Mercy's Angels Box Set (95 page)

The cabin was small, barely big enough to house more than two rooms. It appeared sturdy, though, not old and rundown like Dale Remone had suggested. Perhaps Stephan and Alison had been working on the property. It made me wonder if this was the place they had been sneaking off to whenever they claimed to take their romantic weekends away. The porch sat facing what I assumed was a spectacular view of the valley and mountains below. In the dark of night, I couldn’t really tell. Biting my lip until I was sure I had drawn blood, I decided to move closer. The place appeared empty, quiet. Maybe it was the wrong place. I went to stand and a strong hand around my waist and mouth caused me to scream out and fight back. My heart was thumping so hard and loud I thought it might break through my chest.

“Shhhh. Annie, it’s me. You need to be quiet, Sunshine, or you’ll wake the natives.” I stilled instantly, breathing hard as I grappled for calm. Dillon pulled me against his hard chest. “Now, we are going to talk about you running off like Lara Croft when we get home, but for now, I need you to be quiet, really, really quiet.” He slowly released my hand, and I spun around to hug him.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I whispered in his ear.

“Yeah, well, payback’s a bitch ’cause you scared the shit out of me, too.” He took a long, deep breath. “Did you just curse?” I don’t know how he did it, but at time like this, he still found a way to make me smile. A heavy hand on my shoulder made me jump. “It’s okay. It’s Braiden. Bomber’s here, too, but he’s made his way around to the other side of the cabin.” I reluctantly pulled away from Dillon’s warm embrace. I reached for Braiden’s hand, which was still on my shoulder, and gave it a gentle squeeze. I could barely make out his dark features in the depths of night and surrounding trees. Both he and Dillon had black on their faces which I assumed was to help make them invisible. “Put this on,” murmured Dillon, handing me a jacket. It was warm and smelled just like him. Pulling it on, I crouched down by Braiden, and Dillon joined us.

“Bomber’s in position,” said Braiden, his voice no more than a whisper on the wind.

Dillon took my face in his hands and physically turned me to face him. “You’re going to stay right here and not move until I come for you,” he gently commanded.

I would have argued, but I was cold, scared, and completely out of my element. The need to protect my son was a driving force, but I knew when to take a step back and allow the experts to finish the job. I nodded and Dillon’s warm hands left my face. Then he and Braiden quite literally disappeared into the forest. I tried to look for them, listen for them, but I saw and heard nothing. When a light inside the cabin flicked on, my breath caught in my throat. The muffled voice I heard from my hiding place in the trees brought a whimper from my lips.

“I’m thirsty.” Eli, my baby boy, my son. The voice I had missed so much it left an empty void in my heart. He had only been gone a handful of days, but it felt like years. I had never gone a day without seeing him, and I was desperate to have him back in my arms again. Just the sound of his voice forced me to my feet, and before I knew it, I was moving towards the cabin. I had forgotten about the soldiers around me. I thought of nothing except that sweet voice I had missed so much. All I wanted was my son, everything else paled in comparison. A hard body suddenly grabbed me and pressed me into the side of the cabin, and once again, a hand covered my mouth. The exterior of the cabin was rough and hard against my skin, yet the body pressed up against mine was careful not to push me to the point of pain. I didn’t panic this time, but I knew right away the scent wasn’t Dillon’s. My eyes flickered up to catch Braiden’s dark, deadly gaze. He pressed a finger over his lips, signaling me to be quiet. I nodded, and he removed his hand. Reaching to this thigh, he quietly pulled out a gun. He pressed his other hand against my chest, holding me in place.

“Don’t move,” he growled, pressing a little harder to make his point.

“He’s in there. I heard him,” I breathed.

Braiden nodded and put some space between us. His gaze left mine and nodded toward a figure standing at the front door.

“Go back to bed, damn it! If I have to tell you one more time, I will fucking lock you in there!” yelled the familiar voice of Alison. It wasn’t her sweet, calm, caring voice I was accustomed to, though. It was almost frantic, much like the harried sound of Phillip’s voice when he had been trapped in a manic episode. Before I had a chance to say another word, Dillon stood back and kicked down the front door.

“Freeze!” he yelled. Then his voice went eerily calm. “Alison, you need to put that gun down, you’re surrounded.”

There was the sound of breaking glass from somewhere else inside and then the distinctive sound of Eli shouting. I couldn’t be still; it was simply impossible. I ducked under Braiden’s arm and ran for the front door with a cursing Braiden hot on my heels. The sight that greeted me brought a long groan from my throat.

“Nooooo!” I screamed. Alison had a shot gun pointed at Eli’s head, the panicked look in her eyes like that of a startled deer. And Eli, the look on his face . . . I would have nightmares about those scared brown eyes for the rest of my days.

