9. Deacon
DEACON
“What are you doing!?” I bellowed.
I moved swiftly, not giving one single shred of shit that half of the goddamn police force descended on our front lawn. I grabbed her arm and yanked her back inside before I kicked the door closed with my foot.
“Deacon,” she said softly, “you have to let me go.”
“Rat. Gauge. Stand by the door,” I commanded.
The two of them moved swiftly, blocking the front door with their bodies as they crossed their arms over their chests. I motioned for the rest of the guys to gather around us, just in case they came in hot.
“You’re gripping me too hard, Deacon,” Char said.
I immediately dropped her arm. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Then a bullhorned voice sounded outside. “Just let Miss Charlotte come out safely and we’ll all leave.”
“Over my dead fucking body,” I snarled.
“Hear that?” Char asked as she thumbed over her shoulder.
“You know damn good and well this isn’t over if you leave,” Dallas said as he glared down at her.
Char simply nodded, though. “I know that. But now? You’ve got witnesses outside. We’ve got people watching. You’ve got a bunch of officers out there listening to her every word. Now she can no longer use me as a scapegoat.”
I closed the distance between our bodies and cloaked her in my shadow. “You should have come to us first.”
She didn’t waver. “You need help, and you need it now. Will you just trust me, just this once? God knows you’ve fucked me enough for me to have earned it.”
Rat barked with laughter, but I only grew angrier. “I don’t like this plan. I don’t like any fucking part of it. You can’t go with her. I won’t allow it.”
She snickered. “As if you could ever control me in the first place.”
“You have thirty seconds to send her out,” the woman’s growing voice said, “or we’re coming in.”
“Oh, I’d love to see you try, you bitch,” Deadlock spat.
“Guys! Guys! Guys!” Plug exclaimed.
He bounded down the steps with his laptop balanced in his hand before a whoop of a siren stopped him in his tracks.
“The fuck is going on out there? Are there police out there?” he asked.
Char giggled. “Had your headphones on this whole time, I take it?”
Plug held his arms out, his laptop swaying in his palm. “What gives, Bossman?”
Char, in all her determination, turned to face him. “You need to dig up everything on this woman, and now. That’s all you need to be focused on.”
Plug quirked an eyebrow as he turned his attention to me, but at this particular moment, she was right.
“Back upstairs with you,” I said, “and don’t come back down until you’re done.”
“Or, if you see an opportunity,” Mace said from behind me.
“An opportunity?” Char asked.
Plug grinned. “An opportunity. Got it.”
“Wait, what kind of opportunity?” she asked.
I peered down at her. “You’ve got your own plans, and so do we.”
“Oh, so that’s how you’re gonna play it?”
I didn’t bother looking at her as I answered. “Yes.”
“Ten seconds,” the woman said over the bullhorn.
Plug thumbed toward the hallway. “I’m gonna perch closer, just in case.”
“Keep digging,” I said as I turned my attention back toward the front door.
“I have to go,” Char said as she stepped toward the door.
“Five seconds,” the woman said.
“Are we really gonna do this?” Dallas muttered in my ear.
I shook my head as I flicked my wrist in the air, and the small movement forced Gauge and Rat to step aside. Char scrambled to get that door open before she turned to face us, and her voice fell so softly that I had to strain to hear her.
“Just listen, okay? It’s time that bitch was trapped for once.”
Then she turned to Rat. “If you cared about Bait at all, you’ll hold them back. I know what I’m doing, and we need witnesses to this. To what she’s doing.”
I watched Rat slowly move from the corner of the front door to standing right in front of me. A motion that made me so fucking angry that I couldn’t see straight.
“God fucking damn it!” I roared as I whipped around and balled up my fist.
I slammed it straight into the first surface I found, which just so happened to be a glass window. And as the bulletproof glass thudded hard against my bones, I felt something crack.
“Feel better?” Char asked.
“Come on, Miss Charlotte. We had a deal,” the woman said.
“Go,” Rat said as he came over to me, “we’ve got this.”
