Chapter Fourteen

 

Wade sat clutching a beer, his feet in the pool, trying to be happy about the prospect of a visit from whatever random chick he’d invited over earlier. He leaned back on one elbow, favoring his still slightly sore wrist, relishing the residual heat from the day’s sun on the state-of-the-art concrete surround.

No matter what he did, no matter how many beers he drank, no matter how much he tried like hell to purge the woman, Samantha Weaver would simply not exit his thoughts or, worse, his dreams.

Kind of like right now. He groaned and laid all the way back, one arm over his eyes, willing her gone. But all he could see was her smile. All he could smell was her perfume. And forget about her taste.

“God…damn…it,” he muttered as his dick hardened, like a champ.

Leaving the half empty bottle on the concrete, he lurched up, stripped off the wrist brace, and slipped into the cold water. He sat on the bottom as long as he could stand it then started lapping back and forth until he could barely breathe and his every pore was waterlogged.

After sitting on the wide steps to catch his breath, he hauled himself out, his brain quiet from the rush of endorphins. The sound of the doorbell stopped him in his tracks. As the water dripped off his skin, peppering the concrete beneath him, he waited, listening to it and recalling the day Sam had rang it repeatedly. The day he’d blown her off, not knowing why.

After about five minutes of doorbell-leaning and fist-whamming, the woman whose name he couldn’t even recall gave up. The sound of her car tires squealing on the asphalt and the loud, obnoxious horn blowing all the way down the long drive made him smile. Once he figured it was safe, he headed inside and straight to the shower, grabbing his phone off the kitchen island on his way past.

After taking a cursory glance at the screen out of habit, he froze in the hallway. The words wouldn’t register, no matter how many times he stared at them. When the device buzzed with a call from Jax, he dropped it, still too shocked to move.

“What the fuck is going on?” he barked into it once he’d retrieved it and answered.

“Get over here, Wade. It’s Sam. We’ve got half a dozen cops, and they called out the hostage negotiators. He’s…” Jax hesitated. “He sent pictures of her using her phone to Skye. You need to fucking get here now.”

Without a response, he ran full tilt into his closet, threw on jeans and a T-shirt and leapt into his truck, his heart in his throat. It took him almost forty minutes of jaw grinding traffic to get to the mansion in Preston Hollow. He found it surrounded by cops, a crew of his own, plus the smaller of the fire trucks.

Head spinning, he ran up to a clump of blue uniforms. “Who the hell are you?” one of the cops asked him. “This is for official—”

“I’m official. I’m also the victim’s…ah, her boyfriend.” The word sounded natural enough. And he wanted some answers. He flashed his badge, relieved to see Jax run up in his full gear.

“Fill us in, Nick,” his friend demanded of one of the cops. “What can we do?”

“Well,” Nick said, eyeing Wade doubtfully.

At that moment, a phone rang. A guy in a coat and tie held up a hand for silence, then answered it. Wade watched and listened, stunned at the bizarre reality of this situation. Without even thinking, he reached across the scrum of uniforms and yanked the phone out of the guy’s hand and started walking straight to the front door, still holding it.

“Wade!” He heard Jax hollering for him, but he didn’t give a shit.

The other cops were trying to intercept him, but he either stiff-armed them or ducked out of their way, the phone clutched in his hand. He had one focus. The over-the-top double front doors, behind which some psychotic asshole had his woman held hostage. Despite all the hubbub behind him, he kept moving forward until he hit the door and slammed it back against the inner wall. It made a satisfying crash.

Once he was in the ice-cold hallway, he realized he may very well have endangered Sam even further. “Sam!” he bellowed, wincing when the house echoed the name back at him. “Sam, where are you?”

Silence met his ears. With a curse, he put the phone to his ear. “Tell me where you’re keeping her, you sick fuck, and prepare for me to rip your spine out through your asshole.”

But the line had gone dead.

He gripped the thing tight and tried to take in everything he could, listening for any clue. He stomped into the kitchen, dropping to his knees at the sight of a pool of blood by the island. With a shudder, he picked up her phone, lying half in, half out of the blood. Fury roared through his psyche. He turned at the sound of a footstep and came face to face with Sam’s bloodied face.

“Don’t move,” a man’s voice hit his ears.

Wade swallowed hard, using all the control he possessed not to lunge forward and drag her away from the guy. Everything in him rebelled at the sight of her, of his Sam, his woman, gagged with something, her nose obviously broken, tears streaming down her messed-up face. She still had on her blouse and skirt and high heels, he noted, trying to keep it clinical while his inner alpha male roared and rattled its cage. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm and not make this worse than he already had.

The creep behind her produced a handgun which he pointed at her temple.

“I’ve been watching and waiting for this for months,” the guy said, staring at Wade as he put his face near Sam’s, making her shiver and close her eyes. “And now, I have an audience. How lovely.”

