Their Ex's Redrock Twilight (Texas Alpha) (Texas Alpha Series Book 4) (12 page)

“Convince them to get back in the limo,” he growled. “Let Jagger bring them back here, while you keep Angel and Creed in sight.”

Finn wanted Creed like he wanted his babe’s pussy. But not the way it was going down, which was putting her in more danger than he already thought she was in.

“Man,” Link said. “I don’t think you feel me on how determined this posse is. Plus, I gotta lose sight of them to keep Creed in view before they get back in the limo.”

“Which direction are you heading?” Finn demanded sharply.

Once Link told him, Finn cut the call without another word. Ten seconds later, he had Jagger on the phone, and he told him who he was and where he needed Jagger and his limo to be, like, twenty seconds ago. Then Finn speed-dialed Justice as he took a corner too sharp and skidded, with his sirens blaring, but he managed to straighten out his Jeep.

He told Justice where he needed him to be, and then he cut the call to ring another number.

“This ain’t fucking funny, babe,” he growled into the phone. “You are going to listen to me and do exactly as I say without another damn word.” Coco sputtered at the other end of the call, but he overrode her. “Jagger should be pulling up—you get your posse into that limo, then let Link go do his thing. If you do not do this, what happens to Angel because you interfered is on you and your friends.”

It took two seconds for his babe to blurt, “Okay! I will, baby. I swear.”

Finn cut the call and threw his phone on the passenger seat so he could put both hands on the steering wheel as he drove too fast.

Justice beat him there, and Finn wasn’t surprised, because it involved a little redhead who had a habit of stirring up Justice’s life. The fact Angel was clinging to Justice while she was crying, and he held her tight, wasn’t much of a surprise either. However, not seeing Creed in handcuffs or anywhere nearby, while Link had a bloody head, was a messed-up surprise.

When Finn jumped out of his Jeep, he was glad not to see any sign of the limo.

Then, pretty savagely, Link muttered, “Bastard got away.” But more calmly, he added, “I got the girl, though.”

“He was trying to kidnap me,” Angel wailed. “I-I never thought—” She broke off, and then said, “I knew he was bad, but—”

“But
what
the hell,” Justice demanded, right before Finn could say the same thing. “What possessed you to meet him alone or even at all, babe?”

Finn thought Justice didn’t realize that he’d called her “babe.”

“You swore to me you were done with the lone-wolfing and trying to rescue girls out of bad situations by yourself,” Justice growled, but he still held Angel tightly to him. “You promised Vincent, and that is not a promise you want to break,” Justice added.

Finn cooled his heels to hear the answer.

“I wasn’t lone-wolfing. I swear!” Angel cried. “I haven’t done that all year, but this really nice girl who works with me, but she’s kind of dumb”—Angel got caught on a hiccupping sob—“got h-hooked up with Creed.”

Right there, both Finn and Justice growled their immense disapproval.

“I know,” Angel said, tugging on Justice’s marshal shirt as she clung to him. “I tried to tell her that he was not boyfriend material and how bad he was, but—”

“He snowed her,” Finn said, harshly.

Angel nodded, throwing her light red hair around with force. “Yes! She wouldn’t listen. Then I just tried to keep tabs on her and look for an opening. But she went and disappeared two days ago, and I—”

“Damn it,” Justice said, holding Angel with one arm, while he scraped his hair with obvious frustration. “You didn’t think to tell me this? Let me handle it!”

“Handle what?” Angel demanded. “She just didn’t show up to work for two days, and she wasn’t at her apartment either.” Angel pushed away from him. “We haven’t exactly been friends, you know, Justice,” she accused.

Finn thought there was a lot going on with the two of them, but he needed answers that led him to Creed.

“How does that get you to the point of meeting with Creed?” he asked.

“She called me once from his cell, so I called him, and asked him where she was. He suggested we meet,” Angel mumbled.

Right then, Justice did a very unlike-Justice thing, and he fiercely growled, “Fuck.”

“I only said I would meet him in public, Justice!” Angel exclaimed, defending herself—but doing it badly, in Finn’s opinion.

“Look where that got you.
Damn
it, woman,” Justice said angrily.

