Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“Trigger!” Macie yelled, then backed up when Teddy calmly stepped over the writhing soldier on the floor.
“You’ve got something of mine, bitch, and I want it back,” Teddy said with deadly intent.
Macie backed up as Teddy kept stalking forward.
“I don’t!” she said, feeling the tell-tale signs of a full-blown anxiety attack coursing through her body.
“You do. Where’s that stupid box of keepsakes you kept in your closet?” Teddy asked.
Macie blinked in surprise. That’s where he’d hidden something?
She hadn’t even looked inside the beaten-up old shoebox because it was the last place she figured anyone would hide anything.
It wasn’t secure in the slightest, and only held silly, cheap mementoes of her life.
Of course, now that she knew that’s where Teddy had stashed whatever it was he so desperately wanted, it made sense.
She couldn’t come up with an answer fast enough, and he reached forward and wrapped a strong hand around her throat and squeezed.
Macie’s hands immediately reached up and tugged at his fingers, to no avail.
She looked into the face, which she had once thought was good-looking, now feeling complete terror. His blue eyes were narrowed in anger and the beard he used to keep trimmed neat was bushy and unkempt. She even saw what looked like food stuck in the hair.
She looked down at the arm she was clawing, still trying to get him to release her, and stared at the tattoo that now adorned it.
He hadn’t had any tattoos that she’d seen when they’d been dating, but the new ink terrified her.
It was a black-and-white design of a naked woman, with her arms tied together in front of her and a knife sticking out of her chest. Blood dripped from the knife, and the words, Women are like weeds— to be exterminated, were inked in cursive around the frightening image.
“Where. Is. It?” Teddy bit out, leaning into her and squeezing her neck harder.
Macie’s mouth opened and shut, but she couldn’t get any words out.
Obviously realizing he was preventing her from speaking, Teddy loosened his grip but didn’t let go. “I’ll kill you and your little friend right here and now if you don’t speak up,” he threatened.
“Not here,” Macie said as soon as she was able. Tricking him didn’t even cross her mind.
“You better not be fucking with me,” he said.
“I’m not. I took it with me when I left.”
“Fucking hell,” Teddy swore. “Where is it?”
“Killeen,” Macie said. “You can take the keys to the house and go get it. I’ll tell you exactly where it is.”
“Oh no,” Teddy sneered. “You’re coming with me. The last thing I want is your fucking boyfriend to walk in on me in his house. You’re my ticket to making sure I get what I want and get the hell out of there in one piece.”
Macie didn’t want to be his ticket to anything. She just wanted him to take his belongings back and get out of her life for good.
Just then, Trigger moaned on the floor next to them, and Teddy swore again.
He raised the taser he still held in his free hand and pressed it to Macie’s side. “Nighty-night, bitch,” he said, then Macie heard no more as the most intense pain she’d ever felt coursed through her body.
Trigger lifted his head and tried to shake off the lethargy he felt. Then he tried to remember where he was and what had happened to him. Everything was confusing at first—until it all came back at once.
He tried to lurch to his feet, but only got as far as his knees before he had to brace himself on the floor and take a deep breath. “Son of a bitch,” he swore, then reached into his pocket for his phone. Thankful it was still there, he swore again when he realized that his keys were missing.
He crawled over to the nearest chair and hauled himself into it before clicking on his commander’s number in his contacts.
“Commander Robinson.”
“He’s got Macie,” Trigger said, not prevaricating.
“What? Where are you, Trigger?”
“Lampasas. Macie called me because she knew you were busy and she needed a file from her apartment. I didn’t see anything to be concerned about when we got here, but her ex ambushed me from behind. Tased me. Just woke up. She’s gone. As are my keys.”
“You need an ambulance?” the commander asked, and Trigger shook his head in amazement. The man had just learned his woman had been taken, and yet he was still concerned about him. “No, sir. I was incapacitated, but I heard her say something about a box with memorabilia in it.”
“That’s at my house,” the commander said. “Call Lefty. He’ll come pick you up. I’m taking the others with me. How long?”
Trigger knew exactly what he meant. He looked at his watch. “I’d estimate between twenty and twenty-five minutes.”
“Roger.”
And then the phone went silent, and Trigger knew his commander was on the move. He sent up a silent prayer that Macie would be able to keep things together and stay smart until her man could get to her.
Because there was no doubt that Colonel Colton Robinson would get to Macie. And the shape he found her in would determine if Teddy was a dead man or not.
