Unfinished Hero 03 Raid (38 page)

“I need to get home, buddy.”

“Meow.”

“My man’s coming home.”

He pointed his face to the driveway.

Gah!

I didn’t have time for this!

I ran back to the house, threw open the door and shouted, “Spot feels like a ride!
Raid will bring him back later!”

“Righty ho!” Grams shouted back.

So
that
was where I got it.

I grinned to myself, raced back to my bike, mounted and threw back the kickstand.
Putting my feet to the pedals, we were off.

“You’re going to have to explain to Raiden why he has to leave our bed and bring you
home,” I informed Spot.

“Meow,” he replied to the wind blowing in his face, unafraid of badass Raiden Miller
as only Spot would be.

We rode home. I stopped at the front and hefted him out of the basket. He crawled
up to get paws on my shoulder and started purring as I walked up the steps.

I grinned.

Totally a crazy cat.

I pulled out my keys, opened my screen door that had storm windows
,
too, ditto with Raid putting them in. A fat cat in my arm, the storm door resting
on my behind, I inserted the key in lock one, turned it and it didn’t do anything.

It was unlocked.

“Didn’t I
—
?” I started to ask the doorknob when it turned.

The door was thrown open, my hand was caught in a vice-like grip
,
and on a terrified scream
Spot and I were pulled inside.

For the next ten minutes I felt a lot of terror.

And a lot of pain.

This was because in the foyer of my childhood home I got the shit beaten out of me
by three men with one man watching.

The only thing that I processed outside the fear and pain was Spot hissing then his
agonized, “
Muuuuurrrrroooowww!
” when he was kicked into the living room.

Finally down and almost out, on my belly
, u
nable to move, pain searing through my insides as I coughed up blood, my arm useless
and broken under me, my head was pulled back by my hair.

I gave out a tortured whimper at the additional pain and tried to force myself to
focus on the man who was in my face.

“Just so you know, Heather gave you up after she watched us put a bullet in Bodhi’s
brain,” he told me.

Oh God.

Oh
God.

Banana,
I heard Bodhi’s voice in my head.

The pain so immense, physical and now emotional, my head swimming, my eyes drifting
open and shut, I was going to pass out. I wanted it. I needed it.

But he wasn’t done.

“I don’t like to lose money. You made me lose money. Now we’re square.”

He slammed my head into the rug.

And when he did, thankfully, I lost consciousness.

* * * * *

My eyes drifted open.

Something was happening.

I was in agony, head to toes.

I needed to get to a phone.

I needed the black back.

Something shifted at my side as I heard the backdoor open.

I tensed, my mouth opening to call out, then closing.

They wouldn’t come back.

Would they come back?

I scuttled and something scuttled with me.

Spot was pressed to my side.

I could scuttle no more. It hurt too much. Way too much.

I stopped.

“
Hanna!
” I heard called.

It was Raid. He was probably wondering why I didn’t rush to greet him like I usually
did.

My mouth opened.

My eyes drifted closed.

“Jesus,
fuck!
” I heard barked.

I felt movement, heard boots on floor, a cat’s hiss, another one, a furry body shifting,
thumping, striking, more hissing then, “Fuckin’ cat! Hanna.”

My hair was shifted off my neck.

My eyes fluttered.

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”

A hand moving on me.

“Baby, are you with me?”

My eyes fluttered again.

“Fuck me… yeah, this is Raiden Miller. I’m at 10 Hunter Lane. My woman’s been attacked,
beaten badly, she’s barely conscious. I need an ambulance.” Pause then I felt him
close. “Hanna, baby, you with me?”

I tried to flutter my eyes.

But it all went black.

* * * * *

My eyes drifted open.

It was dark
,
but there was muted light and I didn’t understand the smells I was experiencing.
I also didn’t understand the wooziness I was feeling.

“Baby.”

My eyes drifted to the side and I saw Raiden there.

“Hey.”

My lips hurt.

Why was that?

Raiden’s face got closer which was good. That meant I didn’t have to expend so much
effort focusing on it.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he told me.

“Okay.”

My voice was strange. It was quiet, weak
and hoarse.

I didn’t see his hand move
,
but I felt him tuck my hair behind my ear.

That felt nice.

“You’re gonna be all right,” he assured me.

“Okay,” I whispered again in that voice.

“I’m gonna take care of this,” he promised.

I had no idea what he was talking about
,
but I replied with another, “Okay.”

His eyes closed then I could really focus on him when his forehead came to rest gently
on mine.

He had great eyelashes.

“I love you, honey,” he said, low and fierce.

“I love you, too,” I told him, losing focus, my eyes slowly closing and reopening.

“I’m gonna take care of this,” he repeated his vow.

“Okay, sweetheart,” I replied, my eyes slowly closing and staying that way.

I felt the brush of his lips on mine.

Then I felt nothing.

* * * * *

I opened my eyes to sun then I blinked.

At what I took in, I pushed up the hospital bed, everything hitting me at once.

My arm in a cast. Pain in my ribs. My face. A concentration of pain at my upper lip.

