Eagle
Two Hours Ago
LAST NIGHT, I barely slept a wink. A new nightmare—one where Naomi was trapped and alone—plagued me until I finally got up and read. The dream was so vivid, it was all I could think about all day. By the time I got off work, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I had to find out whether or not she was okay. Knowing I was most likely making a huge mistake, I headed directly into Link’s office as soon as I got home. His door was open, and he was sitting behind his computer, working.
“Hey, you got a minute?” I asked, poking my head inside.
He glanced up and waved me forward. “Yeah. Come in.” His gaze went back to his screen.
Before I could even tell him why I was there, his cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen and said, “Give me a sec. I gotta take this.” Then he answered. “Hey, Havoc. Did you find the motherfucker?”
I could hear Havoc’s deep voice say no before launching into details.
Link listened for a while, and then said, “Thanks for checking it out, brother. You might as well come on back. Emily gets off in two hours, then they’ll be here. Yeah, man, see you soon.”
“Everything okay?” I asked, leaning against the wall.
“Bull is positive he’s spotted the same homeless man in front of the fire station, in Emily’s office parking lot, and around her house. He says the guy looks familiar, but he can’t place him. It could be nothing, but you know I don’t fuck around with that shit. I’ll feel better once Havoc finds him and they have a little chat.”
“Havoc didn’t find him?” I asked.
“Nope. But we’ll get the son-of-a-bitch and see which of her cases has shown up to bite her in the ass. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to talk her into stepping away from the courtroom for a while after this.”
Not likely, but I understood Link’s desire to protect his woman.
“What can I do for you, Eagle?” Link asked.
“How’s Naomi?” I asked. I didn’t mean to just blurt it out like that, but small talk had never been my forte. I’d always preferred getting straight to the point.
Link stopped typing and focused on me. “Good. Why?”
“Just curious. When’s the last time you talked to her?” It was a dangerous line of questioning, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to know.
“Last week. Why?”
Link was staring at me, waiting for an answer. He was a good man who didn’t deserve to be lied to, and I was desperate enough to tell the truth. Just not all of it. “You ever have a fucked-up dream that someone’s hurt, and it feels so real you just gotta check on them?”
In the service, we learned to trust our gut. Link had excellent instinct, and so did I. His eyes went wide. He snatched his cell phone from the top of his desk, punched something in, and held it to his ear. “Hey, Squirt, how you doin’?”
I could barely hear her voice on the other end of the phone, but I could hear it. My entire body relaxed, and I took my first deep breath in days. She was okay. For now. I thought about getting out of Link’s office before he could get off the phone, but his gaze kept me pinned in place.
“Everything’s good. I’m just checking on you since you haven’t called yet this week. Do you know when your next deployment is?” His brow furrowed. “Well, okay. Love you, too.” He hung up and cocked his head to the side, still studying me. “She’s fine. In one hell of a hurry to get off the phone, but fine. You want to tell me why you’re dreaming about my sister, Eagle?”
Fighting the urge to tell him everything, I swallowed. I was going to have to come clean with him soon, but I wanted to give Naomi the heads up, first. “She’s a good woman. I worry about her out there,” I replied, not denying shit, but not confirming it either.
His gaze bore into me. Link was a smart man, and he knew me well.
Thankfully, his office phone rang. He glanced at the display and looked torn, but finally gave me a chin lift, and then answered it.
I took it as a sign and got the hell out of there.
Hurrying upstairs, I opened my bedroom door and stepped inside to find Naomi perched on my bed, staring at her tablet. She looked so goddamn gorgeous, her brown eyes wide and her fair skin glowing like an angel in the light streaming in from the window above the bed. I could barely believe my eyes, but she was very much real. Nervous, fidgeting like I’d never seen her do before. Then she dropped the bomb that rocked my world.
“You’re… pregnant?” I asked, making sure I’d heard her correctly.
She went off about how she was sure it was mine while I struggled to make it to the bed before my legs gave out. I’d grown up in a small family, Mom, Dad, and my sister, Deena. Deena was five years older than me, and we were never close. I’d always wanted more siblings, but my parents barely got along well enough to live together. Sleeping in the same bed was out of the question. They were still married, but I was pretty sure their relationship was more about punishing each other than love.
