Sweet Recovery (Ex Ops Series Book 4) (16 page)

Even though I was technically looking over his head at the wall out of respect, I could still see his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. He then masked his features and asked, “Is there something you need to let me know, Young? A particular reason you suddenly need personal time out of the blue?”

My response was short and to the point. “No, sir.”

That didn’t appease Jaxon at all.

“You in some kind of trouble I need to know about?”

Again, “No, sir.”

He was quiet for a moment, and then he leaned forward and rested his arms on his desktop. “Let’s be frank here, Young. I don’t trust you. You came off the Miami mission and threw yourself into a drunken hole. Half the time you came to work, I second-guessed myself on whether or not I should let you go on a mission.”

I started to open my mouth, but he cut me off. “Shut your trap, soldier. I’m not done. Not only did you put yourself at risk, but you put your teammates at risk. I found myself damn close to kicking you out for good.”

“What stopped you, sir?” The question was out of my mouth before I had time to think about it. We might not officially be in the military anymore, but every man in this building had been a soldier in some capacity and knew better than to question his superiors, which was exactly what my dumbass had just done.

Surprisingly, though, Jaxon gave me an answer. “Remember what you told me when I asked you what happened in Miami?”

Hell yeah, I remembered. There wasn’t enough alcohol on this side of the continent that could ever make me forget. I had fessed up like some pansy ass that I’d had my heart broken.

Not wanting to say anything to that effect out loud, I gave my commander a silent nod, instead.

After a minute or so of silent deliberation, Jaxon finally continued. “Let’s just say I know exactly what that can do to a man. Burns like a motherfucker when you’re not the one your woman chooses. That’s the only pass I’ll ever give you, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered immediately.

Walking into this office, I hadn’t been looking for a reprieve for my behavior, but Jaxon must have known I needed it. Suddenly, it felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off my conscious. Now I needed the man to grant me personal time so I could fix the biggest mistake of my life: letting Gin walk out of it a second time without fighting harder.

“Whatever you’re about to go and do—and you better be fucking honest with me here, Young—do you need backup?”

“No, sir.” That answer was also immediate. I didn’t even need a second to think about it. This was my problem, and I was going to solve it.

Jaxon sighed heavily, and I knew instantly he was not happy with my decision.

“Playing the lone wolf again, I see. For that alone, I should tell you no, but I have a feeling, if I told you no, you would just disappear, anyway. And the last thing I need for you to do is go AWOL on me. This isn’t the Army anymore, Young. If you disappear on Uncle Sam and the powers that be, then you won’t end up in the brig. You’ll end up dead, understood?”

“Yes, sir.” I knew that fact all too well. I had signed enough paperwork when I had accepted this position to know that our handler, Uncle Sam, or even the president himself had the power to make me disappear at a moment’s notice. It was not a threat a man took lightly.

“Good. Are you giving me a timeframe here?”

“Two weeks, tops. If something comes up, I’ll contact you.”

“Understood. Stay out of trouble, Young, and call immediately if you change your mind and need backup. Dismissed.”

After giving Jaxon a salute, I spun around and marched out of that office like my ass was on fire. I had to pack, book a flight, and bug out of here as quickly as possible. This time, I was going to do what I should have fucking done years ago. I was going to take back what was mine.

Before I could get her, I needed to figure out what was going on in her life. Who was she engaged to and why? Because now that my brain had decided to come out of denial, I knew without a doubt that my angel would never marry another man because she wanted to. Therefore, something else had to be going on here. Nothing else made sense to me.

If she was in some sort of trouble, she was the sort of person who would do whatever she had to in order to solve it on her own. We were kindred souls that way. Only, now she needed to learn that I was the person she could turn to when the world was trying to break her down. I was her fucking Atlas, and I would carry her entire world on my shoulders if I had to.

