Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“I don’t like telling anyone their business but…this isn’t a safe house.” Hunter crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s a bar.”
Jake flipped off the other guy. He damn well knew where they were. Not like he was thrilled about the situation, either. But after the scene at the station, Wren had refused to go to the safe house.
And, honestly, he didn’t exactly blame her. He was chomping at the bit because he wanted to go on the attack. So when he’d gotten the text from Eb, asking to meet at Milo’s bar, he’d switched gears. “Eb is coming here.” His twin should be arriving any moment. If the tricky bastard wasn’t already lurking around somewhere. “Since you two have been in close contact, figured you would already know that. Can’t believe your new bestie didn’t text you.”
Hunter shook his head. “Haven’t talked to your brother today. Been kind of busy stopping you from committing murder in the street. You know, as one does. I’ve just been busy, busy, busy.”
Jake grunted. He was not apologizing for the attack in the street. That prick had deserved to get the hell beaten out of him.
“Those knuckles of yours look a little bruised,” Hunter noted. “Did you hurt them when you slammed them into the guy’s face over and over again?”
“He hit Wren. With a fucking truck.” Then the jerk had punched her with his fist. The man was lucky to still be breathing. Come to think of it, if Hunter hadn’t been there, maybe the jerk wouldn’t be breathing.
Dead men can’t answer questions. Honey had been right on that score. Though, so far, they hadn’t turned up a whole lot of useful intel from Adam Rule yet.
“That truck will live on in my nightmares.” A chair leg screeched as Wren pulled the chair back and then sat down near a small table. The bar had been dark when they first arrived, but now illumination flooded through the building. The place didn’t open until seven on a normal night. This was hardly a normal night.
She pushed back her hair. The sight of the bruise on her jaw enraged Jake.
“Do you still think this is all about you, Jake?” Wren asked. “Because it sure seems heavily centered on my past.”
He parted his lips to respond.
Then his twin sauntered out of the back office. Figured that he’d snuck in the back door. Typical Eb. Locks never kept him out.
“Oh, it’s definitely about us,” Eb assured her. “This time, we’re not just being narcissistic assholes. The attacks are because of what we’ve done.”
Wren’s head turned toward him. A wide smile curled her lips as she jumped to her feet. “Eb!” The weariness that had been on her features moments before had vanished.
A matching smile stretched across his brother’s face. And then Eb rushed to Wren. Hauled her against him and hugged her tightly.
“Aw, man.” Hunter sidled close to Jake. They stood beside the long bar. “If you could see your expression right now.” He released a soundless whistle. “Settle down. I am not in the mood to stop you from killing again. Once a day is gonna be my limit.”
Not like he’d ever kill his brother. But Eb could stop hugging Wren any minute. Any. Minute.
“Jealousy issues, check. You have them.”
How much longer was the hug going to continue? Jake took a step forward.
Eb finally let Wren go, but just so his hand could rise up and curl under her chin. His eyes narrowed, and then he launched a look of fury Jake’s way. “I told you to protect her,” Eb fumed. “Why in the hell is she bruised? You had one job, man. Like…one. ‘Protect Wren.’ Easy. Done. Finished.”
Jake took another step away from the bar. A bigger, close-to-lunging step. “Easy? She had two attackers trying to abduct her on night one! I’d barely arrived in town when I had to jump in to get them the hell away from her!”
“Okay, you’re gonna kick his ass.” Hunter plopped down on one of the barstools. “Check. Have at it. Told you, once a day is my limit. You will get no interference from me.”
“Easy?” Jake almost choked on the word as he repeated it yet again. “Let me make sure you understand the full picture here. After I saved her on the beach and we went to her uncle’s house the next day, a prick was lying in wait for her there. I killed him.” Jake marched toward his brother. “ Easy?” Oh, but that one word pissed him off. “A fucking truck came at us today in an ambush. Did you hear that? A truck.”
Eb stormed right at him, too. “Yeah, I said easy. It’s Wren. Just eliminate the bastards after her and save the day. Done.”
