Sweet Recovery (Ex Ops Series Book 4) (19 page)

Jay didn’t turn around or acknowledge my words; he just kept staring at Lucas, who stood directly in front of him.

Not sure of what else I could do, I peeked around Jay’s shoulder and shot Lucas a pleading look to stop.

Lucas’s hard, angry eyes bore into my own, and the determination I saw there scared the shit out of me.

Neither Jay nor Lucas were the type of men to back down from a challenge. Why couldn’t either of them see that I was no longer a prize to be won? Why couldn’t I get Lucas to understand that my fate was set in stone?

An unnatural sense of calm settled over me, something that felt like the eye of a storm, and I knew what I had to do.

Stepping up to Jay’s side, I entwined my arm with his and embraced it in an intimate fashion. Using the sort of tone I had often heard my mother use with my father, I turned my head as if I were dismissing Lucas and addressed Jay alone. “Forget about him, Jay. He’s no one. Let’s leave and go enjoy the rest of our day together.”

Jay turned his head to look at me, still hesitating like he considered Lucas a threat, so I gave him one last plea, pushing as much false sincerity into my words and face as I could.

“Please, Jay.”

Jay reached up and caressed the side of my face in a soothing manner, making me think he was trying to comfort me. Then he gripped my face firmly and turned my head so that I had to look at Lucas again.

“Take one last look and remember it well. She’s mine now. I never want to see you near her again.”

I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see the look on Lucas’s face as Jay spoke those damning words, and then I found myself being promptly pulled away.

I opened my eyes again in time to see myself being led out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk.

Jay’s bodyguard, Samuel, held out a hand to steady me as I climbed up and slipped into the back of Jay’s Cadillac Escalade. Once inside, Samuel gently closed the door behind me then got into the driver’s seat. Then Jay slipped into the back seat on the other side of the SUV while his second bodyguard climbed into the front. No one said a word. The silence was almost ominous, but the funny thing was, I wasn’t afraid of Jay. Although his reaction in the restaurant had been on the extreme side, he had never hurt me before, and something instinctual told me he would never lay a hand on me. Perhaps it was the way he had always handled me, as if he were afraid I was going to break. It was hard to explain.

The other bizarre thing was, even though I didn’t love Jay, I was extremely disappointed in him. I had grown attached to him over these last few months. He had always been so nice to me, as if he actually cared about my happiness. Then he had marched into that restaurant and acted like he was the emperor of everything, and I was his possession.

Part of me knew Jay probably thought he was saving me from a situation, but my irrational heart was screaming,
That was Lucas!

Why in the hell had Lucas shown up out of the blue? And how in the world had he tracked me down. Mom had assured me that my father had buried our information so deep we might as well be dead. Yet, there he had been, sitting across the booth from me, as if he were meant to have been there all along.

Oh, Lucas, what have you done?

I didn’t know who I was more scared for: me or him. If Jay, his men, or even one of my father’s men for that matter, told Richard Wellington about the man who had sat with his daughter in public as if he knew her, Lucas would be a dead man. It wouldn’t take my father long to connect the dots between Miami and this, possibly even back to the family he knew we had been close to back in New York. That would put not just Lucas, but all of the Youngs in danger again.

Half of me hoped he ran like hell out of the state of Illinois. The other half prayed he would take me with him. It was an internal torture I was sure I was never going to have to live through again, just like that last night in the motel in Miami.

“Virginia?”

Jay’s voice brought me out of my musings, and I looked from the window to see his face set in stern lines. Gone was the soft smile I had grown used to. Now he looked so different it made me wonder if I had misjudged him. Regardless of the packaging, perhaps he wasn’t so different from my father after all. Oh, blast and balls, this wasn’t going to be good.

Once he realized he had my full attention, he continued. “I don’t know who that was, and I don’t want to know, but if you want him to stay alive, you’ll stay far away from him. Do you understand?”

All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure whom I should be more afraid of: Jay or my father.