Genie and I had talked about kids once. We both wanted a big family, full of love and laughter, nothing like the tense battlefield I’d grown up in. For years I’d believed the dream of a family died with Genie. Naomi’s declaration that she was pregnant with my child was unexpected, but not unwelcome.
“I’m having this baby.” She settled a hand on her belly. Protective, fierce, I could see the kind of mom she’d be, and it was sexy as hell. Our kid would be lucky to have Naomi. Our kid would have us both.
I was going to be a dad.
Holy shit!
She kept rambling. She didn’t know if I’d want to be involved?
“You must think I’m a real piece of shit,” I said.
That frustrated her. She continued to shock me by admitting she wanted me involved, with the kid and with her. My head was spinning, and I was struggling to keep up, but she accused me of pushing everyone away. Normally, that was accurate, but I’d never once pushed her. No, the last time we’d been together, I’d asked her to stay. I’d wanted her here with me.
She was the one who left.
Both times, in fact.
For the first time in a long time, I wanted to be with someone, and she kept leaving me. Probably karma for all the women I’d unceremoniously ejected from my room after sex.
“I can’t compete with a ghost. Especially not one that makes you feel guilty for being with me.”
She didn’t get it. There was no competition, and that’s what I felt guilty about. Naomi had even managed to take over my nightmares. She’d scrubbed my life free of Genie from day one, and it had felt so wrong.
But also, extremely right.
And now she was carrying my baby. I stared at her in awe and wonder, my gaze drifting down to her belly. Soon it would grow round, and she’d bring life into the world. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would our baby have Naomi’s big brown eyes? Her perfect nose? She kept talking, but I was having a difficult time focusing on her words while my mind kept conjuring up images of her holding my baby.
I wanted that.
“If you can’t get emotionally attached and are going to need to bail, you need to tell me now, because if you walk out on our kid and fuck up their life like my mom did to me and Link, I swear I will hunt you down and end you.”
Couldn’t she see that I was already emotionally attached and that was the problem? I was so fucking emotionally attached, I couldn’t close my eyes at night without seeing her face. Her death.
It scared the shit out of me.
I needed her to be out of the goddamn military so I could keep her safe. I opened my mouth to tell her as much, but she was gone. She’d walked out on me yet again, claiming that I needed time to think. I stared at the door, wondering what to do. I didn’t need time to think. I knew exactly what I wanted.
I wanted her.
I wanted our baby.
I wanted the white picket fence and the family holidays and portraits.
I wanted it all.
Determined to find her and straighten this shit out once and for all, I went upstairs to her room, but she wasn’t there. The space was crowded with luggage, though, so she was clearly staying.
For good?
It sure looked like it. Naomi wasn’t the kind of woman to pack heavy… at least not with luggage. But she had so many bags crowded in her room she couldn’t possibly be planning on going back to the base.
I was exhausted, but the thought of her staying invigorated me. I needed to shower and change, but I had to find her first and tell her that she had it all wrong. I was ready to do whatever she needed, buy her a house, a car, move out of the fire station… Anything, as long as she stayed. I didn’t deserve her or our child, but I planned to do everything in my power to keep them.
I just needed to find them.
Hurrying down to the common room, I found Wasp helping Trent gather up his army men while Carly walked toward the kitchen.
It still blew my mind to see Wasp with Carly and Trent. I’d never pegged him for a family man, but he’d sure made it happen. They were happy together. It was like he’d found new purpose in Carly and Trent, and I got that now. I had new purpose.
I’d been given a second chance.
“Hey, brother, how are you?” Wasp asked, taking my outstretched hand as he patted me on the back.
“Hi, Eagle,” Trent said, giving me a wave, his hand full of green Army men.
“Hey, Buddy. Hey, Wasp. You guys haven’t seen Naomi around here, have you?”
“Naomi? You dreamin’ about her now? Sleep walking, maybe?” Wasp asked with a grin.
That hit a little close to home. The old walls of the fire station weren’t exactly known for being soundproof. Quite the opposite, in fact. I wondered if someone had heard me calling out Naomi’s name last night and wagged their jaw. If that was the case, I’d have to find out who and bust their loud mouth for them.
I started to tell Wasp just how many ways he could fuck himself when his gaze dropped to the kid sitting at his feet, staring at us like we were Gods or superheroes or something. I snapped my mouth shut and swallowed back the insults.
