JARED (Lane Brothers Book 4) (61 page)

Luc

I’m worried. Terrified, if I’m to be honest, because while I have a tracking chip in Ashley’s engagement ring—please, roll your eyes at a less stressful time—the blasted signal was lost an hour ago.

We have a general direction to start searching, but I have this terrible fear that she’s in a lot of trouble right now. Time…I’ve never been this furious at something so simple before in my life.

“Are ya gonna go fetch her now, Luc?” Ben asks for the hundredth time in the hour and forty-seven minutes since I’d almost lost all control of myself.

After that initial roar of outrage…well, I have a son to think about, so calming down despite my feelings was hard, but here I am, calmly assuring my son while anger and terror blaze through me.

I hadn’t lied when he’d run down and seen the kitchen and that handprint. Instead I’d wrapped him in my arms and promised him that I was going to go get our girl and bring her home.

“We’re ready to move, sir,” Frank, my security man, says from my left.

“Give me a minute.”

When he nods and walks away I turn to Ben and get down on my haunches, meeting his stare head on. I find that he’s easier to deal with when you’re honest.

“Yes. I need you to stay here with my secretary and do what she tells you to. Eat whatever she gives you and stay calm. Ash will need you to be calm when she comes home. Okay?”

He nods, his lip trembling slightly before he firms it and stands up straighter.

“Yes, sir.”

The kiss I drop on his rumpled hair is all I allow myself before turning and marching out to the car, my mind already planning a hundred miles a minute as we pull away and leave the estate.

“You’d better know where my woman is, Frank.”

The hardened soldier turns black eyes on me and nods, keeping his own emotions under check as we race through the streets, trying to beat the sinking sun.

“I have an idea, sir. We’ll find her. I’ll find him.”

I smile despite myself and cast a sardonic look at Frank. The man is Ashley’s personal security and has taken her disappearance very personally indeed.

It’s my fault that Wesley had gotten to her at all; I’d pulled Frank off house duty to get to Ben faster than I could, and thanks to that monumental fuck up he’s not only pissed at himself or Wesley Munro. He’s furious with me.

Seems I’m not the only besotted fool panting around my wife.

I could almost pity Wesley when Frank manages to catch up with him because, if I were a betting man, I’d lay odds that Wesley won’t walk away from that meeting fully intact. If he survives at all.

It just depends on the condition Ash is in when we get to her. From the bloody hand print I’d say that arse is in for at least a kneecap and a few important bones.

“Here we are, sir. We lost the signal here.”

I look out of the window and squint at the landscape as evening settles, throwing everything into a shadowy darkness.

“Oh, fuck.”

Trees. Everywhere.

Ash hates the wilderness due to some strange fear of a serial killer that doesn’t even exist. I know it’s crazy, but the thought of my woman wandering the woods alone, terrified out of her barmy mind, makes me even more crazed than the sight of that handprint did.

“Find her
fucking now
,” I growl, feeling my muscles tense with every minute that ticks by. “She’s afraid of the woods, Frank. Our girl is terrified of these places. Especially at night.”

I see his almost expressionless face harden, maybe enough to match my own violent emotions before Harry comes to a stop, pointing out an almost hidden dirt road.

“You want me to keep going, boss?”

I want to crack a smile at that Bostonian tough guy accent but refrain when Frank leaves the car and jogs to the road. He comes back a minute later, smiling so savagely I feel an icy draft creep down my spine.

“Fresh tracks. Let’s go. We go in on foot.”

My two thousand dollar shoes protest violently as I vault out of the car and follow him at a dead run while he hisses commands into his phone, his pace never slowing as we crash through the tree line, keeping adjacent to the road.

“Sloan says there should be a cabin about two miles up ahead.”

I grunt in answer and keep going, sweating buckets despite the chill in the air.

Minutes, hours later, I crash into Frank’s back when he stops, his eyes scanning our surroundings. A derelict cabin stands up ahead, the place a dark hovel that makes no sound, no signs of life as we creep closer.

“It looks abandoned.”

Good. That motherfucker better hope he doesn’t have my woman stashed in that piece of shite lean-to. If he has…well, I can’t say for certain if I’ll be able to keep my civilized mien in the face of finding my baby in that filthy hole.

Ten minutes later and after a team of ten—men I hadn’t even known were there, they are so silent—sweep the cabin and the surrounding area, I almost wish Wesley had had the balls to put my woman in there.

“Empty. Fuck.”

***

Ash

“Please, Jesus, don’t let him get me.”

Darkness. Everywhere. Surrounding me. Pushing down on me like a living blanket that suffocates me with every inhalation I can stutter through my constricted chest.

I want to cry and scream, rage against Wesley and his passive violence, but I can’t manage a sound as I crawl through the blackness enveloping me.