If I had judged Jay wrong because he had been that good of an actor to make me believe he wouldn’t hurt me, he could end up being far more dangerous than my father. At least with Richard Wellington, what you saw was what you got. Now I was starting to wonder if Jay was the devil in disguise. It was hard to know anymore.

I found myself nodding frantically out of fear. Not for myself, but for Lucas, the Youngs, and my mother.

The SUV stopped at a red light, and I turned my attention back toward the window. It was safer to look out at the world than face what was in here.

One second, I was watching a little girl and her mother crossing the street, and the next, the glass next to my head was exploding inside toward me.

I ducked down and tried to cover my head, not understanding what was going on as shouts filled the air from Jay and his two bodyguards.

Loud pops of gunfire exploded around me, and I couldn’t help screaming. I had never considered being fired upon while traveling like this. I knew all of my father’s vehicles had bulletproof glass. Why in the hell didn’t Jay have it, too?

As fast as the gunfire had started, it stopped, and there was utter silence. I had to wonder if I was dead. Why else would the world be so quiet? We were in the middle of the city after all. There should be people screaming and tires squealing or something, right?

Before I could figure out what was going on, my door was opened, and I was yanked out of the vehicle. I kicked and screamed at the top of my lungs as I was dragged away. If I were being kidnapped, it couldn’t possibly be good. It had to be one of my father’s enemies come to take me for revenge or ransom. Either way, I was dead. And if Jay and his men weren’t saving me, that meant they were dead, too.

Oh, God, please help me.

Seconds after thinking and praying that sentiment, I was thrown into the backseat of another car, and the door was promptly shut behind me. I reached up for the door handle closest to me, which happened to be on the driver’s side, to try to rush out before my kidnapper got in, but as soon as I opened the door a crack, it was slammed back in my face. The driver’s side door was opened then shut, and between one blink and the next, the car was taking off like a rocket.

There was a loud shrieking sound, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was me, still screaming. Shit, I totally needed to scream some more!

“Honest to God, Gin, if you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to duct tape your mouth closed.”

Wait … what?

I knew that voice. It played in my dreams and haunted my nightmares.

Lucas?

Looking up and into the review mirror, I found familiar hazel eyes staring back at me.

I should have felt relief. I should have been thankful he had rescued me. Instead, I was terrified out of my mind.

What the hell had he just done? He was going to get himself killed! Not just himself, but his family, me, and even possibly my mother depending on how crazy my father went.

“Don’t look so fucking happy to see me, angel. I would hate for you to get overexcited.”

“Lucas, what have you done?” I finally screamed.

He snorted. “Took out that douchebag and his goons. Now I’m going to get us both to safety. You might want to buckle up back there, because we’re definitely going over the speed limit.”

Speed limit? He had just shot and possibly killed three people, and he was worried about the speed limit?

“Are you crazy?” I yelled back desperately.

“Apparently so, Gin, apparently so. Now buckle the fuck up.”

He turned on the radio, set the music loud, and continued to drive the car like we were on the run for our lives … mainly because we were.

Afraid he would get in a car accident and send me flying out the windshield, I finally sat up and buckled myself in. I had no idea where he was taking us, but I was more concerned over who might follow.

Had my father already been notified? Had Lucas killed Jay? I might not have loved the man, but I didn’t want to see him dead, either. He had been the closest thing to salvation from my father’s tyranny that I’d had in years. There were days I might even compare him to a white knight in shining armor before that scene in the restaurant. Now the dumbass I had once thought was my Prince Charming might have murdered him, which would more than likely get the both of us executed in retaliation.

A million thoughts raced through my head as the streets blurred past us. Somehow, that lucky shithead managed not to get pulled over. I had no idea how he had pulled that off, but what I did know was that, with my luck, if I so much as jaywalked, there would be a small posse of officers there ready and willing to write me a ticket.

Eventually, Lucas slowed down to the speed limit. By that time, I thought shock must have set in, because I would look at the clock, and the next time looked, it would be twenty minutes later.

