Mystery Man

Chapter Twenty-Four Skull

I sat in the hospital waiting room, leaning against Meredith, Elvira on my other side, her hand holding mine firm and strong.

Dad was standing across the waiting room with Hawk, a handful of Hawk’s commandos and other men. One was Lee Nightingale, another Luke Stark, the third Hank Nightingale, the last, Eddie Chavez. Lee and Luke were the two men who assisted Hawk in the rescue effort. It came to me after I’d been swept from the apartment how I knew them. Lee Nightingale owned a private investigation service whose action had caught the attention of the media. I knew all about him and his friends, including Luke, Hank and Eddie. Luke worked with Lee. Hank was his brother and a cop. Eddie was his friend and also a cop. The newspapers had broken the stories of their adventures, and their love lives, some time ago. This was followed by a bunch of books, a series entitled Rock Chick, that were released sharing intimate detail of these hair-raising yet romantic adventures. Books, incidentally, I owned, read repeatedly and wished I’d edited.

They were all famous in Denver.

They were all, upon inspection, also badasses and extremely hot.

Even so, this was lost on me because I’d met Betsy and she was currently visiting her unconscious fiancé in his hospital room and I knew conversation was one-sided not only because Brett was unconscious but also because he had a tube down his throat.

I closed my eyes but opened them when I sensed a quick, intense danger permeate the room and then my body tensed for flight when Skull, followed by Lawson, Leo and two other men stalked into the room.

His eyes were on Hawk and it appeared he was even more unhappy than he was prior to my rescue. Then again, he would be seeing as I was rescued.

My eyes were on him, my skin was tingling, my mind was paralyzed with fear and even in the presence of a goodly number of badass commandos and just plain badasses my body was ready to take flight.

What was he doing there?

“What the fuck?” he clipped at Hawk, that threatening energy shifting off him in sinister waves and I saw all the badasses go on instant alert.

“Come again?” Hawk asked quietly, his eyes locked on Skull, his expression showing he was vastly unhappier than Skull was.

“A year and a half,” Skull replied, assuming a hostile stance way too close to Hawk. “I spent a year and a half of my fuckin’ life on this fuckin’ shit, the last month bangin’ that piece of trash, pretendin’ I got off on it, all the time tryin’ not to vomit and prayin’ my dick’ll stay hard at the same time prayin’ that stickin’ it in her wouldn’t buy me some disease where it would fall the fuck off and I was this close, this fuckin’ close.” He held up a finger and thumb less than an inch apart in Hawk’s face which I, personally, didn’t think was too smart. “You bust in there and that year and a half goes down the fuckin’ toilet.”

Hawk’s body shifted in a scary way and he invited, still using that terrifying quiet voice, “Maybe you’ll explain.”

“He’s DEA, Hawk,” Lawson put in, this news making my body relax but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel shock.

Hawk’s body didn’t relax.

“You were involved in an operation where one of my men went down,” Hawk pointed out.

“I was involved in an operation where I finally got close to a skank who I could use to nail down another skank who I could use to nail my man. When that didn’t work, she still proved valuable to get me that other skank because she got me close to that skank’s sister who I could then use either to out my tool who would help me take out the players who supply half the shit circulating Denver or who I could use directly to take out the players who supply half the fuckin’ shit circulating fuckin’ Denver,” Skull returned.

I was slightly confused by his statement but I knew the others were not. I knew this because Skull’s statement was met by a significant intensification of unfriendliness. So significant, the air became hard to breathe.

“You tellin’ me, you downed my man and were gonna use my woman as bait?” Hawk whispered and Elvira’s hand clenched mine.

“Uh-oh, I see psycho badass comin’ on,” she muttered.

“She was covered,” Skull shot back.

“By who?” Hawk asked.

“By my man inside Roarke’s crew,” Skull answered.

“Roarke?” Hawk said and how he managed to get his lips to move when his face had turned to marble was a miracle.

“Yeah, I see it’s sinkin’ in,” Skull ground out.

“You had to use Gwen, Roarke would have cut her up, Ginger knows it so she’d step in then he’d keep Gwen and enjoy his shit with Ginger and if he left either of ‘em breathin’, they would live the rest of their lives wishin’ he didn’t,” Hawk clipped back.

Oh boy. That didn’t sound good. That sounded very, very bad. That sounded get my ass to the mall instantly and buy sexy underwear as a reward for my rescue bad.

“I had it covered,” Skull returned.

