Unfinished Hero 03 Raid (21 page)

This was very,
very
true.

God
.

“This scares me,” I admitted.

“Yeah
,
but you’ll get used to it.”

He seemed very sure.

I was not.

“I don’t think I like this,” I told him, my voice small. “Any of it.”

Raiden didn’t move.

But he did speak.

“Then you need to understand why I do it.”

This meant there was more
,
and I really did not want more.

He gave it to me.

“Everything, every living thing on this earth
,
from plants to animals to humans
,
has a natural order. It’s absolutely crucial to keep that order, Hanna. I’ve been
in the thick of chaos and it is not a fun place to be.”

Raiden went quiet and I nodded for him to go on, my heart clenching and the pizza
in my belly sitting there in a nauseating lump.

He went on.

“The men who hire me keep order in their worlds. Each one of them rules their own
empire. If something breaks free of their rule, chaos can result. In the worlds those
men rule, if they keep control, it is very rare there’s collateral damage. But someone
steals from them, someone conspires to overthrow them, hell can break loose. And when
those fires burn, baby, they take out anyone in their path.”

Weirdly, this made sense so I said, “Okay.”

“When chaos can result, they call me in
.
I rein it in but I don’t extinguish the threat. I’m not a moron. I know when I deliver
a man who fucked one of these guys over they don’t sit him down in group counseling
and work out their issues. But I don’t give a fuck. I control chaos. No wife or mother
or kid or girlfriend or just a person on the street who was in the wrong place at
the wrong time gets pulled in to make a point, carry out a threat
or used as shield, then I did my job and got paid huge to do it.”

This made sense
,
too
,
and was kind of honorable in a twisted, criminal underworld kind of way.

I did not tell Raiden this. I just stared at him.

So he continued.

“That’s my work
,
and the way you’re lookin’ at me I see it hasn’t penetrated yet that in the natural
order of things it’s good work. I got a code. I don’t hunt wome
n no matter what shit they pull
—
and
they can pull some serious shit
—
but that is not my gig and never will be. And if the man I’m huntin’ is twenty or
younger
,
I don’t take the job. At that age, they can pull their shit outta that life, turn
themselves around. I don’t ask questions. I don’t counsel my prey. I tag and deliver.
The kid might be pullin’ shit
,
but I won’t know that and I won’t live with it on my conscious that he’s off tryin’
to find a better life and I was responsible for dragging him back in.”

Raiden went quiet.

“Is that it?” I asked, thinking that was at least something but not much of a code.

“Nope,” he answered. “I don’t do side jobs, deliverin’ shit if they know I’m headin’
somewhere, which would usually be dope or firearms
,
but it could be anything. I do not touch any of their business because no matter
what it is it’s tainted
,
and that is not part of my life. I am not muscle. I gotta get physical on the capture,
I do that. But I don’t inflict injury unless it’s unavoidable. I am contract only
and not on any payroll. It is known wide I’m not looking for employment. Now they
don’t even offer no matter how good I do what I do and they want me on their crew.
As for what my crew and I do, we do one thing. The job and only the job. There is
not a menu of services available. We don’t accept add-ons no matter the amount they’re
willing to pay. And unless I trust a man
—
and there are few I trust outside my crew, Deacon and Knight
—
I don’t grant favors and I don’t ask for them.”

Raiden again stopped speaking.

I said nothing.

So he asked, “You got any questions?”

I shook my head but told him, “I think I need to process this.”

He studied me a moment before his eyes warmed, his voice dropped and he ordered, “Then
come here and process it closer.”

My throat clogged
.
I shook my head
,
but swallowed and forced out, “I think this is the kind of processing you need to
process alone.”

A look that was hard to witness moved over his face.

He understood me.

That killed too.

“Hanna, come here,” he whispered.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Why not?

“Raiden, you just told me you’re a criminal and I’m not sure I’m down with that or
if I’ll
ever
be.”

And I wasn’t.

And that’s why this was killing me.

“I’m not a criminal.”

“You participate in criminal activities,” I pointed out. “With understanding
and
intent.”

“I do shit that’s considered illegal,” he amended.

“It isn’t considered illegal, Raiden. It just
is,
” I told him.

“And who do I hurt?” he shot back
,
and my mouth clamped shut because that was actually a good question. “Who do I hurt,
Hanna?” he pushed.

I said nothing.

What I did was push back into the couch when Raiden leaned toward me, putting his
elbows to his thighs and kept talking.

“I don’t push dope. I don’t run guns. I don’t pimp women. I don’t steal. I don’t con.
I don’t blackmail. I don’t squeeze people for protection money. I do not act as an
enforcer. My business never touches the lives of honest citizens. The people I deal
with made their choices, the wrong ones, and I’m a consequence of those choices. I
didn’t force their choices. I do not do one fuckin’ thing that contributes to their
business or the shit they do. They fuck up and wander into the real world where there’s
a possibility that they can make decisions that will put good people doin’ their best
to live decent lives in jeopardy, I reel them back in so that shit does not happen.
I’m not tryin’ to convince you that that shit always bleeds. Sometimes it’s contained
,
but there’s always the possibility that someone could get tweaked, panicked, do something
entirely fucked up where someone innocent pays
,
and what I do stops that before it could even start.”

