The Choice She Made (The Mercenary Series Book 1) Read online

  I cried out as it powered through me in waves, my eyes squeezed shut. My back arched, my breasts pressing into his chest, as he gave a final thrust and then held himself deep, twitching and jerking within me.

  He’d emptied himself inside me, but I couldn’t worry about the consequences now. Chances are I wouldn’t live long enough to worry about them anyway.

  We clung together, panting, as he grew soft inside me, and he slowly lowered my feet to the ground.

  As though we both suddenly came around to the reality of what we had just done, an awkwardness settled between us. X stepped from me and tucked himself away, while I quickly yanked up my underwear and jeans, and shoved my foot back into my sneaker. I was aware we’d wasted precious time we didn’t have, and guilt washed over me. What if something awful had happened to Nickie while I was eating burgers and getting screwed by some guy up against a truck? I felt so bad, I couldn’t even look at X.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, reaching out to touch my arm. I flinched, but it didn’t have to do with him. My reaction was down to my own self-loathing. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Me either,” I replied brusquely. I checked the cell phone which miraculously had stayed in my back pocket while my jeans had been around my ankles. I was relieved to see the screen blank, and not showing any missed calls. If I hadn’t noticed Nickie’s abductor calling while we were fucking, I’d never have forgiven myself.

  I would have liked to take a shower and change, but there was nothing I could do about that now.

  I’d dropped the bag containing the guns. Stupid. So stupid. I should never let my guard down like that. Anyone could have taken aim at us and killed us on the spot, and we’d barely have noticed the shot.

  “We need to go.” I picked up the bag and found the keys for the truck. I hit the button to open the internal locking. X cast me a glance, and I deliberately ignored the confusion and hurt in his face. A guy like him would go around nailing whatever women he came across. This was just another notch on the bedpost. I doubted he even had real emotions—he was a hired killer, after all.

  Hired to kill me.

  And I’d just had sex with him.

  Chapter Twenty

  X

  I WATCHED VEE get into the car as though nothing had happened.

  I guessed I couldn’t blame her. She’d just had sex with the guy her father had sent to kill her. I wasn’t exactly perfect boyfriend material. But the instant regret I’d seen in her eyes had felt like she’d stabbed me all over again.

  My wounds throbbed afresh; the physical effort I’d put into the act was not playing nicely with the healing process. I should have been resting, or seeing a doctor, not chasing down gangsters and fucking hot, tattooed girls with sad, dark eyes up against the side of a truck.

  Climbing into the passenger seat, I tried not to notice how Vee stared straight ahead, acting as though I wasn’t even there. She started up the vehicle and backed it out of the spot behind the diner and into the parking lot. She spun the wheels, causing a screech from the asphalt, and then threw it into first. Within seconds, we were back on the main road and heading in the direction Tony the Hound had told us to go.

  I assumed we’d hear from the gangster sometime soon. I was surprised we hadn’t already. If he’d thought we would drive without stopping, he’d have believed us to have covered the mileage already. Had he known about the stop? The possibility made me twist my lips, considering it. How could he? No one had been following us, I was sure of it, yet his lack of contact made me suspicious.

  “Hey,” I said, breaking the silence. “How well do you know the guy from the bar?”

  She glanced at me, taking her eyes off the road for the moment and frowning. “Johnny?”

  “Yeah, Johnny.”

  She shrugged. “About as well as you can ever know a boss you’ve only had for a few months, I guess. He was always good to me, though—gave me an advance when I needed it, always let me switch shifts if something came up.”

  “Almost too good?”

  Her frown deepened. “Why are you asking?”

  “I can’t help wondering how Tony the Hound knew which direction we were headed. You thought the deputy was the informant, but what if he wasn’t? What if it was the bar guy all along?”

  Slowly, she shook her head. “Nah, not Johnny. He’s one of the good guys, I’m sure of it.”

  “So why hasn’t Tony called us? It’s like he knows we’re not close enough yet, which means he knows we stopped. But unless someone is following us, which I’m sure they’re not, how could he possibly know that?”

  She chewed her lower lip, a gesture I’d come to recognize as something she did when she was unsure. “Maybe it’s a coincidence.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but too many coincidences set my teeth on edge. I’m starting to wonder if there’s a tracker on the truck, and that’s how Tony knows exactly where we are.”

  “How would Johnny have known we were going to borrow his truck and know to put a tracker on it?”

  “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Tony the Hound has him on the payroll and had put a tracker on his truck in case he ever decided to go AWOL. It’s just bad luck on our part that the deputy saw us leaving in my car and we had to change to the truck. Johnny would have called us in right away, and Tony would have thought he’d hit the jackpot.”

  “Fuck,” she swore, knotting her hand in her hair and tightening it to a fist. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “I think we need to ditch the truck and find another vehicle.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. Even though we’re going where Tony is telling us, I’d like to have some kind of element of surprise.”

  “Good. Next place we find to stop, we’ll ditch the truck and pick up a new ride.” I was relieved she agreed with me, and wasn’t deliberately giving me a fight because of what had happened. For some reason, having sex had put more tension between us than trying to kill each other.

