More Than Forever (Providence Series Book 2) (23 page)

“I don’t know nothing about making bombs,” the asshole screamed. “I make bets, bad bets; that’s all I do.” 

“So, he paid you to pick some shit up and then what?” Mace questioned. 

“I drove to Render and dropped the car off in front of the elementary school like he told me to. The rest of the money was in the garbage can in front of it like he said it would be.” The asshole spat out quickly. “I didn’t do nothing else.” 

Fuck, Render was four hours away from us and an hour away from where the guy had been picked up.  

 “Wait, he said a name. Munt somethin’.” 

“Montgomery?” Mace took a step so he was right in front of the asshole now. 

“Yeah, Montgomery! That’s fucking it!” 

“You hear any other names?”  

“No man, that’s it. He said it was a surprise for the Montgomery’s.” 

Our questioning was interrupted by Baz’s phone ringing and he pulled it out of his inside jacket pocket looking irritated that we were being interrupted. 

“Guntur,” he greeted and gave Mace a signal which must have meant to stand down because Mace took a couple of steps away from the asshole in the chair and leaned against a wall. All we could hear was Baz asking things like “What?” “Where?” “When?” before yelling “FUCK!” as he hung up. 

No one said anything as he paced in front of us. I was used to him being calm and rational so my gut dropped watching him; this was going to be bad. 

Taking a deep breath, he finally turned around to us and all of Coleman and Mace’s guys came forward until we formed a semi-circle around the asshole in the chair. “The three fucks in Bali were released from prison yesterday,” he started. “Guntur and his guys went to find them, but they were too late.” Rubbing his hands down his face he continued on. “One of them was found at the bottom of Uluwatu Cliff this morning. Two hours later, reports of a foreigner being killed by a truck carrying bricks were picked up by them so he sent some guys in to check it out and the description matches one of the bastards. A certain ID couldn’t be made cause the truck ran over his head. An hour ago the last one was found washed up on the beach in Kuta by Swedish tourists; COD unknown.” He looked around at us grimly and I knew it got even worse, if that was possible. “The fourth hired gun that was found dead when Guntur’s team rounded up the others…COD has been confirmed.” He stopped and rubbed his mouth. 

“And?” Mace said looking more pissed off than ever. 

“Cyanide.” 

We all stood staring at him in silence, even Mace and Coleman’s guys didn’t make a noise as we all stood digesting this information. 

A thought hit me. “How the fuck did they get out of a prison for one of the worst offenses?”  

“Guntur is looking into it. There is no leniency in Bali with the law surrounding drug possession, whoever it is, their stretch is far,” Baz replied and he was fucking right. 

The penalty for drugs in Bali was so severe that there were even warnings on the customs forms and throughout the airport. The police releasing them when they’d been found with substantial amounts of heroine on them didn’t make any sense; it just wouldn’t happen. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Brett growled from beside me. “Who the fuck are we dealing with here?” 

This was the problem…and he’d used my name. 

Chapter

NINETEEN

 
M
ace
 

P
ulling up in front of Ava’s house,
I cut my bikes engine. I hadn’t seen her properly in a couple of months, and after hearing the shit I’d just heard I needed to see her. 

The fuckwad had been delivered to the police station, along with a copy of the security footage showing him loading up the car and driving it off. A couple of my guys were staying to make sure that he told them everything that he’d told us, too. 

The interrogation had brought back memories of the shit I’d done when we’d been sent in to find targets, and I needed the one thing that got rid of the feeling that I was being suffocated - Ava. 

Walking up to the door, I was just about to knock when it opened and Tony came rushing out and screamed when he looked up and saw me. 

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” he said, holding his chest. 

“Ohh now don’t you look all rough and growly.” He gave me a good looking over. “I like it; you look… grrrrrr!” The grin on his face and swipe of his hand like a lion’s paw almost made me grin, almost. “Ava in?” 

“Yes she’s in the kitchen,” he looked back down at his watch and made a noise. “Shit, I’m gonna be late getting back! See you later!” 

I gave him a chin lift before he turned around and ran towards his car. The guy was a trip! 

Walking into the house, I went toward where I knew the kitchen was and paused when I saw Ava standing there stirring a pot that smelled like heaven. 

She obviously hadn’t heard the shit with Tony or me walking in because she continued to hum and stir. It was when she turned in my direction to get something that she saw me and screamed; seems I had that talent today. 

“Fucking hell, Mace,” she yelled. “You scared the shit out of me.” I saw it when she realized that she’d sworn at me because she grimaced. I hated it when she swore and she knew this. In fact, the last time that she’d sworn at me, I’d ended up threatening to spank her, going as far as laying her across my lap. Because I hadn’t seen her in a while, and after what I’d just heard, though, I didn’t call her on it. “Ava.” 

“What are you doing here?”  

