Liberty Begins (The Liberty Series) (12 page)

Finally, just when I was absolutely sure I was going to die, the evil run was over. Matthew patted the ground next to him, so I could sit and stretch and we could talk. “That sucked,” I said, flopping down on the ground next time, completely slick with sweat, barely able to breathe.

“Wait till we do ten,” Matthew said, playfully, but I didn’t even have the energy to smile.

I watched him as he stretched out his hamstrings. Tall, muscular and blonde, he was perfect looking, all-American, usually smiling, with perfectly white, straight teeth. I knew he’d seen a lot in the service, and certainly working for John, but he didn’t seem affected by it.

“How do you do it?” I asked, still breathing hard, wiping the sweat from my brow. One thing I’d learned since we started training was that exercise made me think more clearly, more able to see the issue and be direct. That was the one benefit of blisters, sore muscles, and extreme fatigue: mental clarity.

“Do what?” Matthew asked, with a perplexed look on his face, as he stretched out his arms behind his back.

“How do you do such gruesome work and still be so normal?” I asked, bluntly. Darius and his water-board were still nagging me from the back of my mind. Seeing Matthew, clean cut, joking, and stretching in the sunlight seemed like the opposite of what we were really doing here.

He laughed. “I’m not sure that I’m normal. But I told you, Liberty, I fight bad guys. Just like John,” he said, and shrugged.

“It’s that simple?” I asked. “For real?”

“For real,” he said. “I don’t have a moral crisis about what I do. I’d have a moral crisis if I
didn’t
do what I do.”

I sat still and pondered this, letting my breathing return to somewhat normal, drinking some water. I believed him, believed that he believed it, and I understood what he was saying. It was just difficult for me to trust his confidence.
How could you be sure,
I wondered.
How could you be so sure that what you were doing was the right thing?

He seemed to know what I was thinking. “Run into a couple of more Rays,” he instructed. “Then throw in a Darius or two, and some suicide bombers, and you wouldn’t blink,” he said. “You wouldn’t think twice, either. Seriously.” He shrugged and went back to stretching, and I did the same.

“Sorry,”’ I said. I had overstepped my bounds. Matthew was the last person I wanted to offend; he’d been nothing but kind to me since I’d come onboard. “I just keep thinking about Darius, and what we’re going to do to Ray if we catch him…”

“Good,” said Matthew, looking at me directly. “You should think about it. You have to know what you’re committing to. But trust me: once you get your hands on him, once you look him in the eye, you won’t feel the way you think you will. Sometimes you can’t see the right path until it opens up in front of you.”

The right path
, I thought, wistfully. I wish the right path would open up in front of me and be visible, like the yellow brick road in
The Wizard of Oz
. Life would be so much easier if I had a map.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said to Matthew. “And thank you. You’ve been a good friend to me since I’ve been here. I appreciate it.”

He smiled at me. “No problemo,” he said, and I could tell the discussion was over. “Now, let’s get to the good stuff: what on earth did you do to John last night? I’ve never seen him this chipper before!”

It was extremely lucky that I was so red from running: for once, I couldn’t blush. I started laughing. “I guess, umm … I guess John took the r
ight path
last night,” I said, laughing, and managed to give Matthew a wicked grin. That was the thing about losing your virginity. You were finally in on the joke.

“You two,” Matthew said, shaking his head, getting up and walking towards the others. “You’re like two lovestruck teenagers. Just keep him happy — maybe he’ll let the rest of us sleep in one of these days!” He trotted off and I let myself sit there with my stupid grin on my face for one more minute.

John sauntered over, his grin mirroring mine. “Hi honey,” he said, dropping down to plant a kiss on top of my sweaty head. “Great job today.”

“On which thing?” I asked, wagging my eyebrows at him. Seeing him all sweaty in his running clothes with his ropey muscles showing made me feel even more giddy, more naughty. Even though I was totally sweaty and sore.
Biology conquers all, I guess.

