Fierce Protector: Hard to Handle trilogy, Book 1 (18 page)

Eva immersed herself in the
feel
of him. A few moments more brought his taste, only a faint reminder of their first fuck, but then new excitement quickly gathered. Unthinking, simply giving what he seemed to need, she felt him deeper in her mouth, and then completely . . . his hand guiding her head onto him, then letting her please him in her own way. Her legs apart, she toyed with her clit, her pleasure synchronized with his own now, and both knew that a shared ecstasy was only inevitable.

“Zack,” she said, her hand replacing her mouth, “I want you inside me.”

“Yes,” he said simply, eyes closed.

“Now,” she said, standing, pushing him back toward the sofa.

“Not here,” he whispered. His eyes met hers, their lustful smile expressing their shared need.

“Hmmm,” Eva purred. “Take me to bed.” She stroked him a little more, kissed his tongue with her own. “Take me to bed and fuck me.” Their kiss grew quickly and, for a moment, Eva wondered whether they would even reach the bed before . . .

There was a soft
ding
from the table beside the couch. Zack glanced there, willing to ignore it, but Eva knew that they could not.

“What is it?” Eva asked as Zack’s face fell to a worried, ashen frown. He turned wordlessly and showed her the screen.

“Oh,
God
, Zack . . .
No
 . . .”

Chapter 11 – Fire

Brandon’s team dashed to their vehicle as soon as they heard the alarm.

“OK, we got an incident in Sutherland. Suit up!” he called to his men, watching their swift preparations which were so well-rehearsed by now. It took only three minutes to gather their equipment and light out of the station for the sixteen-minute trip.

“What have we got, boss?” asked his second-in-command.

“Car fire,” he said simply. It wasn’t unusual, but it was their first for a few weeks. “Well underway by the time it was called in. Just hope no one was sleeping in it.”

Six months earlier, they had risked major burns to pull a homeless man from a car which had been – it later turned out – deliberately set on fire. Two young idiots were in the county jail for that little stunt. Brandon silently prayed that they weren’t walking into another one of those.

“Anything else from the witness?” Brandon asked on the radio.

“Nothing yet,” the dispatcher told him. “They’re watching the fire, so you can ask them yourself. Careful out there.”

By the time they arrived, the car was well ablaze. The engine block was a ball of flame, bright orange-yellow on this moonless night, and the back seats had caught, Brandon could see from the thick pall of black smoke pouring out. A semicircle of flame extended forward of the car, Brandon noticed, and one of his team began taking photos while the others unfurled fire hoses and began to tackle the blaze.

Six neighbors had gathered at this ungodly hour; one woman had a hand over her mouth in shock, and an elderly man in his dressing gown was shaking his head sadly. Satisfied that his team would control the fire without backup, he approached the group.

“OK folks, nothing to worry about. Sorry for all the commotion. Did anyone see what happened?”

There was little response. A couple in their 20s, who had just come out to take pictures of the fire, took a final picture of Brandon, and then headed back inside. “Great. Anyone with any information about this? Cars don’t just self-combust, I think you know.”

A teenage girl with spectacular eyebrow piercings, her eyes wide, said, “It’s been there for a couple of days, maybe since Tuesday night. But it’s not Trish’s car.”

“Who’s Trish, honey? Does she live here?”

“Yeah, but she’s on a cruise with Tyler. I dunno whose this car is. Maybe a friend?”

Brandon stopped, blinked, made very clear eye contact and asked, “Did you say, Trish and Tyler live here?”

The girl nodded. Seconds later, Brandon was on the phone.

***

“Zack, you got to just listen to me for a second, OK?” Gray stood opposite Zack in his living room, blocking the front door. He knew it was a long shot, but it seemed to be his responsibility to prevent Zack from going off like a bomb.

“I’m listening for ten seconds. Then I’m starting a war. Go.” Eva stayed put in her armchair with legs folded under her. Watching him like this was terrifying; he was beyond ‘angry’, beyond ‘furious’. This was something else.

“You have no targets and no plan of attack. Running around San Antonio with a shotgun isn’t going to achieve very much.”

“Wrong, and wrong. I’ve got a first-rate source of intelligence. Time to start utilizing our assets.” Zack grabbed Hank and pressed him against the wall.