Colt clicked off the phone with Oz, one of the Deltas under his command, and knocked on the window of a conference room. He made a hand gesture, and the seven men inside immediately pushed their chairs back and hurried for the door.
Colt didn’t bother to wait for them. They caught up, and he informed them of what was happening while on the move.
Oz would call the others and have them meet at Colt’s house. There wasn’t time for them all to gather and come up with a plan. They’d have to wing it.
Within two minutes, Colt was climbing into his Wrangler, and Truck, Ghost, and Fletch had jumped in as well. He was only half-listening as Ghost discussed strategy and who was going to set up a perimeter around the house to make sure Teddy didn’t escape once they made entry.
The only thing he could think about was Macie. If one hair on her head was hurt, there’d be hell to pay.
“So he put whatever it was in a box of keepsakes?” Fletch asked.
“I guess. It’s a battered old shoebox. Mace told me she kept mementoes of her and Truck in there.”
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Truck said, and Colt knew he needed to get a handle on his men.
“If anyone is killing him, it’s me. Hear me?”
He heard two “Yes, sirs,” and glanced over at Truck.
“Laughlin?”
“No disrespect, sir, but this is my sister.”
“And it’s the woman I love,” Colt retorted. “I need you to keep your head in the game, because I can’t. I need you to have my back,” he told the much larger man. “If I end up in jail, your sister will be alone, and she’ll blame herself.”
“She won’t be alone,” Truck countered. “She’ll have me, and the rest of us.”
Colt didn’t respond with words, merely glared at his soldier.
Finally, Truck relented. “I understand, sir. And I’ve got your back. We all do.”
Colt nodded. It was as good a plan as they were going to have by the time they turned onto his street. There was no more time to talk.
Trigger’s Porsche was sitting in his driveway, and every muscle in Colt’s body went on red-alert. They couldn’t have been at his house very long, but Macie spending even one minute alone with her asshole ex was too long.
Colt stopped his Jeep two houses down and all four men climbed out without a word.
He heard a noise behind him, and turned to see three more cars stop and the rest of his men exit the vehicles.
Ghost quickly made contact, and most of the men disappeared into the neighborhood.
Colt knew they were taking up positions around his house, making sure Teddy—and, God forbid, anyone else with him—didn’t manage to escape.
That left him with Truck and Ghost. Colt looked at his men…and felt an odd calmness settle over his body. Teddy had made the decision to put his hands on Colt’s woman and he’d pay the price.
Colt led the way toward his front door. He knew Macie used the security code, and since he hadn’t gotten a phone call wanting his passcode, he assumed she’d correctly put in the code when she’d let Teddy inside the house.
He very slowly turned the knob on his front door and held his breath as he pushed it open.
When the security system didn’t immediately start beeping, warning him to put in the code, he thought, good girl.
Macie hadn’t set off the alarm when she’d entered, which would have alerted Colt, but she also hadn’t reset it, allowing him and his men to enter undetected.
Colt didn’t have a weapon, but he didn’t need one. He was a weapon. A deadly one.
At first, he didn’t hear anyone in the house, and his heart sank with the thought that perhaps he was too late—but then he heard a man’s voice coming from upstairs.
Slowly and silently, Colt made his way up the stairs. The farther he went, the clearer he could hear what Teddy was saying.
“You’re so stupid! I can’t believe you’ve kept this shit after all these years. What’s this? A ticket stub? Fuck…ridiculous. And a napkin? Gross! What’s this? A picture? What the fuck is this?”
“Don’t, Teddy,” Macie pleaded, the fear easy to hear in her voice.
“Is this a sonogram? Don’t tell me you’ve got a kid stashed away somewhere?”
“No. Please, just give it to me.”
“Do you want to know why I picked you?” Teddy asked, but he didn’t wait for Macie to reply before he answered his own question. “Because you’re weak. You’re scared of your own shadow. I knew you’d be easy to manipulate, and I was right. But then you had to go and grow a backbone.”
“You hid drugs in my apartment,” Macie said, her voice shaking.
Colt gestured for Truck and Ghost to pass him and get to the other side of his bedroom door. They needed to make a coordinated entry if they were going to surprise Teddy and get between him and Macie.
“It’s not my fault you don’t have a shred of human decency in your bones. If you hadn’t left me at that restaurant when I had that anxiety attack, I might still be dating you.”
“Bitch!” Teddy said.