Cherry Adair - T-flac 06 (44 page)

He jerked the barrel up to indicate she could go ahead. Lily took her time unwrapping the strip of gum she didn't want, then stuck it in her mouth. "Who are you guys and what do you want?"

"My name is Milos Pekovic." He stepped closer. He stood four feet away, and Lily could smell his too sweet cologne and old sweat. "I am an old friend of Mr. Wright's," he said smoothly. His brown hair was slicked off his face. His eyes were dark and dead-looking and he had terrible teeth. Heroin or bad dental hygiene, Lily thought. As if she'd ever get the chance to identify him in a line-up.

It didn't take a brain surgeon to realize these men were completely out of their element in a barn in the depths of a Montana winter. From their accent she figured they were Slavic—Derek's terrorists? Could they be? Her entire body went hot, then numbingly cold. Could be.
Were
.

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"I would like for you to contact Mr. Wright, and request he come here to the barn."

Fear was replaced by a spurt of something hot and ferocious.
No. No way
! "He's out of town."

"No, Doctor. He is in the house. Give her the phone," he instructed one of the shadow men on Lily's periphery. A man thrust a cell phone at her. "Make the call," Pekovic said coldly.

Lily ignored the man beside her, and didn't reach for the instrument. She was banking on Derek hearing the conversation and being warned. "I don't know the number."

"It is preprogrammed. Hold the phone for the good doctor, Demitri."

Jake manned the phone in the house, ready to field Lily's call. But he'd let the phone ring for a while.

Headset on so he could hear what was going down, Derek ran lightly across the wide-open expanse separating the house from the barn.

They'd split up. Derek, Kane, Kyle and Hunt to the barn, Jake on the phone, his dad, Michael and several of the other guests, many of them T-FLAC operatives, getting everyone out of the house to safety. No easy task with a houseful of women, many of them pregnant, and half a dozen small kids.

How the hell had Pekovic found him? Derek wondered as he approached the south door of the barn and watched the others melt around the building as planned.
Followed someone from the race
. There were only four people it could possibly have been: himself, Lily, Matt and Don Singleton.

Immaterial at this point. Derek was chilled to the bone imagining Lily within a thousand miles of the Butcher. The only thing that kept him marginally sane was that Pekovic could easily have killed her already. But that wasn't his way. He'd play with her like a cat with a mouse. Teasing and taunting.

Waiting for the person he
really
wanted to show up.

He'd been praying Lily would call him all freaking week. This wasn't exactly the joyous reunion he'd envisaged.

"There's no answer," Lily said, her voice only slightly muffled.

"He will answer eventually." Pekovic's voice. Straw rustled loudly. Derek heard Lily's breathing. A little fast.
I'm on my way, sweetheart. Hang tough
.

"You must be pretty scared of Derek to bring—what?
Twelve
guys with you?" Don't push him, sweetheart, Derek thought, grateful for the information. He knew his brothers, circling the building, had heard. They'd already eliminated seven men outside.

There were more somewhere. Pekovic never traveled without an army. He let the others do their jobs and concentrated on his.

The straw was as noisy as walking on broken glass. Grateful he wasn't wearing his heavy work boots, Derek walked as lightly as he could, keeping to the side wall and the deeper shadows. The swelling in his face had gone down. But he was still having problems with his vision. His twenty-twenty was shot to hell.

The barn was dark except for the glow in the stall up ahead.

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"I can't breathe. Tell this guy to let go of me," Lily demanded, her voice a little high with fear. Derek was proud she was maintaining her composure nevertheless. He heard the faint tap in his ear, indicating Kyle was in. Kane and Hunt would stay outside until needed.

"Better—" Lily. "Still no answer."

"He will answer. Bring her to me." Pekovic.

Derek moved faster.

Lily's indignant, "Hey!" Then a small, "Oh my God. Don't cut me, please don't cut me."

The Butcher held her at knifepoint.

Derek tapped out a quick code alerting the others he was going in.
Now
.

