Miah (Lane Brothers #2) (13 page)

“Babe, I am so sorry. I should have—”

“Hush, Miah. I swear you seem to get more upset about these occurrences than I do,” I chide, putting my fingers to his lips to stem the tide of apologies I know are forthcoming.

“Told you so, bro.” Jace chuckles from the driver’s seat.

“Shut up and drive, asshole,” he snarls before looking down at me with guilt. “I keep failing you. It’s my job to protect you, and yet every time I turn around you keep getting hurt.”

“Uh, I’m doing alright for a chick who got snatched right in front of her kid brother, Miah, so just quit your guilt already. You can’t protect me twenty-four hours a day. Really, Miah, you take the blame for the strangest things. Now if you want to get upset about something, let’s focus on Nick and his plans for me. That man sent someone to hurt me and then had the audacity to show up at my workplace, demanding I go back to him. And he hasn’t stopped calling since.”

I wait for him to explode at the news and sigh in relief when he just kisses me softly and shakes his head.

“Jared, take care of this, would you? I’m not leaving Clari and Josh to fly down to Philly to take care of that SOB, and I want him off the streets before he tries something again.”

Jared nods and whips out his phone, murmuring into it so softly, I can’t make out a word.

“Done. You want me to read this now or at home?”

“Now.”

Miah

I’m so relieved to have my girl back and for her to have done the right thing and put in for a leave of absence. After getting home and spending the rest of the day just holding her, I finally went down to Jared and Jace and had my brother tell me everything about this Williams woman.

It turns out that instead of needing to kill the woman, I owe her for saving my family and opening up a whole other avenue in our investigation.

The extremists basically made me from day one, as well as Dobson and his crew, because if Agent Williams is right, we have a leak in the SEALs and were in danger of walking into a straight-up trap.

My first inclination is to get Roman the hell out of there and just wash my hands of it all and leave the colonel to take care of this mess he was so willing to get me into. But Roman, it seems, is in and getting closer to the big dogs as we speak. He’s convinced that he can gather enough names for us and the FBI to start unraveling what appears to be a hive instead of just one cell operating out of New Orleans.

So yeah, Roman can stay right where he is and keep this thing going while I focus my attention on bigger fish, like that idiot Nick Grimes and whoever the hell he’s working with. The man disappeared off the face of the earth yesterday morning and hasn’t been seen since.

“If Williams is right then it’s a good thing you officially resigned from the SEALs. Dobson might believe that you left to pursue a life of crime like him and his buddies.”

              “We can hope. I put in leave for the next month just to see if my absence helps Roman’s cause, and I’m hoping that we can get something good soon. I don’t like having this kind of crazy right in our back yard.”

Jared nods and looks at the framed photos of Josh and Alex standing on Pop’s desk, his frown deepening dangerously.

“I second that. This shit will not come near my nephews. I say we just start going rogue and follow the shit to the root. To hell with Williams and her Justice League mentality. These assholes don’t deserve prison.”

While I agree and would normally just let Jace and Jared have at this type of filth, I can’t risk losing the other players and a lead on the guy leaking intel from my old SEALs unit.

Those guys are my family, too, and if someone is putting them in jeopardy, I can’t let that slide.

“I want to know who the leak in the colonel’s unit is first, and then you can have at those SOBs with my pleasure.”

“So what now?”

“We wait, bro, and let things play out till they either make a mistake or hang themselves with the rope we provide.”

I leave them grumbling in disgust and unsatisfied with my verdict to seek out my girl. I find her in bed upstairs smelling fresh from her shower and drinking a hot chocolate Ma liberally laced with brandy and marshmallows.

“Babe. Too much of that stuff and you’ll be knocked out.”

“I’m already almost out and I only had four little sips.” She laughs, setting the steaming mug down on the nightstand with a sigh.

“Are you okay?”

“No. I’m pissed and I feel guilty about this because I’m the one who accepted the assignment in the first place. I should have let it go and just let someone else take it on, but I’m too arrogant and cocky, so now everyone is being forced to stay at home and my brothers and I are more than likely to get our asses killed before this is over. Oh, and to top it all off, I lied to my family and hid not only Bolton Conrad, but his mother, too. They’re both supposed to be dead, by the way.”

I’m rambling in frustration and I see Clari’s eyes narrow before she gets to her knees and crawls closer to me where I’m sitting at the edge of the bed.

“Say that again.”

“Bolton and Lynn are both alive and locked away in their worst form of hell. They know about Bolton but not that I moved him somewhere worse, and Lynn, well only Jared, Jace, and Roman know that I kept her alive and put her away in a dark little cell in the nuthouse I wouldn’t leave my dog in. So yeah.”

She sits back and considers me silently before tilting her head.

“Why?”

“Bolton…I wanted him to suffer for what he did to Ellie and Wyatt. I knew that no matter how many happy years pass for them, neither will ever forget it because Wyatt feels guilty about it and Ellie is just too scarred by it to ever truly be healed.”

Clair smiles and shakes her head.

“I’d do the same if given the chance, and I hope he is suffering every day for what he did. Lynn?”

I swallow and look away with a guilty shrug.

“She knows more than what she told Ellie the night she took her, and I’d rather keep her alive and try to pump her for information on the other Lanes than let her die and be free of the trouble she’s caused with her hate. See, I’m too arrogant. I—”

“You’re not. You’re just the guy who loves everyone enough to carry the burden of guilt they can’t carry themselves. Let it all go, Miah, and try to live for the moment. This was always going to happen, so stop blaming yourself and just give yourself a break. You’ll get it all together in the end. I have absolutely no doubt. Now stop worrying and come to bed. You look tied, and I’m a little too tipsy to be of any use to either of us right now.”