Jake threw a hand in Hunter’s direction. “The dumbass backup you sent wouldn’t let me kill him!”
“Well, damn.” From Hunter. “When you’re both glaring, I truly can’t tell you apart. Hey, Wren? If we spun them around in circles, would you be able to tell which one is the evil twin and which one is the good one with just a glance?” Mocking words.
“Yes.” From Wren. Simple. Truthful. “I can always tell them apart. But neither twin is evil.”
She was so wrong on that score. The truth was that they were both evil, and they both knew that fact. But time to get down to the one thing that mattered… “Who is after Wren?” Jake gritted out.
Eb’s jaw tightened even more. “Considering that you and I eliminated a lot of very bad people over the years, our suspect list tends to be a bit long,” Eb threw back. “But I’m narrowing down our possible choices. Slowly but surely. Figured it has to be someone we took out together.”
They had taken out some real bastards in their time. Drug runners. Human traffickers. Domestic terrorists. One particular creep had been a cult leader. He’d been intent on getting all of his followers to obey his commands—and kill themselves. Jake and Eb had stopped him just before he served up poisonous drinks to everyone, including the kids.
Eb glanced toward Hunter. “Thanks for covering my brother and Wren until I could arrive in town.”
“You were busy with an undercover operation.” A casual roll of one shoulder. “I was bored. Declan and Marley insisted I take a holiday. Screw that. Not like I wanted a typical vacation, anyway.” He slumped casually against the stool. “Don’t know how up to speed you are on current events, though. Someone want to give him the quick and dirty version? Or should I do the job?”
“My father was a serial killer.” Wren lifted her bruised chin. “Someone found out my secret and has been blasting it everywhere.”
Eb blinked. Then winced. “Yeah, sorry, baby.”
Jake’s shoulders stiffened. “Sorry? That’s all you’ve got?” He’d certainly expected more.
“Oh, what? Was I supposed to be more dramatic? Can’t be. I’ve known that news for a very long time.” Eb reached out to touch her shoulder.
“Wait, you knew ?” Wren’s shock was clear. She batted Eb’s hand away before he could touch her. “ For a very long time? ”
Jake felt the same shock pouring through his body. “Why the hell didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me?” What the actual hell?
Now Eb frowned at him. “Uh, maybe because it wasn’t my secret to share? Maybe because I didn’t know how you would react, bro? Maybe because you usually growl when I bring up Wren’s name in any way, and I didn’t want to say or do anything that would make you turn into an even moodier SOB where she was concerned.”
Jake drew back his fist for the punch.
“Jake.” Wren shook her head. “Don’t.”
But he wanted to deck his brother. Too much rage and adrenaline and, fine, fear still poured through his veins. The aftershocks of that wreck, of nearly losing Wren, had pushed him to the edge—and then right over. If Hunter hadn’t been on the street, Jake knew he very well might have killed Adam Rule.
No one hurts Wren in this world.
She put her hand on his chest.
“You thought I couldn’t accept Wren’s past?” Jake knew his voice sounded funny. Too hard. Too flat. Too guttural. “Wrong, jackass. I will accept every part of her, always.” He stared into her eyes. Those beautiful, dark eyes. Eyes he loved. The woman he loved.
“Uh, yeah.” Eb cleared his throat. “Let me clarify here. I didn’t worry about you accepting her. Not a concern at all. I worried about you losing your absolute mind. When it comes to Wren, rational behavior is not your friend.”
He should look away from Wren. Tell his brother to screw off. He didn’t. He kept right on staring at what mattered. Wren.
“Case in point,” Eb sighed. He edged closer. Poked Jake in the side. “I didn’t tell you because you would have gone out and tried to hunt down her father.”
Yes. Definitely.
“You would have wanted to kill him.”
Where was the problem with that? Jake didn’t see one.
“And it wasn’t my secret to share,” Eb repeated.
Wren’s head turned toward him.
Without those deep, soul-stealing eyes holding him in place, Jake blinked.
“How did you find out the truth?” Wren asked.
