Flawed (The Mercenary Series Book 3) Read online

  V

  X found a motel and pulled in, parking in front of the reception.

  “Wait here,” he said, climbing out of the truck. “I’ll get us a room.”

  I watched his back as he pushed open the door to reception and vanished inside.

  It was almost morning now, the sky lightening from pitch black to navy blue. I didn’t think I’d ever been so tired in my life, though I worried my exhaustion might also be partly down to hypothermia. Despite the hot air blasting for the past couple of hours, I still didn’t feel completely warm. The cold from the underground water had seeped into my bones, and I didn’t seem able to shake it.

  X came out of the reception building, dangling a set of keys from his fingers.

  He stopped at the truck and opened the door again, leaning in to speak to us. “The motel has a family suite, which has an adjoining door between the two bedrooms, so we can each have our privacy.”

  That sounded good. I twisted in my seat to see Nicole awake again. “Is that okay with you?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “Sure. I just want a bed.”

  We didn’t have much in the way of luggage—just the guns we’d taken from the scene back in the mountains, and the two cases full of cash. We took everything with us, not wanting to leave it unguarded in the truck. I also wanted to keep the guns nearby. Though I knew no one had been following us, my paranoia was still on high alert. I wondered if there would ever be a time when I didn’t constantly have to watch my back.

  The rooms X had rented both had their own front door, but they also had a door joining the two rooms together. Nicole wandered through the adjoining door, looking around. I followed, while X locked up.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her, and she turned to face me.

  “After everything you’ve gone through, it should be me asking you that.”

  “We’ve both been through hell.”

  “Is it over now?”

  “I really hope so.”

  “Do you think he’s died out there?”

  I knew exactly who she was talking about. “Yeah, I think he has.” I kept hearing the sound of that branch hitting his head, the deafening crack. I stepped forward and handed her one of the guns we’d taken. “Keep this with you. I’m sure we’re safe here, but I don’t want to take any chances. X and I will be right on the other side of this door, if you need us. It won’t be locked, okay?”

  She took the gun. “Thanks, Vee. You’re always looking out for me. You always have.”

  I shrugged. “You’re my little sister. Of course I look out for you. I always will, too. Even when we’re two little old ladies and no one is paying any attention to us anyway.”

  She smiled at me, and my heart lifted.

  I still felt anxious. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right in here on your own?”

  “Vee, I’m eighteen years old. I can sleep on my own. Besides, if you think I want to play third wheel to you two all night, you can think again.” She gave a mock shudder. “No thank you.”

  I laughed. “Okay, okay. Just keep the gun close and don’t hesitate to shout, or hell, just fire the gun and we’ll come running.”

  “I’ll be fine. No one even knows we’re here, and I’ll keep the door locked, I promise.”

  “And you promise not to go out of the room by yourself. If you need anything, knock on the adjoining door. Okay?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Okay?” I repeated more forcefully.

  “Yes, I promise.”

  “Good. I know you’re not a kid anymore, but you’re still my little sister. I thought I’d lost you for a while back there.”

  Her lips twisted as she held back tears. “I know. Me, too. I’m really sorry, Vee, for everything I’ve done. For all the horrible things I said to you, and how I treated you. I was being a total brat. I didn’t deserve you staying around and fighting on my side all this time. If I’d been looking after me, I’d have dumped me a long time ago.”

  I pulled her into a hug. “Don’t be silly. You’ve been through more than anyone your age should have to go through. You were a teenager acting out. I get it.”

  “You’ve been through a lot, too, Vee. You’ve been so strong through everything. I don’t know how you’ve done it.”

  “I could never stand the thought of him winning.”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I just need a million years’ sleep.”

  “Thanks, Vee.”

  Nicole might be eighteen now, and technically an adult, but I’d always think of her as my little sister.

  Chapter Thirty

  X

  Vee closed the dividing door between the two rooms. I’d run her a deep bath, and made her some hot tea. I still thought she should be in the hospital, but I knew by now I couldn’t get Vee to do anything she didn’t want to. Her finger was wrapped up in a piece of cloth, and she would need to keep it out of the water. She was going to need surgery on it, and I planned on using the money we had from her father to pay for it. I’d make sure she got only the best.

  She walked back toward me with a small smile. “You know I’m going to turn that water black. I’m filthy.”

  “I wish I had some expensive bubble bath and candles for you, but all we’ve got is the cheap stuff left by the motel.”

  “Right now, anything is good. Thank you.”

  She came to a stop in front of me and used her good hand to unzip my jacket which she still wore. She was struggling, so I reached in to help her, pulling the zipper down then slipping the coat from her shoulders, mindful of her poor hand when I took her arm out of the hole.

  I did the same from her jeans, peeling them from her thighs. She’d already kicked off her sodden sneakers in the truck, but I could see her feet still had that white, wrinkled appearance from being damp for too long. The bath wasn’t going to help that, but at least it would warm her up. Her arms wrapped around her still slender body, her teeth chattering.

  I tried not to think about whether or not the little life we’d created together was still alive inside her.

  Reaching behind her back, I unclipped her bra and let it fall from her shoulders. She stood, compliant, as I did the same to her panties then guided her over to the bath, fragrant steam rising from the water.

