Wounded Courage (Lucky Thirteen) (3 page)

Shit. As he leaned against the table on his elbows, his shirt stretched across the sculpted muscles of his chest. This boy was dangerous. He didn’t move like a weapon. He had honed his body
into
a weapon.

Maybe it was the idea of him being a weapon… But waves of desire washed over me, amping up with each look he gave me. How did he do that, invoke such powerful want in me? Damn it. I’d hoped to be done with that stupid teenage crush.

“Can I ask you a question, Murphy?”

“What?” His eyes flicked to the corner behind me. I’d almost forgotten about the cameras. I wondered how many people were behind that mirrored glass too. I had a secret to keep, and no doubt, those people would want to know about it.

“What is this place?”

“I can’t answer that right now,” he said.

Murphy was always about duty and honor. He and Chris had always wanted to be career navy. They’d always wanted to be SEALs. But this place? This didn’t look like SEAL duty. It looked like… well, spy work. Not that I knew what spy work was like. But it definitely wasn’t SEAL work. Those guys busted down doors and rescued hostages. They were the unsung heroes of the United States military. They weren’t guys known for the subtlety of espionage.

“At least you’re honest.” Not that it was ever in question. Murphy had never lied to me.

“Tell me about Simon Giroux. Did you ever meet him?”

“No. Alex was very careful to keep me away from most of his family, especially Simon. No one sees Simon. Ever.” Lie. This was part of the problem, because Simon knew me, knew what I looked like, knew who my family was. If I stepped out of line, he’d have gone after them first. Simon knew just how to destroy a person the most effectively.

Alex had wanted out, and I wanted him out. And I’d done everything I could to help Alex gwith that goal in mind. His family had been killing him, slowly, milking away his soul. That was the one good thing about him being dead. His soul was safe from his family now.

“Yet when you found out who they were, you stayed.”

I fought back tears. I missed him. Alex and I… well, we sucked as a couple. We’d both known that. I’d stayed because we’d become friends, and I did love him. I wanted to see him free.

The tone in his voice wasn’t accusing, but it rang flat. I looked up at him and frowned. He was angry. With me? What right did he have to be angry with me?

“Listen,” I said. “I have made bad choices. I own that. But you don’t just leave a Giroux, even one like Alex, who didn’t even want to be there anymore. Not if you want to survive it.” Murphy’s mouth quirked into a knowing smirk, but thankfully, he said nothing. “I didn’t even know I was stuck there… until I tried to leave.”

There was more, but I couldn’t tell him all of it. We’d set me up as a target to draw out the betrayal in his family, but it had gone wrong. Rene had shown his hand too soon, and now Alex was dead, and I was left hanging out to dry. Supposedly, I should have been safe from attack, but we hadn’t counted on Rene’s desire to see me dead, or his willingness to kill his own brother.

“Why don’t you tell me about that?” Murphy said.

I gripped the locket around my neck, rubbing my thumbs over the smooth silver surface. I wasn’t sure how much to say. I hadn’t left Alex because he’d asked me not to… and then he’d locked me in his bedroom. But I was saved from having to speak again when the door clicked open.

Chris carried a paper plate with a sandwich on it, and a plastic cup of water. He set them down. “It’s a PBJ. Made it myself.”

My brother knew that was my favorite. I hadn’t had a good PBJ in so long. And Chris made the best. Of course, it was hard to screw up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He’d have really had to try. “Thanks.”

“Eat slow. Wouldn’t want it to come back up. Doc said it’s been a while since you had food.” I nodded. The many hours I’d sat in this room, the hours as they triaged my leg and the surgery to excise the bullet. The chopper ride from Alex’s house. How long had it been anyway? A day? Two? No wonder I was exhausted.

Chris gave me a small smile, the first since we’d been reunited, and turned to Murphy. “Let me talk to you a minute.”

I took a bite, watching him as he pulled Murphy away to the corner of the room. The murmuring wasn’t difficult to hear, but making out the words was impossible. By the glances back at me, I assumed they were speaking about me.

