Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Zoe
T he smell of fresh grass and pine filled the night air as we headed down a barely there, narrow footpath. Warrick had taken me beyond some pasture—west, I believe—and now he was leading me down somewhere he promised would take my mind off all the shit happening around me.
Small boulders and scraggly bushes dotted the land, and even an elmwood tree or two swayed in the wind. After we rounded a corner, I stopped short and gasped at the waterfall, its water dazzling in the moonlight and dropping freely over a sheer rock lip to feed into a deep pool.
“This waterfall comes from Canada and is cold as hell, but this water is a hot spring, heated by hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor,” Warrick said, pulling off his shirt. “The water is not scalding hot but a shock, so enter from that spot where the cold water mixes with the warm.”
Crouching at the edge, I dipped my fingertips in. The water was perfect, like a tepid bath.
Warrick was perfect, his chest muscle-packed and hairy, his waist narrow, and that pale hair tapering into a line that went straight to his groin. After he toed off his boots and removed his pants, the thick appendage between his legs had my pussy aching.
“Take a picture, sweetheart. It lasts longer,” he said while wading into the water.
My nipples were hard, my pussy ached with want. I removed my clothes, waded into the spot he told me to use, and eventually joined him on the pool's edge. Looping both arms around his neck, I kissed him with all I was worth, as I was afraid I’d never get a chance to again.
He cupped and squeezed my breast, then pinched my nipple. I gasped and opened my thighs wider as he gripped my hips and lifted me. I rocked my center into him. Despite the water, I could feel my pussy getting wet.
He dipped his head to flick his tongue over a nipple, tracing it with the tip, then sucking, then nipping. When I pulled back, he latched on. Holding onto hard shoulders, I felt the sprinkling of dark hair leading down below the groin on my belly. His arousal was so intense that I could almost feel it in the air.
The crown of his dick flared, curving up my butt, pre-cum oozing from the slit. I rolled my hips. “I’m ready.”
“No, you're not.” He screwed one finger into me and pumped it before he worked a second into my tight channel and curled both of them, seeking my G-spot. “You’ve got a tight little pussy, and I’m big.”
He towed us back to the bank and pulled a condom from his discarded jeans pocket, and I slid it on before he lined up his turgid cock and pulled me down on him. I sank my nails into his back and held on as he fucked me, his thrusts increasing in speed and depth.
My eyes rolled back in my head as he took me hard, bottoming out with every pass. His hips slammed into me harder and faster, plowing into me like an animal. I would never get enough of this…of him. I bounced on his cock, loving every harsh rub of his chest hair on my nipples and his rough calluses on my thighs.
“Warrick!” I cried as the mammoth orgasm began to build inside me without him even rubbing my clit. “I’m coming !”
He gripped my hips as he roared into my ear, his cock pulsing inside me; he buried his face into my throat, sucking in breath and breathing in my scent. I felt his heart pound through his chest as he sucked in stabilizing breaths.
I love you.
I want to stay with you.
But can I have you without damning you to death?
Pulling away, I kissed him softly, suckling his tongue then biting his bottom lip tenderly. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“I want you to stay,” he kissed my chin. “Stay with me, Zoe, stay here, in Montana. I don’t think I can let you go now that I’ve found you.”
My head spun as my heart swooped. “Warrick, I don’t know?—”
“Think about it,” he whispered in my ear. “Just think about it. That is all I ask, Zoe. Think about it.”
My phone rang about 9:23 the next night. The number was private. It had to be my handler, Agent Boyne.
“Hello,” I said.
“Zoe, are you near anyone?” Boyne asked.
“Yes, but good people,” I said. “The game is up, Agent. Warrick Donovan knows. Whatever you can say to me, he can hear it.”
“Are you sure?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I pulled the phone away and pressed speaker. “Go ahead.”