“Don’t get me started while we’re in public,” he growled at me, kissing the side of my face. I swatted him away. I really was too disgusting to touch.

“Okay,” he said, “We have work to do. The good news?” he asked. I looked at him expectantly. “There’s a couple of things: You did awesome at your run this morning — fastest mile yet. I’m impressed,” he said. “On top of that, you were really hot this morning. And last night. Again, I’m impressed. And I am looking forward to more of that later,” he said to me lowly, forcefully, and a delicious wave of heat rolled through my belly and thighs.

“The bad news?” he asked, looking at me sympathetically. “We need to go brief the team about Ray. It’s time we made our plans.”

I got up, painfully, and followed him. I really hoped this was the right path.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BULL’S-EYE

The room we were using was in the big house, in the basement. There were long tables, folding chairs, and a huge
,
dry erase board mounted on the wall. Ian had sent down drinks and snacks; he had stopped me on my way in and handed me a very large glass of white wine.

“ESPN’ll be on if you get bored, my dear,” he said, and winked at me.

Once again, I would have vastly preferred to watch ESPN with him, safe on the couch, than face another discussion about Ray. At least this one wouldn’t be personal. I hoped.

Corey had set up a laptop and a projector; the lights were dimmed and a map of downtown Eugene sprang up on the board. Another one of the guys, Sean, who had a brown buzz cut and a smattering of freckles, went up to the board with a laser pointer. Next to the map, a fairly recent picture of Ray materialized. I winced, sucking in a breath. John put his hand on my back and rubbed it.

“Raymond Lawrence is forty eight, an on and off convenience store worker,
here
—” Sean said, using his pointer to show the Quik n E-Z Mart where Ray sometimes worked. “He is also a drug dealer: heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, and sometimes prescription drugs. His major clientele is a group of heroin junkies that have been buying from him for years. His legal address is
here
—” he said, pointing to another city street, “in an apartment between the university and the downtown area. This area is known for its vagrants, a high volume of meth-amphetamine related crimes, as well as a high level of unemployment.”

Ethan raised his hand. “Does he deal meth?” he asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” Sean said. His freckles made him appear younger and more easy-going than he actually was. He sprinted the last mile of every run, trying to beat his time, and he was always the first one to hit the weight room. “Ray appears to be old school. He’s been doing this for a decade, with mostly repeat clients, many of whom are aging hippies. Also, he lives with his mother. Rosario Lawrence. Perhaps he can’t pull off the manufacturing component necessary for meth production because of his living situation.

“Liberty,” Sean called, in a professionally neutral voice, “do you know anything about Mrs. Lawrence? I couldn’t find too much.”

“I never met her,” I stammered, and then cleared my voice. Everyone turned, looking for me, so I shakily stood up. “From what I know, she didn’t have any family left besides Ray. Her husband died a long time ago, and her sister, too, if I’m remembering right. She used to take in sewing and mending from her neighbors. My mom sent a dress to her once to have the zipper replaced. Ray used to leave our house sometimes to go have dinner with her. He said she was lonely, and that she worried about him.”

Sean nodded at me and I sat down. I could feel myself blushing; I wasn’t used to speaking in front of a crowd. I took a long sip of wine and mentally sent a thank you to John’s dad. John reached over and squeezed my hand under the table. He knew this was hard on me, but he wasn’t going to stop just because of that.
He really wants to get him,
I thought, and this sent a cold shiver down my spine. I was afraid. Now that this had been set in motion, and all twenty of John’s employees
were down in this briefing room, talking about Ray, it seemed real. It was go time.
They were going to get him. They were going to make him pay.
Unlike Darius, though, Ray had no information that they wanted: they just wanted
him
, his head on a platter. John must have sensed my discomfort; he looked at me steadily, holding my hand firmly, trying to comfort me. His face, which had become so dear and familiar to me in such a short amount of time, reassured me.

He was doing this because he loved me.

He was also doing this because someone had hired him to.