What a clusterfuck. Annie had moved too early, forcing our hand. Stephan had quickly given up the address to their prepper style cabin in the mountains, and Braiden and I had left ahead of Sergeant Maitland and his team. It was meant to be a clean and efficient joint mission to retrieve Eli and separate him from what Stephan described as a manic and desperate Alison. Instead, the police were still ten minutes out and our clean mission had turned into a messy stand-off at the O.K. Corral. Eli was clearly terrified, though appeared unharmed. He was no longer wearing the clothes he had on when he disappeared, he was was now wearing pajamas.  I noticed the dampness at the front of his pants, but it was Alison who held my undivided attention. She was completely spooked, her eyes wide with crazy fear while holding a gun to Eli’s head. It was not a good combination. I didn’t have time to placate Annie’s fears. I could hear her quietly sobbing behind me, but I trusted Braiden would have a handle on it. I lifted my gun and pointed it towards the ceiling, then crouched down a little lower in an effort to look less intimidating. Bomber was behind Alison, but I couldn’t risk him grabbing her and the gun accidentally going off and hitting Eli or any one of us. I gave a quick shake of my head to tell him to stay back, and like the good soldier he was, he did.

“Alison, it’s over. At this time, all you’re up for is kidnapping. You’ll do time and you’ll get out. Eli appears unharmed, and as long as he stays that way, this will end as well as can be expected. If you hurt him, you’ll go away for a long time. You might never set foot outside a prison again. Think, Alison, you are a smart woman. This doesn’t have to end badly.” Alison grabbed the back of Eli’s pajamas, which were unfamiliar to me, and pulled him back so the muzzle of the rifle was hard against his head. Eli didn’t cry out, but his tears cut like a fucking knife. “Come on, Alison, you wanted to be a mom so bad. You know a mom would never treat her baby like this. Eli is scared out of his wits. A momma protects her baby, and she’d do anything to protect him, even give him up if that’s what it takes.” That seemed to get Alison’s attention, but it didn’t help settle her rattled composure.

“He’s mine now. I’m going to take care of him,” she said almost hysterically. Annie choked back a sob but kept blessedly quiet.

“You know he’s not yours, Alison. He’s Annie’s. She carried him in her womb, gave birth to him. She’s a good mom, and she loves Eli very much. Stephan told us about the hysterectomy. We know how badly you want to be a momma, but if you want to prove to the one person who counts . . .” I pointed a finger upwards. “If you want to prove to Him that you will make a good momma, you gotta let Eli go.” Alison was crying now.

“I just wanted a baby,” she sobbed.

“I know, but not like this. You know this isn’t right.” She shook with her sobbing, and I feared the gun would inadvertently go off. “Just point the gun away from Eli. You don’t want anything to happen to him by accident.” Her sobbing eased, and she looked from the gun to Eli. Then a glazed look overtook her features, and she began shaking her head almost manically.

“They won’t let me have a baby now. I told Stephan we should take Shelly. She was mine, I carried her, but he said no. He said everyone would know. It had to be a stranger!” Her movements were beginning to get out of control, her body shaking with manic fury. “I gave them a baby, and they took away my ability to have another!” she screamed.

“That’s nobody’s fault, Alison. That’s fate, and sometimes it sucks, and it isn’t fucking fair at all, but this,” I pointed to Eli, “this is not fate. This is you doing something you will live to regret.”

Her body stilled as she looked at Eli. “No,” she said in a whispered voice that was far too calm for the hysteria she was just consumed with. “This is fate, too.”

I saw it as if in slow motion. The rifle rose to be cushioned into her shoulder, and she pointed it right at Eli. Braiden didn’t hesitate as he fired his weapon from somewhere behind me, which left my ears ringing. A single red dot was left in Alison’s forehead, and a trickle of blood oozed from the wound. I lunged forward to pull Eli away from Alison as she fell in an unnatural heap to the floor. Bomber skidded to a halt beside her, kicking the rifle away before checking for a pulse. Annie grabbed Eli from my arms and squeezed him tightly, tears falling freely as she held her son like she might never let him go.

“I’m here, Bean. Momma’s here. It’s okay,” she repeated like a mantra.

“Get them outside,” murmured Braiden with that eerily unruffled composure . He had just put a bullet in a woman’s head, and he didn’t look the slightest bit perturbed. I knew he would battle with the death at a later date, more blood on his hands. But for Eli, for the protection of any innocent life in fact, I knew he would do it all over again. While Bomber and Braiden checked the rest of the cabin, I steered Annie and Eli outside. Sitting down on the porch steps, I pulled Annie into my lap, and in her lap sat Eli. I hugged the both of them and sighed. They were both alive, though clearly in shock, but otherwise unharmed, and now I could focus on keeping them and protecting them or the rest of our natural lives.