Murphy was mostly facing away from me, which gave me a nice view of his broad shoulders, and narrow hips. Like always, he had the best ass. It came from years of exercise, of running and boxing. For a while, he’d been a swimmer too.

As I finished the sandwich, the two came back. Chris passed the cup of water to me, which I sipped on greedily but tried not to overdo. This sandwich wasn’t going to cut it. I was starving.

Chris leaned his butt against the edge of the metal table on my side, facing me. Like Murphy, he had a sidearm too. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay, now. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re still pretty bad off. You need a few days to heal, so I think you should stay here until you are feeling better.”

“Here? In this room?” In the most uncomfortable room ever.

“No,” he said. “We have a room prepared for you. You can get more food and we’ll get you some fresh clothes. You can go take a shower, a nap, read, watch TV, anything you want.”

“What’s the catch?” Because since I met Alex, there was always a catch. I hadn’t seen my brother in three years, but he’d never been so gracious, or that nice to me. Something was up.

He glanced at Murphy, and something passed between them. I wasn’t stupid. I just wanted to hear them say it. “Giroux is out there, looking for you. You go out in public, and you won’t stand a chance. He will find you.”

That was true. Simon Giroux would never stop looking for me. Or at least, he’d never stop looking for the notebook, or the key around my neck, if he knew about either. With Alex dead, the will would make it to his residence in the mountains of Aruguay within the next week. After that, the efforts to retrieve me would triple.

“I want to protect you, Addy. But I can’t do that if you’re not here. So I’m asking you to stay with us for a while.” Chris almost sounded sincere, but there was a quiet quality in his voice that left me suspicious.

“You’re asking me, or you’re telling me?” A flash of anger filled my chest, pressurizing it. I wanted honesty from him, and I was going to get it one way or another. “Level with me, Chris. I’m not a child.”

“You’re not a prisoner here. You’re my sister. But there are things in motion that you’re awfully close to and have been for at least a year now. We need to know what you know.” Chris stopped, and a level of uncertainty came over his features.

“What exactly do you think I know?” I narrowed my eyes, suspicion slithering through like cold mud in my heart.

“We need to know what happened to Alex Giroux, and why Rene was trying to kill you. We need to know where Simon is and we think you know.”

“Rene killed Alex. I shot Rene for killing Alex but you guys ended him. I don’t know about Simon. I don’t even know what happened to Marie. I’m sorry, but I don’t have the information that you want from me.” They were ganging up on me, like they did when we were children, and I hated it. “Satisfied?”

Murphy took over, his chiseled features stoic as could be. “Unfortunately, no.”

“Fucking hell, Murphy. What do you want from me?” Frustration burned through the cold mud that had collected in my heart, pumping searing heat through my body.

Chris shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and then he straightened his shoulders back, lifting his chin. Murphy was the first to speak. “Until we can ascertain the level of intelligence you have on Giroux activities, and until we can guarantee that your safety is not compromised and you are not in fact currently in the employ of the Giroux family, you have been restricted to this complex.”

Brownie points for him looking somewhat reluctant about that declaration, but I had no intention of being restricted at all.

~*~*~

I sat there, staring in shock at the two men who were once boys with whom I’d played in the mud. My gaze shifted from Chris’s blank expression to Murphy’s. Neither were giving up an inkling of what they were thinking or feeling. I was not allowed to leave? Yeah, that was going to go over real well.

“You’re not serious about this. You’re fucking arresting me?”

“Please don’t think of it as an arrest, Addison. It’s for your own safety.” Chris’s voice was low. I glanced at Murphy, who had always been that kid who never wanted to grow up. But he had grown up, both physically and mentally. The carefree boy who used to shove my face in the mud for a laugh had been restrained and replaced by a guy who apparently never smiled anymore. He was a damn Vulcan now.