My heart started racing. Maybe he would tell me tonight; maybe I would finally hear the client’s name. In my heart, I knew who it was — it could only be one person, the one person I had left in the world.
Sasha.
How she had acquired the money and the knowledge to hire John was beyond me, but I was dying to find out. Any time I’d tried to bring up the subject with him, he’d just told me that we would discuss the client at the right time, when we were wrapping up training and getting ready to go to Eugene. That was now. The only training left was me learning to shoot.

I couldn’t really focus on the rest of the meeting; my thoughts kept bouncing around between Ray, my sister Sasha, the idea of going to Eugene again, Darius, images from last night, and John.

John.
So much pleasure and so much pain coursed through me when I thought about him. Pleasure came from thinking about last night and this morning; heat shot through me when I pictured him naked, above me, the muscles in his chest straining and pulsing. Sitting this close to him now literally lit my body on fire. Even though there were other people around, it didn’t matter. I twined my fingers through his and he smiled, even though his eyes were trained on Sean.
I love you,
I thought.

That’s where the pain came in. I
did
love him; it was as natural as breathing for me. I had as much faith in my love as I did in the belief that I would wake up tomorrow and it would be morning; my love for him simply
was
, like it had been waiting to happen, waiting for an eternity to spring to life. It had been so easy for me to give myself to him, when I had never dreamed that would happen for me. It was yet another thing that had been set in motion that I was powerless to control. Now it was part of who I was. It always would be.

Deep down I knew I would always love him. But the part of me that was guarded, that guarded my heart, told me we wouldn’t be together forever. He would soon see through his haze of lust — see that I wasn’t from his world and would never be good enough to fit in.

All I had to offer him was my youth, my body. I had learned in Vegas that not only were these commodities a dime a dozen, they didn’t last. Real love, real families, must be built of stronger stuff: similar upbringings, education, values, life experiences. Parity. I had no parity with John. Even if I quit stripping and managed to scrape together enough money to go to community college someday, we were countries, continents, worlds apart. The fact that I was here now was just a crazy coincidence.

He said he loved me. I believed him. I trusted him innately, reflexively, without stopping to think or doubt. I believed that he believed it; I believed it was true for him
right now.
I just also
happened to believe
in the long view, which told me that if something seemed too good to be true, it probably was. Millionaires did not rush in on white horses to save strippers. Fairytales were not real. No one was coming to rescue me: this was a lesson I’d learned a long time ago.

In other breaking news, I’d realized something. Even if John really wanted to be with me, I didn’t know if I could do it. He was tortured over Catherine, and this drove him to torture others. And I knew I couldn’t live my life that way: I was made of weaker material.

Would he leave the business for me? Would he change? Could he?

John squeezed my hand again, breaking me from my reverie. I smiled at him, but it was masking a heavy heart.
Don’t think about this anymore while you’re here, Liberty. Don’t waste the precious time you’ve got left.
The talk was over, Sean and Corey were breaking down the laptop and the rest of the setup; John got up and went to speak with some of the guys for a moment, and I drank some more of my wine.

“You might want to save that for later,” Matthew said to me, walking over. “We’re going to the shooting range now. You need a steady hand.”

I looked at him and downed the rest of the glass.
I’ve got a lot on my mind, Matthew.
He just shook his head at me. “Right,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s get going.”

I let Matthew and the others walk ahead as my thoughts swirled about me. I shook my head, trying to clear it; maybe Matthew had been right about the wine. John found me, trailing the rest of the group, as we were walking to the range. “Liberty, are you feeling up to this? Are you doing okay?” He looked at me with concern, his blue eyes searching mine.

I looked at his beautiful, lined face, so dear to me now.
I’ll be okay if I don’t think about us being apart. I’ll be okay if I can control my fear, so I don’t ruin the time we have left together.

I took a deep breath of the night air to calm myself. “I’m okay,” I said. “Ray is not my favorite topic, but I’ll survive.” I made myself smile up at him. I didn’t want him to glimpse my inner thoughts, to know how twisted up I was getting.