“Milo never stopped looking for the Sweetheart Slasher. One day, I might have…interrupted a private call between him and some of his federal buddies. By interrupted, I mean I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been. Eavesdropping my diabolical heart out.” A shrug. “I just got bits and pieces from that conversation, but I’m a bulldog. I started digging. This was very close in time to our sister Marley’s attack.”
Wren backed away from Jake and Eb. Immediately.
“Yep.” Eb nodded.
Hunter just watched them all silently.
“That was what happened.” Eb pointed at Wren. “You and Marley had always been friends. Granted, you were closer to me and Eb, but I know you’ve always adored Marley.”
“Marley is great,” Wren mumbled as she shoved back a heavy lock of hair. “Everyone adores her.”
“Especially Declan.” Hunter cocked his head as he added that tidbit about the billionaire. “She’s his obsession.” He paused. “Probably his sanity, too. Obsession and sanity. They balance each other out, so there’s that.”
Once upon a time, Jake might have laughed at those words. The idea that a woman could be both a man’s obsession and his sanity? Ridiculous.
But, uh, yes… true.
His gaze swept over Wren.
Yes. She is my obsession and my link to sanity.
Because if anything happened to Wren, his control would be annihilated. His sanity would be next. And the bloodshed that he would leave in his wake as he utterly destroyed the fools who had taken her? Who had hurt her? Oh, it would be terrifying. Devastating.
“You cared about Marley, you hated what had happened to her, but you were afraid to go around her after Marley’s attack. Got me to wondering why. ” Eb tapped his chin as he continued to study Wren. “You aren’t the type to abandon a friend in need. I mean, sure you showed up for her. You always show up. But you were so hesitant. So careful. Not at all your normal self. I was gonna talk to Milo about it, and that’s when I happened to hear something I shouldn’t.” His eyebrows pulled low. “What did you think? That if Marley found out the truth, she wouldn’t want you near her?”
“The truth.” Wren pressed her lips together. “Yes.” A nod. “Yes, I thought that Marley had been attacked by a serial killer. She had to face evil up close and personally. And there I was, pretending to be her friend, when the truth is that I’m probably just as twisted on the inside as her attacker ever was.”
“Bullshit.” An immediate response from Jake.
Everyone looked at him. Good. Wren’s head had snapped toward him the fastest.
Now that he had everyone’s attention, Jake said it again, “Bullshit.” He reached for her hand. Brought it to his mouth. Kissed her knuckles. “There is nothing twisted about you. You’re the best thing in my world. You are not your father, Wren.”
“I was there. I was there. I don’t have wings.” She blinked quickly to get rid of the tears that filled her eyes.
“You do to me. You’re my angel, and you always have been.” He used his grip on her hand to tug her closer. “The guardian angel who saved me when I was sixteen.” His head lowered, and his lips brushed over hers.
“Ahem.”
Eb seemed to be choking. Someone should probably help him. Maybe Hunter would step in for the job. He could slap Eb on the back. Or just deck him. Jake let the kiss with Wren linger.
Until she pressed lightly against his chest. “Jake?” Her mouth pulled from his. Her eyes searched his.
“Ahem.”
From Eb again.
Jake turned his head. His gaze met Eb’s.
A deep furrow cut between Eb’s brows.
Hunter’s sigh drifted across the bar. “This would be why I said someone needed to give the man a quick and dirty rundown of events. Let me help out?”
Eb’s furrow deepened. “Did you just kiss Wren?”
Damn straight, he had.
“Yep. I’ll help out,” Hunter declared to no one and everyone. “Get the focus on the big events. Ready? Here we go. Wren’s friend Makayla was abducted last night. The scene at her house was set to make it look like a copycat of the Sweetheart Slasher’s attacks.” Hunter rose and headed closer to them. “After leaving the scene of the abduction, Wren and Jake were ambushed. This would be where I utterly failed in my backup duties, by the way. Sorry about that. Didn’t exactly expect a truck to come barreling at them. Hard to plan for that particular scenario.”
Eb blinked. “A truck?” Then he motioned between Jake and Wren. “What is this? This kiss?”