I’m trapped, stuck in the middle of nowhere, doomed to crawl through these trees all night, alone and so scared I feel my bladder cramp brutally.

He’d dragged me out of the car, literally, on my back for so long the skin on my shoulder blades is raw and suspiciously sticky. That hadn’t been the worst, though. No, he’d then proceeded to dump me in the middle of nowhere before ripping my engagement ring from my finger and running away, leaving me alone and bound, scrambling to retrace his steps as darkness fell.

That had been so long ago. At least he’d done me a solid by cutting the cable ties from around my ankles, but it’s not much use when I keep falling or running into trees I can barely see.

When a twig snaps somewhere to my left I freeze and hold my breath, whimpering, squinting into the darkness for the tell-tale glint of a machete.

Yeah, I know it’s ridiculous to be afraid of a fictional character, but it’s no use trying to tell myself it’s just make believe. In my mind he’s a living, breathing entity that’s silently stalking me through the pitch black woods surrounding me.

I crawl forward on my knees and elbows, breathing heavily as I try to find my way. It’s literally impossible to see my hands in front of my face, it’s so dark.

“Please, Jesus, don’t let me suffer here,” I beg, falling onto my face. “Please just give me a sliver of moonlight.”

It doesn’t happen because, of course, if there is any I can’t see it for the freaking thick canopy above me. When something furry scuttles across my bound hands, trailing a tail, I give up any pretense of calm and scream bloody murder, jumping to my feet and forward in a mad dash for any place but the area inhabited by that furry critter.

Now you know I’m crying hysterically and begging for help, miraculously not hitting any trees, when suddenly I hit a brick wall with muscular arms and tree trunks for legs.

“Nooo!”

Thrashing and kicking out at the monster rampaging through my head, I struggle to get away in the hopes of dashing for safety. The arms tighten instead and I act on instinct, sinking my teeth into what feels like a pectoral muscle and bite down as viciously as possible.

“Jesus, love, leave off, would you!”

What I feel in that moment is crushing relief and an aching recognition that steals every rational thought but the most basic of all. My man has come for me; he’s saving me from the monsters in the dark and the villains in my head.

He’s come for me, and I no longer have to keep myself together because his strong arms are here to hold me up and chase the demons away.

“Lucian?”

“It’s okay love. Shh, don’t cry, my darling, I have you,” he whispers, crushing me closer and stroking my hair as I fall apart and attempt to crawl right into his skin. “I have you, baby. Shh, don’t cry.”

Can you blame me for pushing closer and ceding the battle? Is it pathetically stupid to fall into his heat and give up the last vulnerable piece of the heart now pounding in my chest?

Maybe, but right at this moment I don’t give a damn. I’m safe and protected, and for the sake of not feeling so alone, I’m willing to give him everything I have just to see where it will take me.

Luc

I’ve never felt this happy and furious at the same time. The emotions are stronger than any I’ve ever experienced, and not because I’ve not felt these things before but because the intensity is far beyond anything I’ve known.

After seeing the empty, rotten bowels of that cabin I’d been ready to lose all sense of sanity. I’d looked into the darkness of the woods and felt my head spin with the desperation of a drowning man, when the shrill scream of my girl had lit the air, making the hair at my nape stand straight on end.

We’d all run toward that sound, ready to defend against any attack. Honestly, I’d been ready to rip her father apart with my bare hands before assessing the damage to her and getting her to the nearest hospital.

Thankfully what I’d stumbled upon was nothing worse than my frightened baby, running pell-mell in the inky darkness because some unseen animal had crawled over her skin.

I’d caught her up, speechless with relief and so thankful to have her slight weight against me again that my knees had weakened. My mistake, I think ruefully, rubbing at my chest where her little teeth had bitten.

The damn female had bitten me!

And damn me if I wasn’t proud of her for fighting like a feral animal.

“Her wrists and hands need some attention. Don’t think the gash on her eye needs stitches, but she’s gonna be sore when she wakes up for sure.”

I nod to Frank and pull her closer, inhaling the scent of her twig and leaf matted hair. We’d had to sedate her when we’d reached the car as fatigue and shock finally set in, so she now rests comfortably on my chest, her even exhalations and snores making my heart settle for the first time since I walked into the kitchen and seen the carnage.

“I’ve called the doctor. He should be waiting for us at home.”

I keep my tone and volume even, not wanting to disturb her rest any more than I have to. Rage and the need for violence still seethe beneath the surface of my skin, but there will be adequate time to seek an outlet for them after I tend to the needs of my woman.

“About that other matter.”

“No, we’ll discuss it when I’ve had her seen to and resting comfortably.”

