Shattered Valor (37 page)

“Tell me something, Holbrook.
Why did you beat up Sherri and her friend?”

He shrugged. “Their uncle was trying to steal Amir. It’s war. That’s all.”

“And Phillip? What was your deal with him?”

Holbrook laughed. “Fucking you was the best investment I’ve ever made. We were getting rich off of you. But King wanted it ended.”

Ty sent Kit a look. “King? Who’s King?” He started to shut his eyes. Ty shook him. “Holbrook!”

The bastard gave a gurgling laugh. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. “King is—” He never finished that statement. The breath hissed out of him and his body went still.

Ty dragged Holbrook out of the bathroom and left his body next to Phillip’s. Kit was right behind him with other dead man. The other bodyguard stood next to Angel, his hands secured behind him. He was the last member of Holbrook’s deadly trio.

Owen came downstairs. “Angel, take him upstairs. The FBI is here to clean up.”

Val and Greer came down to collect the other bodies. Ty looked at Owen. “Holbrook attacked the girls to send a message to his eastern brethren to keep their hands off Amir, as we suspected. He said my father, who wasn’t my father, and he were getting rich blackmailing the men who’d raped me, but that someone named ‘King’ wanted it stopped.”

“Who’s King?” Owen asked.

“No idea.” Ty shook his head. “He died before he could answer. We need to find out. Sounds like he’s running the show.”

“Phillip’s not your father?” Owen circled back to the other bombshell Ty had dropped.

Ty sighed. “No. He said my mom was having an affair. I’m not his son. It explains a lot. Phillip killed her and tortured me for her sins.”

Owen looked at Phillip’s prone body, the last to be removed. “How did he die?”

“He was shot from someone inside the bathroom when I was cuffing him.” Ty’s gaze went from Owen to Kit. “The guy Angel took upstairs was with Holbrook during my rape. He was with him the whole summer.” He shrugged. “Use that info as leverage if it helps. We need him to tell us what he knows about King.”

Owen nodded as he put a hand on Ty’s shoulder. “We will. You did good, Blade.”

Ty nodded at him. He looked at Kit, who was watching him warily. Ty grinned. Kit shook his head and gave him a bear hug. “Never, in a thousand fucking years, would I have expected this outcome,” Kit told him.

Ty wrapped an arm around his friend’s shoulders as they walked toward the stairs. “I’m not that scared kid any more.”

Kit made a face. “I don’t think you ever were scared. Even then. Mad, yes. Stuck in a bad situation, yes. A victim?” Kit shook his head. “Never in spirit. I’ve never met anyone as strong as you.”

“We’re neither of us what we were, Kit,” Ty faced his friend. “Your woman and daughter are here. It’s time you made a new beginning, too.”

They walked up the stairs. In the hallway, they were greeted with the gory reminder of the battle that had just ended, made all the more gruesome with the light of the rising sun. Blood spatter was everywhere. The walls were full of bullet holes.

Kit sighed. “Right. ’Cause this is a hell of an introduction to your father and the life he’s living.”

“The guys and I will clear out the bodies from the tunnel. We’ll move everyone from the bunkroom to the garage in SUVs so they don’t have to see this. There’s that apartment over the garage that no one’s using. They can hang there while we get this mess cleaned up.” Ty smiled at him. “When it’s done, you can meet your little girl.”

“I think they need to stay here,” Kit said.

“I agree.”

Kit sighed. He turned his comm unit back on so that he could hand out orders. “Max, Rocco, Kelan move the bodies from the tunnel to the front of the house.”

“Already done, boss,”
Max answered.
“All the bad guys, dead and alive have been moved out front for the feds.”

“What’s the body count?” Owen asked Max.

“Fourteen dead, fifteen wounded, seven captured.”

“Make that seventeen dead, and eight captured,” Owen updated the count as he came out of the basement. “I’m bringing Phillip out now.”

“Rocco and K brought a couple SUVs down to pick up the girls, the Jacksons, and Zavi. Where are we taking them?”

“To the apartment over the garage,” Kit said. “Except for Eden, the others are not to come into the house until we’ve until we’ve cleaned it up. Send Eden and Tank up the stairs in the den. Angel, you Val, and Greer clear the grounds before we move the cargo outside. Eden and Tank need to do a sweep to make sure Amir and the WKB didn’t leave any surprises behind.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Kit walked outside later that afternoon. He was freshly showered and wore clean, blood-free clothes. It had been a long, hellish day. The FBI had taken Owen’s report, processed the site, and left with the bad guys—both dead and alive. Owen’s cleaning crew was working feverishly in the house. Repair crews were replacing windows, glass doors, dry wall, and other interior and exterior damage. Max and Greer were reinstalling sensors.

He hoped Blade’s house would be habitable by the end of the day. If they were going to stay here long term, the house and grounds would need considerable modifications to make it harder to breach.

The Jacksons had been allowed to return to the house a short while earlier. In fact, Kathy had insisted she be allowed to start her supper preparations. Eden was with Ty. Dennis had set up croquet on the lawn. Rocco was teaching Casey and Zavi how to play. Mandy and Ivy were laughing as they watched the three players. It all looked so normal, the antithesis of what happened here last night.

Casey looked over at him. She dropped her croquet mallet and shot toward him. Kit’s heart stopped, then slammed into motion. He took a step, then another, vaguely aware of the glass crunching beneath his feet.

The girl stopped half a dozen feet from the patio. She had his coloring. Her wild blond hair fell in tangles about her shoulders. All of her other features, her nose, the shape of her chin, her blue eyes, those were her mother’s.

