Blindsided (Sentinel Securities) (19 page)

“Come on. Let’s get out of here,” Jason said coming over to her and gently helping her to her feet.

Everything felt numb. She couldn’t seem to get her feet to obey her commands and she leaned heavily on Jason as they made their way slowly, down the embankment. Images flashed before her eyes—the man’s cold gaze…the end of the gun pointing at her…his dead eyes staring up at them as they’d edged past him…there was no warning before she abruptly lost the last of her stomach contents, which was thankfully only water.

She felt Jason’s firm hand on her back as she sank to the nearest rock and waited for the nausea to pass. “Sorry,” she muttered without looking at him, once she felt that it had gone.

“It happens after you’ve been through something like that. You’ll feel better now.”

She wished he didn’t sound so matter of fact about it. Would it hurt for him to at least
pretend
that this was something out of the ordinary…not an everyday occurrence that he was able to shrug off, like a bad day at the damn office? 

She allowed him to help her stand upright and had to admit she did feel better. They continued walking back the way she’d come. The terror she’d felt was hard to ignore, but she did her best to block it out. Had she really only an hour or so ago been running for her life? This was so surreal. If everything didn’t hurt so badly, she could almost believe she’d dreamed the whole thing.

When they finally broke from behind the screen of dense bushland and out onto the dirt road they’d come in on, she discovered another car parked behind the one she’d been driven here in and saw Gracie on the phone, talking quietly to someone. As he watched them approach, he disconnected the call and headed towards them. Jason left her side to speak quietly to his friend and then he turned and walked back to her as Gracie made another phone call.

She was supposed to have died today.
“They were going to kill me.” She wasn’t sure why she felt a need to state the obvious and say it out loud, although she suspected it was the onset of shock.

“They can’t hurt you anymore. Come on let’s get your wrists cleaned up.” Before she could protest, Jason lifted her up once more and carried her towards Gracie’s dark car. He opened the front passenger side door and carefully lowered her into the seat, leaving her briefly to rummage around in the rear of the vehicle until he returned with a first aid kit, dropping to his haunches in the open doorway to clean her abrasions.

The antiseptic stung, but she sat quietly while he gently cleaned and then wrapped her sore wrists in gaze. “Your colour’s coming back. Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked cupping her chin in his hand
and dabbing at the graze on her cheek
.

“No. I’m okay. Just a bit shaky.”

She watched him pack away the equipment in silence, his movements efficient but his expression unreadable.  Swallowing nervously, Brie bit the inside of her lip before broaching the unspoken thing which hung over their heads. “He didn’t give me a choice.” The sound of the bush in early evening was all around them and filled the silence that followed.

“There’s always a choice. You should have trusted us,” he finally said curtly.

“He had someone watching Lucy and Gladys.
Oh my God, Lucy!
We need to get them out of there before Demetriou realises what happened to his men,” she said trying to stand, but unable to while Jason remained crouched in front of her.

“Lucy’s fine. I told you—we have someone watching over them at all times. He knew he could spook you by using Lucy. You should have come to us.
Trusted us,
” he emphasised once again for good measure.

“Well how was I supposed to know that? He sounded as though he was there—watching them. It sounded real.”

“And you almost died as a consequence.”

“My child was in danger—I’m sorry your feelings got hurt!” she snapped.

“My feelings have nothing to do with it! You almost died tonight, Brie! Do you understand that? I almost lost you!”

Brie stared at him. He hadn’t yelled, but his voice held an intensity that had been far more effective than raising his voice ever would have been. They stared at one another and Brie finally caught a glimpse of what lay behind that controlled mask. He’d been terrified of losing,
her.
  Slowly she reached out a hand and placed it against the rough stubble of his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

He shut his eyes and leaned his face into her palm for a moment and Brie felt something shift inside her. She cared about this man—really cared about him. How the hell had that happened? She’d been so careful to stay on the right path as the new, improved Briella Matheson who made smart decisions and stayed away from men who were trouble…what the hell happened?

****

Nash smothered the growl of pent up frustration and despair that threatened to escape at Brie’s gentle touch. He couldn’t remember feeling this worried about another person in a long time.  She’d scared him witless.
If he’d been a few minutes later…if he’d made the wrong call on where Demetriou had taken her
…he pulled the breaks on hard—he couldn’t bring himself to complete the thought, it was just too painful.
He was in love with her.
The thought hit him out of the blue—but it didn’t send him reeling the way he’d always thought it would if the day ever came that he really fell for a woman. Maybe subconsciously he’d been preparing himself for it—knowing his past history and aversion to commitment—maybe this was his brain’s way of preparing him for a life changing event.
Great, but what the hell do I do about it?
His lifestyle was hardly the stable nine to five kinda job Brie wanted for her and Lucy. Was he prepared to change his whole lifestyle for this woman?
You almost lost her today, Moron! You can’t even bring yourself to think about a life without her in it...
Okay, so that was probably a yes, he was prepared to make whatever changes he needed to make in order to keep her in his life. But was
she
prepared to accept
him?

Nash gave a long sigh and pulled back slowly from her touch—his body already protesting loudly against the move. He craved her touch like a damn drug now days.

“It doesn’t matter now. We need to get moving before these two are missed and Demetriou sends someone out to check on them.”

“What are we going to do? I gave him the formula.”

