Razor's Edge: Men in Blue, Book 2 (39 page)

“Yeah. All except the girl and her friend. I think they kept him to use against her. I’ve seen them do it before with husbands and wives, family members.” He stumbled when he said, “I helped them. I didn’t know what they planned.”

“You’re doing the right thing now.” Razor couldn’t think about the magnitude of the horrors committed. All he could do was move forward.

They barreled around one final turn. When his guide slammed to a stop, Razor almost plowed into the brickhouse.

“What?” He dodged around the blockade Jonathan created. “What is it?”

“They’re gone.” The man crumpled to the floor on his knees. “We’re too late to save them.”

Isabella tried not to finger the cold steel jammed in the small of her back. She’d never used a gun before, never touched one. She had no idea if she could pull the trigger never mind hit a target. She debated the best use of whatever firepower she had, deciding it would be most beneficial to save it for when her captors transported her and Gerard.

If she could disable the driver, as she had at the cemetery, they might have a chance. But every second longer she had the weapon on her, she risked discovery and disarming.

She stood, afraid to breathe, while waiting in the loading area for the man they called the Scientist to arrive. Her father paced. Sweat poured from his brow. He chewed his fingernails, and his pupils dilated until his eyes appeared solid black. He mumbled to himself as he circumnavigated the space, jonesing for another hit of his precious drug.

Isabella had no doubt the chemical destroyed him by the minute. He’d never last after subjecting his system to such duress. Gerard leaned closer when she whimpered. She tightened her arm until her friend stopped wobbling. He couldn’t take much more either.

The
whap-whap-whap
she’d assumed stemmed from her pounding heart crescendoed until a sleek black helicopter dropped into view. She averted her face to keep dirt and pine needles from stinging her eyes.

The engine muted from a deafening roar to a mere cacophony when the rails touched down. A man in a trench coat and dark sunglasses alighted, toting a briefcase. He could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty, hard to tell from here.

“Buchanan,” he called as he approached. “Finally managed to secure my winnings, eh?”

The Scientist didn’t pause by her father. He tossed over the satchel, blowing past the slobbering man to inspect her face to face.

“You’re going to need some serious cleaning up, my dear.” He seemed harmless, although she knew the evil he perpetuated had destroyed countless lives. “Don’t worry, you’ll be back to your old self in no time. You’ll learn to behave as I like you. I have plenty of the formula left if you need some motivation to adopt the spirit of things.”

“I don’t think so, asshole.”

Isabella could have cried at Mason’s welcome shout. But she stayed calm, waiting for the opportunity to strike—to assist the men who hadn’t disappointed her. This fiasco had to end. All of them had to walk away safe. Please, God, protect them.

She grinned at the men in blue surrounding her father and the Scientist. Several she didn’t recognize had joined the familiar men who’d protected her, befriended her, made her one of them.

All the guys were there, Mason, Tyler, JRad, Clint, Matt… All but one.

She gulped. Where was Razor?

“Looks like your boyfriend has cold feet.” Buchanan turned to her and laughed hysterically. “Or maybe you should fucking learn your lesson once and for all. He never wanted more than to fuck you. Stupid girl!”

“Put your hands up.” Tyler trained his weapon on her father.

Buchanan didn’t stop opening the case.

“Freeze!”

Her father reached into the foam lining. He withdrew a syringe from inside. They watched—horrified—as he licked the needle, which glinted in the early morning sunlight.

“Yes.” He groaned as he depressed the plunger a tiny bit, sipping the dew from the tip. “Fuck, yes.”

Their attention diverted for an instant at his lusty gurgle. That was all the opening the Scientist needed. He grabbed Isabella in a headlock, then backed off the dock, toward the chopper.

She smiled at the cops she’d grown to adore, coming last to JRad. She nodded at him and rolled the dice. Her hand closed around the butt of the gun, her index finger curled on the trigger. She whipped the weapon from behind her back and shot the Scientist point blank in the chest before he could process her intent.

The bang scared the shit out of her even though she expected it. She swore she’d never hear again after the deafening blast. The Scientist gaped at her as he clutched his chest, flying backward in slow motion. The weapon skittered from her limp fingers.

