Iron Willed Warrior (Last Refuge Protectors #5)

26. Cole

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Cole

The ground shook beneath me. I blinked away the fuzzy haze in my brain. The world kept moving, jostling me back and forth. My head bumped against something. Fuck, that hurt.

I tried to remember what the hell had happened.

I recalled being up on the roof. Waiting for Brynn to show, but she never had. I’d swallowed down my panic as I packed up the syringe and tucked my gun into my waistband. My footsteps had been silent on the stairs as I’d gone to look for her…

I heard voices. Not in my memory, but in the present moment. “Holy shit,” O’Hanlon said. “Look at what he had with him. What do you think is in this syringe?”

“Don’t know,” Manning responded. “Drugs, maybe. But Ryker had it right. The two of them were definitely hiding something.”

I realized where I was now, and the irony struck me. I was tied up in the trunk of a car. The exact position that I had intended to have Westwick in by now. Instead, I was the prisoner. Shit had gone very wrong.

My memories cleared further, the fog lifting .

I remembered running down the stairwell to the ground floor. The fire alarm had still been going off. When I’d pushed open the door, a couple of resort employees had run past, not sparing me a glance. But as I’d taken a few more steps, Manning came around the corner.

Ryker’s got Brianna , Manning said. Give yourself up, and I can take you to her .

His statement stunned me for half a second, and that was enough for O’Hanlon to sneak up behind me. I went for my weapon. Threw an elbow, catching O’Hanlon in the chest. But then Manning was on me. He put his gun to my head, forcing me to drop mine. Then O’Hanlon lifted his own weapon and brought it down on my temple.

Ow . That explained the throbbing I felt in my head with every heartbeat and bump in the road.

From there, my recollections got fuzzy again. They’d clearly gotten me into a vehicle. It was dark, but this was a bigger space than the trunk of the car Brynn and I had driven to the resort.

They had my bag in the front seat with them. They would have my weapons as well. The laptop. I was sure River would’ve encrypted it with every security feature known to man. Could be bad though. I had to assume Stillwater had its own hackers with all the dark-web stuff they were into.

Where was Brynn? What were they doing to her?

I tested my wrist restraints, my thoughts growing sharper with every moment. They hadn’t bothered to bind my feet. My left leg felt oddly pinched in the socket. They’d been throwing me around. But that was the least of my worries. I had to get back to Brynn.

Just hold on, B.

If Westwick or Ryker hurt her, I couldn’t be held accountable for what I would do to them.

But Manning and O’Hanlon were going to be first .

Eventually, the vehicle pulled off the road, bumping on uneven ground, then stopped. I heard another car behind us. It parked and switched off its engine.

Doors opened. Voices again. Manning and O’Hanlon were talking to the other driver.

Then the trunk popped open, light and fresh air rushing in. I blinked and squinted. O’Hanlon leaned over me with his hand on the lid of the trunk.

“On your knees, asswipe,” he said. “Up.”

“Little difficult with my wrists tied. And my prosthesis is all screwed up,” I complained. This was only partly true, but anything to distract them was fine by me.

“ Up ,” O’Hanlon barked again, pointing a gun at me.

I sat up, fighting back a wave of dizziness. Quite possible I had a concussion, but there was no time for that. I quickly assessed the scene outside. The sun was setting. We were out in the desert. Possibly hours from the resort.

Manning stood behind O’Hanlon. The clerk who’d checked us into the hotel was here too. Lance. He wore his resort uniform, even the name tag. The hell .

“Where’s Brianna?” I directed this question at Manning. He didn’t respond, instead glancing over at O’Hanlon. Which made it clear who was in charge.

O’Hanlon kept his gun on me. “Get him out of there.”

Manning came forward and grabbed one of my arms to help wrangle me out of the trunk. So that was why they’d left my lower half unrestrained. Didn’t want to make the effort of carrying me.

I pretended to stumble, like I could barely walk. Okay, it wasn’t entirely pretend. But I played it up. Pushed my weight hard against Manning, who struggled to keep me upright.

I glanced to get a better look at the other vehicle. Yep, that was the car Brynn and I had driven to Arizona. The one with the secret compartment. If I could get to it …

“Lance, move the bags to his car,” O’Hanlon said. “Make sure you wipe down anything you touched in there. No evidence.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Lance grumbled. “What about the…”

O’Hanlon took something from his pocket and held it out.

Was that a vial of blood ?

Pressing his lips together, Lance swiped the vial from the other man’s fingers. “Do I spread this around first? Or after I put the bags in?”

“I don’t care. Just get it done. Hurry.”

“It would be faster if one of you helps me, you know.”

“That’s what Ryker is paying you for. Quit bitching.”

O’Hanlon and Manning both held weapons on me as Lance transferred my suitcase and daypack to my car, pausing to spread the vial of blood around on the floor mats. Then he grabbed a cloth and wiped off the steering wheel and surfaces.

I’d figured out their plan by now. Probably would’ve come sooner, if not for that bump on my head still slowing down my thoughts. But the fury igniting in my veins? That wasn’t slow at all. Adrenaline sharpened the world. Colors and shapes almost pulsed in my vision. My heart was beating that hard.

They’d taken Brynn’s blood.

I had a pretty good idea what was going on here. And yet an ugly part of me wanted to hear them say it. Just to feed my anger.

“What did you do with Brianna?” I asked. “Where is she?”

O’Hanlon smirked. “Probably getting acquainted with Mr. Westwick. He’ll have his fun with her, and then he’ll pass her off to someone else.”

Flames seemed to lick at the undersides of my skin.

