Packing Heat: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Romance (Barone Crime Family) (35 page)

I
’d been so
damn lazy since I’d married Selena.

I didn’t know why. Going for long, early runs was one way to keep my sanity. That probably explained why I had been losing my damn mind ever since that girl had come into my life. 

My feet banged the pavement as I tore up the miles, running mindlessly. I was trying to escape the memory of her body, her perfect fucking hips and breasts barely covered by her bra. She talked so dirty when she was drunk.

She sucked cock so good when she was sober, too.

Fuck, even when running I couldn’t get her off my mind. She was so stuck inside my head that it was all but impossible to outrun her.

I turned along my loop, heading back toward the hotel. I wondered if she was awake yet, and what she’d ordered for breakfast. She was probably hungover as hell. I wondered if she had liked my little note.

I could see the hotel up ahead. My breath was coming fast and deep, and I felt good for the first time in a while. Well, the first time except for when I was fucking Selena, touching her body, standing close to her. I felt strong, and I could tell that I was still in good shape despite all my fucking boozing and sleeping around.

Maybe I’d lost a few steps, but even me at my worst was better than most men. And I wasn’t even close to my worst yet.

I stopped out front of the hotel, catching my breath. There weren’t any paparazzi around, fortunately. I wasn’t really famous enough to have them hanging around constantly, so I got lucky once in a while and had a peaceful second or two.

It took me a few minutes to cool off, but eventually I walked back into the hotel. I nodded at the girls standing behind the front desk and headed into the elevator.

I leaned up against the wall, thinking about Selena. I wondered what she was wearing and how bad she was feeling. Maybe I’d go out and get her some aspirin or some shit, or at least call down to room service for it. She didn’t seem like a complainer, so hopefully she’d be able to get through the day without passing out.

The elevator doors opened and I headed down the hall, still lost in thought. I saw our door up ahead.

And stopped in my tracks.

Sitting on the ground outside the door was a room service cart. It looked covered still, as if nobody had touched it.

I cocked my head, curious. Was Selena out? Why would she order breakfast and then leave?

In the pit of my stomach, I knew something was wrong. The room service cart just sitting there looked wrong, felt wrong. All of my training was telling me to get out of there, that something was happening. I had no weapon, nothing to defend myself with.

But Selena could be in trouble. She could have slipped in the shower or gone into spontaneous cardiac arrest. I took a deep breath and went to the door, swiping my card to unlock it.

I pushed it open.

“Don’t move.”

It only took me a second to assess the situation. A normal person might have been confused by what I saw, but years of combat and training kept me levelheaded.

Selena was sitting on a chair, her face covered in duct tape, her ankles bound together, her hands bound behind her back. And standing next to her was a shorter bald man, stocky, maybe in his mid-thirties, wearing camo pants and a black button-down shirt.

And holding a gun aimed directly at my face.

“What do you want?” I asked him.

“Come inside. Slowly.”

I stepped inside.

“Close the door.”

I closed it. “Let’s talk about this,” I said.

“Nash Bell. Do you recognize me?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”

There was a twinge of anger. “You don’t? How could you not?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I meet a lot of people.”

“But you’d remember me,” he said. “I wrote you emails. So many emails. All about your book, about the combat in your book, and about the shit our government is doing to ruin us.”

I stared at him and suddenly it hit me. “I do remember you,” I said. And that was true.

Months ago, Livy had shown me a string of emails from some “deranged fan,” as she had put it. The guy had been ranting about the fake details of my book, how the government was covering something up and somehow I was involved. He’d kept saying that I was fake, that I wasn’t really a SEAL at all, that I was just another crisis actor.

He smiled. “So you understand.”

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“John,” he said. “John Smith.”

“Okay, John,” I said, realizing it was a fake name. He expected to live after this somehow. “Why don’t you let the girl go? We can talk.”

He moved closer to me. “I don’t want to talk, Nash. I want the world to know that you’re fake, that the whole war is fake. You’re an actor, a phony, a liar.”

“Okay,” I said. “We can talk about that. Tell everyone if you want. But let the girl go.”

“I can’t do that. She’s important.”

“She’s not important, John. She’s just a girl.”

“She’s your wife,” he sneered, moving even closer.

Come on, asshole, I thought to myself. Just a few more fucking steps.

“Yes, she is, but she doesn’t know anything.”

“So you admit it!” he screeched.

“Let her go and we’ll talk some more,” I said.

He turned and stormed away, standing next to Selena. He pressed the gun to her head and I flinched.

“Shut up!” he yelled. “She’s mine. She needs to know the truth about you.”

“Okay, John, okay. What do you want me to tell her?”

“The truth. You’re a phony. You’re fake.”

“Okay, John. I’m fake. It’s all been a lie.”

