Their Ex's Redrock Twilight (Texas Alpha) (Texas Alpha Series Book 4) (21 page)

“Shut up!” Luna yelled sharply. “I am getting away with it
just
fine. And he’s going to see how much he needs me.”

Tess stumbled, trying desperately to think of what she could say to get through to Luna, who had obviously gone over the edge for some unknown reason. Then they were at the big front doors of the orphanage building, and Luna pushed her through them.

Tess saw Navi’s head come up as he turned toward them with a smile.

Tess risked it: “Don’t come near us, Navi. It’s all right!”

Instantly, Navi’s usual smile faded, with intensity following as his gaze darted between her and Luna, who was shoving Tess down the long front sidewalk. Luna was not hiding her gun.

“You little rez Indian,” Luna screeched at Navi. “You don’t tell anyone you saw anything.” She swung the gun toward Navi. “Or I’ll be back for you, you hear me!”

“Luna!” Tess cried, trying to bring Luna’s attention back toward her, and away from Navi. “He won’t tell anyone, Luna!”

Luna’s attention and the gun stayed on Navi, as Navi exclaimed, “Yes, Miss, yes!”

Tess couldn’t stand the direction of that gun, while Luna thought about Navi seeing her there so she tugged with all her might, making Luna stumble forward, because she was gripping her arm. The gun waved back to Tess.

“Don’t you try anything, you bitch!” Luna screeched.

Tess tugged again, pulling Luna toward the parking lot and away from the wide-eyed and very still Navi. Tess was amazed Navi didn’t run ... he was just a little boy.

“Quit it, you bitch,” Luna yelled, and the gun smacked Tess in the side of her head.

Tess whimpered, but held back her outright cry of pain, as she stumbled and nearly went down. However, Luna’s tight hold on her arm kept her upright and staggering toward a black SUV with tinted windows, parked at an angle, right in the middle of the parking lot.

The pain in Tess’ head made her eyes burn with tears and her thoughts jumble, but she knew she couldn’t try again to stop Luna with Navi right there and within reach of Luna’s gun.

She’d have to try to get free once on the road. She hefted her purse strap up on her shoulder, trying to hide her hand reaching inside it, so she could try to grab her cell phone. She had Vincent on speed dial, and if she could just start the phone and push 1, it would dial him.

Luna screeched, grabbed Tess’ shoulders from behind, and shoved her up against the side of the SUV, rattling Tess’ teeth as she did it. Luna tore Tess’ purse off her shoulder, while Luna jammed the barrel of the .357 into Tess’ back, likely leaving a bruise.

Tess bit her lip to keep from crying out and giving crazy Luna the satisfaction that she was hurting her. Luna threw the purse across the parking lot, as Tess looked back at Navi standing stiffly alert by the boards he’d been sanding.

“You think I am stupid enough to let you get to your phone, bitch?” Luna screeched.

Luna grabbed hunks of Tess’ hair from behind and used it to force Tess into the driver’s side of the SUV.

Tess screamed, “Vincent will hunt you down and hurt you, Luna! You know he will!”

The barrel of the gun was shoved into Tess’ cheek, making her scoot across the seats, and Luna pulled herself up into the SUV. The crazy part was the look of excited anticipation on Luna’s face, and Tess realized her threat that Vincent would hunt Luna down was just what Luna was looking for, and it was no threat to her at all. Tess had just given Luna what she wanted.

“Put those on,” Luna ordered, shaking the gun toward a pair of handcuffs lying in the console.

Luna having the gun and those cuffs said she had planned the attack, and it wasn’t just a spontaneous bout of her going crazy, as Vincent had warned she could do.

“Okay, okay,” Tess said, taking the cuffs and putting them on as Luna started the SUV one-handed, and then she shifted one handed.

When the vehicle started to roll, Luna swung the gun out the window toward Navi again.

Tess lunged toward Luna, half crawling over her to go for the gun threatening Navi. Luna cold-cocked her. Tess cried out and fell backward, losing consciousness.

So she didn’t see Luna screeching the SUV tires as she sped out of the parking lot.

Nor did Tess see Navi sprinting after the SUV.

***

V
incent drove with deadly precision, faster than his truck should be able to go, as he sped toward the orphanage. It was either drive faster or slow down and try to call Tess or the authorities, as Luna’s voice rang in his memory.

You’ll come back to me.