“Came to say hi, see how you are.” I replied taking her in. Ava had always been beautiful, but from the day she’d turned sixteen she’d become even more beautiful. She was half Brazilian, so her skin was a beautiful tan color all year round and was five foot nine with a body that had pretty much every guy drooling. It was her face, though, that got guys tongue tied around her. She was the definition of beautiful with dark green eyes and long black hair that was, at this moment, tied up in a messy mass on top of her head with pieces falling down. 

I saw that she was taking in the changes to my appearance as well. Months of living on the road meant that I’d grown a beard and needed a haircut, but judging by the expression on her face, these things weren’t an issue for her. 

“You look…different,” she said cocking her head. “I like it.” 

“You look good, baby.” Her eyes flared as always when I called her that. “How are you doing?” 

I walked over to the island in the middle of the large kitchen and sat on one of the stools putting my jacket on the one beside me.  

“Good, thanks.” She turned back and went to the coffee pot, pouring me a cup without asking. My baby knew me well. “I’m just making Tony seafood paella for dinner.” She placed the coffee down in front of me and then picked her own up and took a sip. Everything that Ava did was graceful, it was beautiful to watch from a distance, but even more amazing to watch close up. “How have you been?” 

“Busy.” I didn’t want to dirty her by telling her what I was doing, but I knew she knew all about it from Maya seeing as how they’d gotten pretty close. She’d also spoken to my sister Gia about it, who’d told me about it during our last phone call. “Found a guy and got some info, turned out to be a small fish.” 

She stood staring at me and I knew she saw the weight that I couldn’t shake off from today. When she’d been staying with me, she’d seen first-hand how my PTSD affected me and the nightmares that I’d wake up screaming from. But even if she hadn’t witnessed it all, she’d always seen more in me than anyone and I’d been fucking stupid not to open my arms to her. 

“What’s wrong?” She asked softly, stepping over to me and carefully putting her hand on my arm. This was one of my PTSD issues - I didn’t cope well with people making fast movements around me, especially when it resulted in someone touching me. What she didn’t know was that I didn’t have that problem with her. 

“Just memories.” I shrugged. I didn’t come here to put my memories onto her, far from it. I never wanted her to have the mental image of the filth that I’d done and gone through, and this was one of the reasons that I’d pushed her away. 

“Wanna talk about it?” 

“Nah, just wanted a catch up.” I replied looking around me, then a question occurred to me. “You still seeing the hospital fucker?” 

“Penn? Yeah, we’ve been on some dates.” She turned away from me and went back to the pot. 

After the shit today, I was out of patience and drained my coffee and put it back down heavily on the bar in front of me.  

“I was wrong, baby, I pushed you away when you were the only thing that made it possible to breathe.” I fucking sucked at romantic shit so I didn’t have a clue how to get it across to her without being blunt. She turned back to watch me as I stood up and started walking toward her. “You know I had shit as a kid and because of that I don’t let people in. But what you’ll never begin to imagine was the fucking evil that I had to do, and that I went through, too, when I was deployed. That evil leaves a stain on you, and you deserve better than that, so I pushed you away.” 

“Mace…”  

“No, let me finish. I’ve spoken to the other members of my team about what happened, and they helped me see that I’m not as stained as I thought, and that I deserve to breathe clean air instead of the polluted gas that I was breathing before.” I walked into her space and put my arms around her. “You’re that clean air.” 

I would have continued, but she chose that moment to lick her lips and seeing it up close broke whatever modicum of control that I had left standing so close to her.  Tightening my hold around her, I slammed my mouth down onto hers, taking advantage of her gasp to sweep my tongue into her mouth. We’d kissed a couple of times, mostly when I was drunk, but I’d always been hit by the feeling that I was dirtying her and had been an asshole and walked away. Not anymore and never again; she was mine. Groaning at the taste of her, I pulled her tighter to me as she wrapped her arms around my neck before she ground her crotch against mine.

Picking her up quickly, I put her on the counter behind me, never breaking the kiss, and pushed between her legs. Now that I was as close as I could get right now, I took full advantage to deepen the kiss, our tongues flicking against each other. I ground my hard on into her and then remembered that regardless of how hard I was, I was here to do this right with Ava. She deserved nothing but the best and I was going to give that to her. 

Pulling back from her, I watched as her eyes slowly opened and tried to focus on me; fuck, I loved that.  

“Ava.” I cupped her face in my hands. “We’ve started. You and me, this is it. Do you get me?” 

She sat looking at me and I saw the moment it all hit her. “We can’t, I’m dating Penn!” 

“Lose him, baby.” She was biting her lower lip, a lip that was swollen and red from us kissing. The longer it took her to reply, the tenser I was getting. Failure with her wasn’t an option. “Ava, are you with me?” I gave her a gentle shake. 

Looking back up at me, she finally whispered the words that made me realize that I truly was gonna breathe easy. “Okay, Mace.”