No.

Pain everywhere. Dull pain
,
but it was there.

Everywhere.

And three big men I’d never seen standing around my bed.

Oh God!

“Told you you’d freak her,”
a woman’s voice stated
,
and around the big man to my right
,
who had brown hair and a wicked scar on his face but was nevertheless extremely hot
,
came a pretty, petite blonde woman holding an adorable baby boy to her hip.

Her eyes hit mine. “Yo, I’m Sylvie Creed.”

This meant nothing to me and my hand inched toward the call button.

Her eyes didn’t miss this so she kept talking, jerking her head to the dark-haired
man with unusual blue eyes standing to my left. “That’s Knight Sebring.”

Knight.

Knight was Raiden’s buddy.

My eyes went to him and my hand stopped.

“Least she knows you,” Sylvie muttered toward Knight
,
and an unbelievably beautiful woman came around his side and looked down at me with
a small smile.

Then she said in a soft, calming voice, “Hi, Hanna. I’m Anya, Knight’s woman
,
and you’re safe. Okay?”

Not okay.

Nothing was okay.

Or nothing would be okay until I knew where
my
man was.

Because I remembered. I remembered everything. All of it. And as bad as what happened
to me in my foyer was, it was worse with Raiden vowing he was going to take care of
it.

I had a feeling with what he did to Meg (and he
did
do what he said he was going to do to Meg, the last thing I heard, she’d moved to
Denver
,
mostly because she had no choice), since this was
way
worse, he was going to
take care of this.

So I asked Anya, “Where’s Raiden?”

“That’s what we need to talk to you about,” she told me.

I did not take this as good.

“First, as Sylvie said, this is Knight,” she motioned to the man at her side and he
jerked his chin up at me. “That’s Tucker Creed, he’s married to Sylvie,” Anya went
on, motioning to the man with the scar. I looked to him and he gave me a small smile.
“And that’s Deacon,” she concluded.

My eyes flew to the end of the bed to take in the extortionately good-looking, tall,
dark-haired, scary man there.

“Looks like she knows you too,” Sylvie noted.

“I’m pleased to meet you all,” I cut in. “But where’s Raiden?”

“Hunting,” scary, hot guy at the foot of my bed grunted
,
and my heart started beating hard.

Or harder.

“Hunting?” I whispered.

“Yesterday,” Knight spoke gently and my eyes cut to him, “you were assaulted in your
home by a man we’re looking for. You have a broken ulna, six broken ribs, a concussion
and two stitches in your lip that the doctors say will dissolve and you’ll barely
notice the scar. You’ll be under observation here at least until tomorrow and you’ll
endure a recuperation period
,
but the doctors have assured your family that you’ll make a complete recovery. There’s
no lasting damage.”

Except for the broken arm, r
ibs, barely noticeable scar, mild head injury and recuperation period and the news
that my “family” was out there, probably worried like crazy about me
,
my ninety-eight year old Grams amongst them
,
that all sounded a lot better than what happened to me felt.

But I had bigger fish to fry.

“Okay,” I said softly. “But what does hunting mean?”

“You know your man, babe.” This came from Tucker Creed
,
and he was also speaking gently. “You know what it means.”

He was right. I knew what it meant.

Oh God.

I looked frantically to Knight. “You have to stop h
i
m. Stop him from doing something that might get him in trouble. Stop him from doing
something he can’t live with.”

“He’ll be able to live with this,” Deacon’s voice rumbled up from my feet
,
and my eyes moved to him.

“Don’t let him do this,” I begged Deacon, his mentor, a man he trusted.

“Woman, we’re here to find out how to help him,” Deacon told me
,
and I stared.

“We need to find him, Hanna,” Sylvie Creed said
,
and my eyes moved to her. “Find him, calm him down and find these guys who did his
to you. You need to help us.”

Okay, calming him down sounded good.

“Tell us everything you know,” Tucker Creed ordered.

Darn.

“I don’t know anything,” I told him.

“No, honey, everything you saw, everything they said, everything you can remember,”
he clarified.

I shook my head. “I… they set on me fast and I…”

Sylvie (and her cute baby) leaned into me and she wrapped her hand carefully around
my cast. “We dig this can’t be easy, not this soon after it happened
,
but as they say, time is of the essence. Anything you remember could help, Hanna.
I know it sounds crazy
,
but even what shoes they were wearing could help. An accent you heard in their voices.”

My eyes widened, she saw it and leaned in.

“Talk to me, girl,” she urged.

I talked.

They asked questions.

I answered them and talked more.

Then they were done
,
and I knew this because they all looked at each other and Anya shifted around the
bed.

“Give me Jesse, Sylvie,” she said.

Sylvie handed Jesse to Anya, leaned in and kissed her son before she ran a finger
down his cheek then she turned and looked down at me.

“We’ll find your man and it’ll all be good. I promise, Hanna.”

I nodded. She nodded back, turned, tipped her head back to her man and she started
to move. Tucker Creed moved with her.