“Dad?” she asked, tentatively.

Kit had to work to make his voice heard. “Casey?” She ran forward and he hurried down the steps, catching her up in his arms in a hug that probably robbed her of air.

“Oh, baby. I was so worried about you.” He stroked her hair, smelled the sweet, sweaty child scent of her. “I’m so sorry about all of this.” He eased her back to her feet.

She wiped her face. “You’re not sorry to meet me, are you?”

Kit sat on the edge of a wide planter that bordered the patio steps. “No. Never.” He pulled her back into his arms. “You are so beautiful. Just like your mom.”

Ivy walked over to them, but stopped a few feet away. Her arms were folded in front of her. She looked cold on this hot, summer day. “Why is mom so mad?” Casey asked as she followed his gaze.

Kit wiped a tear from her face. “It’s complicated, sweetheart. It isn’t anything you’ve done. She’s upset about the danger you were in last night. She’s upset with me.” She was going to be furious when she learned that she and Casey wouldn’t be allowed into town for a while.

He definitely needed to talk to Ivy, but it wasn’t a conversation he could have in front of Casey. And now that he’d met Casey, he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. He took her hand and walked over to Ivy, who looked nervous and drawn. “You were brave last night, both of you. You did everything that was asked of you.” Ivy’s nostrils flared and her lips thinned as she looked away from him.

“Is this your house, dad?”

He looked at Casey because it was too painful to look at her mom. “No. It belongs to a friend of mine, Ty Bladen. We’re just staying here for a while. I’ve been told that Ty’s housekeeper, Mrs Jackson, makes a fine milkshake. Not as good as your mom’s at the diner, I bet, but pretty good. Would you like one?”

“Does she have Oreos to put in it?”

Kit started toward the kitchen, still holding Casey’s hand. “She may. Let’s find out.”

* * *

Eden went down into the basement, Tank at her heels. She crossed to the area that haunted Ty. Sure enough, he was there, sitting against the wall, staring at the space where the cage had been. He’d had the construction workers tear it down and clear it out. They’d removed the bathroom fixtures, too. Now only the metal stumps in the concrete remained to show where it had been.

Eden handed him the beer she’d brought down for him. “Hi.”

He took the bottle and tapped his to hers. “Hi.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” He sipped his bear as he studied the empty space. “I’m one of the lucky ones, Eden.”

“How do you figure?”

“I got to face my demons today.”

“You not only faced them, you ended them.”

He smiled. “I did. It felt good.”

“Are you still afraid of the basement?”

“No. That’s over.”

“Then why don’t you come upstairs? Rocco’s got a game of croquet going. You could show him how a real man plays—Blade.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “‘Blade’, is it?”

She shrugged, grinning at him. “Well, you know. I’m sort of part of the team now. I thought I’d better toughen up. Start calling you what the team calls you.”

He wrapped an arm about her shoulders and pulled her close so that he could kiss her forehead. “I don’t want you to toughen up. I like you just the way you are.”

She climbed over his lap and rocked her hips against his. “Really? You only like me?”

He reached up and snagged his hand in her hair, drawing her down for a kiss. After a minute, he put his beer down so that both hands could have the pleasure of touching her. “I do like you. And I love you. And I look forward to the rest of my life with you.” His eyes grew serious. “That’s no small thing, Eden. You gave me back my future.”

She smiled. “You are the most incredible man I’ve ever met, Ty Bladen. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I love you so much.”

He winced. “Love me enough to delay our wedding?”

“Why?”

“Because Phillip Bladen wasn’t my father.” Eden gasped at that news. “I learned that today, before he was killed. Apparently my mother was having an affair with her bodyguard. My dad—the man I thought was my dad—killed her when she’d decided to leave him. I don’t want to go through life with that bastard’s name. Nor do I want to give it to you and our children. I’ve asked my lawyer to file paperwork to change my surname to my mother’s maiden name—Holt.”

“Ty Holt,” she tried out his new name. “I like it. You are the love of my life. I will wait for you forever.”

“It won’t be forever. Just a few weeks. Maybe by then things will have calmed down enough that we could fly your parents out here for the ceremony.”

“Oh, no. You don’t want to do that.”

“I do. I want to meet them. This is the only wedding you’re ever going to have, Eden. I want your parents here for it.”

She got off his lap and gave him a hand up. “I tell you what. If you beat me in a round of croquet, they can come out.”

He laughed. “You’re going down, baby. Because I am a master at the game.”

“Really? You ever played it before?”

He shook his head. “Never.” He smiled when she laughed. The warm sound filled the basement, chasing out all the shadows and old echoes in the room and in his heart. Her laughter was a sound he could listen to for the rest of his life and never get enough of it.

Other Books by Elaine Levine:

~Red Team Series~

(This series must be read in order)

1
The Edge of Courage
(2012)

2 Shattered Valor (2012)

3 Honor Unraveled (Coming in 2013)

~ Men of Defiance Series ~

(This series may be read in any order)

1
Rachel and the Hired Gun
(2009)

2
Audrey and the Maverick
(2010)

3
Leah and the Bounty Hunter
(2011)

4
Logan’s Outlaw
(2012)

5 Agnes and the Renegade (Coming in 2013)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at
[email protected]

Published by Elaine Levine

Copyright © 2012 Elaine Levine

Cover art by Hot Damn Designs

All rights reserved.

Print Edition ISBNs:

ISBN-10: 0985420529