The Alpha Bodyguards Books #4-6

Chapter Twenty-Four

“S ituation handled,” T y clipped. “ L et me speak to my sister. She’s not answering her phone.”

I walked out of the bathroom. “She’s in the shower. How did the situation get handled?” I wasn’t letting her go home unless I knew it was safe.

Ty paused. Then, “Why’d I hear water running when you answered the phone?”

“Because the shower’s on. What happened?” I glanced at the boy asleep in the bed. His small chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm as he lay in the exact same position.

“Protocol. Hanging up.” Ty hung up.

I walked to the kitchen, turned on my latest burner phone, then waited.

Twenty-four seconds later, the burner rang.

“Secure line,” I answered. “Tell me what happened.”

“Some pricks shot at my sister. What the fuck do you think happened?”

“I thought Luna, Talerco and Christensen were with you.”

“They were.”

“That’s not how Luna does business.” Everything he did was above board.

“Then you don’t know him very well, because that’s exactly how Luna takes care of business when he needs to.”

“So he took care of it?” I purposely asked.

Ty snorted. “Fuck no. I pulled the trigger.”

“Seems too easy.”

Ty sighed. “There was nothing easy about tonight, but Estevez and his lieutenant are gone, no one will find them, his crew is running scared, his organization is imploding and the whole of Miami can sleep safer tonight, including your pretty-boy ass.”

There was nothing pretty about me. “Fallout?”

“What kind of an amateur do you take me for?”

Before working for Luna and Associates, Ty had unwillingly worked for the cartel. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was eliminate people. “So your sister’s safe to go home tomorrow?”

Ty snorted. “She can go right now if she wants.”

“Nash is asleep.”

The shower shut off.

“Then send her on her way tomorrow. I’ll bring her car to your garage before I head home.”

“All right.” I didn’t want him to bring her car. I didn’t want him here at all while she was here. I wanted to drive her home tomorrow. I wanted to assess the damage to her house from the gunfight, and I wanted every fucked-up second from our conversation earlier to have gone another way. But it didn’t and I needed to get back to her before she walked out of that bathroom, because instinct was telling me she was going to flip on me, but Ty was still talking.

“Christensen’s sending two of his guys over in the morning to patch any damage from stray rounds.”

She walked out of the bathroom in a towel.

Unable to take my eyes off her, my dick throbbed. “I’ll let her know.”

“How long does she need to fucking shower? I’ll tell her myself.”

Without looking in my direction, she rifled through her bag, dropped the towel, and pulled leggings and tank top on without pretense. Then she put her hair up in a wet bun.

Riveted by her, I answered Ty. “You can tell her tomorrow.”

Muttering a curse, he dropped it. “Fine. You tell her. Her car will be there within the hour.”

“Thanks.”

Ty exhaled. “Figured I owe you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I stated the truth. “Afghanistan was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, well… Rollins wasn’t the only person who saved my ass downrange.”

And Ty had just saved everyone involved tonight, me included. “Two-way street.”

“Whatever, motherfucker.”

Usually Ty would hang up after a statement like that, but he didn’t. Something else was on his mind. My guess was Rollins and his sister.

Watching his sister, I waited.

The second hand on the clock in the kitchen ticked two, three, four seconds….

“You like her,” Ty finally said.

“What I like is irrelevant.” Her back to me, she didn’t wait for me. Again. She crawled into bed next to her son.

“Fuck.” He laughed without humor. “With women, ain’t that the truth?”

Where she was concerned.

“No comment?” Ty asked when I said nothing.

“No.”

He laughed. It sounded like the Staff Sergeant I’d first met when I was assigned to a new unit that needed a gunner to replace their old one who’d broken both arms playing a game of pickup football at Bagram Airfield between missions.

“Keep that up.” Ty paused, then, “Make my sister happy.”

“Not sure I can.”

His voice sobered. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

“And you’re endorsing that?” Not that it mattered. Curled up next to her son, she still hadn’t chosen me. Not with words.

“I’m not endorsing shit except my sister happy.”

Did I need her words? “Seven years you blamed me for Rollins’s death. One argument and all’s forgiven?” Closure or not, in the shower I was about to fuck her without them.

“One argument and one ass beating,” he corrected gruffly.

I didn’t comment. I watched his sister’s arm curl around her son, and my chest ached.

Ty cleared his throat. “I’m not proud of my shit. I missed my brother. I blamed you. I’m sorry.” He lowered his voice. “I wish you would’ve told me seven years ago what you said earlier tonight.”

“Would you have wanted to hear it?”

“No, but I’d like to think I would’ve listened.”

He’d always listened to me. As my commanding officer, he’d always been practical. I should’ve given him the chance. “We both made mistakes.”

He half snorted, half laughed. “No shit.” Inhaling, he let it out. “I’ll bring Merc’s car and swap for my truck. Leave the keys in it.”

“Done.”

“You’ll need another ride. Your rental SUV’s been disposed of.”

I made a mental note to scrub the ID I’d used to rent it and report the vehicle stolen to the rental agency. “Understood.”

“Maybe you should buy a ride this time. Keep something longer than a week.”

When I first started following his sister, I switched cars weekly so she wouldn’t see me. After a while it didn’t matter because she’d started looking for me. When she’d spot me, she’d wave. By then the habit of swapping rentals had taken hold, and I didn’t like the idea of the permanence of owning a vehicle.

Now it wouldn’t matter what I drove. “I’ll let her know in the morning that her car is here.”

“Okay. She asleep now?”

“Yes.” Or pretending to be and listening to this entire conversation.

“Good. Later.” He hung up.

Quietly grabbing some clean clothes, I changed in the bathroom. Then I took Ty’s keys out to my attached garage, which was really the front half of the warehouse space I’d converted, and left them on the driver seat. Four minutes later, after resetting the alarm, I paused before I turned off the one lamp I’d switched on earlier.

The warehouse had ambient noise. Its own AC system humming. The muted sound of the industrial freezers running in the warehouse next door. The distant sound of the docks where cargo ships were unloaded around the clock. The drone of planes overhead because we were under the flight path for Miami’s airport. All of it was familiar to me.

But tonight none of it seemed the same.

For twelve seconds I watched her sleeping next to her son.

Then I lay down on the couch.

Words or not, I wasn’t going to be able to walk away from her.