Vincent cussed violently ... he should have kept an eye on Luna. He was fucking rich and he could have afforded it. He knew how crazy she could get, and he knew her attacks of madness just happened unexpectedly and for no rational reason. He’d gotten complacent with her being out of town and acting as if she’d finally let go of him for the little bit of fame she could scratch out.

“Should have fucking watched her!” Vincent muttered harshly, pounding his steering wheel.

If anything happened to Tess—

Vincent slammed his brain back on track ... he couldn’t go there. That kind of thinking wasn’t going to save his woman ... who was his fucking life. The truck’s back end started to float, and Vincent cussed, fighting it to stay on the road leading into the orphanage, but he didn’t slow down ... he just went faster.

Minutes later, he was surprised to see Navi running down the long hill from the orphanage, which Vincent was about to turn into, while skidding the truck wheels. The boy ran like a true Indian, all fluid strength and inherent grace.

But he also yelled, “No, Boss! Don’t turn! Go straight!”

Vincent swerved, not turning, as he slowed his truck.

“Did they go straight?” Vincent yelled.

He was going to gun the truck, but what Navi yelled made him stop.

“They’re nearly at the crossroads, Boss! I can barely see her SUV if I get on top of your truck!”

Vincent’s blood ran cold. Luna
had
Tess.

Navi leaped like a true warrior, and Vincent heard him pounding into the bed of the truck.

“Boss, the hill in the road! Go to the top.”

Vincent curbed his need to floor it, but he didn’t go slow either. He knew Navi had the strength born of a young and hard life. He knew the boy could hold on and he knew how smart he was, warning that they needed to see which way Luna’s SUV went at the crossroads, if they had any hope to track her.

Vincent kept his foot on the gas, but as they neared the rise, he braced his other leg so he could lift his body as high as he could go in the truck to see if he could see them. But it wasn’t high enough.

Small fists pounded on top of the truck.

“Vincent, I see them!” Navi yelled, using his name for the first time, and Vincent felt it slam through him. “Stop and let me watch the dust,” Navi shouted.

Vincent felt as if he was going to splinter, he was so wired, but he forced his body and mind to calm down as he slowed. He grabbed his cell, praying Navi got the direction as he pushed his cell phone on.

“Hell,” he muttered under his breath. No signal. But he typed a text to Cabe anyway, since Sam was out alone on reservation land and out of touch.

Navi’s long black hair flipped into view from Vincent’s left, and he turned his gaze to see the boy’s black eyes looking at him as he hung from the top of the cab.

“Boss, that bad lady took Missy to the left. I see the dust.”

“Thank you,” Vincent uttered. “You sprint back to the home and tell—”

“No!” Navi cried, pounding on the roof of the cab once. “I need to get
Mom
.” Then he gasped and yelled, “Missy! Need to get Missy. I can help!”

“No,” Vincent said.

But Navi’s eyes and hair disappeared and there were thuds on the roof, then feet shot into the open passenger window, with Navi’s long, thin body following, until he bounced to sit on the passenger seat.

“You’ll need me to look out if she turns again,” he said stubbornly as he grabbed his seatbelt to hook up and his dark eyes challenged Vincent with intensity.

Damn it, Navi was right. He did need him.

“Hold on,” Vincent growled, and the truck surged forward. Vincent tossed his cell phone to Navi. “Keep checking it for a signal. You see one, you push send every time. You hear me?”

“I do, Boss, I do.”

Vincent knew there was no way in hell Navi had meant calling Tess “Mom” to slip out, but it confirmed what Vincent had thought for a while now: the two of them were getting very close.

“Tell me everything you saw,” he ordered harshly.

But the boy could handle harsh—he was a survivor. Navi reminded Vincent of him and Sam when they’d been young Indian orphans. They’d been tough and resourceful and hadn’t let life throw them away.

Just then, his cell phone rang and Navi whipped it to him. Vincent fisted his phone and punched answer, then slammed to his ear. He’d seen the number calling in a flash. He had to be fucking brilliant, more brilliant than he’d been in his entire life, and his eyes blazed with determination.

“Luna ... babe, you got my attention. Talk to me,” he said, with his voice rumbling deeply.

Navi made a startled sound from across the seat. He’d heard a little bit about crazy Luna before.

“You’re all I have,” Luna said, sobbing. “I need you. I need to get rid of her so you’ll come back to me.”