We were walking from the house back to the barracks. The shooting range was the next building over. It also acted as a garage for the company’s assorted vehicles: trucks, a couple of golf carts, a minivan and a BMW sport utility vehicle. The ocean was behind us, the woods to our right, the rolling lawn to our left. I could see fireflies flashing across the lawn. John twined his fingers through mine, and I felt electric sparks shoot up my arm.
Who ever knew that being this close to another person could be this much of an event?
I smiled up at him again in wonder, and this time it was with my real smile. The night air was refreshing; my head was finally clearing, the dark clouds over it rolling back.

“I can’t stop thinking about last night,” he said suddenly, and shudders of heat rolled through my belly at the mention of it.

“I know,” I breathed. I stopped and leaned into him, against the darkening sky, and kissed him.
Delicious.
Could I ever get tired of this? His tongue touched mine and more electric sparks traveled through me, this time down through my chest to in between my legs, making me clench and shiver in anticipation. He pulled me to him then, hard; I could feel his powerful arms around me, enveloping me, his massive chest pressed up against mine. I couldn’t breathe, but it wasn’t because of how he was holding me; it was his proximity, his heat, how safe and protected he made me feel.

“Could we take a detour?” I asked, breathlessly. The guys were ahead of us, filing into the shooting range, talking to each other. No one would see us. “I won’t be able to concentrate unless I’m with you first.”

He looked at me and in the fading light I could see the intensity burning in his eyes. He suddenly looked as needy as I felt; shooting a look towards the building, he grunted and then pushed me in front of him towards the woods, pressing up against me. I could feel his hardness, his desire. It mirrored mine. I felt like I was going to burst if I
didn’t have him right now.
John.
How could you love and want someone else so completely, like you could never be right without them? What if he had never come and found me? I shuddered as I pictured myself in my sad apartment, eating macaroni and cheese, alone at my card table. It brought tears to my eyes. I pushed the image away.

I didn’t want to think anymore. I needed him inside me, now, and I didn’t care about target practice, or the fact that everybody would know what we were doing if we were late — I didn’t care about any of it. An animalistic desire had taken over and
all I could think about was him, his massive, chiseled chest, his rock hardness, and the painful, throbbing ache between my legs. We went deeper into the forest. It was darker here, cooler, and still. He stopped me at a large tree and started kissing me, hard. He rubbed his erection against me, making me pant, making me wet. Then he turned me around again so I was no longer facing him. “Pull your shorts down,” he said, lowly.

I obeyed, but looked over my shoulder for reassurance. “Grab onto the tree and spread your legs,” he said urgently, and I did. My muscles, all of me, were quaking with lust and anticipation.

He pulled off his shirt, his shorts and underwear quickly, and nudged
my legs further apart. I was touching the tree, my back flat, my backside facing him. He reached around me and rubbed my clitoris slowly, in circles. He reached down and put two fingers inside me, feeling my wetness. “You’re ready for me, baby,” he said, striking my clitoris again. My world started to spin.

“Liberty,” he breathed, as he put the tip of his erection in me, “Liberty, I’ve never needed anyone this much.”

He kept rubbing my clitoris in circles; I held onto the base of the tree and moved against him, trying to get him all the way inside me, holding out my backside for him to grab. He finally did grab it, hard; kneading my ass, pressing his hands on either side of it, until he couldn’t take my moans anymore. He pulled back for a second, and I heard him exhale; then he slammed himself all the way into me in one fluid motion. I threw my head back and screamed in pleasure; I had never felt him in this deep.

I cried out again, loud, and arched my back; but he pushed my head back down, so my back was completely flat, and grabbed my hips. He continued to slam into me, rhythmically, deeply, again and again, and I felt myself buck against him. I didn’t even have to think about what to do; it just felt right.
I felt like an animal.
I threw back my head and felt my muscles clench around him, completely out of my control, as I felt him go deeper and deeper, all the way in, filling me up, pounding me.