Frank nods and stays silent for the rest of the journey, his unsettling eyes never straying from my light burden and the paleness of her skin. As I relax back and shift her closer to the crook of my neck, I close my eyes and plot my next course, laying it all out as methodically as my vengeance-filled mind will allow.

I have no use for those who oppose me, never have, so for Wesley Munro…well, let’s just say that as far as I’m concerned it’s become a personal affront to me that the man breathes the same air as my little family.

For daring to take what is mine I’d already decided to make him suffer. For hurting her, though, I have an altogether different set of standards. For this he will not only suffer but beg for mercy.

I will make him cry for every tiny scratch he put on her delicate skin, will make him scream for every shiver that wracked her body as I pulled her close and willed my heat into her frozen limbs.

Every mark and bruise that he has given her will be visited upon him two fold. By my own hand, and then… I may not kill him like I wish to, I’m no murderer, but I will ensure that he lives the rest of his miserable days regretting that he dared to hurt my Ashley.

My thoughts are brutal and hard and so far from the civilized man I show to the world, but as I pull her closer and stare out of the window I can’t find the will to give a damn.

Wesley Munro will hurt for hurting my family.

***

Ash

“Lucian, seriously, I’m totally fine. See? I can get out of bed without my limbs falling off. For God’s sake! Put me down, you ninny!”

I’m yelling, something that makes me feel shitty due to the fact that he’d saved me, but I can’t help it. It’s been three days since I’d woken in our bed, and the man has yet to let me so much as lift a fork to feed myself.

I love that he’s been so attentive and caring, and yeah, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to hamming it up a little just to have him fawning all over me a bit longer.

But even I can’t stay in bed this long and I freaking well say so, have said so continuously since yesterday, when the doctor came by to give me the all clear.

“You’ve been through an ordeal. You need your rest,” he snarls, sweeping me up only to lay me gently back on the bed I’ve come to hate.

“But Lucian—”

“No! You damn near had hypothermia, and you’ve had a massive shock. You need to give yourself time to heal,” he grinds out, pinning me to the bed with a hand over my heaving chest. “Really, love, I can’t tell you how awful you looked—”

“Gee, thanks. If you’re looking to get laid anytime soon, you should keep going. The flattery is almost killing me.”

His mouth kicks up in the first grin I’ve seen since waking, and I do what any hot-blooded female in my position would do when pinned beneath a man this dominantly sexy.

I stare open-mouthed and drink it all in with a long line of drool streaming down my chin.

“You’re twisting my words. Deliberately,” he chides, leaning down to plant a gentle kiss on the skin between my eyebrows. “You know I didn’t mean you looked ugly. You looked half insane with fright and cold.”

I snort and look away as a blush heats my cheeks.

“Don’t remind me of my overactive imagination.”

I’d confessed to running from not only an animal but a fictional ghost, needing to explain my little biting attack after seeing the bloody evidence of my teeth marring his sculpted chest.

Instead of being annoyed—or amused—by my ludicrous imaginings and the resultant hysterical attack on his person, he’d gone all stony silence before yelling at me that it wasn’t amusing.

Seems my man doesn’t like the thought of me running scared and almost braining myself on a tree, even if I’d done it to escape a movie villain.

Nope, it only seemed to piss him off more that I’d been so afraid my mind had gone berserk and almost gotten me hurt more than I already was.

The thought of what I must have looked like makes me laugh despite the embarrassment, and I giggle once more, trying to picture my face and the speed wobble I’d been performing to escape the dastardly ghouls behind me.

“Stop laughing. It isn’t bloody funny!”

“But it is,” I wheeze, burying my face into his neck as tears leak out of my eyes. “I must have looked like—”

“You looked half dead with bloody fear!”

I sober at the heat in his tone and peek up at him, biting my lips to quell the smile blooming there. He must really like me, at least a little, if he can’t laugh with me at my silly antics.

The idea sends tingles of joy to my already melting heart, and I sigh, giving him a quick peck on the lips before pushing him away to sit up against the headboard.

“Okay, all right, I won’t laugh about it anymore, grandpa,” I gripe. “If you won’t let me out of bed, and plan on staying cooped up with me all day again, I think it’s time to talk about it.”

His face shutters, letting me know he’s been waiting for the inevitable questions and doesn’t want to answer.

I’m more stubborn, though, and smarter just for having boobs and a vagina, so I square my shoulders and school my features into a glare I learned from the master himself.

“Tell me what happened with Wesley. I want to know.”

“Ash—”

“Nu-uh, mister, I was kidnapped and robbed.”

God, who steals a woman’s engagement ring, anyway! It’s like kicking a freaking puppy, it’s so wrong, and just…just mean!

“You tell me what the heck happened, or I’ll call Frank and get it from him,” I warn, keeping my face stoic.