“Your man inside?” Hawk asked, edging toward sarcastic but still extremely displeased.

“Yeah,” Skull answered.

“They scented him, they wouldn’t play, they’d cut his fuckin’ throat and dump him in the Platte,” Hawk growled. “In no way did you have this covered.”

“I had to use Ginger or Gwen, before I handed her over, I woulda wired her and tagged her so we’d know exactly where she was and could hear everything goin’ down,” Skull hit back. “And, by the way, it woulda helped, she was in on this shit but you and Wonder Cop here,” he jerked his thumb at Lawson, “were breathin’ so hot and heavy down her neck, the night I broke in to have my chat with her to give her a head’s up, sirens sounded before I could get her goddamned bedroom door open.”

Well, that explained that which, for me, was somewhat of a relief. At least that meant there wasn’t another unknown person out there after me for nefarious reasons.

Hawk, nor Lawson, it was clear to see, felt relief.

“What?” Hawk whispered.

“You heard me, man, with your knight in shining armor bullshit, you fucked this every way you could fuck this,” Skull returned.

“Maybe, you let Hawk and me in on this shit, it wouldn’t be fucked,” Lawson suggested angrily.

Skull leaned back and his eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, I woulda kept my cover havin’ sit downs with The Rock and John McClane.” He leaned back in. “Did you miss me tellin’ you how far beyond the call of duty I had to go to keep my cover, bangin’ that filthy, foul-mouthed, drug-addled piece of ass?”

Sarcasm and it was clear neither Hawk nor Lawson appreciated sarcasm much.

“Roarke would uncover a wire and a tag in a split second,” Lee Nightingale entered the conversation, throwing down on Hawk’s (and my) side.

“My man was primed,” Skull retorted.

“He’d out Ginger and he wouldn’t do it with a threat on Gwen, he’d do it with a blade slicing through her skin,” Luke Stark put in and he appeared to be unhappy too.

“I’ll repeat,” Skull clipped, “my man was primed.”

“You took a big chance without the primary player knowin’ you were usin’ her for this shit,” Eddie Chavez growled as he pointed at me.

“I think you know more than anyone, Chavez, that the streets of Denver have been flooded with product. You boys on the Force were so far over your heads keepin’ on top of that shit, you petitioned the Pope to declare a miracle when Kane Allen backed out of the safety business,” Skull returned, Eddie’s face got tight and a muscle clenched in his cheek. “And Gwendolyn Kidd was the second part of that miracle.”

Okay, firstly, if I was given a chance to decide if I wanted the opportunity to participate, I wouldn’t have wanted any part of that miracle not only because I was a scaredy cat but also because I felt that perhaps someone trained should have that job and secondly, I didn’t know if it was annoying or comforting to know all this shit tied together.

“We don’t play it that way in Denver,” Hank Nightingale clipped.

“Yeah, and that’s why you got so much product flooding your streets,” Skull clipped back and Hawk moved.

Closing the distance between him and Skull in a way that could not be misinterpreted, he got chest to chest and eye to eye with him.

“Let’s go back to talkin’ about you downin’ my man and targeting my woman, I wanna hear a little more about that,” he said quietly in a way that stated clearly he didn’t actually want to hear about that, he wanted to rip Skull’s head off.

“Uh-oh,” Elvira mumbled.

But it was safe to say I’d had enough. I’d been broken into, firebombed, shot at, abducted and imprisoned, kidnapped, tied up and targeted and almost used as bait by an undercover DEA agent who was obsessed with getting the bad guy. I was not going to let my new boyfriend get arrested for assault and battery.

Enough was e-fucking-nough!

I let go of Elvira’s hand, stood and shouted, “Stop it!”

Hawk and Skull didn’t separate but both their heads turned to me.

My eyes went to Skull. “I understand and admire your mission but this is America which means I’m free to choose if I wish to participate in your mission. And should I choose to do so I’m entitled to the training I’d need to maybe make it out the other end alive. You didn’t give me that choice which is not cool. But, FYI, I would have chosen no. I wear high heels, drink cosmopolitans and edit books. That’s my life choice. I don’t go undercover. I have no desire to do that. The streets may be flooded with drugs, I’m sorry to hear that, I wish it wasn’t true and I want to express my best of luck to you on seeing that situation altered but I know enough about myself to know I wouldn’t have been able to help much in that situation even if I would have wanted to. I would have messed everything up. But there are people, like you, who would make a different choice, they would have been able to help and, bottom line, you should have found another way.” I sucked in breath and continued. “Now, my sister is tied up in this shit, I knew it was bad but now I, and incidentally my and Ginger’s Mom, know it’s worse so if you wouldn’t mind controlling your testosterone, standing down and regrouping in order to fight another day I’d appreciate it because I’ve had a pretty bad day, Brett and Betsy’s have been worse, and we don’t need anything to make it suck any more than it already does.”