Vincent clenched his eyes closed for a second, then when he opened them, he pressed down on the gas even harder, as he gestured at Navi to keep looking out ahead.

“Luna, you got me,” he said roughly. “But you only got me if you don’t hurt anyone doing it. You got my word.”

“Vinny,” she said, but it sounded hopeful.

Vincent prayed to the Great Spirit as he’d never prayed before, then he played a card that had always worked before.

“Babe, gotta tell you I was getting bored. She’s got no sparkle and shine like you. Maybe I’m glad.”

Navi made a hissing mad sound from the passenger seat. Vincent took the cell and slashed it in the air at him, shaking his head.

Then off the phone, where Luna couldn’t hear, he muttered, “Playing a game, son. You keep your shit together.”

Navi’s eyes drew down shrewdly, as Vincent put the phone back to his ear.

He heard Luna saying, “She’ll always be between us. It won’t be good unless she’s not around.”

Then, heartbreakingly, he heard Tess crying, “You can have him! I don’t want him if he thinks you sparkle and shine.”

Vincent knew that Tess knew the con he was trying to lay down. They had been through it before—not as dangerous, but close. His woman had the heart of a warrior, and he was proud.

“Shut up, bitch!” Luna screamed.

Vincent’s jaw ticked when it sounded as if Luna had hit Tess and Tess cried out in pain.

Fuck.

“Tell me where you are at, baby,” he asked harshly. “Quit messing with her. I do not want the law to mess up our chance together.”

Damn it, the thing was that
he
would never believe him spewing that crap, but Luna was madly self-centered and couldn’t see anything she didn’t want to see.

“Twin Pines. Be there! And Vinnie,
you
better not be lying to me,” Luna exclaimed.

Vincent wasn’t sure, before she cut the call, if she’d heard him yelling, “You want us together, no one gets hurt!”

Vincent fisted his phone, his gaze cutting to Navi, as he ordered, “Tighten down that seatbelt, son, and hold on.”

Vincent pushed his truck to ninety on the back roads of reservation lands, which shouldn’t be driven that fast over, but it was the shortest route to get to Twin Pines Motel. Along the way, he heard his shocks blow, his back axle crack, and his engine, or his brakes, he wasn’t certain which, was billowing smoke by the time he swerved the truck and skidded to a stop, a quarter mile from Twin Pines.

Navi’s black eyes were wide and intent when he looked over at him turning off his truck. Then, before Vincent could utter a curse or a word, Navi jumped ahead of him.

“You need me, Boss. Don’t tell me to just sit here.”

Vincent grabbed Navi by the back of the neck and brought them eye to eye.

“You’re going to do what I tell you, son, you get that.” Vincent saw Navi’s eyes grow sharp—he was going to argue, but he didn’t. Vincent squeezed his neck. “You work your way around back of the motel. Get to the front, on the far side of the office, where no one will see you going in. And you tell them in there to call the reservation cops. You tell them Luna Whitehorse, whatever room number she’s in, has a gun.”

Navi was nodding by the end of his instructions. Vincent understood he couldn’t just let the boy sit there and wait; it wasn’t in their blood just to wait out dangerous situations.

But he needed this.

He needed Navi to do this.

Also, Vincent knew it probably wasn’t going to help, because there was no way they could get there in time.

“I’ll do it just like you tell me, Boss. You go get her safe.”

Vincent looked intensely into Navi’s black eyes. “Everything I do is to get her safe, Navi. You remember that.”

***

T
ess wiped the blood off her lip with her free hand. Her other wrist was cuffed to the exposed pipe under the bathroom sink. She sat on the floor with her back to the wall, watching Luna furiously pacing in and out of view in the motel room beyond the open bathroom door.

Vincent was coming ... Tess
knew
it.

And that terrified her more than the depraved woman that had kidnapped her by gunpoint and was pacing in front of her. But Tess couldn’t think of anything to help her husband. Not one blasted angle added up in her mind. And she’d be damned if she’d just hand Vincent over to the crazy bitch.

Here, take my husband and let me live.

God, after this Vincent might try to leave her again, to save her. Tess glared at the frantically pacing figure whipping in and out of her view.

No way that was happening this time. If she managed to live through it, this time that bitch was going to prison
forever
. Incarcerated so long that Vincent would never try to be noble and leave Tess to keep her safe again.