Chapter Twenty
W ith the boy in her arms, she turned and ran. Literally ran.
Like a fucking pussy, I hesitated.
The light changed and downtown Miami traffic flooded the intersection.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He wasn’t the boy. He was my son. I knew it like I knew my own damn name. His eyes, his hair, his face—it was me as a kid. Exactly me.
She disappeared into the parking structure across the street.
God-fucking-damn it .
I whipped my cell out and called Luna.
He answered on the first ring. “What happened?”
I stepped into the street, not giving a fuck about traffic. “I got a situation.”
“I heard. Sawyer called.”
Horns honked as I dodged cars. My head fucked, adrenaline pounding, only two cryptic words came out. “It’s her.”
Silence.
“Luna,” I barked.
“Amigo,” he stated. “It’s been three years.”
I knew exactly how fucking long it’d been. Three years, four months, and one goddamn week. Luna knew how long it’d been too. I’d made him look for her when I’d gone back downrange. And I’d made looking for her a condition of my employment with him when I got out of the Marines three months later. I’d made him promise to look for her for one year. I never fucking thought he wouldn’t find her. André Luna found everyone. It’s what he did. He wasn’t the best in the personal protection and hostage recovery business because he sat on his ass. He worked for it. Just like he would’ve with any paying client, he’d looked for her. I’d looked for her.
But she was the fucking wind.
All we had was that security footage from the early hours of that morning after I’d fucked her. We’d never even gotten a shot of the asshole’s face she’d kissed, not even when they’d left in my truck.
Six months later, Orlando PD found the burned hull of my truck near a known chop shop. The only recognizable part of it was the VIN tag from the dash.
But there’d been no signs of her anywhere.
She’d never gone back to Dax’s bar, and nine months after I’d gotten out of the Marines, on the one-year anniversary of her walking out on me and stealing my truck, Luna’d taken me out to get drunk as fuck, then told me to move on.
I didn’t tell him I didn’t know how.
So I worked.
Because women were fucking trouble. Two kinds of trouble. The kind that bled your checkbook dry and the kind of trouble with a capital T. The kind like Brookelyn fucking Dodger. Dodger wasn’t her last name. I didn’t even know what the fuck her last name was. Turned out, neither did Dax, so I’d made up a last name for her.
Dodger .
For the only woman I’d ever offered shit to.
Fuck her.
“You sure you wanna do this?” Luna asked.
Holding my hand up, I stopped a fucking car and crossed the last lane as I ran toward the parking structure. “She has my kid.” I was fucking doing this. “I need eyes on the south parking structure. Now.”
Luna swore in Spanish. “ Dios mio . All right, all right. ”
I barely heard his hands fly across his keyboard over the sound of traffic.
“I’m out of time,” I warned. “She’s got a few seconds’ lead on me.”
“I’m in,” Luna reassured. “What am I looking for? Same description?”
I didn’t bother telling him her eyes were more haunted and her shoulders were hunched against a weight heavier than my son in her arms. Or that she was so fucking beautiful, she stole my goddamn breath.
I ran up the exit ramp. “Exactly the same. Brown curly hair everywhere, long-sleeved white T-shirt, jeans, and a kid in her arms. He’s about two.” It wasn’t lost on me that the boy had a buzz cut like mine. Or that she was still wearing long-sleeved shirts to hide the scars on her wrists.
“Okay, I’m scanning the security camera feeds for the parking structure now. First and second floor clear.” He paused. “Third floor clear.”
Jogging toward the stairs, I barked out an order. “Hurry, she’s gonna—”
“Got her,” Luna interrupted. “Fourth floor.”
My heart fucking pounded. “Vehicle description?”
“ Madre de dios .” Luna whistled low. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
“What?” I snapped, adrenaline pumping like a motherfucker.
“Ford Raptor.” Luna paused, then he dropped the bomb. “Matte black.”
My hand on the stairwell door, I paused. “What?” Ford Raptors didn’t come in matte black. It wasn’t a factory color.