This was received quietly, all the badasses and badass commandos simply staring at me so I went on.

“And baby,” I said, my eyes going to Hawk, “I can appreciate you’re upset about Brett and having to rescue me again but if we find out Brett’s going to be okay, you promised me a night out and I don’t think you meant that night was me visiting the police station to talk to you on a phone through glass. I don’t have a visit your incarcerated boyfriend outfit and,” I leaned in, “I don’t want one.”

“Tell it like it is, hon,” Elvira muttered and I could tell it was through a smile.

Hawk didn’t move and his expression didn’t alter, the same true for Skull.

“Stand down from the DEA agent, Hawk,” I ordered and he continued to scowl at me so I quieted my voice and urged, “Baby, Betsy needs you now.”

Hawk scowled at me some more then he stepped away from Skull but demanded to me, “Come here.”

He may have stepped away but none of the tenseness left the room and I briefly debated the merits of running for my life rather than approaching Hawk but when his eyebrows went up I decided to take my chances and approach Hawk.

The second I did, his hand hooked around my neck, he yanked me toward him so my head collided with his chest, his arm locked around my shoulders and his other hand wrapped around my wrist. He pulled it up so it and its red welts and bits of broken skin were level with Skull’s eyes.

“This is on you,” he said quietly and released my wrist but his fingers slid down and curled around my hand so he could pull it around his middle and he left it at the side of his waist. “She loses sleep, that’s on you. I lose my man, that’s on you. Either of those last two happen, I’ll make it my mission that you never forget they’re on you. We clear?”

Apparently they weren’t for Skull returned, “My play was allowed to go down, I woulda kept her safe and I would have saved her sister.”

Hawk pulled in his lips and bit them at the same time his arm tightened around me and I knew both of these were efforts at control. What he didn’t do was respond so Skull’s eyes came to me.

“I would have kept you safe,” he repeated.

“And I would have appreciated a choice in whether you had to expend that effort,” I replied.

“Gwen, the work I do saves lives but don’t think you watched this play out and can mistake me for a man who doesn’t understand that those lives I’m savin’ are worth the exchange of a good woman,” Skull returned.

“Thanks for that but if that’s true, how do you explain Brett?” I shot back and Hawk’s arm got even tighter around my shoulders.

“Because,” Skull said gently, his face had changed, he still looked rough, rock ‘n’ roll, ultra-cool hot guy but the way his face changed and his voice gentled, his hotness quotient, I, unfortunately and automatically due to vast amounts of study on the subject, noted entered the stratosphere, “he works for your man so I know he’s a man who puts on his boots every day understanding what happened to him today is always an eventuality and, knowin’ that, he’ll have planned for it. And I also know, he works for your man, he had that choice you’re pissed I didn’t give you, he wouldn’t have even taken the time to blink before he decided he was willin’ to take his chances to play my play.”

Shit. I was guessing he had a point there.

I decided to stop talking. Skull waited for me to say more and there was something about that, him giving me the time to speak my piece, say what I had to say that I didn’t want to admit, because he was not my favorite person, was nice.

And it was then I realized that the entire time he had me in that filthy apartment, he actually was standing guard protecting me, but in a good way. And the reason he looked so unhappy wasn’t because I scratched his arms. It was because he was a good guy who, for the greater good, was enduring a life pretending to be a bad guy. He’d been involved in an operation where one on his side went down and, for that greater good, he found himself in a circumstance which was much like I suspected many circumstances he’d come up against the last year and a half in order to maintain his cover. He had to make a decision, let it happen and was powerless to do anything about it.

And I had to give it to him. That would make me unhappy too.

When I didn’t speak, he tore his gaze from me, his eyes caught Hawk’s for a brief moment, he turned and disappeared.

Lawson filled his space and I looked up at him.

“Sweetheart, I hate to say it, but I gotta take your statement.”

I sighed.

Then I remarked, “We have to quit meeting like this.”

Hawk curled me closer into his side.

Lawson smiled.