Chapter 10
—One day or day one.—
Hadley blinked at his harsh words, sucking in a sharp breath. Yep, her reaction was exactly as he’d predicted. Exactly as Axel deserved. He’d known that his time with her was limited, but it didn’t lessen the sting any. Not when she was everything he’d ever wanted. Even if he hadn’t known it until he’d met her.
“Seriously? You’re skipping over all the details?” Skye asked. “Come on, everyone let’s do this in the kitchen. The food smells good and I’m freaking starving. And you are going to tell her more. Because I read your file and it’s interesting. So you don’t get to tell her that you’re some jackass assassin without giving her all the details.”
Having no choice, Axel followed, and tried not to feel like he was going to his execution. He hadn’t planned on telling Hadley anything else because it would’ve sounded like an excuse, as if he was trying to justify what he did for a living. And he didn’t want to do that. Because he wouldn’t try to justify it. He’d made choices and he lived with them. Even if he was alone.
Inside the kitchen, Hadley was the only one who sat at the small island countertop while Skye started pulling takeout boxes from the bags.
“The orange chicken is Hadley’s,” he said, looking at Skye.
Skye gave him a curious look but simply nodded as she started grabbing plates. Brooks didn’t do anything other than hover near him, looking angry. Not that he was scared of the other man. No, the only person he was scared of was the gorgeous young woman sitting right in front of him.
“So you…kill people?” Hadley’s voice shook slightly.
“He killed two men who wanted to kidnap you. Probably do worse than that to you. We had someone run the blood of one of the guys he killed and he was not a good man. He’d have definitely hurt you.” Skye’s words were so matter-of-fact that everyone turned to stare at her. She lifted a shoulder. “Not the most noble profession but he did protect you.”
Axel blinked at her words. He wasn’t even sure how the woman knew what he’d told Brooks earlier until he saw the small earpiece in Brooks’s ear. Damn it, of course that was how they were communicating. Which no doubt meant there were more people outside. Probably putting a tracker or some bullshit on his truck. So he had to ditch the truck soon. And damn it, he should have just burned that car. It had to be how they’d gotten a blood sample of one of the dead hitters.
Skye picked up a potsticker. “Tell me I’m wrong,” she said when he didn’t respond.
He looked at Hadley, saw a trace of fear in her gaze and simply said, “Both men wanted to kidnap you.”
“Are you the bearded guy from school?”
He nodded.
“Thank you for what you did.” Her softly spoken words surprised him.
“You don’t ever have to thank me for anything.” Definitely not for what he’d done.
“So are you going to tell her why you quit the FBI?” Skye asked, pushing a plate of food in front of Hadley.
Hadley barely glanced at it before her gaze fixed back on Axel.
“Difference of opinion on how procedures should be handled.” And that was all she needed to know.
Skye rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Fine, I’ll tell her.”
“Damn it, Skye, just leave it alone,” Brooks snapped. “So he can just leave. It doesn’t matter what his reasons were. He doesn’t belong here and he’s not welcome.”
Skye looked at him, her head tilting slightly to the side. “Really? He saved Hadley. Of all people, you’re gonna judge him? Because you and I have no room to judge anyone when it comes to—”
Brooks cut her off with a sharp shake of his head.
“So,” Skye continued, turning away from Brooks to face Axel, “from what I gather, you discovered that one of the top men in a criminal organization your team was trying to bring down was a serial rapist and murderer.”
“How—”
“From multiple contacts and your personnel file,” she said, cutting him off. “Yes, I’m good enough to have your personnel file. And unless you’re going to tell her, then I get to finish this. So, you wanted to stop this guy. But your higher-ups decided that they wanted the bigger fish. His big, bad boss.” She snorted. “Sounds exactly like something those assholes with the FBI would do too. Stop me if I’m wrong.”
He simply shrugged. She was doing fine all by herself. How the hell had she gotten his personnel file? And more importantly, how the fuck did they know what he did for a living? It wasn’t common knowledge and Brooks would have had to do more than “put the pieces together” to figure it out.
“That’s what I thought. So,” she continued, watching Hadley, “your boy over here wanted to do the right thing. But his bosses considered those women expendable since they were prostitutes. I guess the Feds figured they didn’t deserve the right to live because of their chosen profession. Axel disagreed and tried to go over his head. Didn’t work because the grandboss wanted the head of the criminal organization more than a serial rapist and killer. The guy went on to kill six more women before they finally brought him down. And not all of those women were prostitutes, which is the only reason they brought him in. Not that it matters, because they should’ve listened to Axel right away. And the kicker is, they didn’t even bring down the bigger fish.” Disgust filled her voice. “Does that about cover it?”