“We looked into this Jake O’Hara’s finances and history, and while he had some concerning things in his history, like this loan from the Draytons, he had no family in New York and no ties to the Italian mafia in Manhattan. In his history, we found a link to a Mr. Carl Benson, and this is where it gets dicey.”
Warrick did not look pleased. “Dicey how?”
“The man is riddled with debt,” Boyne replied. “His businesses are failing with their merchandising operation, but money, and I mean hundreds of thousands, are transferred into his accounts every month under the guise of investment and then sent out. Shell companies. No merchandise was bought or sold from this money, and we realize it is a classic money laundering scheme.”
“Zoe, in all our best efforts, we sent you far away but still landed you in the belly of the beast,” Boyne sighed.
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “It seems these guys, whoever they are, have sticky fingers everywhere. I might have gone to the moon, and they would have found me there.”
“We did a raid on Benson’s business in Queens and found even more ties to the mafia, but there is no indication of the money being funneled into the coffers of the local caporegime we do know about or the Don.”
We shared a look. “Who could it be then?”
“We’re looking into it, but our best guess is the Drayton Conglomerate. We found a loan from them in the sum of five point five million. I don’t think you know about this, but they’ve been on our radar for months. We’ve found that they like playing both sides of the coin; they make bunkers, and they make missiles, that kind of thing.”
“I know they built the company on legit pharmaceuticals,” Warrick said, brows lowering. “Are you telling me they’re selling illegal drugs too?”
“Bingo.”
“Goddamn,” I whispered. Clearing my throat, I asked, “What about the clinic I reported to you? Are they involved in that, too?”
“Same shell company, different M.O. This time, they were using government funds to make illegal drugs. And they would have gotten away with it for years if you hadn’t stumbled onto it.”
My knees went out from under me.
“We suspect Benson has been appraised of the situation and is about to flee the country, so we’re keeping eyes on every port of entry, even the private ones. My guys are still following the convoluted paper trail, and they will tell me the moment they hit into something,” Boyne replied. “We’re almost there, Zoe. Don’t take any chances.”
“I won’t,” I told him. “I promise.”
I hung up and nudged my phone to the side. “That’s…something.”
“All roads lead to Rome,” Warrick replied. “I have been through some shit in my life, but this takes the cake. What are the odds that you uncovered an illegal clinic, almost got killed for it, ran halfway across the country to escape that, only to be dropped in the same town where the men who are behind that clusterfuck are alive and kicking?”
“I have the worst luck,” I shook my head. “Had I told you that when I was five, my mom gave me money to buy a Home Alone DVD, I went home, opened it, and it was porn? When I was nine, I walked my dog to the park, saw a squirrel, and stopped to feed him some of my trail mix. That dog got excited and ran off…with me holding the leash. The worst thing, it had rained the night before.”
Warrick snickered. “Got yourself a mud bath, eh.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “My folks were blue-collar on the south side of Queens, and I got myself a scholarship to NYU.”
“Was journalism your main ambition in life?”
“For a kid who practically lived in the library, yes,” I replied. “I love to read; I am curious beyond reason, so yes, I decided a life of sticking my nose into things that were not my business should be my life. I guess curiosity does kill the cat after all, or at least attempts to do it.”
Another phone rang, Warrick’s, not mine. He answered, “Donovan here.”
I looked at him, wondering why he was frowning.
“Whoa, whoa, Sheriff, slow down. What ?” He set the cell down and pressed speaker. The other man’s voice came through.
“You ain’t going to believe this, Donovan. Benson ran into the station, his suit ripped and a deep laceration in the side of his belly, telling me that some of his men tried to kill him.”
“What? Why?”
“His boss isn’t happy, and that is all he will tell me about that,” he said. “He says he wants to talk to you and mentioned your little lady up there, Miss Zara. He says he has information about her that you would like to know. Can you get yourself down here in twenty?”
Warrick stared at me as he spoke, “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
My heart lodged into my throat as Warrick said, “I’ll go and see what they have to say, Zoe. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Are those FBI guys near?”