  But Vee wasn’t done.

  “First of all, I need to know.”

  I glanced back over at her. “Know what?”

  “That Johnny was a snitch, reporting back on me. I told you I don’t trust anyone, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know for sure. I don’t want to be thinking badly of him if he did nothing wrong other than help my sorry ass.”

  “If there’s a tracker on the truck, we might not be able to find it. They can be damn small these days.”

  She gave a shrug. “I don’t care. I want to look for it.”

  “Tony will know we’ve stopped again.”

  “I don’t care,” she repeated.

  “Okay. We’ll stop the next time we come across a place that has other cars.”

  We continued to drive.

  Vee had set the cell phone on the dashboard, and we both continued to check the screen for any missed calls. In a couple of places we lost coverage, but then it popped back up again. Another twenty minutes passed when another roadside café appeared up ahead. It was on a junction, and was busier than the last. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

  Without checking if this was the best option, Vee pulled into the parking lot.

  She opened the truck door and jumped out, with me following.

  “So where are these things normally put?” she asked. The sky was losing light, so she switched on the flashlight app on the phone.

  “Around the wheel arch, or other exterior parts of the vehicle hidden from view. Trackers tend to link to GPS satellites and they won’t work if they’re too deep under the car where the metal blocks the connection.”

  She shone the light from the phone toward the car. “Okay, and tell me what I’m looking for.”

  “A small box, possibly with an antenna. If you see something suspicious, give it a tug. They’re normally attached with magnets, so it should detach fairly easily.”

  Vee nodded. “Got it.”

  I stopped, staring at the cell phone in
her hand, filled with indecision. I still had my slim-line cell phone in my back pocket—something Vee didn’t know about yet. I wasn’t sure how she’d react when she saw it, especially as the reason I’d had it on me in the first place was to take a photograph of her dead body to use as proof for her father that I had completed the job. But I needed a light to be able to see anything, and she’d find out I had a phone eventually, so I slipped it from my back pocket.

  Vee saw me doing so and stopped, her eyes wide. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’ve had that the whole time?”

  Again, I nodded.

  I switched the phone on and the screen flashed. I wondered if any messages would come through, asking if I’d completed the job, but I had the advantage of Vee’s father being in prison, so his access to a phone was limited. Perhaps he could have gotten one of his men to contact me, but I guessed ordering a hit on your own daughter wouldn’t be taken too lightly.

  Vee was still staring at the phone. “Have you heard from him?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not yet. He’s waiting to hear from me, which obviously isn’t going to happen now.”

  “Good. I want to know if he does. Let’s get on with this, then.”

  I was pleased she hadn’t made a bigger deal of it. Part of me had been worried she’d freak out, but it seemed she was more level headed than that. It wasn’t as though she didn’t know exactly what I was.

  I switched on the light on the phone to allow me to search the vehicle.

  She took one side of the truck, while I searched the other. The movements didn’t help the pain in my thigh, but I did my best to ignore it. It hadn’t started bleeding again, so I figured it must have at least started the healing process. We must have looked strange, both of us crouching down, Vee almost on her back, as we searched beneath the vehicle. I checked the wheel arches on my side first, peering under the plastic guards, paying extra attention to see if they were lose or bent, which would signal them having been tampered with. I didn’t find anything, and I moved onto the gas tank and then the bumper.

  “Got anything?” I called out to Vee, though I was sure she would have said something if she had.

  She straightened and shook her head. “Nope, nothing.”

  I exhaled a sigh of frustration. It made total sense to me that the truck was being tracked. It was the only thing I could think of.

  The cell phone Vee was using as a flashlight began to vibrate in her hand. She stared at me from over the hood of the truck. “Shit, it’s him.”

  “He knows you’ve stopped. He’s calling to find out why. You need to make something up.”

  She nodded and quickly answered the phone. “Make it quick, Tony,” she said, her voice with a slight rasp and quiver. “I’ve just thrown my guts up. Must have eaten a bad burger.”

  She’d put the phone on speaker again so I could hear.

  The man on the end of the line paused, and then said, “So you figured out who I am?”

  “Wasn’t so hard,” she replied.

  “Yeah, well, you might be smart, but if you want to see your sister again, you’d better get a move on. You’ve still got another thirty minutes on this road before you turn off.”

  “Then what?” she demanded.

  “I’ll call you back.”

  “No,” she said. “I keep losing cell phone coverage. What if I miss the turn?”

  Tony the Hound—or possibly one of his goons, as we had no proof it was him speaking—gave further instruction. “Take the turn to Newbank, and we’ll meet you on that road.”

  “How far along?”

  “You don’t need to know that. You’ll know when you see us.”

  “And then we swap,” she shouted. “Me for Nickie!”

  But the line went dead. She was shouting at no one.