As I stepped out of the building and headed to my SUV, I thought about the possible places I could take her if we had to disappear, the safe houses I knew about where we couldn’t be found. There was a cabin in Canada, a shack in the bayou, and a little beach house in North Carolina. It would require either hopping a flight or hightailing it in a car, hotel hopping along the way, but any of those places could safely hole us up for a while. Any of those places could give me the time I might need to get through my girl’s thick head and stubbornness. This time, my angel was damn well going to listen to me, even if I had to tie her up with her own damn panties again.

Ginny would be given no choice. I was going to haul her ass somewhere and make her understand what she should have understood in Miami. She was mine. She sure as shit wasn’t going to marry someone else while I was still breathing.

By the time I was done with her, my angel would know without a doubt three things:

One, we were meant to be together.

Two, another man would never lay a hand on what I considered mine.

Three, I loved her so much I was willing to kidnap, coerce, and even fucking grovel for her to stay with me. I would be damned if I ever watched her walk away from me again.

~~~

For the second time today, I had to ask someone for a favor. That shit burned my ass, but I had to find out what was going on with Ginny before I headed to Chicago. So, as I started packing a bag, I was also on the phone to the one person who could dig up gossip in the blink of an eye—my sister.

After graduating high school, Olivia had obtained her degree to pursue her dream job, something I didn’t understand a thing about—fashion. Now she worked for one of the larger New York fashion magazines. I thought it was a complete waste of time and breath until I realized the girl heard more gossip than a priest in a confessional. For once, I had a feeling my sister’s talents and connections were going to be of some use to me.

I shoved another shirt into my bag as the line stopped ringing and Olivia picked up the phone on the other end. “Lucas?” her surprised voice asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, Liv, I need you to do me a favor.”

The line went silent for so long I was afraid we had been disconnected. Pulling back my screen to check the connection, I saw the call was still active. I put the phone back to my ear and asked, “Liv, you there?”

Her bewildered voice finally answered me. “Let me get this straight; you called me at midnight to ask for a favor?”

Fuck. Was it really midnight already? I knew I had gone in to see Jaxon just after nine, knowing he would still be in his office, doing paperwork after our mission debriefings.

When I glanced over at the clock, the red digital numbers glared at me in accusation. 12:12 a.m.

“Shit, sorry, Liv. I didn’t realize what time it was. I hate to bug you at this hour, but I really need that favor. You can go back to sleep after you’re done.”

My sister snorted a laugh. “I wasn’t asleep to begin with, you idiot. What do you need?”

Now I was the one who was confused. Why the hell was my sister wide awake in the middle of the night?

Shaking my head, I kept my focus on what needed to be done. “You and your little cronies are the gossip queens. I need one of you to look through the Chicago news sites to see if you can find an engagement announcement for Ginny. You might have to look back at least a year.”

A strangled gasp came through the line. “You are shittin’ me!”

“No. No, I am not. Now, can you find that info for me and email it to me ASAP? I need to know who her fiancé is and any other information you can find. This is the first solid lead I’ve had on her in years.”

“How in the hell did you find out she was engaged, Lucas!” Olivia shrieked.

I didn’t have time for this shit. “I can explain later. I need details now.”

A small, feminine growl sounded off in my ear. “And what if I tell you I refuse to help you until you give me those details?”

I gave it to my sister straight. “Then you’re not only letting your brother down, but also your best friend. I think Gin is in some kind of trouble, and I’m trying to get her the hell out of it. Best case scenario, she’s not in trouble, and I make her see that I’m the one she should be spending the rest of her life with. Now, are you going to keep being a pain in my ass, or are you going to help me get the information I need to go get my woman?”

It didn’t take my sister long to give me an answer. “I’ll have anything I find to you as fast as I can. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.”

I wasn’t surprised by her answer. It was no secret that my sister wanted her best friend back, and back in a way that meant she was a part of the family in every way that counted.

“Fuckin’ fantastic. Thank you.”

I hung up the phone and continued packing anything and everything I thought I might need. Necessities only. I had to keep my bag light in case I had to take Gin and go on the run.