He vaulted over the six-foot wall separating him from the action. In the air he calculated where everyone stood. Then he completed the jump and was over the barricade in a flurry of motion. He executed a roundhouse kick to the guy closest to him, taking him down expediently with a foot to the jaw. A second later he got off two shots in quick succession, hitting two more men.

"Hold your fire!" Pekovic shouted into the chaos. He had Lily tucked under his chin and was using her as a shield. He held a small, razor-sharp blade to her arched throat. A thin line welled red against her pale skin. Derek blocked out the sight of Lily's terror-wide eyes.

"Hold your fire," Pekovic demanded, pulling Lily even more tightly against his body. "Or I will kill the doctor."

The Serb's men unwillingly stopped firing, but kept their weapons trained on Derek.

"Hurt her, scumbag," Derek told his old enemy dangerously, "and I'll give you a run for your money with that fucking knife."

"An eye for an eye, my friend. An eye for an eye. You killed my Irena, I will accept the life of Dr.

Munroe in exchange."

Irena? The woman at the facility? "Not acceptable." Derek kept his attention on the Serb, but knew exactly where his men stood and to a bullet the strength of their firepower. The Oslukivati leader wanted him to watch him gut Lily, and when he was assured Derek was insane with rage and pain, he planned to slice him. Slowly.

Not gonna happen
. Derek spread his feet in the straw. "Irena was part of our war," Derek told the other man coldly. "Dr. Munroe isn't. It's me you want. Let her go."

Pekovic laughed. "You are the fly in the ointment of my life, Mr. Wright. Always butting in where you are least wanted. Today you do not—how do you say? Call the shots. Throw down your weapons. It is finished."

A dozen weapons snicked around him.

Keeping eye contact with his nemesis, Derek lifted his arms away from his body, as though he were
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about to toss both the Walther and Baer aside. The Serb kept Lily's body between them. But the Serb was at least a foot taller. In a lightning fast move, Derek lifted the Baer and shot Pekovic square between the eyes. Lily screamed. A nanosecond later he hit the man closest to his nemesis with a bullet to the cheekbone from the Walther. Lily dropped to the ground, still in the Serb's arms. Derek didn't know if she'd been hit, but couldn't stop now. Two men came at him at the same time. One got off a shot that missed his head by a hair. He ignored the brush of death and fired again. Two-fisted. He got them both as they charged.

The next guy was on him before the dust settled. Derek dipped his shoulder and hefted the guy aside, then chopped down with the Baer until the oaf's gun hand went numb and his weapon flew across the stall and thudded against the wall. Another man charged him, fists raised like a prizefighter's. Derek stepped in with his right foot and let the man's momentum spin him around. Before the Serb regained his footing, Derek grabbed the back of the man's head by his hair, and thumped him hard against the back wall. A crunch indicated the guy was down for the duration.

He could hear gunshots and screams from outside the barn. His reinforcements were busy with problems of their own. Another bullet skimmed his forehead by a hot breath; he lunged for the man, doing a flying tackle that took them both down. Straw and chaff flew as they rolled.

Lily screamed. Derek took his eye off his opponent for a split second. Was Pekovic still alive? Jesus Christ—

A blow, stunning in its force, jerked his head to one side as the man used the butt of his pistol to strike his temple. A shower of bright lights peppered Derek's vision. He flipped the man, and pressed his forearm into the guy's beefy throat.

The man's eyes widened. He gagged, fighting for air. Derek pressed harder. The Oslukivati operative's eyes bulged as his face turned purple. Another deep press and it was over.

Derek raced over to where Lily and Pekovic lay entwined like lovers. Neither was moving. He shoved the Oslukivati leader off her. The man was quite dead; hard not to be with half his face blown off.

Derek wrapped his arms around Lily. She shook like a leaf in the wind as she rolled over and grabbed the front of his shirt in both hands. She buried her face against his chest. He tightened his arms around her, cupping the back of her head in one hand. Close. Too freaking close—

"I-is it over?" she demanded, voice wobbly.

The gunshots and yelling outside had diminished somewhat. Every now and then he'd hear a pop.

Pekovic couldn't have chosen a worse time to come calling. The ranch was thick with T-FLAC

operatives here for the wedding.

