Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (60 page)

Chapter
Six

Jack stomped around his house,
slamming doors, and tried to find something to do that wouldn't remind him of
the woman downstairs. He was too damned angry and needed a way to vent.

All this time. After two years and
his dead family, she was going to try to pretend she had nothing to do with
what happened?

She couldn't even respect him
enough to admit to what she'd done, and already he'd lost his composure twice
by attacking her. He never lost it around a target. Sloppy shit like that was
the exact thing that made a lot of hunters lose their licenses. Or their lives.

Jack's phone vibrated in his
pocket. The sound irritated him, everything irritated him, and he yanked the
thing out. "What?" he snapped.

There was a pause on the other end
of the line. "I guess you got it done?"

Jessica.
Shit
.

"Sorry," Jack said,
wiping his face with his hand before pressing his forehead against the nearest
wall. "Yeah, I got her. I'm just stressed."

"You sound stressed,"
Ethan said, and from the sound of his voice, the prick was smiling about it.
Jessica was on speaker. Great.

"Fuck off. I'm not in the
mood," Jack said.

"Why are we best friends?"
Ethan asked.

"Shithead," Jack said.

"It had to be done, Jack,"
Jessica said, though not unkindly. "She's unregistered, and after what she
did to you—"

"She's still here," Jack
said quickly.

There was another pause. That was
never a good thing with the two of them.

"What happened?" Ethan
asked.

"I called it in, but there was
a bigger job that required all hands on deck. The collectors won't be here for
another two days. Three if we’re being honest."

"Will you be all right with
her in the house? You're not exactly equipped for overnight stays,"
Jessica said.

"Just chain her to the floor
and you should be fine," Ethan said. "Or leave her in the box."

"That's not humane,"
Jessica said.

"So? After what she did to him
it's not exactly the worst thing that could happen to her."

Jack pushed himself off the wall.
He started wandering the halls of his house, not really paying attention to
where he was going. "She's afraid of enclosed spaces," he said.

"So?" Ethan asked. "She
wasn't afraid of lighting you on fire."

Ethan was his best friend, and
Jessica was Jack's ex, and it was because of this that they were the only two
people on earth Jack had told about Cindy's involvement in the fire. They
usually erred on the lenient side when it came to the paranormals they found,
but Ethan had no sympathy for Cindy. Jessica acted a little more reserved
whenever she was mentioned. Probably because it was awkward to hear about a
former lover's ex in conversation. No matter what that conversation was about.

"That doesn't mean he wants to
lower himself to her level," Jessica said.

Jack clenched his fist, his nails
biting into the palm he'd slapped Cindy with. He wasn't about to mention that
to Jessica.

"It's his choice what he does
with her," Ethan said.

"I'm just saying he's not
equipped to handle housing a dangerous paranormal for so long," Jessica
replied.

No, Jack wasn't. Especially not
with
her
. Cindy had been in his house for only a few hours and he'd
already jerked off. "I should be fine. She's already chained up so it's
not like she can go anywhere."

"You said she was a pyro,"
Jessica said. From the sound of her voice, she was getting pissed. Most likely
at her brother.

Like Jack could ever forget that
Cindy was a fire starter.

"The chains are spelled,"
Jack said, trying to reassure her. "And she's in a cement room. She's not
burning her way out of that."

There was another brief silence.
Jack waited for her response.

"You know, you're the only ex
boyfriend I've got that I call up worried about."

Ethan made a choked sound. Like
he'd been taking a drink of something and his sister's words made it go down
the wrong tube.

Jack smiled at both Jessica's worry
and her brother's discomfort. "Which makes me pretty lucky, right?"

He didn't get the response he
wanted from his attempt at flirting, which was probably for the best. Things
didn't work out the first time because he was still hung up on the woman
downstairs.

Jessica was good enough to not
mention that Jack was being an idiot. Ethan was still coughing. A dull thumping
noise sounded like he was pounding on his chest.

"I'll call you later to ask
about her," Jessica said. "If you need any help, I'll come over."

Jack knew she would. At the drop of
a hat, she and Ethan would both be here if he told them he needed help. Jessica
wouldn't be coming over because she thought she could get him into bed either.
She was a better friend than that. It had been hard enough for Ethan to accept
that his sister had been dating his friend, and it had been a real test of that
friendship when they'd broken up, too.

Jack didn't even think he could
have sex with her. If Jessica came over by herself wearing a babydoll and a
smile, Jack didn't think he could have sex with her. Not because he didn't want
to hurt her, or put his friendship with Ethan through the grinder again.

Seeing Cindy had done this to him.
Having her in the house was a problem.

That was the most unfair thing in
the universe, too, because he could really use a good fuck right about now.

"Jack? Are you listening?"

He came out of his thoughts like
someone had splashed water on his face. "Yeah. Yeah I heard you."

He seriously doubted Jessica
believed him, but she was good about it and let it pass.

"I wish I hadn't heard any of
that. You both need to warn me when you want to have a conversation like that,"
Ethan said.

Jack shook his head. "Won't
happen again, buddy, don't you worry."

He hoped saying that wouldn't hurt
Jessica's feelings.

Jessica sighed. "All right.
Keep in touch, though. I'm worried about you with her in the house."

Jack didn't blame her for that.

"Actually, before you hang up,"
he said.

"Yes?"