“You have focusing problems,” Hunter told him. “Let’s stay on the truck. The perp driving it seems to be a family member who lost his sister to the Sweetheart Slasher.” Hunter thrust back his shoulders. “Declan said someone was spreading the truth about Wren online. Obviously, that person was digging up her past as a means of wrecking her current life. The homicidal driver today, he was another means to that end. He had so much anger and hate boiling in him. All you had to do was point him in the right direction.” His gaze landed on Wren. “Her direction.” His mouth tightened. “Now he’s in jail, we’re here, and how about you tell us exactly who is at the top of your suspect list, huh, Eb? Drop the leaving-us-in-suspense routine. Because I like to know what sort of threats I’m facing, so that, you know, things like barreling trucks don’t catch me by surprise. I hate surprises. Personality quirk.”
“I do not remember you being this chatty before,” Eb muttered.
“What can I say? Danger makes me talkative. It also pisses me off. Or maybe I’m still bitter about the surprises.”
“Yeah, well, I hate them, too,” Eb agreed. The furrow remained. “Who was the truck driver?”
“Adam Rule,” Wren replied to Eb. “His sister Carrie—she was, um, the last known victim of the Sweetheart Slasher.”
“And I think the bastard playing this game with us knew Wren’s secrets for a while. He had all of this set up. This is no discovery that just happened.” Jake was certain of this. “He’s trying to destroy her life completely.”
“He’s trying to destroy me because of what my father did!” Wren’s face flushed. “Again, going back to this being all about me, not you two?—”
“Wren, I got emails with your pictures. Texts saying I would pay. That Jake would pay.” Eb’s voice was uncharacteristically grim as he cut through her words. “They came in via a secure system. Tracing them is almost impossible, even with tech master Declan Flynn helping me out. Hell, the only thing we’ve been able to discover so far is that the messages did come from this area. They bounced all over the world, but Declan has finally narrowed down the source. And the source? The texts? He swears they came from a computer in this bar. Or somewhere within a hundred-foot radius of the bar. But seeing as how plenty of people pour in and out of here each day, it’s not exactly the smoking gun that we need.”
Wren’s lashes fluttered. “You’ve been specifically told I’m being used to make you pay?”
“Yes,” he confessed. An exhale. “There was more, actually.” He darted a glance toward Jake. “Don’t flip out, okay?”
“Can’t promise that.” Wouldn’t promise it.
“There was more included in the messages I received. Only, I was in the middle of a damn firefight with a small sect of terrorists in a country I cannot name. A CIA operation that was going south faster than you can blink.”
She blinked. Jake thought she’d blinked pretty fast.
Jake also thought that if his brother didn’t spit out the rest of this story immediately, he would be flipping out.
“I was told that Jake and I had destroyed this person’s entire world. And because of that, your world would be destroyed, Wren. You’d lose all your friends.”
She inched back a step from Jake.
“You’d lose your business.”
Another little step.
“Then you’d lose your life.”
“Not happening,” Jake vowed.
“Yeah, well, that would be the reason I told you to haul ass here and protect Wren. ” Eb blew out another long breath. “Because we destroyed this person’s world, this jackass intends to destroy our world.”
“I’m not your world!” Wren exploded. “This is my life! What happens to me doesn’t change your world!”
“Are you shitting me right now?” Eb squinted at her. “I love you.”
His brother always said those damn words so easily and?—
“So does Jake,” Eb revealed. Ever so casually. Like he’d just said the sky was blue. Something everyone should know. “Only I love you like the incredible friend you’ve always been to me. Jake loves you like the insane obsession that you are to him.”
Wren’s mouth dropped open.
“Tact,” Hunter mumbled, “you should have more of it. And here I mistakenly thought you were the charming twin.”
“No time for charm.” Eb’s focus didn’t leave her face. “You’re being used against us, Wren. It’s bullshit and it’s not fair, but it’s happening. Jake and I have wrecked a lot of lives. The people we hunted were criminals. Not talking about some jaywalker on the street. They were sadistic, powerful, and far too dangerous. These people often had networks that stretched wider than you can imagine. Eliminating all their ties can be impossible. Tracking down all the loose ends is like searching for the old needle in the haystack. But that’s what we are currently doing. Searching for that needle. Declan is helping. Milo’s Fed contacts are helping. The CIA personnel who owe me are helping.”