I am going to tear them apart .

Manning held me while O’Hanlon stepped in front of me, enjoying the chance to rub their plan in my face. “When the police find you with a gunshot to your head, and the residue of Brianna’s blood on your floor mats, they’ll see a nice story tied up in a bow. Your girlfriend was flirting with other men, so you killed her in a jealous rage, and disposed of her body in the desert. But you couldn’t handle the guilt afterward. Bye bye, Cameron Clay.”

“Nobody’s going to believe that.” But I could think of one person who’d support their story. Molly would tell the police that Cameron was a possessive, toxic jerk who’d left bruises on Brianna before. Guys like that snapped all the time. Even without her body, the police would take the easy explanation.

How long had Westwick been planning this? Because there was no way they’d put this together at the spur of the moment.

Lance stepped away from my car. O’Hanlon gestured at the front seat. “Get behind the wheel, Clay,” the Stillwater guard said. “Give yourself a last few moments of dignity and take this like a man.” He dug into his pocket and produced the syringe I’d meant to use on Westwick. “Or I can inject you with whatever’s in the needle. Who knows, maybe you really were planning to do your girl in.” He laughed, making eye contact with Manning. “Wouldn’t that be fucked up? If we interrupted his kidnapping plan with our own?”

You have no idea , I thought.

“I’ll walk,” I said. “But I wouldn’t be driving my damn car with my wrists tied.”

“We’ll untie them later,” O’Hanlon sneered.

“Then the blood flow will be all wrong.” Who knew if that was true or not. I was no forensics expert. But I threw every bit of my meager acting ability into it. “And there won’t be gunshot residue in the right places. Coroners look for that stuff when they do autopsies. Not to mention my leg is twisted . I’m supposed to walk with dignity like this?”

Cursing under his breath, O’Hanlon said, “Lance, you cut him loose. Let him fix his damn leg. I’m sick of hearing about it. Manning, keep your gun on him.”

Lance and Manning approached. I heard the snick of a blade through the ties at my wrists. Felt the binding loosen.

I didn’t waste a second. Turning to grab hold of Manning’s arm, I twisted it in front of me. Forced his finger down on the trigger. Bang . The shot hit O’Hanlon in the chest. O’Hanlon had gotten off a shot of his own, but it went wide, hitting the car behind me.

Lance was shouting. I twisted Manning’s finger hard, feeling the bone pop. Manning screamed. I got a better grip on the gun and yanked it, pushing Manning in front of me at the same time. He careened into O’Hanlon. The two men landed in a heap.

Lance ran off into the desert. My next bullet caught him in the calf, and he went down with a screech of pain.

Then I returned my focus to Manning and O’Hanlon. Manning pushed himself up, levering himself against his colleague. O’Hanlon was coughing up blood. Didn’t look like he was going to be breathing for long. Manning reached for the other man’s gun, but hesitated. His right trigger finger was bent at an angle. Broken.

“Go for it,” I said. “Pick it up.”

Manning reached with his left hand. But still, he hesitated.

“What’s the matter, you don’t want to go out and blaze of glory?” I asked. “What kind of Stillwater guard are you? You’re one of them, right?”

“You know about Stillwater?”

“I know there’s no way you’re as dumb as you seem. You have two choices. Either go for that gun, like you want to, and you can die right here with your friends. Or you can take me to wherever Ryker has Brianna.”

“If you know about Stillwater, you know what Ryker will do to me if I mess with his plans.”

“I do. It’s a question of getting screwed over now, or getting screwed over later. Personally, I would always choose the second. At least then you have a chance.”

Slowly, arms shaking, Manning raised his hands in the air. “Look, I don’t buy into this secret-society bullshit. Ryker’s wife is my cousin. She asked him to give me a job. I didn’t know it was going to get this heavy.”

“Sure, a real hardship taking all that money. Save me the excuses.” I raised the gun.

He held out his hands, palms out. “Don’t shoot! I can take you to where they’ve got Brianna. We were supposed to head there next! After we’d gotten rid of you.”

“And what about him?” I nodded at Lance, who was moaning and crawling several yards away. “Does he work for Stillwater too?”

“Hell no, he’s nobody. Ryker just paid him off. The clerk arranged a dry-cleaning pickup to smuggle your girl off-premises for Westwick. We were supposed to dispose of Lance on the way.”

I scowled at the hotel clerk. He probably felt extra stupid now that he knew Stillwater had planned to kill him all along. They wouldn’t want any witnesses.

And that alone made me want to spare the guy. Because I wasn’t Stillwater. I saved my vengeance for those who’d truly earned it, and I wasn’t going to execute some unarmed hotel clerk. Even if he’d been an accessory to kidnapping Brynn.

But I wasn’t going to help him, either. I wouldn’t leave him any phones or car keys. Lance could fend for himself. If he bled out, that was his problem.

Manning was still on his knees. “Get up,” I said. I kept the gun on him as he stood. He cast a single glance at O’Hanlon, who’d stopped moving.

“How long did Ryker have this planned?” I asked.

“Dude, I don’t know. Since yesterday, maybe? Look, I’ll drop you off where they’ve got Brianna, and then I want to get the hell out of here. I’m done. But are you sure your girl is worth it? Because these Stillwater people are not playing around.”

“She’s worth everything .”

Whatever fierce light he saw burning in my eyes, it convinced him. Manning wiped the sweat from his face, then said, “It’s about twenty miles from here. Out in the middle-of-nowhere desert.”

“The solar plant,” I muttered.

His brow wrinkled. “How’d you know that?”

“Don’t worry about it. Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”