We didn’t have to wait too much longer before the place was swarming with police. I stood beside Sergeant Maitland and watched on as a cover was placed over Alison’s immobile body. Braiden looked calm and collected as he retold the evening’s events to an officer. Bomber, on the other hand, looked a little pale, his gaze constantly drifting back to Alison’s lifeless form. When his gaze caught mine, though, he pressed his shoulders back and gave me a nod as if to silently express he was okay. I had moved Annie and Eli to the back of my SUV, which Braiden had driven down the dark, overgrown driveway. I wanted to go to them, but I needed to make sure my team and I were cleared by local law enforcement first. The scene around me was sedate and somber as all the official boxes were ticked. This scene, a cabin in the wilderness, another death, it was all too reminiscent of nightmares that tried to constantly creep back into my mind. First Ella, when her stepfather tried to murder her. Then Rebecca’s attack, which led us into the forests surrounding Claymont where we were introduced to William and Jonas Levier, the sadistic and cruel men who excelled in human trafficking and prostitution. Lastly, it was Jonas Levier’s abduction of Emily that filled our minds with horrors we could never erase . . . and now Eli. My hands shook with a combination of rage and fear, and I shoved them deep into my pockets to hide the tell-tale sign that I was hanging on by a thread. I needed to get Annie and Eli home, away from this chaos and horror.

Alison and Stephan had, in fact, been preparing the small homestead for what must have been quite some time. In small enough increments that nothing jumped out in their bank account, they had systematically rebuilt the cabin, installed solar panels and a generator. The walls and roof looked new, and there was a small shed built on the far side of the building. They had a well-established vegetable garden and had even planted what looked like fruit trees. They truly were settling in to a fully self-reliant lifestyle with their newly established ‘family’. It both sickened and scared me to think what could have happened if we hadn’t found him when we did. Alison was obviously suffering from some sort of mental breakdown, and with weapons lying freely around the home, she could have easily done something that would have altered the outcome of this mission. I couldn’t think about that possible outcome, though; it almost made me sick to my stomach to think of what could have been, and there was no use dwelling on the could-haves when we had completed our mission successfully.

“This was a good outcome,” Maitland murmured from beside me, his thoughts obviously mirroring mine. “I would have to say it was a successful joint task force effort, even if your little lady did jump the gun.” He gave me a small smile which seemed to crack the stiff, icy composure I had become accustomed to. “Mind you, I think your team did most the work. I think we owe you one, Mr. Montgomery.”

“It was a joint effort, and as long as you aren’t going to drag one of us in for murder, we might be able to do business again in the future.” Maitland nodded and looked back towards Alison’s body which was being lifted onto a gurney for transport.

“Your stories all match up, and the evidence appears to confirm it. I’ll need a statement from Eli at some point, though.” Maitland raised a hand when I went to speak. “Not tonight, not tomorrow, but at some point. The medics said he appeared unharmed, but you should take him back to Claymont Memorial just to be sure. I can recommend a good child counselor, if you don’t know of one.”

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“You’re welcome. Why don’t you get your lady and boy out of here, Montgomery? Your team is free to go. If I need anything, I’ll call.” I shook the sergeant’s hand before moving swiftly back to Annie and Eli. Eli was fast asleep in her lap in the back of the car. Knowing there was no way she was going to give him up, I carefully wrapped the seatbelt around the two of them and pressed my lips to Annie’s cold forehead.

“Let’s get some heat on in here,” I suggested. Before I could move away, she reached for my hand. The gratitude in her tear filled eyes almost brought me to my knees. “Don’t say thank you. He’s mine to protect, too, as are you. It’s my honor and duty to protect you, and the only thing I need in return is to know that you are both safe,” I glanced up at her tear filled eyes, “and you won’t leave,” I added. There it was, the final thing that filled my veins with cold fear, the thought of them leaving Claymont, leaving me.

“Where else would we go?” Annie whispered. “Our home is here, with you.”

God, this woman undid me. Her shy confessions and loving words filled my heart with a sense of peace that had been missing for too long. Her hand was still in mine, and I pressed a kiss to her fingers before pressing her palm against my chest, right over my rapidly beating heart.

“Your home is here, with me.” I echoed her words and enjoyed the sound of them.

I slipped into the driver’s seat and drove away from the nightmare that had threatened to break us. Annie had done so well. She was a remarkable woman, and the way she fought for her son made me proud. I would still have to spank her sexy ass red for sneaking off on her own the way she did, but if the situation had been reversed, there was no way I could have remained behind like that. As the tires on my SUV found the asphalt once again, I began the steady descent, away from our nightmare, and with each passing mile, I felt more and more in control. Annie was safe, Eli was safe, my family was going home, with me, and I would be damned if I would ever let them go.