  I held her hand as she stepped over the side of the tub and lowered herself into the water. She kept her injured finger on the side of the tub, so it didn’t get wet, but sank the rest of her body deeper. Her eyes slipped shut and she exhaled a sigh of pleasure.

  I sat, just watching her, my heart full. I’d come so close to losing her. Giovanni was dead, and her father was most likely dead somewhere in the forest. Some hikers would probably come across his body a few weeks from now, or, if we got lucky, the snow might start before he was found, and his body wouldn’t turn up until spring. I planned for us to be a long way from here by then.

  Vee sat back up, and I used some of the shampoo from the miniature bottle to lather her long dark hair. I used a glass from beside the sink to rinse out the suds, and then used some conditioner. We didn’t speak as we went through this process. She had been right—the water was turning black.

  When she was done, I held out a towel for her and she stepped into it. I wrapped her up and kissed her head. Bending down, I scooped her up, cradling her in my arms, and for once she didn’t protest. I carried her over to the bed and placed her down, pulling the blankets up around her body so she didn’t get chilled again.

  “I’m going to take a quick shower,” I told her. “Drink your tea and rest.”

  Vee nodded. “I will.”

  I showered as quickly as possible, wanting to rid myself of any grime and blood left over from the events in the forest. I didn’t want to leave Vee alone for any length of time, even though she was only in the room next door.

  I toweled off and went back into the bedroom. Vee was a lump beneath the covers, facing away from me, her dark hair still damp a
nd spread out over the pillow. From the slowness of her breath, I assumed she was sleeping already. I went to switch off the light, but her voice stopped me.

  “No, leave it on. I don’t want to be in the dark.”

  My heart clenched. She’d been kept down in that cellar in the pitch black for hours. She was brave and strong, but that must have been torture for her, especially injured and pregnant. Anger toward Giovanni filled me, but I had nowhere I could vent my feelings now. Giovanni was dead.

  I slipped into the bed, my arm wrapping around her waist. It felt amazing to be holding her again.

  I thought we would sleep, but she wriggled closer and pushed her bottom against my groin. How could I do anything other than react? Naked, the clean scent of her, her firm curves pressing insistently into me. My body responded, my cock growing hard.

  “Vee …?” I said, the question in my tone. “You should rest.”

  “Shh,” she said, twisting to kiss me, her mouth capturing mine, her tongue pushing between my lips. She broke the kiss and said, “Just be gentle. I want you to erase everything that happened. Just make me yours again.”

  How could I refuse her?

  She still had her bottom pressed against me, but now she hooked her ankle around the back of my calf, opening herself up to me. It only took a slight shift in position for me to push inside her. She was hot and wet, her inner muscles clamping around my cock. I held her tight, mindful of her injuries, and kissed the back of her neck and shoulder. It felt amazing to be inside her again, as though this was the only place in the world I should be. I kept my movements slow and gentle, easing back out of her, to gradually slide back in. But as her breathing grew ragged and she bucked her hips back up against me, I followed her lead and drove harder and deeper. My hands reached around her body, one moving down between her thighs to rub her clit, the other cupping her naked breast, feeling her nipple tightened and crinkled between my fingertips. Our lovemaking, while intense, didn’t contain any of the ferocity we’d had before when we’d had sex. We’d had enough violence to last us a lifetime. This was about us re-connecting, a physical expression of our love for each other. There was no room for violence here. Not this time.

  “Oh, God, X,” she gasped, and I felt her pussy gripping me tight, pulsing around my cock. I crushed my mouth to hers, pushing my tongue between her lips, wanting to consume her.

  “Fuck, I love you,” I groaned as I came, filling her. “I love you so fucking much.”

  We lay together, panting, catching our breath. When our heart rates had slowed, she twisted fully in my arms to lie with her head on my chest.

  “I love you, too, X,” she said against my skin. “It will be okay now, won’t it? Everything will be okay.”

  “Yes, we’re safe now.”

  I lay awake, holding her until her breathing fell slow and even and I knew she was asleep. Only then did I allow myself to drift into a restless doze.

  I’d told her we were safe, but then why did I still have my gun beneath the pillow?

  Chapter Thirty-one

  V

  The night passed uneventfully, and, the following morning, I allowed X to convince me to go back to the city so he could take me to the hospital. I was nervous about going back to New York, but my father had been taken care of, as had Giovanni. The fake ID X had used to rent the cabin might be linked to the murders of the old couple, and he had more in the lock up near the train station, which, combined with the money we now had, we could use to leave everything far behind. Before we could do that, I needed my finger looked at—it was going to need surgery if I didn’t want it looking hideous for the rest of my life—and I needed to have a scan to learn if the baby had survived what I’d been through. The thought of it being dead inside me hurt worse than anything else. I knew what people would say—that it was early on in the pregnancy, and we’d be able to try again—but I didn’t care about any of that. I’d wanted this pregnancy, this baby. It wasn’t like a purse you could replace if you lost it, it was a little life, a dream, a hope for the future. When it was gone, it was gone.