Wren had been retreating, but now she surged toward Jake. She grabbed his arms. “It’s not true.” She searched his gaze.
“Oh, it’s true,” Eb rolled right on. “And we know the hunter right now has to be someone who was close to one of the individuals we eliminated. A friend, a family member, a lover. You don’t go to these great, dramatic vengeance lengths unless there is a powerful, emotional attachment.”
“You don’t love me,” Wren told Jake.
His back teeth ground together.
“You…want me,” she added.
“Uh, I’m trying to talk about the sadistic killers who we’ve got on the suspect list,” Eb interrupted. “Are you listening to me?”
“You don’t love me,” she said again to Jake. “It’s okay. I don’t expect you to love me.”
“Why the fuck not?” Jake demanded.
Her eyes widened.
Yeah, his brother had finally shut his mouth. Time for Jake to do some talking. “You’re the most lovable damn woman I’ve ever met.”
Her mouth opened. Closed.
“And, hell, yes, I love you.” There. Done. Said. And it felt so good to say it. But he jerked his gaze off Wren and glared at his brother. “How the hell did you know?”
“That would go back to the part I said before…when it comes to Wren, rational behavior is not your friend. If she so much as stubbed her toe back in high school, you tended to go batshit. So, yep, I get that everything happening now must have you on the verge of exploding.”
Understatement. His stare slid back to Wren.
“You…love me?” Wren asked. The words were as dazed as her expression.
This was not a conversation he wanted to have with Eb and Hunter staring at them. “Wren…”
A hard, desperate pounding shook the front doors of the bar. His head whipped toward the booming sound. He’d locked those doors after they’d arrived. He’d also thoroughly searched the place and locked the back doors.
But Eb had managed to get in, no problem.
“That doesn’t sound friendly,” Hunter murmured.
Understatement.
Eb was already pulling out a gun.
The fierce pounding continued. Only it was followed by, “ Wren!” A fierce yell. “Wren, it’s Tom! Are you in there? Wren? Jake! Jacob Jones! Please, be in there! Wren, I need you! I need you!”
“What in the hell?” Jake began stalking for the front doors. Wren followed right behind him. So did an armed Eb. And Hunter.
The door shook again.
“He’s pounding even harder than you did when you showed your happy ass up at my place,” Jake said to Hunter.
One of the doors groaned. Trembled.
“That man is not knocking.” Hunter was definite. “Sounds more like he’s ramming the door with something? What in the hell is he doing, plowing his shoulder into the door?”
Jake opened one of the two big, entrance doors. Tom rushed inside. He’d been running, and, yes, apparently banging his shoulder into the door in a wild bid to knock the heavy door open. Without the door in position any longer, he shot forward, stumbled, and fell onto the floor.
“Tom Hadden?” Eb frowned down at him. “You look like shit.”
Tom tossed back his head and glared at Eb. Then he rose to his feet. His hair jutted at odd angles, as if he’d been pulling at it. Lines cut across his face, and his eyes were lined with shadows. “Tell me how you look after someone takes the woman you love.” His breath heaved. Then he pointed at Jake. “You.”
“Me…what?” Jake peered outside of the bar. Saw no one. It appeared as if Tom had come alone. He shut the door. Bolted it.
“You specialize in hostage rescue. You pull people out of hellholes.” His hand shot through his hair. That hair jutted out even more. “I need you. You have to get my Makayla back.”
Jake exchanged a long look with Eb. Then he focused on a practically vibrating Tom. “That’s the goal we all want.”
“Yeah, well, it’s more than a goal for me. It’s a necessity. ” A ragged exhale. “And I know where she is. Only I don’t know how to get her free. That’s where you come in.” His shoulders squared with intent. “I will pay you any amount of money, but you have to go now. You have to get my Makayla out of hell. You have to save her. ”