mattress store. I asked the driver before he left the grounds and he said that he was making a delivery to the new owner. He wouldn’t tell me their name. Did she sell already?”

“How the hell should I know? That’s what I pay you for.” Carter got online and tried to find the records for the
courthouse that would give him the information he wanted. He was ready to scream when Archie, his go to man, spoke again.

“I just looked
. She hasn’t sold anything, but according to records, she has had her name put on the deeds. Her lawyer, a Phil Campbell, filed the papers this morning.”

“Well
, I want them unfiled.” Even to his ears he sounded stupid. “Find this fucker for me and bring him to my office. I want to have a few words with him on the…wait. What did you say his name was?”

As Archie repeated the name twice, Carter dug out his divorce papers. Right on the bottom was the name Phil Campbell.
The motherfucker was taking everything from him. He tried to calm his heart rate when it felt as if a rhino was sitting on his chest but knew it was futile. Everything was going to shit again. He had to reach for his pills as he worked harder at slowing his heart down. Some days, and especially lately, it was getting harder and harder to keep his heart from exploding in his chest.

“I want you
to get this guy and bring him to my office today. Tell him…fuck, I don’t care what you tell him, just get his ass here.” He was ready to slam down his phone when he thought of Molly living in his house. “And find that bitch Molly. I want her here yesterday.”

He put the phone down when Archie said he’d do it. Not
“I’ll try,” but he’d do it. Carter was sure he would. But right now, he was trying his best not to die. He should have listened to the doctors when they told him to lose weight and to quit the drugs. Now they told him he needed a new heart or he’d be dead in a few years anyway. That, too, had gone to shit when his money had been taken from him. Mother fuck, he hated the Barker women.

He was closing his eyes when he heard his
secretary come into the room. She would know better than to disturb him, and when the blinds were closed, he felt the blanket fall over his body. She deserved a raise for how well she cared for him. He wouldn’t give it to her, but she probably should have had one. As he waited for sleep to take him, he thought of all the ways he was going to make Molly pay.