  I still hadn’t told Nicole about the pregnancy. I didn’t want to now, not until I knew one way or the other. This baby would have made Nicole an auntie, and there was no point in getting her excited if it was only going to break her heart. I hadn’t spoken my feelings to X out loud, but he was a private person, and I knew it wasn’t something he’d blurt out to my sister without me being the one to mention it first.

  In the truck on the way to New York City, Nicole was quieter than I’d ever known her to be. The spiky, angst-ridden girl who’d always given me so much trouble for absolutely everything I did had withdrawn. I always thought I would be happy when Nicole stopped giving me so much grief and actually went along with the things I said, but instead I found myself missing the girl she’d been. Her sadness radiated from her, and she spent most of her time staring out of the window as we drove, lost in thought. I wished there was something more I could do to help her, but I just had to hope time would heal.

  We reached the city, and X took me straight to the Emergency Room. We sent Nicole to the cafeteria to get herself something to eat and drink, telling her we would be a while and that we’d call her when we had something to report. She’d taken X’s cell phone, and he still had the phone Giovanni had left for him, though we planned on getting rid of that as soon as we were able to.

  We had to wait a while, but once X explained that we were more worried about the pregnancy than anything else, we were taken up to the obstetrics department. A nurse cleaned and dressed my finger, and a plastic tip was placed onto the end to prevent me knocking it any more than I already had. I waited anxiously on the bed I’d been given, feeling sick with nerves. X held my hand, but neither of us spoke. We were both just waiting to find out what our future held. Finally, a doctor came to see us, a nurse following behind with a machine on wheels which I assumed they’d use to scan my stomach. I didn’t let go of X’s hand for a second, squeezing it harder as the doctor asked me some questions—no, I hadn’t experienced any bleeding, yes, I’d had some cramping, yes, this was my first scan and first pregnancy, and I thought I was about eight weeks along now.

  I lifted up my shirt and undid my jeans, rolling them as low down on my hips as I could.

  “This is going to be cold,” the nurse warned me, before squirting some of the gel low down on my stomach, almost on my pubic bone. She placed the scan wand against my skin and pressed down, harder than was comfortable.

  She must have noticed my discomfort. “Sorry, the baby is still low down in the pelvis at this stage.”

  I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to look at the screen which now showed a fuzzy monochrome image of my insides.

  “There’s the heartbeat,” she said, and I allowed myself to breathe.

  My eyes sprang open and I looked to X first, my heart soaring at the sight of his wide grin. He caught my eye and squeezed my hand tighter, that smile still plastered across his face.

  “Do you want to hear it?” she asked.

  I nodded, too emotional to speak. Moments later, the thrum of horses’ hooves filled my ears, impossibly fast. I didn’t want it to stop, but she removed the wand, and the sound and images vanished.

  “It’s all looking good,” she said with a smile. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “Thank God.”

  The doctor stepped in. “I know they checked over your finger in the ER.”

  I nodded. We’d told the doctors down there that I’d been chopping wood and the axe had slipped. We said we’d been staying in a cabin somewhere remote and had car trouble, which was why it had taken us such a long time to get help. The doctors had all agreed I’d been lucky, considering what might have happened.

  “We can schedule you for surgery, but because the injury has already partly healed, and because your pregnancy is in the early stages, I’d recommend you wait a few months. We can’t rebuild the part of the finger that’s missing,
but we can use some skin grafted from another part of your body—normally the inside of your thigh—to make the scarring less noticeable.”

  I nodded. “That’s fine. It’s ugly, but I’d rather have an ugly finger than lose the baby.”

  “I think that’s the right decision. It’s amazing what the plastic surgeons can do these days.”

  The nurse smiled at us and asked, “Would you like some photographs to take with you?”

  My face broke out in a return smile. “Yes, please. I would love that.”

  The phone in X’s pocket started to buzz. He answered it and left the room. I knew it must be my sister. No one else had that number—no one still alive, anyway.

  The doctor left me, and the nurse set about printing out the scan images of the baby, and allowing me to wipe the gel off my stomach with a piece of paper towel. My heart felt like it might burst from happiness. The baby was okay. We were all safe. I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

  X returned with Nicole following close behind. She looked confused and nervous.

  “Vee, what are you doing in here?” she asked.

  I handed her the prints of the scan, and her eyes widened. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Yep. You’re going to be an aunt.”

  Nicole burst into tears, clutching the pictures.

  “Hey, hey,” I said, standing to hug her. “Don’t cry.”

  A lump had formed in my throat.

  “They’re good tears,” she managed to say. “Happy tears. Oh, my God, Vee. You’re going to be a mommy.”

  “I know.” I laughed. “I’ve never been more terrified in my life.”

  “You’ll be great. Just look at how you took care of me all this time. Let’s hope it’s a boy, or I’ll feel sorry for any guy she ever tries to date.” She cast a knowing glance over at X, who stood with his arms folded and a smile hidden behind his lips.

  ***

  With our baby’s scan pictures in a small cardboard folder and clutched tightly to my chest, we left the hospital. Joy like I’d never experienced before filled my soul, and I felt my happiness beaming into the people with me—X and Nicole.