Jack bit down on his bottom lip.
Hard. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. "She
told me it wasn't her."

"What do you mean?"
Jessica asked without hesitation in her voice.

"I'm not surprised,"
Ethan said.

Jessica snapped at him. "Shut
up
.
Jack, what's going on?"

Jack leaned against the nearest
wall. He spoke through his teeth. "I mean, she said she didn't do it."

"Do you believe her?"
Ethan asked. He sounded genuinely curious.

Honesty was always the best policy
here, so Jack wasn't sure why he felt like he was lying. "No."

Now Jessica and Ethan seemed to be
hesitating again. Jack was sometimes stunned the two of them weren’t twins,
sharing a single mind between them.

"I mean it," Jack said.
This time he felt better about his answer.

"Look, I didn't know her then,
so whatever happens, whatever you choose to do, just be careful," Jessica
said.

"What do you mean?"

"Yeah, what
do
you
mean?" Ethan asked.

At least he was on the same page as
Jack. There was no choice involved here. The choice was already made. Cindy was
going with the collectors when they came.

"Just take care of yourself,
Jack," Jessica said, and he hated the fact that she sounded like she knew
something he didn't. Then she hung up and Jack was alone again, staring at the
screen.

What did she mean by that?
Jack set the phone down on the table.

He reached for his tablet so he
could check his e-mail. When there was nothing from Head Office regarding a
specific time for the pickup, Jack looked into his banking.

Bringing in a pyro, especially an
unregistered one who had been on the run for so long, would bring in enough
money for him to completely pay off this house three times over, with enough
left for a new truck and then some. People with elemental powers weren't as
common as vampires and werewolves. Only mermaids were as rare and hard to bring
in, and they were mostly left alone.

His account was still healthy,
however, even after all the cash he'd dropped on weapons, hiring private
investigators, and taking classes to better learn the trade he thought he'd
never completely devote his life to.

Hell, he should probably just give
Cindy to the collectors for free after what she did to him. Jack had no
outstanding debts, and he could even take a nice long vacation if he wanted to.

Maybe he would take a vacation
after Cindy was gone. He could use one. He might even convince Ethan and
Jessica to come with him.

Jack gave that some serious thought
as he took a seat at the kitchen table and rested his chin in his hands.

What if she was telling the truth?

If Cindy was telling the truth, and
he still didn't believe that she was, then he didn't want to send her to a lab.

If he didn't bring her in, then
where was she going to stay? With him? Yeah right. If he was wrong about the
entire thing she would just finish what she had started years before.

He was so fucking stupid for even considering
this, and it wouldn't matter anyway because he'd already called her in. The
collectors knew he had a woman who could light fires with a thought. No one
wanted someone like that on the loose.

Jack opened up a file full of
pictures. His father, Sean, was there, holding up a fish he'd caught on his
honeymoon, and Jack's mother was at his side, an equally big smile on her face.

Aidan and Liam weren’t born yet.
Jack got to their pictures next, with the most recent one having been taken the
day before they were killed.

It gave him chills to look at this
picture, how they were all smiling, not knowing what was coming. He missed the
smiles on their faces. It had been taken right after he'd told them his plans
of attending school with the love of his life. Sometimes he was glad he'd
gotten one last picture, though. Something with all of them together.

He'd given them his decision. He
wasn't going to be a hunter, and they'd been genuinely happy for him.

They'd always supported his passion
for art, though Sean's support came with a lot of reluctance. The man hadn't
been happy about one of his sons choosing a profession where a paycheck was
hard to come by.

Jack hadn't drawn more than a
doodle since the fire.

He opened the last folder. He
usually avoided looking at this particular photo. It was a picture of him and
Cindy. Her hair was as wild as ever, and her arms were around his neck as she
smiled into the camera he held above their heads. They were in bed in this
photo, and though it wasn't immediately obvious, they'd both been naked. They'd
just finished having sex. There was a pink glow still on their faces.

It all looked so damned normal.
Jack suddenly found it hard to breathe as he stared, particularly at the smiles
on their faces. He sighed.

He only looked at this picture to
get his bearings straight. He needed that right now. This smiling woman didn't
exist. Jack had once thought she was something that she wasn't, and when he
told her about his family profession, confessing his secret just as she had confessed
hers, she'd clearly panicked and become consumed with self-preservation.

The worst part about all of it was
that even if she was lying, which he knew she was, it was still his fault his
family had burned alive. She'd told him she was a pyro, and a few days later,
he told her he was from a family of hunters. He'd been so stupid. He thought
sharing something like that would make her feel better, and prove he trusted
her.

What the hell had he
expected
a pyro to do? Did he honestly think she'd be okay with the fact that her
boyfriend had confessed to having the means to put her away for life if he
wanted to? Christ, his father had always said not to trust anyone with powers.
Wars were started by people like that and hundreds of thousands of men and women
were killed or murdered each year by paranormals.

Despite all that, Jack had placed
his trust her, and once he did, everything had gone to shit, and that hurt so
bad that he couldn't even sleep most nights.

That was all on him. It didn't
matter if he handed her over to the collectors, it wasn't going to bring his
father or brothers back. He was still going to be alone.

Jack got up walked away from the
tablet. He couldn't look at it anymore. He was still hungry after his lunch had
been ruined, and he was going to have to see about tending to Cindy eventually,
which wasn't just an excuse to see her again.