Risky Romance (Wolf Security #4)

27. Grant

CHAPTER 27

Grant

Dawn shadows drifted across the hills behind me as I forced myself to crawl toward my house which was barely visible against the dark vegetation around it. No movement stirred outside and there were no vehicles in sight. That didn’t mean I was safe, though.

But I was dead if I stayed out here. Maybe I would be dead if I went inside. At least inside, I had my weapons, my phone, and my heavy-duty pain meds.

As I lay in the scrub gathering my strength, Tiger nuzzled her nose into my hand, demanding attention, and I glided my hand along her smooth fur. The morning sun crawled higher, heating the air until sweat ran into my eyes. My legs throbbed in waves of agony that threatened to splinter my consciousness.

Professional paranoia had kept me alive since I’d gotten in bed with Chui and Frank Morgan. I needed it more than ever now.

But if someone was in my hideout and they saw me, I couldn’t run anyway. Besides, those Alpha Tactical Ops bastards had that sniper bitch on their team. If Maya had me in her sights, hiding behind this tree wasn’t going to save me.

Something skittered through the undergrowth nearby, probably a bush turkey, yet my heart still jackhammered against my ribs.

I need to keep moving before the damn ants find me again.

Bracing for a new wave of pain, I shifted out from behind the tree trunk. Every drag across the ground sent fresh jolts of agony through my ruined legs.

The house gradually loomed closer until finally, the back door came into view.

Shit! The dark wood around the frame was splintered and the heavy security door hung by a single hinge.

The urge to run overwhelmed me, but my shattered legs made that impossible.

I watched and listened, but there was no movement around the house.

Tiger materialized beside me, rubbing against my arm as I inched inside. Her casual behavior was at odds with the chaos crashing through my mind. Yet the rational part of my brain decided that my cat’s instincts were better than any security system. If someone was lying in wait, Tiger would be skittish.

Buoyed by this conviction, I forced my arms to keep dragging my body forward. Each pull across the ground was like glass grinding across my wounds, but I kept moving until I reached the back patio where the tiles tracked my progress in smears of crimson.

I reached the door and froze. A pool of dried blood spread across the threshold like a welcome mat from hell.

John’s blood? It had to be.

A bloody trail disappeared into the darkness beyond the broken door and as I followed the gruesome path inside, Tiger wound between my arms, purring, apparently completely unconcerned.

I listened again. Nothing but the hum of my electrical appliances and Tiger’s intensifying purrs. I searched the dark shadows for John, or any other assholes ready to get the jump on me. The house was dark and silent.

Each pull across the slate floor sent waves of nausea rolling through me, but I kept moving. Tiger shadowed me, pausing to investigate the bloody drops marking my path. She licked John’s dried blood.

“Leave it!” I hissed at her and my voice sounded foreign, stretched thin with pain and exhaustion.

Morning sunlight filtered through the windows, and I gasped at the mess in my kitchen. The sink overflowed with bloody paper towels, crimson handprints smeared the white cabinets, and blood spattered the floor. Drawers and cupboards hung open, suggesting John had rummaged through them, and bloody fingerprints smudged over a roll of gaffer tape on the floor.

John had tried to patch himself up here.

Where is he now?

I didn’t care. The pain in my legs had become a living thing, chewing through bone and muscle with ravenous intensity. I needed pills. Strong ones. My stash of prescription-strength painkillers was in the top cabinet, and I cursed myself for the security measure that now seemed like sadistic irony.

I grabbed a chair, dragging it close enough to attempt standing. Sweat poured down my face as I forced my trembling body upward and each inch was a fresh lesson in agony. The room spun around me and sweat poured down my face as I urged my trembling body to cooperate. I couldn’t stop. Not now.

My useless legs wouldn’t bear weight, and even braced against the counter, I couldn’t reach the cabinet.

From the second drawer, I grabbed a set of barbecue tongs that I’d never used, and leaning against the counter, I fumbled with the cabinet door. The door thudded open, and I played the world’s most sadistic carnival game as I fished for pill bottles with tongs in my trembling hands.

Plastic containers clattered across the blood-stained counter, and I found the one I needed. I swallowed three pills without water, gagging as they caught in my dry throat.

The effort drained what little strength remained in my legs, and I crumpled, hitting the tiles face-first. The impact sent white-hot lightning through my body and tore a howl from my throat that echoed through the house.

If anyone was here, they definitely knew I was here now.

Once the stars cleared from my vision, I dragged my body to the fridge, guzzled half a bottle of orange juice, and chewed through a block of cheese.