Lucian scowls darkly at the mention of the other man’s name, and I fight a giggle at the look of jealous irritation it invokes. I’ve now officially met my personal bodyguard and have him so wrapped around my finger he’d willingly jump through flaming hoops for me.

I kinda like knowing that I have someone at my back; it makes me feel safer, as well as the added benefit of using the big burly ex-soldier to threaten my stubborn husband.

“Dammit! Fine,” he mutters, raking at his hair in frustration. “I had your father—”

“Wesley. That man is not my dad,” I mutter, feeling a fresh rush of tears at the mention of the man who’d ripped my ring away and left me for dead.

“Wesley,” Lucian concedes, taking another, deeper breath. “I had him investigated, and…Ash, can’t we just—”

“No! I want to know,” I insist, locking gazes with his stubborn frown.

“He stole the inheritance your mother left for you and Ben,” he finally grits out after a few long minutes of staring each other down.

The news shocks me a little, because honestly, I didn’t even know Mom had any money besides the meager savings we’d used for her funeral.

“She left us money?”

That rat fink bastard! Not only has he taken my ring, a symbol of the commitment…ownership, I amend, of the man before me, but he’d taken money I could have used to keep Ben and myself housed and fed.

I could have used the safety net while getting my life back in order, as well as not having had to work so much Ben had felt neglected.

Just another tic against him in the ‘crummy dad’ department, Ash. Shake it off and move on.

“Yes. Not a lot, but enough to see you through the first year at least. He stole it and ran, and then…”

I see from his hesitation that he’s afraid to tell me the rest, not wanting to add to the hurt and disillusionment I already feel. Sweet brute.

“I already know he has another family,” I whisper, pushing the hurt away with a forceful shove.

I can mull that over later when I don’t feel so raw. Definitely when he’s out of the room. For some reason he goes ballistic when I cry or get sad. I like it, but not right now when I need to calm him as much as he needs to tend to me.

“Christ. I—I’m so sorry, love. I know how much that must hurt you.”

“Not even going there. Not yet,” I mutter, shaking my head to stop whatever he’s about to say. “He said you told his…wife, and that she left him and took his son.”

It’s hard to say, harder still to say when my sweet boy is just down the hall, oblivious to the cruelty of a man who should have loved him.

Lucian nods and grinds his jaw, making it tic slightly.

“I made sure they were set up, and then…I took his money and his business. I felt it only fair to leave him as helpless and alone as he left you and Benjamin.”

I feel whole when he says it, because no matter how much I want to tell myself that I had everything under control, I know I’d just been fooling myself as the house of cards toppled down around me.

It’s bitter and unforgiving, but the thought of Wesley suffering what we had makes me feel good and avenged.

“I—I should have realized he’d lose it and go after you and Benjamin. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I—”

“Don’t. Don’t blame yourself for something he did. He chose to abandon us and steal our inheritance. He chose to use me to hurt you. He did this, Luc, not you,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss him softly. “You saved me. From him. From losing Ben. From myself. You’re my hero right now, so please, don’t ruin that for me,” I beg.

It takes a while, full minutes of my unwavering stare, before he releases a shuddering breath and nods, accepting the truth of my words.

“How did you find me?”

I can tell he wasn’t expecting such a quick change in topic and that the question makes him uncomfortable, but I don’t care. If I’m gonna give him every part of me I want honesty and trust.

It’s all he’ll give me, after all. There’s no love for me; I’ve seen it clearly enough in his shuttered gaze, but if I can have liking and respect as well as honesty I think I can do this without freaking out every other minute.

“I had a tracking chip in your ring.”

“Say what?”

His head dips and then lifts again, bringing his burning eyes back to mine. The look in them is stubborn and unapologetic, the first real glimpse I’ve seen of my dominant man since being taken.

I’ve missed it, a lot, over the last three days and through the incessant nagging and coddling he’s forced on me. The look is welcome, though no less infuriating as it would have been just days ago.

I love him, really I do, but he’s got some serious issues about keeping me under his thumb, and if I let on how creepily romantic I find this I know I’ll never hear the end of it.

Controlling bastard.

“I had a tracker on you the whole time, and bloody thank God I did or I suspect we wouldn’t have found you so soon,” he mutters. “As it is, it was just dumb luck that made Harry stop at that dirt road. We almost drove right by. Don’t even get me started on the fact that I was about to leave those woods when I couldn’t find you. The next chip is going in your luscious arse.”

“Uh, no. That’s not happening.”

And don’t even get me started on how hot I find it that the guy is this crazy about stuff. Sure, I should be pissed that he tagged me like a freaking cow, but instead I’m just relieved that his obsessive behavior let them find me sooner.