“Listen, dude, just calm down, all right? Put the gun away. We can talk—”

“No,” the guy burst out, his face splitting in an ugly grimace as he shoved Sam into the wall face first. Her scream of terror ripped through his brain, forcing him forward without a second thought to his own safety.

He grabbed the guy by both shoulders and hauled him backward, slamming him against the stainless steel fridge. With a noise even he didn’t recognize, Wade kicked the gun out of his hand, likely shattering his tibia if the asshole’s screech of pain was any indication. When the weasel tried to duck aside, Wade snatched his scrawny neck and pressed him back, squeezing, enjoying the way the man’s eyes popped as he scrabbled at Wade’s huge hand.

“You have no fucking idea who you are messing with,” he growled, putting his face close and keeping up his hand’s steady pressure.

Someone tried to pull him back, but Wade was bigger and stronger than almost every man he knew, and he was on a mission now. “Wade!” someone bellowed in his ear even as four sets of hands pulled him back, forcing him to release Sam’s attacker. The guy slumped to the floor, spluttering and coughing.

Wade wrenched himself away from the hands holding him back, lifted the guy up by his sweaty shirt collar and started pounding with his other fist. Blind and deaf to anything but the recent memory of Sam’s bloodied, teary face, and the way this asshole had manhandled her. Had held a fucking gun to her face.

“You. Are. Going. To. Die. Today,” he said through clenched teeth as he pounded in time with his words, relishing the crunch of bone and sinew under his knuckles.

“Wade, God damn it, stand down now,” a loud voice broke through his concentration. Jax forced himself between Wade and the man who had hurt his woman, shoving back so hard Wade had to let go of the other guy’s bloody shirt. “Go over there,” Jax said, staring into Wade’s face. “Go to Sam. The cops have this covered.”

Shaking, Wade turned slowly, clenching and unclenching his bloody fists and watched as Cal and two others of his own paramedics tended to Sam. She was hysterical, her chest hitching up and down and preventing them from getting any decent vitals. He froze, terrified by the strength of his own fear at that moment.

“Go to her,” Jax said, shoving him forward. “Calm her down.”

Wade stared at his friend, his pulse racing. “I…can’t.”

“The fuck you can’t. Go.”

One last hard shove sent him stumbling across the kitchen. He dropped to his knees and held up a hand to keep Cal and the others from trying to do anything more, studying her with as objective an eye as he could manage.

Her busted up nose looked even worse up close. He tried not to see all the other things wrong with her, but his medical training wouldn’t allow it. He saw it all, more or less all at once—the angry ligature marks on her wrists, the darkening red line around her throat, her broken fingernails, her hair hanging in clumps, some with scalp still attached. His hands hovered over her a few seconds until she opened her eyes and met his gaze.

Fresh tears poured down her cheeks. “Wade,” she whispered. “Wade... I’m, I’m sorry. I was s-s-s-stupid.” She sucked in a long breath, which seemed to be painful. “He…hurt me.”

Every small hesitation he’d experienced flew right out the window. He took her hand and put it to his lips as she erupted in a fresh bout of sobbing. But as he nodded for Cal to resume getting Sam’s vitals, her hand slipped out of his and her head slumped to the side.

He shoved the man aside and put his bloodied fingers to Sam’s neck. “Her pulse is thready. She’s going into shock. Get blankets.” He glanced up at the faces around him. “Did I stutter? Get a line in and start valium.” He sat on his butt, gripping Sam’s hand and brushing her hair from her battered face while his crew did their jobs, stabilized her and got her ready for transport.

“Chief?” Cal said, putting a hand on his shoulder. Wade kept staring down at her, crooning nonsense words, telling her he was there for her, that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her ever again. “I’m calling ahead for a rape kit.”

Wade closed his eyes and clenched one of his fists on the floor next to Sam’s prone body. “Yeah,” he croaked out.

“What is it,” Sam asked, her voice raspy as her eyes fluttered open.

“It’s nothing, darlin’,” he said, forcing himself to smile at her. “Everything’s gonna be fine.” He glanced up at Cal. “We ready?” He stepped away from her so they could get her up on the gurney.

“No, no, no, Wade, don’t.” She gasped, heading into hyperventilation again. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m right here, honey,” he said, his throat closing up with emotion. The cops had already wrestled her attacker out of the house, and the fire trucks had left when they emerged into the now dark, sticky night air. He held onto her hand as they rolled the gurney to the ambulance. “I’m never leaving you, Sam,” he said, kissing both her bloody cheeks. “Ever.”

She nodded and closed her eyes. “So tired,” she whispered.

“It’s okay,” he said, glaring at the men staring at him as he remained crouched beside her in the rig. “I’m not leaving her,” he told them. Cal spoke to one of them. Then they shut the doors with a firm clunk.