“Bro.” Luna exhaled.
Matte black was a custom color. The custom color I’d had my truck painted.
“Looks like she has your truck, amigo. ”
Rage. Singular and consuming. I shoved the stairwell door open.
“You’re not gonna make it,” Luna warned. “She’s already behind the wheel.”
Half up the first flight already, I pivoted and jumped down six steps. Kicking the door open, I ran toward the exit ramp. “How long,” I demanded.
“Thirty seconds,” Luna answered. “Minute tops. Sawyer’s on his way for backup. Turn your comm back on.”
“I don’t need fucking backup.”
“ Jesucristo , Collins. You’re halfway between the stairs and the exit. I see you on the feeds, and she’s rounding the last turn toward the exit, seconds from being a ghost again. Turn your fucking comm on and use Sawyer as backup. He’s in his SUV double-parked street side.”
I hung up and ran.
Pocketing my phone, I turned my comm back on and sprinted toward the exit ramp. Running parallel but two aisles over, I watched her pull down the ramp in my fucking truck.
I wasn’t going to make it.
“Sawyer,” I barked. “I’m not going to be able to stop her.”
“On it,” he replied calmly.
I mentally calculated the distance to the exit, and like a long-range shot, I took in speed and trajectory. “I’m fifteen seconds out.” But she was already at the exit. If the gate lifted in the next five seconds, I wasn’t gonna make it. “Don’t let her leave.”
“Copy that,” Sawyer answered in his monotone voice that gave nothing away.
“I’m fucking serious,” I warned. “She doesn’t make it onto the street.”
“Copy” was all he said.
I flew across the aisle, cut past a row of parked cars and hit the exit just as the gate arm went up.
She gunned it .
“Motherfucker!” Sprinting full speed, I reached for the door, but my hand only skimmed the side of the bed.
Oversized tires I’d installed myself carried the heavy truck down the end of the ramp, and just as she hit the final stretch to the street, Sawyer pulled up, blocking the exit.
“Engage?” Sawyer calmly asked through the comm as he slammed on the brakes.
“Stand down,” I barked. Rounding the rear of the truck, I came up on the driver side and pounded my fist against the driver window. “Open up, Brookelyn!”
The Raptor didn’t move and the window didn’t come down.
“Two ways we can do this.” I couldn’t see her through the tinted window, but I glared anyway.
“She’s got a kid in that vehicle,” Sawyer quietly warned.
I didn’t answer him. I knew exactly who the fuck was in my truck. And it was my truck. “You wanna play hardball?” I asked through the closed window. I knew she could fucking hear me. “Let’s start with the stolen truck you’re driving.”
The window came down.
Her phone in her hand, she stared straight ahead. “I’m calling the police.”
A car pulled up behind us and honked.
“Mama, Mama,” the boy cried from the back seat.
Shit stabbed at my heart. “Go ahead,” I taunted. “Call them. Let’s see what they say when I tell them to check the VIN number on my truck.”
The hand she had gripping the steering wheel tightened. “You’re blocking traffic.”
“You had my kid.”
She didn’t flinch, she didn’t even fucking blink. “Tell your friend to move his SUV.”
“Get out of my truck.” Fucking acknowledge me. Tell me why the hell you did this .
“I’ll tell the police you’re threatening me,” she warned.
“I’ll tell them you stole my kid.”
The car behind us laid on the horn again.
She stared straight ahead. The air conditioning from the vents blew her curls back from her face. Her expression stoic, three years had been kind to her looks, but not her eyes. Her eyes said everything, while telling me nothing.
The boy sucked his thumb.
She kept silent.
And I fucking stood my ground.
“On your right. Three o’clock,” Sawyer warned through the comm a second before the driver door on the car behind us opened.
“Hey,” an old man shouted, waving his hand as he held his cell phone. “You’re blocking the exit, and if you don’t let that lady pass, I’m calling the police!”
“Stand down,” Sawyer quietly warned.