She’d killed someone.

Isabella dropped to her knees, horrified as the world snapped into motion once more.

“You crazy bitch,” her father screamed as he charged her. “Without him there can be no more drug. I’ll kill you. Should have done it years ago.”

He clenched the needle in one hand as he reached for the gun with the other. From this angle, the cops behind her couldn’t take a clean shot.

“Noooo.” She heard a furious howl before Razor barreled in from the fringe of the clearing. He dove through the air, tackling her father before he could reach the gun. They wrestled on the ground, switching positions as they rolled.

“James!” She shrieked when her father raised the syringe as though to inject Razor with a lethal dose of the compound.

Her cop deflected the enhanced strength of her father’s jab, knocking his momentum off course. The needle missed its mark, jabbing into Buchanan’s wrist instead of his would-be victim’s neck.

Isabella would remember his chilling cackle for the rest of her life. He surveyed the impossible odds and the dead scientist before taking the easy route. Her father jammed the plunger to the hilt, injecting himself with six milliliters of the drug all at once.

“Son of a bitch.” Razor ripped the needle from Buchanan’s arm. It was too late.

Seconds later, seizures wracked the man’s body, bucking Razor from his torso. He convulsed before their horrified gazes, the rapture never leaving his face. Isabella collapsed beside Razor, who engulfed her in his arms, trying to block her line of sight by tucking her head against his chest.

“No.” She stared into her father’s eyes as he entered the last of his death throes. “I want him to know you love me. That this wasn’t some assignment. Tell him, James. Mean it. Please.”

“It
was
an operation, Izzy. I’m so sorry I lied to you.”

Her heart stopped.

“Dumb bitch.” Buchanan spit the curse through the foam gathering on his lips.

“Everything changed the moment I met you. None of that mattered. Of course I love you, Isabella. With all my soul.” He ignored the suffering of the man on the ground to face her. “Thank God you’re okay. I would be lost without you. I love you, Izzy.”

“I love you, James. I’m sorry I doubted you.” She turned, horrified by the pitiful husk of her father. She couldn’t let him die like this, despite the fact that he deserved it. Isabella couldn’t bring herself to touch him, but she gazed into his eyes when she said, “I love you, too, Daddy. I forgive you.”

For a second, she swore she saw something other than insanity. Something other than the tyrant he’d become. Then he fell still, his eyes lifeless.

Isabella didn’t know what to do. Where to look. She couldn’t process all that had happened in the past two minutes. She’d taken a life—an evil one, but a life nonetheless. Her father had committed suicide before her eyes. Her world would never be the same.

The only thing that made sense was the comfort she found in Razor’s embrace.

Chaos exploded around them as cops moved in from every side. She blinked, stunned. Her wild gaze flipped between the two bodies, wrecked on the floor.

When one of them moved, she thought she’d gone insane.

She struggled in Razor’s grasp. He subdued her, trying to sooth her panic. By the time she realized she wasn’t hallucinating, it was too late.

The Scientist rose from the ground—a gaping hole mangling his bulletproof vest—and bolted for the helicopter.

Someone, she thought it might have been Clint, shouted a warning. Everyone stopped what they were doing—securing the thugs who’d helped Buchanan, tending to the injured man behind her or retching into the tall grass at the horror they’d witnessed.

Boots pounded the concrete beside her head as the cops gave chase. Jonathan shouted. He blocked the path only to be mowed down by the Scientist. Razor’s solid frame blanketed her while round after round of shots were fired. In shock, all she noticed was the receding din of the motor as the Scientist slipped through their fingers.

Radios squawked. The men spread news of the incident, scrambling for assistance to halt the mastermind behind the drug ring. By the grim looks on each of their faces, she knew they’d failed.

JRad stood in the bowels of Black Lily, one step behind the club’s namesake. He’d watched as she freed every last woman, helping them to the waiting ambulances. She’d insisted on doing it herself since she believed she’d contributed to their imprisonment.

He stifled the urge to object, to argue. He saved his breath for later. For a time when she might listen. She wasn’t ready yet. So he stood by her side as she did what she could to end the prisoners’ misery.