“My safety?” What did they know about keeping me safe from Simon Giroux? They couldn’t even comprehend the part I was playing in his world. I wasn’t sure that I could either.

Alex was dead, Rene was dead, and Marie too… and I was stuck in the middle of his family drama with a giant target painted on my back. I couldn’t afford to stay here. The Giroux family wouldn’t kill me and risk the money I had access to, but sure as shit, their enemies would.

“It’s not something that comes lightly, Addison.” Chris sighed. “Look, I can show you what the Giroux do.” Like I didn’t know. That was why Alex wanted out and why I was helping him. But it wasn’t just Giroux Enterprises I was afraid of. Without Alex… I didn’t have protection against his enemies either, or enemies of the family. “Just… wait here.”

I let him leave, not because I was interested in what he had to say, but because one SEAL would be easier to break away from than two. Anger whirled around and mixed with fear inside me. I couldn’t afford to be imprisoned. I couldn’t be locked away. I couldn’t screw this up. I was tired of being that girl who couldn’t do anything right.

“It’s not going to be forever, Addison,” Murphy said right after Chris shut the door. “We’ll fix this for you.”

“Fix it?” I scoffed. I didn’t want this fixed. I wanted it to go away. But they’d thrown down their cards and I was just supposed to sit down and accept it. Well, I couldn’t do that, and I was limited in the time I had before Chris came back. I wasn’t sure how much I could do with a bum leg but I was determined to find out.

I grabbed the crutch and stood, using it to support my weight and wincing through the whole thing.

Murphy’s brow pinched tightly. “You should sit. Rest that leg.” He stood and came around the table, so he was in front of me. Slowly, I put more and more weight on my hurt leg, trying to hold in the trembling pain that forced its way through my body, covering it with fury.

“I let the Giroux family dictate my life for far too long. I let myself stay in the dark.” I shook my head rapidly. “I’m not going to let you do the same thing.”

He started to reach for me, like he was going to comfort me. I slipped beneath his outstretched arm and swung the crutch into his mid-section. He doubled over and I slammed my knee into his face. In an instant, my knee was covered in blood and Murphy was on the floor.

Murphy groaned from his prone position. I gripped his pistol and slid it out of his holster.

Panic and shock slid over me like melting ice chips. “Sorry, Murph,” I whispered, grabbed the crutch as well, and ran.

Addison

There was no sign of Chris in the hallway, and my guard friend was gone. I supposed they didn’t need him there when I had company. I didn’t stop to analyze it though. I used the crutch to steady me as I ran, trying not to leave weight on my leg as much as I could.

My breath was short, and hard to keep up, but I was dead in the water if I didn’t get out. The doors clanged open behind me, and I heard my brother roar my name. I didn’t look back. I had to hide, from them, from Giroux, from Giroux’s enemies. I didn’t have friends anymore.

The entire facility was a maze of tunnels. And they were tunnels. There were no windows, no doors leading outside. I wasn’t sure how to get out. I remembered coming in, but everything had been getting turned around. Blood loss had begun to set in by then, and I’d been dizzy.

I had to leave. The problem was now that I had the opportunity, I had no plan. I hadn’t even attempted to learn the layout of the place first. Now I was wandering through dark tunnels, injured, like some stupid girl out of a horror flick.

My body ached with the exertion, more so than I’d expected, but I wasn’t really at my best. I was going to have to hide. Let them think I left. I found a door and slipped through, finding another hallway. I hobbled quickly down the center. All these guys were well-trained Navy SEALs, which made this a little terrifying. It was one thing to outrun mobsters looking to kill me because it would piss off Giroux, but military men? This was what they trained for. It was more luck than anything that let me get away in the first place. Murphy hadn’t expected me to hit him.

I gripped the handle of the pistol, my finger along the side of the gun. I didn’t know why I grabbed it. I didn’t want to shoot anyone. I found an empty room and slipped inside. I shut the door and locked it, staying behind the swing of it in case they opened it. I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. So tired. So sluggish. Neither of those were good things at the moment.