Lucas drove for what seemed like forever, but according to the clock, it was only an hour. He had gone on and off the highways and now was pulling into a small hotel’s parking lot. This all felt like a really bad flashback of our time in Miami. Only, this time, I wasn’t drunk and still had my panties on.

I probably should have run when he got out of the car to book a room, but where the hell would I have run to? I didn’t have my purse, my phone, or anything else. Hell, even my shoes were missing! Lucas had pulled me right out of them when he had yanked me from the SUV.

I was lost, scared, and confused. Could it possibly get any worse?

Lucas

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I growled.

Ginny didn’t answer. Instead, she sat there, staring at the table in front of her as if she were a zombie. I was getting damn tired of this particular avoidance tactic of hers. Something about her silence pushed me over the edge of the little bit of control I had somehow been hanging on to. I lost it.

My sanity.

All reason.

Everything.

My mind shut down in a haze of uncontrollable anger. My hands and body seemingly moved under my fury’s overriding unconscious commands. One second, I saw my hands slamming down on the table top she wouldn’t look up from. Then, in the blink of an eye, the table was flying through the air, smashing into the wall next to the room’s door.

But the crash of the wooden table wasn’t the loudest thing in the room. It was my roar of rage and frustration.

Through it all, Ginny remained unmoving in her chair. The girl who used to flinch was gone, and in her place was an emotionless robot.

I hated it, which only angered me more.

I wanted to grab her with both hands and shake the life back into her. I wanted to demand that she act like a living being again instead of the detached doll her father had turned her into. She had been kicking and screaming like a banshee when I had pulled her from the SUV. Now she was being too quiet. Was it shock? Or was she trying to retreat into herself to avoid a confrontation?

But I wouldn’t lay my hands on her while I was angry, and I couldn’t force her to be the girl she had been before. What I could do was demand answers … so that was what I was going to do.

Storming over to her, I leaned down and braced my hands on the back of her chair, caging her in. Then, dropping my face down until we were nose to nose, breathing each other in, I snarled again, “Why in the hell did you let me make love to you then walk out of that motel room as if you didn’t give a flying fuck about whether or not you were hurting us both by not telling me a damn thing?”

“Why would I tell you?” her small voice replied.

I shook the chair, but not as badly as I wanted to shake some sense into her.

“How can you ask me that after what happened between us? I know I hurt you, but you had five years to calm down and get over that shit so I could apologize. And then, when I happened to see you in Miami and did apologize, you let me inside of you without ever really being
inside
of you.

“I poured out my heart to you like some idiotic jackass, and you used me as a fuck toy before you went back to your man and your troubles. I may have hurt you, Gin, but I’d never use you like that. While you treated me like something you wanted to throw away, I was trying to figure out how I could talk you into letting me keep you forever. That was fucking wrong, and you
know
it.” Giving her chair another little shake, I ground out, “How could you do that to us?”

Ginny’s eyes never even flickered with a hint of emotion when she tonelessly spoke words that were sharp enough to flay me alive.

“Because I knew there could never be an ‘us,’ Lucas. My father will kill you, your family, and anyone else he thinks might get in the way of his plans. I had to walk away before he had the chance. I’m sorry if I hurt you in the process, but I needed that night. I needed those memories so I could come back here and survive this life. If you can’t understand that I did what I had to do to survive, then I don’t know what else to tell you. Now, if you’re done grilling me, I really would like a damn drink.”

She wasn’t fooling me. I could see right through her bullshit. Ginny might sit there and try to act like a robot who didn’t care, but I knew better. Most of the time, she cared too much. This was just her trying to hide it.

It was wrong to antagonize her, but I couldn’t help myself. “Like a glass of water?”

The robot act dropped, and she shot me a killer glare and snapped back, “More like a glass of vodka, you pain in the ass!”

I snorted at her anger, but walked over to my bag where I had a travel-sized bottle of whiskey I had picked up at the gas station near my hotel. Walking back over to her, I dropped the bottle lightly into her lap as I said sarcastically, “Here you go, sweetheart; have at it.”