“God, I love you, Clari Elms, and I want to marry you when you’re ready.”

Her smile is so brilliant that it lights up my heart and makes all the ugliness disappear for this one moment in time.

“You’re so romantic, Miah Lane, and I would love to marry you…in a year or two. Now shut up and kiss me. I feel myself sobering up and I may be of some use, after all.

Lynn

None of them know what I know. None of them are even aware of the things that I set in motion all those years ago when they took my son from me and tried to give that murdering little tart everything that should have been my Bolton’s by right.

But I’ve planned it all very well and don’t even care anymore that I won’t be there to see the destruction of my sanctimonious brother and his family.

They will all pay for killing my boy, every last one of them.

I’m a shadow of myself, anyway, unable to move past the slight twitches I get from my arms and legs or the turning of my neck. Miah, that little bastard, keeps me alive because he wants me to suffer.

Unbeknownst to him, I don’t care one wit about living the life I once had or making them feel better about themselves.

I live now because I know that my family will do what is right and get rid of them all, including Ellie, the girl who set this all in motion when she chose Wyatt over my darling boy.

They will all suffer. The best part of the game is that they will never suspect the direction their deaths will come from, because my partner is one who knows how to hide.

***

Jace

I have too much work to do. Yet here I am again, sitting outside Tracy’s house and watching her like some lovesick little asshole who can’t forget his first real love.

But I did. I managed to leave her alone for a long fucking time and do my job the way I was always meant to do it, since my mom was killed and my father planted the seeds of discord that I’ve been fighting since I was a boy.

I don’t love Trace anymore. How can I when I don’t believe in love and believe even less in what little we did have all those years ago?

I’m just infatuated. This is what I tell myself when she walks by her bedroom window in a skimpy satin robe that stretches across her breasts and makes my dick get hard and insistent.

No, I don’t love Trace. Even if I wanted to love her again, I can’t let myself because I’m about to use her to further the mission that me and my brothers are killing ourselves to complete.

Tracy just so happens to be the daughter of a very straitlaced and well-meaning senator, one I need to get to so that I can get the intel I need to stop this shit once and for all.

With that decision firmly in mind, I call Jared and chuckle when he answers with a curse.

“Please tell me you are not sitting outside Tracy’s house again, Jace. That shit is just creepy as hell. Come home and drink if you need to forget, but for God’s sake, stop doing this to yourself,” he begs, making me chuckle all the harder.

“You’re judging me when you spend just as much time watching Paulie Hayes as I do watching Tracy. At least I don’t jack off to memories of her. What’s your excuse?”

“Screw you, asshole. I do not jack off thinking about Paulie Hayes. I just like her. She’s cool and sweet and a lot more intelligent than some of the shitty company I’ve been keeping of late,” he says.

“Whatever, man. I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to do it, bro. We need the senator’s help, and I’m going to get it if I have to marry the woman to do it.”

“Christ, you’re crazier than Roman on a good day, and that fucker is batshit crazy. Do not do this to yourself or Tracy. Please. I remember how you were for months after your split, and I got to see her, too. Just let it go and come home. There are other ways to do this besides breaking her heart again.”

As much as I agree, I don’t think I can stop myself from doing this. I can’t stop myself from going after her again. I want her just one more time so that I can prove to myself that the memories are all a figment of my imagination.

That she’s not as sweet as I keep remembering, and she’s not as sexy or tight as my dick keeps screaming at me.

Trace is simply that imperfect woman I cut loose years ago, and now that she’s back I can kill two birds with one stone and put this ghost to rest.

I’ll fuck her for as long and hard as I can before wooing the hell out of her. I wasn’t lying when I said I would stoop so low as to marry her. I would, and then I’d divorce her and humiliate her the way she did me.

Miah and the guys still believe that bullshit story I fed them about leaving her to pursue my career when that couldn’t be further from the truth. I left her because she betrayed me in the worst way, and I couldn’t be around her anymore without wanting to hurt her like she hurt me.

She’s playing hard to get now, and it’s pissing me off.

“Jace? You still there, man?”

“Yeah, bro, still here,” I mutter, using my night-vision glasses to track her when the lights go out and she starts walking back to her bedroom. Once there, she removes the robe and I growl at the sight of her body encased in silk panties and a tight sports bra that shows off her breasts and the long expanse of her silky legs.

“I gotta go, bro. See you later.”

“Wait!”

***

Trace

He’s still watching me every night and I know it. I feel Jace Lane the way you feel a physical caress, despite the distance of years and the hatred we both feel for each other.

I let him watch for now, because I’m not ready to see him yet or let him know that I see him, but it will happen soon. I’m sure because I can already feel his impatience. He wants something from me. Why else would he want to come near me again unless he’s looking for revenge?

That’s not his style, and I know it since his form of punishment seems to be forgetting I ever existed.

Jace Lane may not be vengeful, but I am. As the daughter of a United States senator, I have everything I need to ensure that Jason Lane feels the pain he inflicted on me.

              I smile when I hear footfalls outside my window and make myself relax beneath the covers. The window slides up and I feel him more than I hear him when he enters my domain.

He’s over me and has a hand over my mouth in an instant before replacing it with his mouth—one I remember like yesterday.

The kiss is hot and wild and intense, and I revel in the pleasure he can still give me despite our past.

“We need to talk, Trace.”

“Not now,” I growl, pulling his mouth back to mine for a kiss that makes my toes curl.

He kisses me back and I feel his wicked smile curve the lips that are devouring mine.

Oh, Jace, baby, if only you knew.

~~~