“We’re gonna
’
let him hang himself—that’s what we’re gonna
’
do.” Nash whistled Gracie over and they drove back towards the city in silence. He fought his instinct to sit in the backseat with her and just hold her—the thought of losing her still scared him senseless—but he needed to keep his distance until this was taken care of. Demetriou had to be taken care of. Until he was, Brie and everyone she cared about would always be under threat and that was something he would
not
allow. He’d deal with what was going on between them later. The chicken inside him nodded wisely at the decision.
Much, much later,
it agreed.

As the garage doors slid shut behind them, locking them securely inside the building, Brie finally let out a relieved sigh. The whole trip back, she’d been on edge—waiting for something to happen. Her hands were still shaking. She looked down at them now, trying not to recall the image of that man—dead. She’d seen death before—she’d seen trauma before, but usually she came in on the aftermath…the car accident victims—sometimes violence inflicted from a fight or a domestic, but she’d never been
part
of the violence before and it was a
very
different experience to try and deal with.

“Are you okay?” Stone asked her as they made their way across the garage to take a seat at the table.

Brie forced herself to nod, holding his concerned gaze before dropping her eyes as she realised how worried they’d all been for her. Yes, she felt bad, damn it! But she refused to apologise for doing what she thought was right by her child.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” however, it seemed Mac was prepared to skip the niceties and let loose a tirade.

“He said he had someone watching Lucy,” she said wearily.

“Well he didn’t—if he did, our guy would have reported it to us!”

“Well I know that—
now
,” she stressed pointedly. “Maybe if you’d kept me in the loop a little better I wouldn’t have felt as though I had no other choice!”

“Do you have any idea what could have happened to you, tonight?” Mac’s voice was beginning to raise an octave and his fury plastered across his face.

“Mac—” Gracie tried to step in but the other man turned his fierce gaze onto him and Gracie shut his mouth.

“We have this under control. You need to stay out of this until we handle it,” he snapped at her.

“Oh? Under control? That’s why Demetriou is out there killing off people and  doing whatever he can to get his hands on the stupid formula
you
refuse to hand over? How many more people have to die just so you can remain
noble
?” she demanded, uncaring that her own vice had risen and she was now standing toe to toe with a man twice her size.

“We know what we’re doing. You almost managed to ruin everything!”

“He threatened my bab
y
’s life. I’d do it all over again if I had to. Unlike you, I can’t stand by and let innocent people die when I have a way to stop it.”

“Innocent? This is all because of Cruz isn’t it? You think that arsehole was
innocent?
You think he thought twice about giving Demetrius your name and number? How do you think he was able to contact you? Cruz was a piece of scum.”

“He was still a human being, you insensitive jerk! God, I feel so sorry for whatever the hell happened to turn you into such a…a…robot!” she spat out disgustedly. “You don’t even act like you have a damn heart. What the hell is wrong with you?”

The rest of the men were silent as they watched the two combatants square off at each other, warily.  Brie watched Mac, her chest heaving with the rush of anger-fuelled adrenalin that coursed through her. She hated confrontations, but if they were inevitable then she would not back down from one.

“I grew up. I stopped seeing the world through rose coloured glasses. You should take yours off occasionally and then maybe you wouldn’t t be so Goddamn condescending.” He turned away and stormed off towards the elevator, leaving the rest of them to stare after him silently.

“Here, get this into you,” Gracie placed a hot cup of tea in front of her and urged her to sit down.

“Me, condescending?” she demanded, ignoring the chair Gracie held out for her. “Where the hell does he get off calling
me
condescending?”

“You were pretty darn close to the truth when you guessed something had happened to make him the way he is.” Nick spoke quietly from his seat on the lounge nearby. “He’s been through hell and back again most of his life. Trust me when I say you need to give the guy a break.”

“Nobody has an easy life—plenty of people have terrible things happen to them—it doesn’t give them the excuse to turn into…that,” she said throwing her arm in the direction Mac had walked.

“He lost his wife and daughter in a home invasion while he was serving overseas. They raped his wife in front of his daughter, and then killed them both,” Casper said and a horrified silence followed.

For the second time that day, Brie felt her knees want to give out from under her and she moved across to the chair to sit down.
Oh my God.
And just like that, her words floated back and slapped her across the face. Tears suddenly filled her eyes and fell. All she could think of was Lucy being put in the same situation and she quite literally fell apart at the thought.

Jason came to her side and pulled her into his arms silently holding her as she cried.  She cried for Declan, for Lucy who would never know her father, for the terror she’d been through fearing she was about to die…and for Mac. She cried most of all for him and his wife and little girl…crying for what might have been and now never would.

****

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Brie demanded once Jason had taken her back up to his apartment.

“It wasn’t my story to tell. Casper shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Don’t blame Casper! At least he explained it to me. You should have told me before I said all those things! Damn it you guys are like bank volts! How the hell is anyone supposed to understand you if you don’t let anyone in? Do you honestly think all you need is each other? What about love? Or is that just too mundane and civilian for you guys?”

“How come I’m coppin’ all the flack all of a sudden?”

“Because you’re the only one here! And don’t change the subject. I’m serious—it’s weird.”

“We don’t exactly have a
normal
lifestyle,” Jason pointed out calmly, but she noticed he’d avoided her gaze when he did so.

“You could.”