“I saw Naomi,” Trent said. “She’s really pretty.”
“You did?” Wasp asked, his eyebrows raising in genuine surprise. “Where?”
“She came downstairs and said hi to us before she left. She wants to marry me.”
Wasp chuckled. “She told you that?”
Trent nodded. “Mom, Naomi said she’d marry me, didn’t she?”
I turned to see Carly approaching. “Hi Eagle.”
“Carly.” I gave her a chin lift. “Trent said you saw Naomi?”
“Yeah, just a few minutes ago. She seems really nice. She was hungry and said she was gonna go grab a bite.”
“Why is Naomi here?” Wasp asked, his attention focused on me.
Nosy motherfucker. “I’m sure she’ll explain everything when she gets back.” We’d explain everything, because I was damn well going to be standing beside her for that conversation. “Did she say where she was going?”
Carly shook her head. “No. Sorry.”
“She can’t be far. I’m gonna go check around the block. I’ll be back.” Wasp was still watching me as I hurried out the building. I jogged to the pizza place a few doors down and peeked inside. She wasn’t there. I stuck my head in the teriyaki place on the corner. No luck. I tried the bistro across the street. Still no sign of her.
My phone vibrated against my leg. I pulled it out of my pocket to see Link’s name on the display, so I answered.
“Eagle.” He sounded gruff. Angry. “Get your ass back to the station. I just got a call from Naomi’s phone and I need you here.”
Before I could ask any questions, he hung up.
It struck me that he said he got a call from her phone, not Naomi. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I hauled ass back to the station to find out what was going on.
Carly and Trent were still in the common area. “They’re in Link’s office,” she said, her eyes filled with worry.
Hurrying back, I found Link, Wasp, Havoc, Morse, and Tap all huddled around a couple of laptops on Link’s desk. Link glanced up and gestured me over to join them.
“What’s going on?” I asked, looking back and forth between Morse and Tap’s screens.
“Brass has Naomi. We’re tracking her phone,” Link said.
It felt like the floor fell out from beneath me. I backed up and leaned against the wall for support. “What do you mean, ‘Brass has Naomi’?”
“The fucker snatched her off the street. Shit. I didn’t even know she was here.” His gaze hardened. “You knew, though. So, what the fuck was all that shit about your dream?”
Wasp and Havoc both looked at me, their eyes wide. We all cared about Naomi, and something big was going down. The tension was so fucking thick I could cut it with a knife.
Hands in the air, I surrendered. “I didn’t know she was here until after you called her. I went upstairs and found her waiting in my room.”
“We lost the signal,” Morse said. “He must have removed her SIM card and destroyed it.”
“Shit!” Link roared, throwing his head back. Then he pinned me with a glare. “What the fuck was she doing in your room?”
“Link,” Havoc warned, stepping between us.
Wasp was watching the entire exchange with an amused smile.
Link flashed Havoc a murderous look that had him taking a step back. “I need to hear what this motherfucker has to say.”
They all stared at me. As much as I didn’t want to tell him without Naomi, I had to. There was no getting out of this without coming clean. “She surprised me… came home to tell me she’s pregnant. And it’s mine.”
“You son-of-a-bitch!” Link leaped across the room and clocked me in the jaw. I’d been bracing for it, but the strength and momentum behind his hook still knocked me on my ass. I was no pushover, but Link was strong and fueled by anger. If this thing between us came to an exchange of real blows, I wasn’t sure which one of us would come out on top. We were too evenly matched.
But I had no desire to fight him. Link was my brother and I’d done him wrong. I deserved whatever retribution he dished out. Besides, I still didn’t understand why Brass had Naomi, and I needed details. Link had caught Brass stealing from the Copper Penny a few months ago and had beat his ass and kicked him to the curb. I couldn’t see Naomi going anywhere with that asshole.
“You done?” Havoc asked Link, once again stepping between us, giving me time to get back to my feet. “Because I don’t trust that motherfucker and we need to find his ass. This shit between you and Eagle can wait.”
Link gave me one last scathing look before turning his back to me. “Yeah. I’m done for now. Let’s find my sister. Wasp, get everyone here. Except Bull. Havoc, call him and make sure he still has eyes on Emily. Check on Julia, too.”
