Dying Commitment (Lucky Thirteen) (7 page)

“No girl!”

I leaned over the counter, giving off my most menacing stance and growled, “I have this really awesome kitchen cutlery set I just bought from this little store around the corner. Slices meat as thin as paper.”

The man’s eyes widened. “She is in the back.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

“Will you take her back home with you?”

“Don’t see how that’s your business, old man.”

“If she stays on this trail, she will die.”

“That’s not your business,” I replied. The man didn’t say anything else. He turned and started for the back door.

When he pushed it open, I saw the barrel of a gun and heard the familiar voice through clenched teeth. “Now what were you saying about killing me, Afonso?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Cadence

I wasn’t sure if my gun was staying steady at his left temple or not. I was still woozy from him smacking me with that wooden block. For that alone, I wanted to put a bullet in his head. But I needed to know just why he hadn’t killed me when he certainly could have. It would have been easier to kill me while I was unconscious.

“It’s just business, sweet pea.”

My heart stopped, for just a split second. Afonso had never called me that. That was Jack’s name for me. I wasn’t even aware of how he knew about that name. I’d never told him anything. Was he signaling me about something? But regardless, it made me do something I never did. I hesitated. And he saw it.

He swung his hand backward, knocking the gun from me, and then his other one slammed into the side of my face. My jaw snapped shut painfully, vibrating through my skull as I fell to the floor. My world dove in and out of existence. My world was spinning. I bit my cheek, trying to give myself a focal point so I could straighten myself out.

I heard scuffling, bottles hitting the floor and shattering. Some was close. Some was farther away. I couldn’t tell which was which at this point. I hadn’t even realized there was someone else there. The stranger that hadn’t left. Who was it? Why were they here? Were they with Jack, too?

I pushed myself up to my knees, but my entire body was shaking so much I collapsed. My cheek hit the cool cement floor. Everything throbbed. It was funny how that worked. A hit to the head made every part of a body hurt. It stunned the nervous system, temporarily causing a cease and desist to all movement for a split second. The recovery, though, that was slow.

Soon the surrounding noise and the fight stopped. Footsteps receded. My whole world was alternating between light and dark, like a slow strobe. My breathing was deafening to me, slow and uneven. I was losing the fight. I had to get up. I pushed up to my elbows and tried to get myself to my feet. Afonso was going to get away. I had to stop him and find out why Jack wanted me dead. I just needed a second to get my bearings and then I could go after him.

My arms gave out and I kissed the cement floor again. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even sit up. When I saw the black boots in front of my eyes, my mind was still registering a need to run, but the fog had stalled any movement. At that point, I was encased in ice, conscious but unable to move. Like Han Solo. The dark won over the strobing light and slowly, dark blooms just took over my vision and then I was alone.

~*~*~

Dylan

I wasn’t sure how I got from that stupid little store to the nearest hotel without drawing all the attention to Cady and me. She wasn’t bleeding anymore, which was good, but I didn’t like how long she’d been out.

In the hotel room, I set her on the bed, and got a cool compress to put over her swelling cheek. The man had clocked her hard that last moment, and I’d seen red then. The dude hadn’t really been interested in fighting. He’d just grabbed the laptop on the desk and ran. I’d gone after him, but he’d vanished into the crowd before I could catch him.

I knew Cady kept her shit locked down in that laptop, but there were some very smart individuals out there, and if she had anything sensitive on it… it could prove to be a bigger problem than we anticipated. I’d have to let Master Chief know about that breach, if in fact it was a breach.

Right then, she was still sleeping off the hit, and I wanted to make sure she didn’t need to get to a doctor before we continued. I checked her vitals while she slept, made sure she was in a comfortable position and stepped outside of the hotel room to the balcony with my phone.

It only rang once before someone answered. “Yeah?” It sounded like Master Chief had just woken up.

“It’s me.”

“How’s it going?” A yawn. Yeah, I’d definitely woken him up. I cringed a little, because Master Chief before coffee was a little scary.

“We had some complications.”

“Enough for friends to visit?”

“There was a flight I missed, but I think I got it under control now.”

“Keep me updated. We’ll all come to the dinner party.”

“Roger that.”

I powered down the phone and went back into the hotel room. Cady was lightly snoring in the bed, which I took as a good sign. I set the phone down on the table and pulled the armchair over to the bed. I must have sat there for hours, watching her, making sure her pulse stayed strong, and her breathing stayed normal. They said that you shouldn’t let concussed people sleep, but what did you do with people that were knocked unconscious? Did you wake them up? Leave them alone to wake up on their own? I was half afraid that she wasn’t going to wake up at all.

While she slept, I cleaned up my face. That guy had not pulled his punches in any way. He wasn’t a small man, and he hit hard. My entire left side of my jaw throbbed, and my cheekbone was raw with pain to the touch. No wonder he had knocked Cady out. Not that she couldn’t handle a hit like that, because on a good day, she was three times tougher than I was, but she didn’t have nearly the weight to support it as I did. I had a good seventy-five pounds on her.

Finally, she started stirring. I poured a glass of water for her and set it down on the nightstand. Her sleepy face had a perpetual frown on it. I wondered if that had something to do with her swelling cheek. Was it bothering her as she slept?

She moaned, a quiet, high pitched sound that was cute as a button. I’d never tell her that, though. She’d have punched me in the face for it. I smiled. It might be worth it. I filed that away as a “to be used” joke I’d pull out on her later.

I brushed her hair from her face. “Cady?” A soft moan escaped her full lips again. I wasn’t about to kiss her again, not when I wasn’t sure if she had that stuff on her lips or not. I brushed her cheek with my fingertips. “Come on, honey. Time to wake up.”

