Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
Sully
“Get out,” Fallon snapped, pushing Nave through the door when he hesitated. “We’ll call the bomb squad,” he said, turning back to me, Callow, and the girl who looked like she was about to pass out.
She was a fucking pretty little thing. Small and slight with white-blonde hair, gray eyes, delicate features, and plump lips.
Not that this was the time to focus on that kind of thing.
“There’s no time,” I said, my gaze landing on the red numbers counting down at the center of the woman’s chest.
It was a cheap timer, something a step up from using a watch.
Three minutes.
It would take NBPD at least half an hour to get a bomb squad all the way out here.
“Can you get it off of her?” Fallon asked.
“Heya, honey, just try to take a couple of deep breaths for me, okay?” I asked, hands moving to the sides of the vest. “No,” I told Fallon.
The bastard had not only sewn her into the vest but had wound the wires through the stitching. If I cut the vest, I’d cut the wires.
“Can you… diffuse it?” Fallon asked, a hint of panic in his voice.
“Yep. Yeah. Absolutely,” I added, trying to keep my own voice calm for the sake of the woman who seemed like she was seconds away from passing out from hyperventilating.
“Sull,” Callow said, voice tight.
“Nothing we haven’t seen before, right, man?” I shot back, my gaze trying to follow the seemingly endless twisted wires.
Yellow.
All of them were yellow.
That shit you saw in movies or TV shows where there were different colored wires to indicate warm or cold ones? Yeah, that was pure bullshit. No bomb maker worth his salt would make it that easy to figure out which wires to cut to diffuse it.
“Gonna need some wire snippers,” I said to Callow, who was quick to turn and run toward the garage. “You’re gonna be just fine, honey,” I told her, inspecting the battery box. “I don’t plan on getting blown up today, okay?”
To that, she sniffled but nodded her head.
“What’s your name?” I asked, trying to keep her focused. Because the last thing I needed was for her to pass out when I was trying to snip a wire.
“B… Bonnie.”
“Well, hi, Bonnie. Thanks,” I said to Callow. “Now get the fuck out,” I said, casting him the smallest of glances.
“No.”
“Go,” I demanded again. “And take the prez with you,” I added, taking a deep breath as the timer ticked down to a minute and a half. “Now,” I hissed.
He wanted to argue.
No man left behind and all that brotherhood shit we lived and breathed in the service.
But he and Fallon, they had women, kids, people they needed to worry about.
If I went up in flames, it was just me.
Not that I was planning on that happening.
As soon as Callow and Fallon were gone, it seemed like my mind cleared, like my vision got sharper.
There were so many fucking wires.
Too many.
Like the maker had attempted to make it seem more sophisticated than it was.
At its root, any bomb was a pretty simple set up: battery, timer, wires, blasting caps. And the explosives themselves, usually filled with all sorts of gnarly shit—nails, ball bearings, broken glass, pieces of metal. And, of course, some sort of chemical to make them go boom.
But bomb makers would know that any fool would know those basics, would be able to cut the wire from the battery, and therefore the power, so they did shit like adding a capacitor and a few transistors.
This bomb was full of shit that made it look complicated as hell, that made you want to second-guess yourself, thinking that if you cut the battery wire, you might trigger the bomb.
The closer I looked, though, the more it all seemed for show: wires that went nowhere, boxes that weren’t live.
It was a really fucking simple device, despite appearances. Like some novice found plans online and put the most basic effort into it.
“Alright, Bonnie, honey, take a deep breath with me,” I said as I slipped the wire cutter under the wires leading from the battery compartment.
If I was wrong, it was over for the two of us.
And the clubhouse.
But the timer was ticking down.
Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…
Inaction would have us just as dead.
“Here we go,” I said, squeezing my hand together on the cutters.
There was a second of absolute fucking terror.
But the timer stopped.
“Okay. Alright. That’s it,” I said, dropping the wire cutters to the floor, then reaching for the bottom of the vest. “Arms up, baby. Let me get this off.”
And outside.
Just in case.
Her whole body was racked with shivers, but her shirt under the vest was wet with nervous sweat.
I wanted to tell her to be still, just in case. I was sure the timer had stopped. But what if there was some secondary trigger? I wanted to be as careful as possible until the vest was out and away from anyone it could hurt if it did go off.
But she was losing her shit. Even if I asked, there was no way she could stop the shaking.
So as carefully as I could manage, I lifted the vest up and off of her.
“Sull, how’s it going?” Callow asked, pulling open the door slowly.
“I cut this,” I told him, holding up the vest. “But do you mind carrying it out to the backyard, away from everyone? Just in case.”
Callow nodded.
“Carefully,” I said. “Really fucking carefully,” I told him, getting a nod from him.
Then I turned back to the girl, still standing stiff, her hands curled into fists at her sides, her body shaking, tears flooding down her cheeks.
“It’s over, Bonnie,” I told her, reaching out to press a hand to her shoulder.
And she just… crumpled.
“Okay. Alright,” I said, my voice soft as I dropped down in front of her, reaching out and pulling her against me. “You’re okay now,” I assured her, wrapping her up tighter and tighter as her body seemed determined to shake apart.
I murmured to her, running my hand down her back or over her hair, trying to ground her.
I was aware of Fallon, Brooks, and some of the others filing back inside, moving nearly silently around, giving the poor girl a chance to try to work through her panic.