“Wait!” Eva couldn’t bear this. An hour ago they had been the happiest people alive. It was like watching the Hulk, driven to unrestrained fury by some asshole with a gas can and matches. “You’re not going to hurt him, and you’re not going to go hunting anyone down. Right?”

“Says who?” Zack shot back.

“Says me, for one,” Gray interjected. “I
am
, after all, a cop, you know. If you threaten to breach the peace, I’ll have no option but to . . .”

“Arrest me?” Zack asked, incredulous. He let go of Hank, turning back to Gray, “You got some maniac torching cars, threatening people, and
I’m
the one you want to put the cuffs on?”

“You’re gonna calm the fuck down, Zack, or you’re damn
right
I’ll put the cuffs on you,” he yelled. “
Think
, God damn it! Stop and think, like the rational man I know you are.”

“Not today I’m not,” Zack replied darkly.

“Well, the Zack Norcross I know never
once
headed into action without a plan so fuckin’ meticulous it took a PhD to understand it. “

Zack rubbed his face, ran taught hands through his short black hair and took a very deep breath. “I’m too
mad
to plan.”

Gray glanced at Eva – so pale and scared, curled up on the sofa – then at Hank, stress-lined and crumpled, sitting in the corner, as far from Zack as possible. “Not for long.” He look squarely at Zack, then almost bodily dragged him outside to the back porch. Eva got the light switch while Gray helped Zack to hang up his trusty, old punching bag on a hook. Suspending the light-gray bag above the back deck, Gray stood aside and let Zack pound out his frustrations.

“We’ve been doing it this way for years,” Gray explained to Eva, raising his voice a little over the noise of impacts and Zack de-stressing. “You got to let it out,” he said to them both. “When things get crazy, don’t bottle it all up. We learned that early, and you’d be amazed how much a little violence will calm you down.”

Zack stopped and gave Gray a very stern look. “Want to rethink that analogy, Detective?”

Red-faced, he rushed to apologize. “Jesus, Eva, I’m sorry, there’s nothing ever funny about violence. You know what I meant, right?”

She put a hand to his arm and smiled. “Don’t worry. For Zack, I can’t imagine anything better right now.” She glanced back to see that Hank had remained inside, terrified by this display of practiced aggression. She and Gray watched quietly as Zack pounded the bag, quick flurries alternating with strong jabs and the occasional deadly, game-ending uppercut. “Makes me kinda glad he’s not allowed to do that in his MMA fights. The other guys would never survive!”

Then, Zack stopped. “Look,” he said, out of nowhere, “the biggest problem here isn’t that they want
Hank
. As I see things, the problem is that they want
money
. Right?” He held the bag still, panting and sweating, the anger somehow transformed into an incisive, clear-headed focus.

Gray weighed this up. “Err . . . Yeah. I guess that’s about right.”

“Well,” Zack said again. “I’m rich.”

***

Hank pressed ‘send’ with a certain cringe to his expression. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes.” Zack had dictated the text, and taken a big step toward ending their nightmare. “10am gives us time to hit up the bank and get out to Three Rivers.”

“They’ll want more, Zack. They said a hundred.”

“Well,” he replied, having thought it through, “if they’re not idiots – and you’re telling me they’re not – then they’ll know that banks have withdrawal limits. It’s this, or nothing. You did tell them it was the first installment, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, just like you said,” Hank assured him. As he spoke, his phone beeped. “OK . . . OK, good. Look.” He handed Zack the phone.

About time. Don’t make us wait for the rest. Three Rivers church. 10am.

“So what do we do now?” Eva asked.

“Get some sleep,” Gray advised. “I’ll head home, talk to the field office and liaise with the drone guys.”

Zack handed Gray his jacket. “Small and simple, remember?”

“So small, even my
boss
doesn’t know. I’ll be with the team when you make the drop. Call me if you need anything.” They shook hands, and Gray whispered, “Hell of a thing, Zack.”

After watching through the curtains to see that Gray left safely, Zack locked the door, turned out the lights and set two alarms for 8am. “Hank . . . you all good out here?”

“Snug as a bug,” he replied, settling down on the sofa once more.

“OK. Eva?”

She crossed the room and knelt down to talk quietly with Hank. When she rose a moment later, Hank was smiling.