This time she groaned louder, and grumpier. Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused.

“You in there?” I asked.

She blinked, twice, and then a real loud groan came from her. “Fuck me.”

“Oh, honey, now’s not the time.”

“Damn it, you’re not supposed to be here,” she croaked out and rolled to her side.

“Why? Because you drugged me and left me cuffed to the bed?” I was a little indignant with that, but come on. She cuffed me to the bed and left me there. It was only fair that I got to harbor some kind of grudge.

“Yes,” she snapped. She turned to her side, her eyes slowly focusing on the nightstand. “Is that water for me?”

I nodded. “Yes.” I picked up the glass as she struggled to her elbows. Her head was obviously hurting, from the frown across her brows. She took the glass from me and drank about half the glass down before she handed it back to me.

“What are you doing here?” She seemed more perplexed than angry.

“Taking care of you at the moment,” I replied. I set the glass back on the nightstand. “You took a good blow to the head.”

“Fucker sucker punched me.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Where are we now?”

“Hotel. You’ve been sleeping for hours.”

She sat up the rest of the way, fighting against the pain she was feeling. She glanced around. “My bag? Where’s my bag?”

“Over in the corner, with your gun and your jacket.”

“Good… and my laptop? Did you get my laptop?”

I shook my head. “Gone. The dude at the shop grabbed it.”

“And you let him leave with it?” She sat up quickly, wavering like she was going to fall, but she didn’t stop. She stumbled out of the bed and over to her backpack.

“He grabbed it and ran, Cady. Bulldozed right over me. I went outside after him, but he disappeared into the crowd.”

“Shit!” She grabbed her backpack, wrenching it open, and rummaging through the contents. “Why didn’t he take anything else? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What’s on the laptop, Cadence?” I asked, still sitting on the bed. She swayed a little, but when I started to get up, she shot me the I-Will-Kill-You-Look, so I sat back on the bed. I wasn’t entirely sure that she wouldn’t.

“That one? Not much that they can crack.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m very good at what I do, Bambi.” She poured herself another glass of water and downed it in two gulps and then started getting dressed.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not.” I said. “You have a head injury. You need to take a day or two and let yourself heal.”

“I don’t have a day or two, especially if they manage to crack my laptop.”

“You just said they won’t. So what’s the harm in a couple of days?”

“I can’t…” She swallowed, and for a second, she let some emotion leak through her expression before she recovered. “I can’t stay here. I have to get to Va—” She stopped and cleared her throat, but I’d already caught it.

“Valonia. That’s where you’re going. That’s all the way on the other side of France.”

“Well, the cruise line was going to Barcelona, and then I was going to take a train, but—”

“Because of me, you got off early.”

“Yes,” she replied flatly. “I came to Funchal to get my stuff from Afonso and then I was going to get back on the ship and take it to Spain.”

“A plane would have been faster. Thirteen could have—”

“I didn’t want Thirteen involved. This is a personal matter. And Jack would have expected me to fly straight into Valonia. Or so I thought.”

“He anticipated you going to see Afonso.”

“Looks like. Jack can definitely pay more than I can. I guess he had Afonso steal my laptop, maybe to find out what we know about Giroux Enterprises now that Alex is in charge. But I’ve improved my encryption programs since Jack. He knew my old ones pretty well, but I trashed those as soon as he left.” She paused, obviously thinking of her old partner. I couldn’t fathom one of my teammates betraying me like Allen did to her. I’d have been devastated, and probably going on a hunt a lot like she was.

“So Jack is working for Alex?”

“That’s what I hear,” she whispered. She glanced at the water glass in her hand and sighed. “This should be vodka.”

“Head injury, Cady.”

“Yeah, I know,” she replied.

“Let me help you.”

Her jade eyes cased over me. “This is a personal matter. It doesn’t concern you.”

“Whether you believe that or not, it concerned me the second you decided to go after him. Now, you can tell me what I need to know, to help you, or I will keep following you, keep hunting you down until you can’t sneeze without me handing you a tissue, no matter where you are.”

She was livid. I could see it, but she had to understand. What we did together, the nights we’d hung out or had sex or whatever it was that we did, it had affected us both. She wasn’t willing yet to acknowledge that yet, but she knew it.

“We need to keep this professional,” she said. “I can’t… I don’t want you jeopardizing this mission because of your feelings for me.”

“Don’t worry about me, darling. Strictly professional.” I couldn’t help but poke at her a little. She scowled, but when she rolled her eyes, I knew she’d realized my intentions.

“And no sex. I don’t want to be caught off guard.”

“Now that’s just wrong,” I said. “You’re cutting me off.”

“I think it’s safe to say that our relationship is too complicated for casual sex. We’re working together… for now,” she stressed those two words. “We need to keep this of a professional nature.” This time her lips turned up in a smug smirk.

“You know, the bitchier you get, the more it turns me on,” I grinned at her. “I’ll try my darnedest to make my penis behave around you.” I saw it. She almost laughed. Instead, she covered it up with another scowl. Oh, yeah. This was going to be lots of fun. Tormenting her was going to be the best thing ever.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Cadence

We took a train the rest of the way into Valonia. It was a three day trip, so I managed to convince Dylan that I could let my head heal on the way. He wasn’t happy, but he went along with it.

He’d become quite protective of me lately, which both scared and thrilled me. I’d never had anyone willing to be my protector before, and I didn’t like the way it made me feel. I’d thought having a partner again would just slow me down, but instead it was the other way around. He was keeping me up.