Finn agreed. Justice needed to take her over his knee and wallop her ass for not thinking things through. Finn kind of knew about that, because now he had a wild, unpredictable woman on his hands. But it still didn’t explain—

“Listen, you can be mad at me later,” Angel exclaimed. “But Creed grabbed me, saying that I was going to replace the merchandise he’d just lost. Because his buyer would kill him if he didn’t have women to give him, and I’d just become the one woman that would be worth losing three more.” Angel clutched her middle and cried, “He was going to sell me!”

Then it was Finn’s turn.

“Fuck,” he muttered. He punched his cell phone and then he held it under Angel’s nose. “Are any of them your friend?”

Angel was shaking as she looked down at the picture on his cell phone, then she gasped. “Yes that’s Hola! Is she all right?”

It was a picture of the women they had rescued from the sting at his motel. Women intended to be sold, just like Angel.

Justice saw that, and he grabbed Angel back against him as he said, “Damn it, what am I going to have to do, marry you to keep you out of such dangerous damn trouble all the time?”

A few minutes later, Link looked at Finn while holding a folded bandanna to his bloody head, as they watch Justice kissing Angel as if she was his last breath.

“They might just do it right here,” Link muttered.

“You know making up is damn powerful, brother,” Finn said.

Justice and Angel were pissed as hell at each other, but they couldn’t keep their hands off one another. Finn shook his head. He felt like that about Coco, but he was older and it wasn’t as easy to overlook the bad signs, such as the two in front of him were doing. He’d already had one bad marriage and ultimately a decision about a woman go wrong. He was not into that happening a second time.

Some of the things Coco had been pulling were getting into his head. At night, he had her complete obedience, but during the day, she was a wild thing. It made him wonder if he could trust her, and that was messed up.

“You give me a ride and I’ll give you all the details about that bastard Creed that I can remember,” Link said.

Finn shook the thoughts out of his head and zeroed in on Link. “Appreciate that, brother. Appreciate all you did here.”

The big man’s smile was kind of savage. “I like messing up the bad guys. Makes my day.”

Finn nodded. He could relate. So they left Angel and Justice, still glued together. He’d get with Justice later, because they had to take everything they’d learned and make it public. It was past time to inform the reservation police, tribal council, and reservation population that there were human traffickers on their land.

Finn knew Justice was past ready to go to the council about it.

Once they were headed back to Finn’s place, so he could drop Link at his vehicle, Link offered up an unexpected bit of praise.

“Heard what you did for the town and this whole area, by taking down those scumbag tangos who thought they were going to make some little town Mafia here. Damn righteous job, man.”

Finn felt an unexpected slug of emotion tighten his throat. Not many had mentioned it. A couple of guys on the takedown teams had nodded his way, and Justice, of course, had razzed him about doing a good job.

Finn glanced Link’s way. He hadn’t heard praise about it from a regular citizen of the town. Of course, Link wasn’t all that regular. The way he’d said “tango,” and a few other tells, showed the man had been military. Still, the dude lived inside the town limits.

“Never believed that thing you were throwing down about being a bad gang buster,” Link said. “Knew something was up. And I was right, like usual.”

Finn nearly snorted at Link’s intact ego, which was funny as hell. He felt something that had been rolled up tight inside him since he’d been undercover ease a little.

No one in town knew what he’d been doing—the act he’d been playing. No one had known the outcome, either. There wasn’t a big spread in the local newspaper declaring, “Multi-agency sting nabs twenty-five bad guys. Special Agent Finn O’Neil saves the town.”

“Hell,” Finn muttered under his breath. Then louder, he said, “Thanks, man. It was hairy at times.”

“I feel you,” Link said. “I hate undercover work worse than anything. Love the rest of it, though.”

Finn nodded as they had a shared moment. Then he said, “So tell me if you have any insight into Creed or where he may be headed.”

Link cut him an intense gaze. “That mother is the definition of armed and dangerous. What worries me is what is a hard-ass like Creed afraid of that would drive him to the edge of armed, desperate, and dangerous because of it?”

“Yeah, what worse bad guy has he got on his tail?” Finn asked, following Link’s thinking, because he’d been thinking that too.

What Angel had said about Creed using her to replace the girls he’d lost made Finn realize there were still other bad tangos out there. Tangos that were even higher up the bad-guy food chain.