I couldn’t watch her. I don’t know what kind of man that made me, but I couldn’t watch her walk straight into that bitch’s clutches. My hand pulsed with pain. My knuckle swelled and I knew almost instantly that I broke it.
“Deac, you really need to see this,” Rico said as he made his way out onto the porch.
Rat nodded his head toward the front door and I pulled away from the window. We all gathered on the porch, watching as our Char stood in front of all those patrolmen. In front of all those cop cars. In front of Sheriff Nielson, who looked like he was strongarmed into this just like we were.
“How the fuck did she make a call to them anyway?” Mace asked.
Gauge sighed heavily. “Yeah, I think I know the answer to that.”
“What?” I asked as I whipped my head to face him. “You gave her a fucking phone?”
“We can talk later,” he whispered.
The urge to snap his fucking neck rushed through me, but when Char stopped just shy of that federal agent, I held my breath.
Jesus, I hoped that woman knew what she was doing.
CHAR
“Miss Charlotte,” the woman said as she lowered the bullhorn from her face.
I put on my best smile. “Is my savior going to tell me her name?”
She nodded and held out her hand. “Once we get in Sheriff Nielson’s car, we can talk about anything you’d like.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me your name.”
The sheriff, who hovered over my shoulder, answered for her when she didn’t. “Special Agent Marcie Dickerson.”
“Can it, Sheriff,” Marcie said flatly.
“Why?” I asked as I took a step toward her. “I thought this was just about getting me safe. Why wouldn’t I want to know the name of my rescuer?”
I held her gaze as the anger boiled behind her eyes.
If she thought she put up a good front, then she needed more training from her fellow federal agent peers.
I stepped even closer, wondering how much distance she’d let me close before scooting back.
Step after step, until her breath pulsed against my face.
I moved like lightning, just like she did.
And I took that bullhorn right out of her fucking hand.
“Hey!” she exclaimed.
I pressed the button and held it at my side as feedback screeched through the horn. She stumbled back, covering her ears as Sheriff Nielson grabbed my elbow and slowly backed me away. I held that speaker button tightly, however. Whatever we said, I wanted it to be broadcasted.
I wanted everyone standing there to know what she said this time around.
No more catching me off guard at my own fucking place.
“Miss Charlotte, give me the bullhorn,” Marcie said as the feedback ceased.
I tilted my head. “You told me that you saw I was in trouble and wanted to help, right?”
She chewed on the inside of her cheek, and it prompted me to take a step closer. Just to make sure her voice got picked up by the bullhorn.
“Right, Special Agent Dickerson?” I asked.
She swallowed hard as if she tried to contain all of the anger the world had to offer within her measly little body.
“You deserve better than this,” she said as her voice broadcasted to the desert all around us. “You always have.”
“Then I’ll go with you, and you can show it all to me. Maybe I just need to be shown what better really looks like.”
Marcie held her hand out toward a cruiser. “Then let’s go. I’m sure you’ve been scared enough here.”
“And then you’ll leave town?”
She froze, and I knew I had her right where I wanted her.
“That’s what you said, right?” I asked as I tilted the speaker toward her just a bit more. “You’re undercover, going to report to your boss somewhere, then you stop in for some?—”
“Cut it out,” she glowered.
“—food, maybe a drink, and you recognize me? That’s what you said, right?”
“Miss Charlotte?—”
I rolled my shoulders back. “And that’s how you recognized me. Just a woman, getting some food while on a job, and you see the girl you tried to save, but failed to. So you’re saving me, and that means that once you’ve saved me, you’ll leave here and go on about your job. Right?”
The anger that flashed behind her eyes worried me, but I wasn’t the only one to witness it.
Each of the patrol officers stepped closer, not to mention the fact that Sheriff Nielson himself stepped up to my side.
My voice, echoing across the desert through that horn.
Her answers, being witnessed by at least two dozen other people.
And her anger told me I was on the right track.
“Give me that,” she hissed as she reached for the bullhorn.
I quickly stepped away, and it caused a chain reaction.
The second I took a step back toward the sheriff, that woman pulled her gun off her hip.
She cocked it and pointed it right at me.