“Time for some rest,” she agreed and followed Zack into the bedroom. By the light of his small bed-side lamp, he watched her undress, leaving the big, red t-shirt and her jeans on the carpet, then unhooking her bra and pausing for a second, glancing across at him, before slipping her panties off and climbing under the covers.

“Are you exhausted?” he asked as he joined her, just as naked.

She wrapped her arms around his body. And then her legs, sliding on top of him. “No . . . not particularly.” Eva held a cautioning finger to her lips, reminding Zack that they had a guest next door, no matter that he was already snoring. “But you must be?”

His hands were on her back, smooth and warm, sliding down to her bottom, squeezing her admiringly. “Not right now.” Then his fingers went lower, and Zack found her exactly as he wanted her.

Moments later, she sank down onto him, briefly pausing their kiss and gasping quietly into his mouth, while he slipped gently inside.

Chapter 12 – Three Rivers

“And how would you like that?” asked the helpful teller to her first customer of the day.

“Hundreds would be fine,” Zack replied. The counting machine rattled as the first of the newly-minted bills was run through; he couldn’t help keeping a count of the $5000 bundles. Once all five were counted, the teller repeated the act and then slid the notes into a sealable, plastic bank bag.

“There you go, Sir. Good luck with your new investment.”

“Thank you,” Zack said politely. “Have a great day.”

Thursday morning’s rush-hour traffic had largely dissipated by the time they hit the road. Hank looked hassled but somewhat refreshed, while Zack’s plan to grab a few hours’ sleep had been hijacked by an insatiable redhead. The night had brought more sex, he calculated, than he’d had in a year. Once this sordid business was done, Zack mused, there would be time for a lot, lot more.

They were ten minutes from the church when a text arrived:

Waiting for you. Come to the altar for your confession.

“OK, so we just play it cool, right?” Zack had taken control from the outset, and intended to see that no last-minute glitch derailed their plan.

“Sure, cool.” He turned to Zack. “You know . . .”

“We aren’t talking about that right now. They’re gonna agree a payment plan which benefits everyone. You’ll get it together, pay them down, and then walk away.”

“I have
no idea
how I’m gonna . . .”

But the relationship with his sister, Zack would just have grabbed Hank and slapped the self-doubt out of him. “You’ll be fine. Things come up in life. It’ll always surprise you. Now,” he said firmly as they turned into the church parking lot, “get yourself into character.” The car stopped. “You good?”

“Yeah. Let’s get it done.” Checking that no eager parishioners were in sight, Zack led Hank up some steps to the main door of the church and slowly eased it open.

“Stay behind me, don’t talk unless they ask you something directly, and if anything happens, just
run
. You got it?”

Hank nodded. They took a few paces into the church itself, a modern design with long, broad pews on either side of a purple-carpeted aisle. The altar table, covered with a white cloth which touched the floor, stood beneath two stained-glass windows. In the morning sunlight, it was warm and smelled faintly of dust and upholstery.

But there was not a soul to be seen.

“We’ve got the right place?” Hank asked, but before Zack could growl his reply, they saw a black object on top of the altar. Hurrying to the spot, blood pumping, they found that it was an old-fashioned cellphone, flipped open, laying on its back. A contact was displayed – seemingly the only one in its phonebook – named ‘CALL ME’.

Anger gave way to confusion, then a sudden welling up of fear.
Something’s wrong
. He touched the green button and the call connected. “Who is this?” he asked.

“I don’t think that it matters much who I am, Zack,” came a deep voice with a faint southern accent. “I think it matters much more who I’m
with
.”

There was a scuffling sound, then a female voice, crying and terrified. “Zack?”

His blood froze. “Eva?” Hank stared at him, ashen-faced, wide-eyed, helpless, his worst fears now realized.

The male voice returned. “Your buddy Hank seems to think we accept layaway,” it said. “He knows what he owes. He knows we are not patient. Call us when it’s
all
ready.” The voice fell silent to let Zack hear hysterical crying in the background. “I’d say she has twenty-three hours left.” Then the line went dead.

The church boomed with the loudest, most unforgiveable language imaginable.

Then, he tried to breathe slower.
Focus
.
Get help and focus.

He brought out his phone. In the end, the simplest version was all he could manage.

“Zack, are you OK?”

“No, Gray . . . They
took
her.”