“Will someone please tell me what the fuck’s going on?” I asked.
Tap glanced up from his screen. “Brass is demanding a hundred thousand or he’s gonna kill her. Said he’ll call later with the drop point.”
“He’s holding her for ransom? Is he fucking crazy?”
“Worse,” Link replied. “Sounds like he’s using again.”
Brass had been a junkie when Link found him. And he was volatile when he used. He’d gotten stoned and smacked his girl around a few too many times until she finally kicked him to the curb and filed a restraining order. Link had taken the bastard in, helped get him off all that shit, and set him up with a job at the bar. Link had even promoted Brass to night manager when he saw how well he was doing. The motherfucker had repaid Link by skimming from the till.
I guess now we knew what he was using the money for.
I didn’t want Brass around Naomi at all, but especially not while he was using.
“What are we doing about it?” I asked. “Are you getting the money together?” I could cover a hundred thousand easily. Hell, I’d hand over every last penny in my bank account if it meant Naomi would come home safely.
“Fuck no. We can’t pay Brass off, you know that. Every dickwad in the country would think they can pull this shit off. Even if we did pay him, there’s no guarantee she’d be safe. Especially not if he’s using again. The son-of-a-bitch has to know we’re not just gonna roll over and hand him the money. Especially when we don’t trust him for shit. Our best bet is to find her. Fast.” His jaw tightened. “Tap, Morse, can you guys hack into the city’s cameras again? See if you can get a look at whatever vehicle he’s driving?”
“Already on it,” Tap replied.
Link turned on me. “And fuck you, Eagle. I told you she was off limits.”
“You sure did,” I agreed.
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I should kick your ass out of the club for this.”
My relationship with Naomi had nothing to do with the club, and he wouldn’t kick me out for it. Link was nothing if not fair. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but we had common goals, and he appreciated the hours and money I put into the club. Link was one of the few people I actually trusted and considered a friend. I understood his anger, but he needed to get over it. “You do what you have to do, but it’s not gonna change shit.”
“Goddamn you,” he ranted. “I trusted you.”
Morse and Tap were busy on their computers while Wasp and Havoc made use of their cell phones, but every one of them were tuned into what was happening between me and Link. I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of them, but apparently, we were going to. “I know, and I broke that trust. But I’m not sorry, brother. Don’t ask me to pretend I am.”
“Brother? Don’t you fucking call me that while your knife’s still in my back.”
“No offense, Link, but this thing between me and Naomi doesn’t have shit to do with you. I couldn’t have stayed away from her any more than you could have stayed away from Emily. And ever since she told me about that ambush, I can’t sleep without seeing her fuckin’ death.”
“What ambush?” Link roared.
She hadn’t told him. She’d trusted me with something she hadn’t even told her brother. “Not my story to tell. I thought you knew already, or I wouldn’t have even said that much.”
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on around here. My sister’s been taken by someone who used to be a brother, who’s now demanding a hundred thousand dollars. Another brother knocked her up and is talking about some ambush I should know about. It’s like everyone’s lost their damn minds.”
“I think I have something, Link,” Morse said, cutting in.
We all stopped what we were doing and crowded his computer. On his screen, two men nabbed Naomi from the middle of a busy sidewalk, not even a block away, and stuffed her into a black cargo van. A couple stared after the van as it drove away, but nobody made a move to stop it or save the girl who clearly didn’t want to be driven off. Goddamn cowards. All of them.
“Is that a Chevy?” I asked. “Can you zoom in?”
Morse hit a couple of keys and we were looking at an enlarged view of the back of the van.
“GMC Savana,” Wasp read aloud, already typing it into his phone. “Read me off the license plate, will you?”
Tap called out the letters and digits as Wasp finished typing.
My phone pinged with his group text. We now had a vehicle and a plate. Needing to get out there and join the search, I headed for the door.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Link asked, grabbing my arm.
Just as keyed up as he was, I glared back at him. “My woman and my kid are in danger. I’m gonna go help find them.”
He kept a hold on my arm, glaring. “We’re not done with this conversation.”
No, we definitely weren’t, but the only thing that mattered right now was finding Naomi and getting her home safe. I met his glare. “Let me go, Link,” I growled.
“You better not fuck her over, Eagle,” he said.
Then he released my arm and I rushed out of his office.