The problem was, it didn’t seem to be getting better. If anything, her breathing was getting faster and faster, like she was gasping for breath, like she felt she couldn’t catch it.
She was going to pass out at this rate.
Glancing to the side, I spotted Nave.
Ice packs, I mouthed to him.
He came back a moment later, and I took one of the ice packs, slipped it under her shirt, and pressed it against her bare back.
The response was immediate. She stiffened and hissed, but her breathing immediately evened out.
“Little better, right?” I asked, reaching for the next one and pressing it to the back of her neck. “How about we breathe together for a bit?” I suggested. Her gaze was down, but she nodded. “In for four,” I instructed, breathing with her. “Hold for seven. Good. Exhale for eight. In for four more...”
Little by little, the shaking slowed, and the tears with it.
“There you go,” I said when she finally pulled back. Reaching up, I wiped the tears from her reddened cheeks. “What can I get for you? Coffee? Tea? Something cold? We can do something better than the hard ground, too,” I said, getting to my own feet, reaching for her hands, then pulling her to her feet with me.
She became aware of all the men at once, her head ducking so her hair curtained her face from their gazes as I led her past them.
“Want to go somewhere quiet for a few minutes?” I asked, thinking of my room. It would give her a chance to finish pulling herself together. And I could get a few minutes with the guys to share in our collective ‘What the fuck?’
“Okay,” she whispered.
I kept my hand in hers as I led her into the hall, then to my room.
“Help yourself to anything in here. Blankets, change of clothes. There’s a bathroom through there with anything you could need. I’ll come check on you in a couple minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, moving immediately to the chair in the corner of the room and lowering numbly down onto it.
“If you need me before then, call me, okay?”
“Call you what?” she asked, finally glancing up, those gorgeous gray eyes of hers all red from tears.
“Sully,” I told her as I stepped into the hall and closed the door.
The low chatter in the common area quieted as I moved into the doorway.
“Sull, man, that was impressive as fuck,” Perish said, shaking his head at me.
“Eh, been around my fair share of explosives in my day,” I said, shrugging it off. Because any other reaction was unacceptable. I couldn’t let myself go there again. I’d worked too fucking hard to get past that. I wouldn’t be dragged back. In Navesink Bank, of all places. “So, that was interesting.”
“Interesting,” Fallon repeated. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“I missed the beginning of that,” I said. “Anyone wanna fill me in?”
“I’d just walked in,” Callow said. “Was talking to Fallon. Then the door opened again. Didn’t think anything of it until Fallon’s face froze. Turned around, saw her standing there.
“Did she say anything?” I asked. “What?” I pressed when Callow and Fallon shared a look.
“She said she needed to see Sully,” Fallon said.
“And that’s about all that happened before you showed up,” Callow added. “What can you tell us about that vest? Typical suicide bomb vest, right?”
“Not really, no.”
“Why not really?” Fallon pressed.
“Because there’s no need for the visible timer on a suicide vest. That’s flashy and unnecessary. You’d normally have a handheld trigger. That way, the bomb is going to go off even if someone tries to take out the bomber first. The visible timer… that’s some movie-type shit.”
I was aware of the curious glances of some of the guys. It was expected. When I’d worked so hard to bury this side of myself, to mask it with all the lighter shit in life that I enjoyed a fuckuva lot more than my time in the service. Especially those last few months…
No.
Nope.
Wasn’t gonna let my mind go there.
But, yeah, it was easy for them all to forget that most of my adult life had been spent overseas, seeing and doing shit none of them could ever understand. Save for maybe Callow.
“Okay. So… What are your other observations?”
“I think it took a lot of work and effort to look more complicated than it was.”
“Meaning?”
“I think the builder wanted to look like his skills were more advanced than they were. It was basic, under all the frills.”
“She said she was here with a message for you,” Brooks said.
I bit the inside of my cheek and offered him a head shake.
“You don’t know what it’s about?”
“No clue.”
“What about the girl?” Fallon pressed.
“Bonnie, she said her name was. But no… I don’t know her.”
“You’re sure? Not even a one-night thing?” Brooks asked. “Club girl?”
Nothing about that woman said she was the sort to be a club girl.
“No. I’m sure. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen her before.” I was reasonably sure I’d have remembered all that pretty.
“We’re gonna need to talk to her,” Fallon said.
“I figured,” I agreed. “Think I can maybe bring her a drink first? Make her more comfortable? Won’t get anywhere if she’s too freaked to speak. And you might want to consider getting some women in here,” I said, looking around at the sausage fest.
It was enough to scare any woman, being surrounded by so many strange men. But something about this Bonnie chick told me she was more on the skittish side than most.
“Alright,” Fallon agreed, nodding. “That’s a good idea. See if we can get Chris down here from Hailstorm. And if Layna and Vi are in town…”
With them distracted by their plans, I took myself into the kitchen, grabbing a tray and making mugs of coffee, tea, and hot chocolate to bring with me back to my room. Everyone liked some sort of hot beverage. And they were universally soothing.
We needed her as comfortable as possible if we were going to get information out of her.
“Bonnie?” I called through the door. “Can I come back in?”
There was a short pause, then a whispered, “Okay.”
Pushing the door open, I found she’d stripped my bed of its comforter and was currently using it to try to disappear into its depths on the same chair I’d left her in.
This might require more than just a hot beverage…