“I’ll check if they are,” I replied.
He tugged on some boots, shrugged on a jacket, and headed out with a kiss on my temple. After he left, I wandered into the kitchen, filled a bowl with fruit, and took a paring knife with me to the back porch.
A thin sliver of a moon was rising over the horizon, and I began to pare the oranges and tangerines apart when a tall form began to emerge from the gloom. I assumed it was Frankie; that was his build and his pace. Even that hat lowered over his face told me it was him. I didn’t pay attention as he stepped up on the porch.
“Hey Frankie, do you want?—”
The cold muzzle of a gun pressed itself into my side, and the hat lifted. It was not Frankie—it was William Drayton Jr. “Do not make a sound,” he hissed. “Come with me, now.”
“Zara,” Marie called through a window. “Do you want some strawberries? I have a few in here.”
Holding Drayton’s eyes, I said, “No, I’m okay. Thanks.”
Drayton gestured to me, and I got up, set the bowl to the side, and slid the knife up my sleeve; he didn’t seem to notice. The man looked demented, his eyes wild with either frenzy or fear—it could be both, as I’d imagine the man realized his tower of cards was tumbling down on him. This was him pulling the last straw, frantic to take me out of the game.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said as he grabbed my arm and dragged me down the lawn.
He skirted the bunkhouse, went beyond the sheds and outhouses, and pulled me up a trail, but not one that Warrick had shown me. This trail was steep, and I fumbled in the cool night air.
I haven’t lived in this area long, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing out this way but woods, more woods, and bears who haven’t gone to sleep for the winter just yet. The wind battered me from the side, threatening to throw me over—but William's stiff grip on my arm kept me on my two feet.
The muscles in my legs burned with each difficult step I took—my sneakers sticking in the thick mud. A good reason to keep walking was the muzzle of the gun at my side. There wasn’t any good choice here.
So…I walked. And walked. And I walked even as my legs got heavier.
I stumbled, my breaths becoming shorter and harder. I needed to contact Warrick—but my phone was in my back pocket. How could I do this?
“I need?—”
He snarled. “I don’t care what you need, come on.”
“I have to pee,” I said. “Please, just let me pee.”
“No.”
I stumbled over rocks and roots, my ankle twisting in unseen potholes and slipping on loose gravel and mud. My arm was numb as I held it to my side, trying to keep the knife in my sleeve. Trying to make it look like I really needed to pee, I started walking hobble-kneed and whimpering.
“Please, I need to go,” I sobbed. “I can't hold it anymore.”
With a snarl, he stopped and jerked his head to a bush. “Don’t try anything, or I’ll shoot and ask questions later. All of you have been a thorn in my fucking side!” Not caring about that, I hobbled to the bush and gently wiggled my jeans down. Turning the cell’s volume down, and with my body shielding it, I shoved my knife into my shoe and managed to pee while I called Warrick.
Sticking it back in my pocket, I stood and went back to William. “You don’t need to do this,” I said. “It’ll only be worse for you in the end. They know who you are and what you’ve done, Drayton. If you kill me, it’ll only be worse for you.”
“Kill you?” He sneered. “I am not going to kill you, fool. I’ll send you far away where you won't be trouble for me anymore. You should have listened when your editor said to leave it alone.”
He grabbed me and towed me forward. I pitched my voice loud so the cell would pick it up. “Where are we going, Drayton?”
“To Andersons Landing,” he said. “There is a truck waiting for you to make you disappear.”
I didn’t know where that was, how far it was from here, or how long it would take Warrick to get here. I had to slow us down. “Where is that?”
“North of here,” he said. “About five miles. So get to walking.”
I’d lost all sense of direction and could only smell mud, dead leaves, and smoke; I started dragging my feet, forcing myself to trip and stumble every couple of steps. I know I was making Drayton madder, but whatever I could do to buy Warrick time to get to me, I would. Even if it gained me a lot of curses, a lot of yanking, and maybe a pistol whip, he wanted me alive. I could come back from injuries; I could not come back from being dead.