After I was done, I placed a call to the Ex Ops team’s contact at the airfield and inquired if there were any flights headed out soon.

They had four planes headed out in the next three hours on cargo and inventory runs to Fort Carson, Colorado; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Polk, Louisiana; and Fort Knox, Kentucky. None of the flights were a direct route, but I could take the hop to Kentucky and drive the remaining distance with a rental car.

I informed my contact that I would be taking the Kentucky hop and hung up the phone. After mapping out a route from Fort Knox to Chicago—about a six-hour drive—I also booked a rental car near the base’s airfield.

Everything was falling into place. It was only a matter of time before I would be in the same city that Gin was in. I hoped my angel was ready for the devil himself to come and get her, because not even hell itself could stop me.

Chapter

12

Ginny

Dear Lord, please save me from my meddlesome mother.

While I might have finally agreed to marry Jay to escape my father’s prison, that did not mean I wanted to talk about my upcoming wedding every blasted minute of the day. Heck, she was lucky if I wanted to talk about it once a week! I needed my space so I didn’t go cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

My life had boiled down to hiding in my suite, working on my art like a madwoman, and drinking. Most days, I passed out in the chair I had been sitting in, only to wake up with either a crick in my neck or on the floor. Logically, I knew this was not a good development, but at this point in my life, who gave a crap about logic? Life was about surviving any way you could, and alcohol helped the days go by.

Unfortunately, my drinking habits had not gone unnoticed. Even Jay had caught on to how often I drank now. He wasn’t particularly happy about it, but he always tried to keep a positive spin on it by promising me that things would be better soon.

Was he that optimistic about our marriage? Because as much as I would like to be, I wasn’t. Not at all.

The only thing that had been positive about these weeks I had spent locked away was that I had so much material lying around that I could possibly take it to a publisher if I wanted to. A full range of the grimmest fairy tale predictions anyone could ever imagine. Beauty owning the beast. The sleeping princess wasting away instead of being woken up by true love’s kiss. Even a piece where the little mermaid drowned the prince in a fishing net. They were dark and twisted, but they spoke to me on levels not many could understand.

For that reason alone, I might never let another living person see them. Only time would tell what would become of them. In this moment, though, they were my salvation and my curse. My representation of hell and my visualization of redemption.

The only other thing that mattered to me as much as my art was Lucas’s locket. I went to sleep with it clutched in my hand and woke up with it still in my grasp. Feeling that hard metal got me through the nightmares of leaving him and daydreams of always having him. It even helped me through those weak moments when I touched myself and thought about him being with me one more time.

The only thing that locket did not get me through was the guilt I felt for wearing it around Jay.

He came to see me regularly now, often taking me out so I could get out from under my father’s ever-watchful eyes. The funny thing was, even though he was extremely caring and considerate, I would sometimes see him staring off into space, as if he were thinking of someone else. The redhead perhaps? I couldn’t be sure. Nor did I have the courage to ask him if he was a prisoner of his circumstances as I was.

To be honest, I had accepted my mother’s reasoning for marrying Jay as an escape. Beyond that … I couldn’t imagine. Right now, my life was about taking it one day at a time and hoping for the best. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine a life worse than this, anyway.

At least by doing this, I knew my mother, Lucas, and the Young family would be safe. After all, if something ever happened to them, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

Lucas

Thank God for nosey, little sisters.

I was two hours outside of Chicago when my phone chimed that I had a new email. Pulling the car over to the side of the road, I brought up my inbox with bated breath and then sighed in relief when I saw it was from Olivia. All she had sent was a link to an article in the Tribune, but that link gave me the tip off I had been looking for.

Mr. and Mrs. Richard Wellington of Chicago, Illinois are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Virginia Wellington, to Sanjay Kahn, son of Mr. and Mrs. Sandeep Kahn of London, England. The future bride is the only child of the Wellingtons who both have long time ties to the local community and the upper crust society here. The future groom is the sole heir to the multi-billion dollar Kahn Industries. An early 2017 wedding is being planned by the well-known local wedding celebrity planner, Katrina King.