“Yeah.”
Hadley turned to look at him and said, “So what happened? How did you go from that to killing people?”
He looked at her for a long moment, unable to find his voice. “I didn’t, not right away anyway. But I turned in my resignation after that. I took a job with them because I believed in a cause, but the people in charge really only cared about getting their faces in the news.”
Not all of them did, he knew that. But he’d gotten burned out fast, disgusted by their complete lack of humanity. He didn’t want to have this conversation at all, but definitely not in front of two virtual strangers. Too bad for him because it was clear that they weren’t going anywhere.
Clearing his throat, he glanced away for a moment, unable to look at her as he searched for a way to get this out. Finally he looked back at her. “I never planned for this to be my job. Never imagined it actually. When I found out that Leo Williams was getting released on a technicality—that was the killer’s name—I took care of the problem as soon as he was let out.” And Axel felt no guilt over it either. The system had failed all the women Williams had raped, tortured and killed. It had failed in general. The system that should be protecting the marginalized had sat back and done nothing. That kind of apathy was just as bad as Williams killing people. “I couldn’t let him continue—and he would have, no question. From there…” He shrugged, not going to give the whole story. Not yet anyway. And he’d only tell Hadley the rest if she wanted to know. But no one else.
Hadley was motionless and so were the others. The only exception was Skye who’d started eating, digging into an egg roll as if she hadn’t eaten in a week.
“So, I’m going to process all that…later. For the issue at hand, why would anyone want to kidnap me?” Hadley asked, looking at everyone, pure confusion in her dark eyes.
Axel saw Skye and Brooks exchange a quick look as Skye set down her half-eaten egg roll on her plate.
Brooks took a step closer to his sister, his expression softening. He looked completely different from the man who’d been in the truck with Axel, ready to kill him. “Whether you want to accept it or not, you’re wealthy. I know you won’t take any money from Dad, but you’re still considered a target because you’re his daughter. And I’m going to be blunt. He adores you and he’s not the same man who raised me. Don’t get me wrong, when I was younger I was considered a target too and he took precautionary measures. It’s part of the reason the ranch is so damn secure. He needed to know that wherever we lived, I was as safe as anyone could ever be.”
“But why not go after you too? Not that I want you to be kidnapped,” Hadley tacked on, her eyes growing wide. “I guess I just don’t understand why me.”
“Well he loves you and he’s made it pretty damn clear to anyone who will listen. He’s also incredibly proud of you. You’re all he ever talks about now. And…” Brooks cleared his throat. “You’re a woman, so they probably view you as an easier target. I have military training and there are other ways to use a woman against my father to get him to pay whatever it is this kidnapper wants.”
It took a few seconds for Hadley to understand what her brother meant, but Axel saw the moment she did because her face paled. “That’s…terrible.”
Yeah, there were a lot of terrible people in the world. And Axel had taken out his share of them. The thought of anyone harming Hadley, using her as a pawn for money or whatever, made him see red.
“So have you guys called the police?” Hadley asked.
Skye snorted and Brooks simply shook his head.
“Why not?” She looked between the two of them, clearly avoiding Axel’s gaze. He should probably just leave but he didn’t want to be away from her. Not unless she explicitly told him to go.
“We’re not going to involve the police for this,” Brooks finally said. “Our crew is more capable of handling this kind of contract than some locals. We’ve got better technology, resources and we’re not restricted by the law. And if we’d known about it a couple days ago,” Brooks shot Axel a hard look, “we could have started digging more intensely.”
“I’ve got a guy working on monitoring stuff,” Axel said.
“Who are you using?” Skye asked.
It wasn’t in his nature to share information but now was one of those times he had to. For Hadley’s safety. When he said the guy’s name, Skye nodded once. “Yeah, Isaac’s all right. He’s not Gage, but good enough.”
“Who’s Gage?”
“None of your fucking business,” Brooks said. “I mean, ah, none of your business.”
Hadley snorted. “You can say the F-word in front of me.”