“Damn mess isn’t over,” he muttered, turning his Jeep up the long driveway to his lake house.

“It’s never over,” Link said. “Life just keeps pissing tangos.” But then Link split a grin. “But now that fact makes me rich, bringing them down, instead of having some lightweight state pension. You need to try it, my man.”

Finn stopped his Jeep right next to a long black limo in his driveway, which was next to a sweet Cadillac Escalade SUV. That Caddy showed the amount of money Link was talking about making.

“I’ll think about it,” Finn said, to Link’s suggestion, and he’d surprised himself by saying it.

He had to admit, getting the filth of dirty undercover work off him sounded very tempting. He could use his skills for a lot of cash.

“A healthy cash influx would be justified with your new babe.” Link smacked Finn’s upper arm. “If she ever gets too rich for your blood, I’m ready to step in.”

Finn’s smile was deadly. “She’s taken,” he growled.

Link smirked. “Just making sure. Looks like a whole lot of fun, man. I envy you.”

They shook hands standing by Link’s SUV. Link offered bodyguard services for Coco’s curves anytime they were needed. Finn said boldly that they weren’t going to be needed any longer.

Right then, the door to Finn’s place opened and Jagger prowled out of the house.

“They are drunk, beautiful, and more than this young man can handle,” he said.

Link started toward the house at that obvious challenge, but Finn grabbed his arm.

“You aren’t needed, my man,” Finn said.

Link allowed himself to be stopped, then he laughed. “Just giving you a hard time.”

Finn lifted a hand to Link, gesturing his goodbye as he stalked to his hand-carved front door. Over his shoulder, he threw at Jagger, “Your ass stays right there, in that limo, until every babe is back in it but Coco. You hear me?”

He didn’t wait for an answer he knew would be affirmative as he knuckled open his front door. Why the hell did he feel as if he was walking into a den of lionesses and his ass was the meat they wanted to gnaw on?

But when he expected to find Coco, as he stalked inside, instead he found Tess.

As if she’d been waiting for him.

“I knew it,” she muttered, as she clicked her heels through his front foyer, which was in the middle of a never-ending remodel job, since he’d inherited the place from his uncle. Jacob O’Neil, former U.S. marshal and the only family Finn had ever had growing up.

“You know she’s going through a hard time and she might not be quite herself, right?” Tess said.

Finn’s eyes narrowed on Tess, who was beautiful, but not quite as hot as he’d always thought, compared to Coco.

“I’m not oblivious, babe,” he muttered.

“You like her a lot. I can tell,” Tess informed him.

He gave her a look.

Then she advised him, “It’s not always necessary to be able to read all women all the time, you know.”

To which he said, “With my history, it damn well is.”

She grasped his arm over his leather jacket, giving him her very serious blue eyes. “I don’t know Coco well, but what I see, she does not hide who she is at all.”

He couldn’t disagree with that, with only two problems. One, Coco might not even look like the woman he’d been lusting after to fuck twenty-four-seven. Or number two, she kept lying and telling him what he wanted to hear, then doing her own thing. Which could make her an unpredictable and exciting woman, except for the vague threats of danger she was under. And that added to his need to keep her safe.

Tess must have read some of his thoughts as they passed through him, because she pulled him closer and whispered, “If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth everything.”

Hell.

He grabbed her hand on his arm for a squeeze, letting her know he’d heard her deep, then he let go and he asked something different.

“How’d you know I’d be on edge?”

She shrugged and smiled. “I’m getting good at predicting badass guys’ attitudes. Comes with the best things I’ve found in life.”

His return lift of lips wasn’t necessarily happy, but it was real. “So you heard we got Angel safe.”

“Yes, thank God.” Tess nodded, then she muttered, “That girl is the definition of high strung.”

Now he nodded, and then he imparted the newest gossip, to help ease fears and, well, maybe to get the ladies to take Justice’s back on the matter.

“Justice was Angel’s glue when he got there,” he said, making Tess’ eyebrows rise. “Went so far, not one hundred percent sure, but I think he demanded she marry him so he could tie her ass down and keep her safe.”

Now Tess’ pretty blues snapped wide with surprise.

“Wow,” she whispered, then he saw her mind turning like a speedway.