The painkillers began their slow crawl through my system as I slumped against the lower cabinets, forcing my scattered thoughts into some semblance of order. I frowned at another bloody trail leading toward the front of the house.

I shoved the bottle of painkillers into my pocket, and following the macabre path, I dragged myself across the slate floor until I reached the entryway. The front door gaped open and morning light spilled across the threshold like liquid gold. Tiger appeared beside me and stopped to lick yet another dark stain on the floor.

“Get out of here,” I yelled and gasped at a wave of pain blazing through me. “Stupid cat.”

She responded by turning her ass at me and trotting toward the living room.

I pulled myself to the doorway, half expecting to find John’s body on my front porch.

But I didn’t. The gravel driveway was empty, and tire tracks carved through blood drops confirmed John had taken his motorcycle.

How the hell did he ride it?

Last I’d seen him, he could barely walk, and that was before he’d lost a hideous amount of blood.

But the real question was . . . where was he heading?

And more importantly, would he survive long enough to reach his destination?

Would he go to a hospital? No, he was a stubborn bastard. He would try to get as far away as he could, but I doubted he could manage on that motorbike for too long. He would need help. And I knew exactly who he would ask—Bruce.

My thoughts stuttered.

Who could I call for help?

I needed someone with resources, someone who could keep quiet. The list of people who fit that description was dangerously short. In fact, there was only one person . . . B. And that bitch was evil.

As I dragged myself to my office desk, leaving fresh streaks of blood across the floor, there were no traces that John had come this way. So he hadn’t used my phone. Pity, my tracking software would have told me who he’d called.

It took three attempts to pull myself into my office chair and I was so fucking exhausted by the time I flopped into the chair, black spots danced at the edges of my vision. As I fought to stay conscious and each breath burned in my chest, I turned on my monitors. The computer woke with a hum, and my security panel showed green across the board, so my extensive surveillance system was still recording. Ignoring my trembling fingers, I accessed the front door camera feed and rewound through hours of footage until I found John.

The grainy night-vision footage showed John struggling to stay upright. His severed arm was wrapped in a blue checkered tea towel, and he’d fashioned a crude tourniquet using gaffer tape to secure it in position. But the dark blood stain on the cloth confirmed the bleeding hadn’t stopped.

It took John three attempts to start the motorbike, then gripping with one hand, he tore off into the darkness like a lunatic.

I shook my head. Fucking bastard was stubborn enough to survive that wound.

My leg seized with white-hot pain as if reminding me that I needed to do the same.

Fighting waves of nausea, I dove into the dark web, searching police frequencies and incident reports. I didn’t find anything about Cody and Jewel walking out of the jungle, or their bodies being discovered. Nothing about a raid on the plantation. No reports of a one-armed man found dead along the highway. And nothing showed up about a truck being discovered full of illicit drugs.

The silence was deafening, wrong. Either someone had contained the situation with terrifying efficiency, or . . .

Ice spread through my veins as another possibility surfaced: my system could be compromised. Everything I was seeing—or not seeing—could be carefully curated lies.

If anyone had connections to do that, it was B.

Contacting her was making a deal with the devil, but she was my only option. I opened my dark web messenger service and typed a message: B. Plantation compromised. Situation critical. Need urgent help.

The words stared back at me and each statement was a potential landmine. Too much information could get me killed. Too little, and she might ignore the message entirely.

I hit send.

Tiger materialized from nowhere, landing on my keyboard with feline grace. I jerked backward, and my leg connected with the desk. Pain exploded through me like a flash-bang grenade, tearing a sound from my throat like a wounded boar.

“Jesus Christ, cat.” I backhanded her away. She leaped off my desk, and as she scampered away, I gripped the bench, desperate for the blinding fog to shift from my brain. The painkillers were wearing off, and my wounds were biting again. I spilled the pills onto the desk and the urge to down another three was powerful. Forcing myself to take just one, I swallowed it and stared at the three dots pulsing on the screen, begging B to respond.

I pulled up the footage of the exterior cameras dotted around the property. All clear.

Still no reply from B.

Trust that fucking bitch to keep me waiting.

I jabbed out another message. Situation critical for you too. Reply ASAP.

Rather than stare at the screen, I rolled across the floor on my chair, heading for my bedroom at the rear of the house and into my bathroom. My reflection in the mirror was horrifying. Blood and dirt covered my face, my skin was gray, and my eyes were red raw.