The empty dungeon echoed with the receding rap of Lily’s heeled boots on the stone floor. Until she stopped short, her shoulders slumped. She pounded the wall with the heel of her palm.

“Son of a bitch!” Her cry reverberated through the cavernous space. “This is bullshit. Nothing to be proud of.”

“The women upstairs may feel differently.”

“We’ve traded a situation where I was able to keep an eye on the place, freeing some of the worst cases, for a complete unknown. The Scientist will set up shop somewhere else. And next time will be worse. The drug is stronger. Their guard is up. Who will help his subjects now?”

“I’ve been cleared to join the task force working with the DEA.” Jeremy shared what he hadn’t divulged to his squad yet. The move could mean an indefinite leave of absence. Cases like this often took years to solve. “I signed up.”

“You did?”

He turned to face her, taking a step closer so they stood toe to toe.

“Yeah. And I’m not against employing whatever means necessary to find the men responsible for this and make them pay. I’m going to hunt these fuckers. I won’t stop until they’re out of commission. Do you hear me, Lily?”

The sparkle returning to her amazing blue eyes buoyed his spirit and his cock.

“Yeah.” She mimicked him. “I just have one question.”

“What’s that?”

“How do you plan to use me?”

Oh, Jesus. A million and one possibilities streaked through his mind. In the end, he knew what she needed. “You’ll be my mole. Work this from the inside, with my support. We could make one hell of a team.”

“Deal.” She stuck out her hand to seal the bargain.

JRad grasped the offering, surrounding the delicate bones with his palm and fingers. He tugged her into his arms. “For the record, I kiss my informants. Often. Better resign yourself to it, ma’am.”

He covered her sputtering mouth with his. They wrestled for control. She fought long and hard, but he persisted. All objections disappeared without a trace when he explored the glossy surface of her lips. He rewarded her with a nip and a hand on her ass.

Lily moaned. She arched closer before ripping from his hold to glare at him like something smelly she’d stepped in with her favorite fuck-me boots.

This was going to be fun.

And very, very dangerous.

Epilogue

Razor grinned as Isabella bounded past him with a bowl of microwave popcorn and two beers. In the three months since the trauma that had joined them, she’d come to enjoy the finer things in life, as she liked to call them. Personally, he thought anything he shared with her ranked at the top of the world.

He laughed when she hopped onto the couch, cross-legged, then patted the cushion beside her. “Hurry up. It’s starting soon.”

“Izzy, it’s a re-run, and we have DVR.” He shook his head as he approached, grinding his teeth to keep from whisking her into the bedroom for another round of mind-blowing love making before the big screening.

“I know, but I want to see it again.”

“You know how it ends. You were there.” He chuckled when she stuck her tongue out at him.

Damn, the things she could do with that tongue.

“Okay, okay.” He pretended to sigh in resignation. “We’ll watch it as many times as your heart desires. But, uh, I have something for you first.”

Isabella paused, the seriousness of the moment penetrating at last. She read his emotions like no one else. A finely tuned instrument couldn’t pick up on his moods quicker.

“Is everything okay?”

Razor hated that even now, she panicked sometimes. He understood—every person in her life other than Gerard had betrayed her. Still, he hungered for the day she didn’t doubt he intended to stick around for the long haul. He’d debated the best next step for weeks until the perfect solution came to mind.

“Everything’s great, Izzy.” He smiled despite the nerves plaguing him all of a sudden.

She held out her hand and he took it, kneeling in front of her by the couch so they were at eye level.

“I have to talk to you about something. Now that things are starting to settle down, you’ve made plans for the future. I’m proud of how you handled Malcolm’s estate. The money you donated to charity will do so much good.”

“I kept enough for my studio. For Gerard. Moderate savings, enough for a house…”

“I know. That’s what I have tell you.” He couldn’t help himself. He kissed her knuckles. Every moment he spent not touching some part of her was torture. “We’re young. A lot of things have happened. I swear to you if it’s up to me, we’ll spend the rest of our lives together.”

“Why do I sense a
but
in there?”

“I think you need time to enjoy a normal life before deciding if this is what you really want. Don’t rush into something permanent. I couldn’t stand it if you came to regret the decision.” Weight lifted off his shoulders as he confessed his fears.