  She propped her hands on the hood of the truck, slightly bent, her shoulders heaving as she composed herself. In the short time I’d known her, I’d seen her angry, but I’d never seen her cry. Even when she had every reason, her eyes remained dry. I wondered when the last time had been that she’d cried, and what had been the reason for her to stop.

  This feeling... damn, this feeling. Why did she make me care, when I had never given a shit about anyone before?

  I wanted to give her what she needed.

  With renewed effort, I continued my search. More than ever, I was convinced I’d find a tracker on the truck. He knew we’d stopped, and the roads had been clear when we had. No one had followed us. I checked the outside of the vehicle, but still found nothing. In frustration, I yanked open the door and started to search beneath the seats and carpets. Nothing. My hands ran along the upholstery of the seats and then up to the headrests. I felt along the backs of the headrests—the driver and passenger seat—and then moved to the back seats. My fingertips touched frayed fabric and the shape of a small box underneath.

  My heart lifted in triumph.

  “Got it!” I called out.

  Vee left the hood and hurried over to me. “Oh, my God.”

  I worked the tracker free with my fingers and held the box out to her. “This is what we’ve been looking for.”

  She shook her head. “Fucking Johnny. That’ll teach me to let my guard down, even for a second.”

  I felt a pang in my chest. I didn’t want her to put me in the same box, but what did I expect? It wasn’t as though I’d done anything to make her think any different. I wasn’t exactly a fucking superhero.

  I spotted a group of young guys coming out of the restaurant, wearing football shirts, shoving each other and laughing. They were absorbed in themselves and each other, focused only on what people might think of them, how hot and tough they looked, and if there were any girls around who might catch their eye. One of them noticed Vee, and he nudged his buddy. That simple gesture made up my mind.

  As they climbed into their car—some expensive Audi I imagined one of their parents had bought for their eighteenth—I ducked low and ran toward them, ignoring the pain in my leg. Before the car pulled away, I reached out and slammed my hand against the trunk, the magnetic part of the tracker sticking to the metal. I was worried I hadn’t done enough and it would fall off, but it stayed on as they drove out of the parking lot and took the direction we were headed.

  I turned back to Vee. “That should confuse Tony for a while.”

  She was giving me that look, as though she didn’t know if she should hug me or hit me. “What if Tony realizes we’ve tricked him? What if he kills Nickie just to pay me back? You know he’s capable of it.”

  “We’ll get to her before Tony realizes anything is wrong.”

  “I don’t know ...”

  I could see the worry in her dark eyes. “You have to trust me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

  I couldn’t expect her to, either. Not after everything she’d been through, but she didn’t have much choice, and I told her so.

  “Fine,” she said resolutely. “Let’s just keep moving.”

  I looked around again. An old station wagon that had seen better days was parked on the far side of the lot. “Grab your bag,” I told her, “and follow me.”

  She did as I’d suggested and we hurried over to the other side of the parking lot. I kept my eyes peeled for anyone who looked like the owner of the car coming out of the restaurant, but so far everything was quiet.

  I spotted a small rock on the ground not too far away, and snatched it up. With a sharp smack of the rock against the driver’s window, I smashed a hole in the glass. Reaching in through the hole, I pulled open the lock, which disengaged all the locks in the car, and then yanked open the door.

  “Gotcha.” I turned to Vee. “Jump in, but stay low.”

  She climbed over to the passenger seat and slid down into it, so only the top of her head was visible through the window. I bent down, under the steering wheel, and located the wires I needed. This kind of older vehicle was easy
to hotwire, and within a minute, the engine revved to life.

  “Let’s go.” I jumped behind the wheel, wincing at the pain in my thigh the movement caused, and before the owners had a chance to even notice the vehicle missing, we were back on the road. I figured the old banger was worth more in insurance than anything else. The owners would probably be happy to have the money to buy a new car.

  “Now what?” asked Vee, glancing over at me, her bag of guns held primly in her lap.

  “Have a look in the glove compartment, see if there’s a map.”

  She did, and pulled out a massive map, badly folded, so when she tried to unfold it, it filled half the car. “Jesus. No wonder they invented sat-navs.”

  I laughed, a sound so foreign to me. I’d been lucky if I so much as cracked a smile before meeting her. “We need to find the road they’re going to meet us on, and see if there’s another way. If we can come from the wrong direction, chances are they won’t see you coming.”

  “Me? What about you?”

  “We still need to split up. I’ll cover you from the side of the road.”

  “What if they just shoot me as soon as they see me?”

  I hated to think that was a very real possibility.

  “That’s the reason I need to watch things go down from the side. The minute it looks like someone’s going to pull a trigger on you, I’ll shoot the son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Okay, looks like I don’t have much choice.”

  I turned to her, as much as I could while still driving. “Yes, you do. You don’t have to go and try to get your sister back. You could just take off, go and lose yourself again.”

  “And what kind of person would that make me? I hate myself enough already, without adding ‘abandoned sister to mobsters’ to the list.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

  I frowned. “What doesn’t?”

  “If they shoot me. If I die. It’s not like anyone is going to miss me.”

  “Vee—” I started, but she cut me off.