“I knew it,” he said, practically in tears. He was completely insane, absolutely deranged. He really believed that the government was faking conspiracies and horrible atrocities all over the world for some crazy greater purpose.

He was so beaten down by the world, so sad and pathetic, that he denied reality. It was easier for him to believe in incredibly complex and elaborate conspiracies involving thousands of people than to believe that tragedies happened.

“Move the gun from her, John,” I said. “Point it at me.”

He pointed it at me. “Move,” he said, gesturing at a chair next to him. “Sit.”

I moved slowly toward the chair, keeping my hands up. “Okay, I’ll sit. Whatever you want.”

“Good. Then you’ll tell everyone the truth.”

“Okay, John. Whatever you want.”

“Move.”

I came closer and closer to him. Five feet, four feet, two feet, and then I was within distance.

He held the gun pointed at me.

Then I made my move.

Using the back of my left hand, I swatted the gun away. He pulled the trigger, missing me. I stepped in with my right arm, putting my right hand on his gun hand’s wrist and grabbed hold, turning my back to him.

He tried to punch me with his free left hand, but it barely hurt. I stomped his instep and then slammed my forehead into his nose once, twice, three times. Blood ran freely down his face, and I twisted his wrist. 

He screamed in pain and dropped the gun.

I quickly followed that with a knee to his midsection, forcing him back a step. I struck him once in the chest, in the throat, and then in the nose. Finally, I grabbed his arm and threw him over my hip, sending his body crashing through the coffee table.

He lay there groaning while I picked up his gun and walked toward him.

“What’s your real name?” I asked him.

“Sam,” he groaned. “I know you’re fake. I know you are.”

“Sam,” I said, “I don’t have to kill you. But I’m going to.”

I pulled the trigger. I put a bullet between his eyes, blood splashing from his skull.

I made a face. I hadn’t needed to kill the man, but nobody fucking broke into my room and took my wife hostage. Nobody fucked with her. As soon as he had threatened to kill her, I knew he was a dead man. Before maybe I could have let him live, but the piece of fucking human garbage had threatened her, and that would not stand.

I tossed the gun aside, making a disgusted face, and then quickly went to Selena. I pulled the duct tape off her and pulled a pair of panties from her mouth.

“Nash!” she said. “You killed him.”

“Yeah.” I ripped the tape from her wrists and ankles. “I did.”

She threw her arms around me and hugged me tight, crying onto my chest.

I held her back. She probably would never understand why I had killed that man, and I was okay with that. I could bear that burden for the both of us. It was my job; it was what I was trained for.

I was a killer and always would be.

* * *

T
he cops swarmed
the scene like bugs.

Three hours later, we had been questioned by every single detective in the area. Our story was always the same: When I’d wrestled the gun from the attacker, it had gone off, killing him instantly. Selena didn’t seem conflicted about telling this small lie.

Nobody would miss the dead fucking psycho.

Livy stood next to me, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Nash. I don’t know how this happened.”

“Apologize to Selena,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“She’s pretty shaken up.”

“Yeah,” I grunted. “She’s upset.”

“For good reason.”

“Sure.” I stretched, already sick of the questions. Selena was talking to yet another detective, telling him the same damn story again. I just wanted to get her out of there, back to somewhere safe.

Finally, the detective stopped grilling her. I left Livy and walked over to Selena, putting my arm around her. “You okay?” I asked.

“Fine,” she said. “God, Nash, that was so crazy.”

“I know, but you’re safe with me.”

She looked at me for a second. “I know that.”

“Want to get out of here?”

“Yeah, but we don’t have a room.”

“Hotel gave us another if you want some quiet.”

“Let’s go.”

I kept my arm around her and led her back inside. Nobody stopped us as we got into the elevator and went up to the top floor.

We didn’t talk. We didn’t have to. I think we both knew what we wanted. We moved down the hallway and I unlocked the door.

It was a much smaller room, a normal-size room. It had a single bathroom and a single queen-size bed.

As soon as the door shut, I pressed Selena up against the wall and kissed her hard.

She kissed me back, not surprised. She wrapped her arms around me, mouth pressed hard against mine, hands running through my hair.

I was on fucking fire. My cock was rock fucking hard, and in that moment, I needed her more than anything.

Because the only thing I’d kept thinking when that psycho had pressed his gun to her head was that I wanted him to kill me, not her. I was willing to take a bullet for her if it meant she would be spared.

I’d never really felt that sort of attachment to a single person before. I would have died for my country or for my squad, but that was a different thing. What I’d felt for Selena in that moment was reckless and intense passion. I would have done anything for her, which was why I had put a bullet in that scumbag’s skull.

I’d kill for her.

As I kissed her, I knew what I wanted, and I was going to take what I wanted.