He separated a little way from Lily to scan her face. "Are you cut? Shot? Hurt?"

She blinked up at him, her eyes a little dazed, mouth trembling. "No. No, I'm f-fine."

She was covered with blood, her face and hair splattered. Pekovic's. Derek rose with her in his arms.

She was going to put up a fight, but screw it, he needed her as close as possible…

Unpredictable little hedgehog. Her head flopped to his chest and she wrapped her arms about his neck.

Her damp breath tickled his throat. He tightened his arms around her convulsively. Jesus. Close. So
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close.

"Okay, Musketeers," he shouted to his brothers, "get your asses in here. All clear at the house?" he barked into the lip mic to Jake.

"Secure," his brother-in-law responded in his ear with his usual calm.

Suddenly the barn was filled with noise and light as reinforcements arrived.

"I can walk," Lily told him, voice raw. She didn't try to move.

He dropped a kiss to her hair and tightened his arms. "I like you just fine right where you are. Get the garbage out of here," Derek told Hunt and Kyle as they strolled into the stall.

"How come you always get to have all the fun?" Hunt demanded, not a hair out of place as he stripped weapons off bodies. Bad guys had been known to come back to life at the most inopportune moments.

"Just trying to impress my girl," Derek said, holding Lily against his heart. "Kane? Check on Joe and Singleton back there while you're at it."

He strode through the chaos of the barn as men came and went. A siren sounded. The local police. The feds would get involved, as would several other agencies. But things were contained. He strode across the wide area between barn and house, the snow and gravel crunching underfoot.

Every light was on in the house as he ran up the shallow front steps, crossed the wide back porch and kicked open the kitchen door.

"Marnie," he yelled at his sister. Couldn't see her, but he knew she was somewhere around. "Close your eyes, and keep 'em closed."

His sister stepped into view. "Why? Oh! Ick!" She flopped into a kitchen chair and covered her pale face with both hands.

"Jesus." Jake crouched beside his wife's chair and wrapped an arm about her shoulders, his attention on Derek and Lily. "Shot? Where's Kane?"

"She doesn't need a doctor. All the red's Pekovic's," Derek assured them, his steps not slowing as he crossed the huge crowded kitchen and started for the stairs next to the pantry. "Get a report from the guys."

"What can I do?" Tally demanded, waddling after him, hand on her belly.

"Keep everyone out of my way until morning." He gave his sister-in-law a smile, which she returned.

He bounded up the stairs, down the long upstairs hallway and into his bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him.

"Like they don't know what's going on up here," Lily grumbled into his chest, face flaming.

He strode into the sumptuous master bathroom. "A shower, you mean? Crank that handle, would you?"

He shifted her so she could reach over and turn on the water.

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"That won't take 'until morning' by any stretch of the imagination," Lily told him as he released her legs and let her body slip down his. She held on to his neck, brushing her lips across his on the way down.

"I don't know. Might," he told her, yanking off her coat and tossing it to the floor. "You're very dirty." He ripped the buttons on her shirt and stripped it off before she could squawk. Her soft, pale skin was stained an obscene red.

Steam billowed from the room-size shower stall as she toed off her boots, and he finished stripping her at the same time. "Is this going to be a spectator event," she asked politely, "or are you coming in here with me?"

"Oh, I'm coming. With you. In," he instructed, chucking his clothes at the speed of light and leaving them in a pile on the black marble floor.

Lily stepped into the glossy black stall and adjusted the temperature, then lifted her face to the spray as Derek stepped in and closed the door. Her hair darkened and sheeted down her body like a second skin.

"You lead a very dangerous life," she said, eyes closed as she tilted her head back under the water.

Derek poured shampoo into his hand. "Not all the time." He rubbed up a lather between his hands and massaged it into the long strands of her hair. "That was damn clever of you to use the cell phone."

"I know." She grinned up at him through runnels of water.

"You must have nine lives," he told her ferociously, as he found the soap and started washing the blood off her precious body. He kept it as clinical and impersonal as possible. For now.