Right at my fucking forehead. And as if the earth itself was scheduled to open up and swallow us whole, the ground rumbled as everyone around me—including the sheriff—pulled out their guns and cocked them.
“You may have jurisdiction in L.A.,” Nielson said, “but you don’t have any here because your operation isn’t here. I suggest you put your gun away.”
The woman nodded to the guys on the porch. “You gonna let some criminals point a gun at a federal agent?”
“Right now,” one of the patrolmen behind me said, “they’re just private citizens standing their ground on their property.”
“Property that we were invited to,” Marcie said.
“Property you’re not an agent on because you don’t have jurisdiction,” the sheriff said. “Now put. Your gun. Away.”
A few beats of silence echoed between all of us before the woman put her hands up in a mock sort of surrender. She took her hand off the trigger, I heard a soft click, and just like that, she holstered her weapon. Which caused everyone else to do the same.
As for me, however? I kept my thumb square on that speaker button.
“So whisk me away,” I said, breaking the silence. “Do what you came here to do, and then continue on your merry way. Then you know I’m safe, and you can get back to your job that you’ve completely neglected because you’ve allowed your own emotions to pull you off the hook.”
Watching that woman physically vibrate with anger brought me so much pleasure that I had to fight just to stifle my smile.
“You’ll never be safe, Miss Charlotte, until?—”
I tilted my head. “Until what? I thought this was just about saving me. That’s what you said yesterday after you drugged Deacon and Dallas to get to me, right?”
“You did what?” Sheriff Nielson asked.
Marcie flashed him a look. “I thought they were stalking her place.”
“We were protecting her place from you!” Deac called out from the porch. “That’s the second or third time you’ve cornered her without explanation at her homebase!”
Marcie shook her head as her gaze returned to me.
“You don’t know a thing about what’s going on right now.
What they’re wrapped up in. The things they do.
They’re criminals, Char. Just like your father.
And they’ll fuck you over the second they can, just like your father did.
Why can’t you see that you deserve more than that?
All of you kids deserve so much more than that. ”
I blinked. “Do I look like a kid to you?”
She chewed on her lower lip so much that it turned red. “Come on, let’s get you somewhere safe.”
I took a step back with every step she took toward me. “Only if you promise to leave this place and never come back.”
She held out her hand toward the cruiser. “I can’t do that.”
I rushed her, making sure I had that bullhorn on fucking blast. “Then this was never about saving me, or wrapping anything up, or anything that you told me earlier. Which means I’m sure your superior will be happy to know what you’re really doing on company time while you’re supposed to be running an op.
You know, since there’s a lot of paperwork that comes with field kills. ”
I didn’t know how the fuck I’d do it, but I’d find a way to get her to admit it. To get her to admit that she killed Bait in cold blood simply because she thought she could. Even if it cost me my guys, I’d get justice for that man.
Because he deserved it.
“I’m risking my entire career to do this for you,” the woman glowered, finally allowing her anger to take over.
I simply smiled, though. “Then take me away to safety, and you can go on about your life. Unless of course this has nothing to do with me and you’re just using me as an excuse to do whatever you want.”
Her face was bloodshot with anger as she clenched her hands at her sides.
“You know,” I said as I lowered my voice, “like my father always did.”
Then with her shivering body staring me down, I took my finger off the bullhorn and handed it back to her. Without another word spoken, she took it from my hand and threw it through an open cruiser window.
“Let’s go,” she said flatly.
And as I turned toward the guys on the porch, I nodded. I smiled at them, trying to get them to see. Trying to get them to understand the point. I mean, this woman excelled in the darkness. Stealth was clearly her thing. So how do you tackle the darkness?
You pull it into the light.
“Inside. Now,” the woman said as she ducked me down into the back of the sheriff’s car.
And when the sheriff climbed behind the wheel of the car, I watched as Marcie slammed her way into the passenger’s seat.
“So where are we off to now, Sheriff? I’m sure my knight in shining armor would like to ask me some more questions. You know, since she’s been so invested in my life’s journey.”
God, what I wouldn’t have given to have seen her fucking face as she slammed her fists into the dashboard of that man’s vehicle.