I made sure to walk what felt like a quarter-mile. I did trip for real this time; I went down hard on my knees, hitting the dirt with a pained grunt.
“Get up,” Drayton snapped, yanking me up. “You cannot keep dragging your feet. Your disappearance has to be sudden and throw that damned rancher off.”
I clambered to my feet and grimaced. “Did you drug that bull to throw Santos?”
“I have henchmen for that,” he laughed. “I do not get my hands dirty, but in this case, I will have to do it. You are a stubborn bitch, unwilling to just die.”
It felt like forever as we walked, the weight of my phone heavy in my back pocket, but not as heavy as the hope that Warrick had heard me and was on his way. Would he have the FBI guys with him too? The moon was high in the sky as we stumbled into a clearing.
No one was there.
Well, no Warrick, but there was a truck there, ready to take me away.
I had to think on my feet, which was why I dropped to my knees, yanked the knife out of my boot, and stabbed Drayton in the back of his thigh. He howled, but I was up and running in seconds, racing up the hill.
My gut instinct told me to go up. Fast. Up and up until I found—and I stumbled into—a wide cemetery, empty as midnight.
“Get back here, bitch,” Drayton snarled. “There is nowhere to run.”
“Not if I can help it, psycho,” I panted beneath my breath as a large mausoleum, wondering if there was somewhere to hide?—
And then three trucks burst through the clearing. Warrick hit the ground running even before one of them stopped, and he plowed into Drayton like a mad bull, taking him down to the ground. Drayton knocked away the punch, but Warrick drove in again. A barrage of jabs and crosses had Drayton on the ground.
He managed to get out and under, flinging a hit to Warrick that dislodged him. I spotted Drayton’s gun in the dirt and lurched for it. While the two flung punches, Drayton landed a blow to Warrick’s temple and sent him reeling and—tripping on his feet.
He spun around to look for the gun, but I cocked it at him. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”
“You don’t have the balls to shoot me,” he taunted.
“But I do,” Boyne said, coming to my side, his gun trained on the man.
I know the lawman wouldn’t shoot unprovoked. For all this shit this man had put me through, I lowered the gun—but my finger pulled the trigger and splintered Drayton’s knee. I dropped the gun as Drayton howled. “T-that was an accident.”
Boyne smirked at me. “Of course it was. Guys, get him in cuffs.”
An FBI officer came forward and cuffed Drayton while I looked over my shoulder and spotted another agent who had the driver of Drayton’s truck handcuffed and on his knees.
Warrick came over to me, hobbling on his bad leg, but still came to wrap me up in a long, tight hug. I wanted to collapse in relief and exhaustion. My legs were rubber, my hands scratched and bruised, my head pounding with pain.
“I am so proud of you, sweetheart,” he murmured in my ear. “When I got that call and heard Drayton on the other end, I wanted to rip something apart. Thank you for whatever you did that made it so we could get up here in time.”
I leaned into him. “He was only thinking to get me out of here. He didn’t think to check for my cell or the knife I had, and I am happy he was so scatterbrained. I’m just glad you are here. Can we go home? Please.”
Boyne came to my side. “We’ll be calling you to HQ to give your statement in a few weeks, but for now, you two can go home with the relief that this asshole is not lingering over your head anymore. Get in the truck…we’ll drive you to your home.”
As we stepped in, I saw dawn begin to break over the trees. I pressed myself into Warrick’s side, hoping and praying that this was symbolic of a new life beginning for me and, hopefully, Warrick.
“Warrick…”
“Hm?”
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” I said.
He kissed my forehead. “Funny you should say that because I am damn sure I’m already there. You have two months by the end of summer to catch up, sweetheart.”
I laughed. “I think I can manage that. As long as you promise to teach me how to shoot.”
“Deal.”