“So what were you planning on doing?” Skye asked Axel. “Were you planning on keeping Hadley safe while taking these guys out one by one? It’s a pretty tall order when you’re working alone.”
Axel lifted a shoulder. “Pretty much. But you’re right, I can’t be in two places at once. I thought she’d be safe at the ranch.”
“If you’d told someone, we could’ve kept her locked down,” Brooks snapped, fire in his eyes now.
“Enough,” Hadley muttered. “What do we do from here? Because school starts in a week and I’m not missing school. It was hard to get into this program and I won’t let this jeopardize my career plan.”
That might be too bad if they didn’t figure out who had started this contract in the first place. But Axel didn’t say that. He would let Brooks be the bad guy.
Brooks rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “From this point forward, you’ll stay at the ranch,” he said to Hadley. “And we’re going to figure out who hired someone to kidnap you and deal with him or her. That person is the real threat.”
“What does ‘deal with’ mean?” she asked, though Axel figured she knew exactly what her brother meant.
Instead of answering, Skye gave a sort of feral grin and popped the last part of her egg roll into her mouth.
“Unless you have anything else to offer, you can leave now,” Brooks said, his expression hard as he stared at Axel.
Axel nodded once. There was a lot he wanted to say to Hadley, but now wasn’t the time. Still, he couldn’t leave without saying something. “What I feel for you is real. I never meant to hurt you,” he said quietly.
Surprising him, Hadley reached out and squeezed his hand once. Her expression was guarded but at least she didn’t seem to hate him. A small victory.
Before she could say anything, Skye cleared her throat. “Seriously, O’Sullivan? That’s pretty weak. You’re gonna walk away after all this effort? You’ve already taken out two threats. You’re coming with us to the ranch.”
“Skye! What the hell is the matter with you?” Brooks demanded.
Skye gave him a hard look. “Last time I checked we were all cofounders and as far as I’m concerned this is officially a job. Plus…we all love Hadley too. Which means we all get to help with this and it’s probably better if someone who isn’t crazy emotional helps make decisions right now. And by someone, I mean you.”
The two of them stared at each other in silence, as if they were having a telepathic conversation. Finally Brooks took Skye by the elbow and stepped into the attached laundry room, shutting the door behind them.
Which left Axel alone with Hadley. And she was still holding his hand. Seeming to realize that, she dropped it as if he was on fire and looked down at her lap.
The tension stretched between them, making him sick. He wished that he’d just come clean with her immediately. He wouldn’t have gotten to know her if he had, but then maybe this wouldn’t hurt so much either. Because the thought of walking away from her cut deep. “I’ll go with you to the ranch if you want,” he said quietly.
Her head popped up, her eyes widening slightly. “You don’t have to do that. You’ve done more than enough for a stranger. And thank you for keeping me safe.” Her cheeks flushed slightly and she looked away again, this time at a spot over his shoulder.
“I know I don’t have to. I want to.” He kept his voice low, wishing he could say everything he wanted to. That he’d started to fall hard for her, that he’d never meant to hurt her, that he’d do anything to keep her safe.
A few moments later, the other two stepped out of the laundry room, Skye looking pleased with herself and Brooks looking a little like he wanted to rip Axel’s head off.
“If you want to join our crew for this job, we can use you.” Brooks’s expression was dark. “And the only reason I’m agreeing to this is because I’ve looked at your file and you’re not a complete asshole. I know how you got started, and I can at least guess the rest of the details. Plus I know the rest of your background as well. You’re not useless, and if you’d wanted to hurt or kidnap Hadley, you could have done it already. But you’re on a short leash.”
Axel simply nodded. He was a year older than Brooks, and while they hadn’t worked any missions together, he knew the other man’s reputation in the Marine Corps. And they’d both been honor grads—different graduation years.
“It’s up to Hadley,” Axel said quietly. “But yes, I want to be involved. I want to completely neutralize the threat to her. No matter what happens, I’ll hand over all the information I have.”
Hadley was silent for a long moment and just when he was convinced she was going to tell him to get the hell out, she gave him a surprisingly soft smile. “You can come to the ranch.”
Tension eased from his shoulders but he simply nodded. He wasn’t sure what to make of her wanting him there. It could mean absolutely nothing other than she simply wanted the extra protection. But the stupid part of him wished she wasn’t completely disgusted by him and wanted him in her life. Maybe even wanted to finish what they’d started at the condo.
A man could hope.