He was scaring me
. A
ll of this was, but still, I found the courage to note, “Raiden, it’s clear you’re
determined to do what you do and you have your reasons
,
but, honestly some of it sounds like rationalizations.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “You stopped Bodhi and Heather from fuckin’ you up the ass. You
let that play out, I would have stopped those shipments from goin’ out with your afghans
and
I would have eventually traced all that shit back to the man who’s instigating it.
Now he’s gonna find another Bodhi and Heather who will likely find another Hanna Boudreaux
they can fuck up the ass and she might not be as lucky as you.”

Oh my God.

That totally made sense.

“People do a lot of shit,” Raiden told me. “You’re so insulated by family, friends
and Willow, thank Christ, you’ll never know all the seriously jacked up shit people
can get up to. And I didn’t tell you that about Bodhi and Heather to make you think
I’m on a crusade to shut down drug dealers or any kinds of other scum. The men I work
for, I don’t make judgments and I don’t get involved. But when shit bleeds and I staunch
the flow, that jacks up job satisfaction and it does it huge. You want it straight
up, odds are Bodhi and Heather were good people who got caught up in something they
couldn’t control. They were squeezed. They were forced to make a choice. I don’t know
what happened and I don’t give a fuck
,
but I’ve seen a lot of people
,
and those two do not have black souls. But they jacked up somewhere along the way,
felt the consequences and that’s fair. What isn’t fair is they roped you into that
shit and I don’t get to feel good about disentangling people like you often. It happens
enough that I like what I do enough to keep doin’ it until I have the money to quit
doin’ it, kick back and have a decent life where I answer to no one and I can just
breathe.”

He stopped speaking and I said nothing.

We held each other’s eyes.

This went on a good, long while as my mind turned over what he said,
everything
he said, and a lot of things he didn’t say.

I had to admit, all of it made sense. It was his sense because Raiden had untwisted
some scary, twisted stuff and forced it to make sense
,
but he did it in a way that it even made sense to me.

It was what he didn’t say that penetrated, dug deep and settled with the intention
of staying awhile.

Maybe forever.

As I thought this he watched my face
,
and I knew he knew when he sat back and ordered quietly, “Now, Hanna, come here.”

I didn’t decide to do it. I couldn’t actually believe I was doing it even as I did
it.

I let my legs go, curled them under me, put my hands to the empty seat between us
and crawled his way.

The instant I got close he leaned toward me and his arms sliced around me so tight
my breath constricted. He hauled me to him, his hand at the back of my head forcing
my face in his neck and I felt him bury his in mine.

“Jesus, fuck,” he whispered, relief dripping heavy in those two words.

I closed my eyes
,
and again I didn’t decide to do it
,
but still my arms shoved into the cushions of the couch so they could round him.

He shoved his face further in my neck and squeezed tight.

I let this continue because he needed it
,
and maybe I needed it. Then I couldn’t let it continue because I didn’t need to pass
out.

“Raiden, I’m finding it hard to breathe,” I rasped.

His arm loosened.

“Are you with me?” he asked my neck.

Oh boy.

Oh God.

Heck.

“Yes,” my mouth decided for me.

His hand in my hair fisted and he repeated, “Jesus, fuck.”

Grams was right. She always was.

Raiden was dangerous.

And I knew I shouldn’t. She warned me to be careful.

But for some reason I didn’t understand I couldn’t stop myself from being that woman
who tried to withstand hellfire.

No.

I knew the reason.

It was because I wanted to know nothing for the rest of my life sweeter than the love
Raiden could have for me.

It was also more.

I wanted him to know nothing for the rest of his sweeter than what I could give him.

“I think I’m in trouble,” I told his neck.

“That feeling will fade,” he told mine.

“I think I’m scared,” I kept going.

“That’ll fade too.”

“Just saying, you might be in a little bit of trouble, too.”

His head came up, his fist loosened in my hair so mine could go back and he caught
my eyes.

His were still amazing.

The relief in them was not hidden.

He’d been worried.

Raiden Miller was
so totally
into me.

God.

Grams was
so totally
right.

How did this happen?

“How am I in trouble?” he asked.

I didn’t tell him what he knew
,
but obviously, from what he said, refused to do anything about.

That he was damaged and he needed fixing.

I also didn’t tell him I was going to do it.

I wasn’t going to do it because he was Raiden Ulysses Miller, a beautiful boy that
turned into a gorgeous man I’d been crushing on for forever.

No, I was going to do it because he was Raiden, a gentleman, a hero
. A
man who, as a boy, went through terrible things and came out amazing because that
was just who he was and he deserved someone who cared enough to put the effort in
to fix him.

I didn’t want to change him. What he did was who he was and however that progressed
I knew he was the kind of man that I would have to leave that alone.