Chapter Ninety
Blade
A drenaline surged, every muscle tensed with an instinct I didn’t know I possessed before I’d laid eyes on this woman, and I wanted to kill.
I wanted this woman’s demons dead.
I wanted to be her strength.
And I never wanted to see her fucking cry again.
But I couldn’t undo the shit in her head with tossed-out words on the goddamn steps of her fucking trauma.
“Come on.” I possessively grasped the back of her neck. “I’m taking you somewhere.”
She needed to be on my land. Because this right now, her headspace, that was a special brand of shit I knew. She’d slept in my cabin. I could sleep there. She could fucking check out, kick back, and hear nothing except the river, wind, and wildlife. Nature therapy. She needed it. I could give it. Then I’d swap her fucking coffee with decaffeinated shit, and I’d repeat every goddamn word she needed to hear from me as I fucked her into submission.
“Blade,” she protested.
I was ready for the pushback. Hell, it was half the reason this woman had gotten under my skin and stuck. Two fucking years, and I couldn’t shake her. Now I didn’t want to. “The lawyer isn’t going to sell your house in a day, and Miami can wait.”
“I’m here for a reason,” she blurted.
I looked down at her.
She nervously glanced at the shithole but leaned hard in to me. “I need to look for something inside.”
Whichever room had been hers, there wasn’t shit left except used condoms, drug paraphernalia, and trash. But if this woman wanted something, I’d fucking find it. “What?”
“A picture.” Subconscious or not, the woman put her hand on my chest for support.
Mental, physical—I didn’t fucking care. I threaded my fingers into her hair and gripped. “Of?”
She closed her eyes. “My mom.”
I hadn’t seen any of a woman when I’d done recon. “Where?” I massaged the tension from her neck.
She leaned into my touch. “There was one in the hallway.”
Memory recall honed from decades of training, I already knew there wasn’t shit in that hall except damaged plaster, peeling paint, and the few framed images of her old man I’d already seen. “Any place else?”
“The laundry room.” She hesitated. “No one ever went in there besides me.”
Mission intent, I set her against the house so she didn’t take a fucking header off the porch, but I read the subtext. If I got this woman back to my land, she was never doing fucking laundry. “Copy. Wait.”
Two steps inside the rank dump, I rationally knew what’d triggered her vomiting, but my head had already logged another reason.
Compartmentalizing that shit and kicking it down, I aimed for the laundry room. Stepping over a pile of clothes and questionable shit to get into the small five-by-five space with a rusted-out washer and busted dryer, I paused when I saw the wall over the machines.
Two shelves. Three framed pictures. Lined up laundry supplies. And a small embroidered pillow.
All untouched.
I scanned the pictures.
The first close-up was a woman’s rack as she held out a T-shirt, presumably so the viewer could read the printed text on it. Every sunset is a sunrise waiting to happen. The next was a worn image of a small dark-haired woman with her back to the camera, looking up at a state sign on the side of the highway. Welcome to Georgia .
The last was a close-up of a woman’s hands as she held up a pillow.
The same dust-covered pillow that was on the shelf.
Three words were embroidered on it.
The same three words my Lioness had tattooed over a scar under her right breast.
Time is magic.
My cell rang.
I glanced at the caller ID, then answered. “Make it quick, November.”
“There’s an incoming storm. Romeo and Victor are already on the ground at YIP to pick up Barrett and the woman. They need to be wheels up by eleven hundred to beat the weather. Barrett said he was supposed to pick up the woman, but he’s delayed at the courthouse. I told him to head straight to the airport and I’d arrange transport for her. I see you’re at her house. Is she with you?”
“Yeah, but she’s not getting on that flight. Is the storm hitting Montana?”
“Yes.”
Shit. “When?”
“There’s already snowfall in southwest Montana. Blizzard conditions by nightfall. Forecast is a three-day storm.”
Goddamn it. My Conquest was parked outside on the apron with no fucking wing covers, and I hadn’t winterized the cabin yet.
I glanced at my watch.
The AES Gulfstream would need to fly into Bozeman for runway length. We’d beat the storm getting there, but with airport traffic, refuel, and deicing, they wouldn’t make it back out before nightfall. “I need two seats on a commercial flight to Bozeman. Or a rental or charter into EKS before that blizzard hits.”
“Commercial, I can book. No guarantee you won’t be grounded as conditions deteriorate. Looking into a charter or rental now.” November typed. “You have another issue.”
“What fucking issue?” I headed for the front of the house.
“A woman’s called here twice looking for Miss Lyons.”
I froze. “Who?”
“The barista. Says it’s urgent. Won’t tell me what it’s about. Secured a rental. The company’s sending another pilot to retrieve the plane from EKS at sixteen hundred hours. That gives you enough time if you leave now. Plane’s on the apron at YIP. King Air 200. Have you ever flown one?”
I’d fucking figure it out. “What did you tell the barista?”
“That I’d relay the message. Make that three times. She calling again.”
“Text me the tail number of the King Air. Leaving for YIP now. Put the barista through to my cell.”
“Copy. Hold for call transfer.” The line went quiet.
A second later, a woman spoke. “Juni?”
“Blade. We met. I gave you the AES card. What do you need Juni for?”
“Oh. Um.” The woman exhaled like she was nervous as hell. “I need to speak with Juni. Only Juni. It’s urgent.”
“Not gonna happen unless you tell me what this is about. I’m not putting her in danger.”
“Oh! No, it’s nothing like that.”
Bullshit. “You’ve got five seconds before I hang up. Explain or don’t.”
“It’s time sensitive.”
“What the fuck is time sensitive at a coffee joint?” The question was a test. The barista had someone there looking for my Lioness, and I wanted to know who the fuck it was.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I can’t tell you.”
I took a stab. “Tall blonde, long legs, goes by Reena?”
She didn’t say shit.
“Put her on the phone,” I demanded.
The barista spoke in a rush. “Tell Juni to get here right away.” She hung up.
Last night, the past two years, those hours in a house in Little Havana, two women stumbling out of a bar in Liberty City, Church—it all came down to one thing.
A five-foot-nothing lioness who told me she wasn’t strong enough to watch me walk into the fire.