With shaking hands, I removed the bloody strip of fabric away from the gash at the top of my thigh. The makeshift bandage was soaked through and clung to my skin like a blood-sucking creature. Each tug sent blazing pain through me, but I gritted my teeth and kept going.

As the last strip fell away, horror washed over me. Raw and angry shades of red spread from either side of the deep wound, and fresh blood oozed from the jagged cut and dribbled toward my knee.

Forcing breaths out through my open mouth, so I didn’t pass out, I repeated the process with the broken bone sticking out of my shin.

A gasp tore from my throat. The wound was worse than I’d imagined. The flesh around the severed bone oozed a sickly mixture of blood and pus and jagged bits of bone glistening with blood.

“Oh God!” I slumped in the chair.

How long can I last like this?

How long before infection sets in around that exposed bone?

Will they amputate my leg?

Bile shot up my throat, and I retched chunks of cheese onto the floor. Gasping for air, I stared into my bloodshot eyes. “Fuck!”

Dread settled over me like a concrete block and I could barely breathe.

I swallowed hard. “I can do this.”

I had to survive. Had to.

I wet a towel and gritting my teeth, I dabbed dried blood and dirt away from my wound. Every touch stung like hell. Every movement shot spears of fire right into my groin. My stomach wobbled back and forth, urging me to vomit again.

Clenching my jaw, I fought through the agony until the wounds were clean. I yanked open the vanity drawers, searching for the first aid kit I’d bought years ago.

I tugged out the red bag and dumped the contents onto the counter. Bandages, antiseptic, safety pins. The meager supplies were laughable. I needed more than bandages. These wounds needed stitches. Hell, they needed a surgeon.

Dread blazed through me again and I clenched my jaw so hard I couldn’t breathe.

Heaving a massive breath, I opened the antiseptic and poured it onto a hand towel, my heart racing as I prepared for the sting. I pressed the cloth to the gash across my thigh and a roar of pain burst from my throat.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I cleaned my wounds and redressed them in fresh bandages, riding waves of agony.

With that done, I rolled the chair back to the kitchen and downed a glass of water and another painkiller. Then I returned to my computer and toggled the mouse to wake the screen.

My breath hitched. B had replied.

What the fuck is going on?

How much did she know?

Has John or Bruce contacted you about the Border Force woman?

What BF woman?

That answered a lot.

BF woman caught by Bruce spying on farm. She escaped with Cody. Do you know where John, Bruce, or Cody are?

No word from John. Where is he?

John has lost his mind. He crashed my chopper and took off, saying he’s done with the farm. Do you know where Bruce or Cody are?

I sent Bruce to take care of that truck to contain our product.

Huh? She knew about that, but not Jewel. Maybe the situation wasn’t as derailed as I’d thought.

How did you find out about the truck?

Where’s Cody and BF woman? She’d dodged my question.

They ran into the Daintree Rainforest, and we lost them.

Fucking idiots.

Did she mean them? Or us? Probably both.

If they were found the cops would be crawling all over this place.

How much did BF woman see?

I didn’t know. If I told her Jewel saw everything, would that make her come to me quicker? Or would she take off like John had?

Enough to make them run.

Is Cody working with her? What’s her name?

Yes, he is. Jewel Wagner.

I’ll sort them out.

Sort them out? I knew of other people she’d sorted out. The bodies of three of them were never found again.

B, I have severe injuries. I can’t walk. You need to help me.

Call an ambulance. I got enough shit to deal with. Thanks to you.

I clenched my jaw. I didn’t do anything. Bruce and John are the fucking idiots.

You all are.

If I call an ambulance, the cops will get involved.

The cops are already involved.

What? How did she know that? Was I right about her censoring my intel?

If I’m caught, I’m taking you down with me. I have records on every Scorpion drug and trafficking op going back decades, including intel on you. Holding my breath, I hit send.

I stared at the blinking indicator. Tiger curled around my legs and licked my ankle. The seconds on my digital clock ticked over.

Calm the fuck down. I’ll send a chopper. Where are you?

Thank Christ. I gave her the location of my hideout overlooking the plantation.

Stay put. The messenger window went dark.

Relief washed over me, but as the seconds ticked on, my mind careened from one hell to the next.

Would B send help?

If she did, would they make it in time to save me?

Should I call an ambulance and try to escape once they patched me up? No, the answer to that was easy. These wounds would attract questions I wouldn’t want to answer, and I would be in handcuffs before they took me to a hospital bed.

One final question turned my mind to mush: If B does send someone, would they come to save me, or kill me?