Double Tap (10 page)

A lot.

Danger played strangely with a man’s libido.

I heard stray shots behind me, but I didn’t slow or even look back to see if I could spot the shooter.

I heard Georgia speaking with dispatch, but my focus was on not hitting trees and stranding us in the middle of my property with nowhere to go.

A thundering
clop-clop
of multiple hooves striking the ground at a frantic pace could be heard over the truck’s engine, and I looked in my rearview mirror in time to see my four horses, as well as Nautica, sprinting towards me.

“Fuck,” I growled.

Surprisingly, instead of passing me, they stayed with me, keeping up as I slipped and crawled through the trees, making the turns that I knew from heart.

After another five minutes I stopped, shutting the poor abused truck off with little fanfare.

“We’ve stopped. We’re off the road that runs up between Nico’s property and mine. Follow the creek and it should get you straight to us,” Georgia directed them like a pro.

It wasn’t into the radio but the cell phone at her ear. My cell phone.

I could only assume she was talking to one of the men on my team.

They’re the only ones that would call, besides my family, and we’d just gotten out of dinner with them.

Once she hung up, I got out of the truck, clicking softly with my tongue.

The horses, although spooked, came straight to me.

They were all there.

What the fuck was happening?

“Oh, my God. What’s going on, Nico?” I heard her ask at my back.

I didn’t reply. Not because I didn’t want to, but because
I didn’t fuckin’ know.

“Who was on the phone?” I asked as I turned back to the truck and reached for the pistol I kept underneath the seat.

I handed it to her, and she took it without a word, checking the chamber and the safety before she placed it into her lap.

Her eyes looked haunted and scared, and her face was bloodless.

“You’re not going to go all girl on me and pass out, are you
niña
?” I asked
teasingly. A pissy Georgia was better than a scared Georgia
.

I was trying to pull her tail, so to speak. If I could get her thinking about how much I annoyed her, she’d possibly get a little color back in her cheeks.

And color she got.

“Listen here,
niño
. Anything you can do, I can do better,” she snapped.

I rolled my eyes and walked away from her, turning around and holding my finger up to my lips to keep her quiet.

She narrowed her eyes at me but ultimately stayed put, keeping her mouth shut.

It’d be a fuckin’ miracle if whomever was shooting at the truck to have caught us, but nonetheless, I kept my eyes peeled, scanning our surroundings as I was taught to do as a SEAL.

My eyes snared on the truck, and a shot of adrenaline shot through me.

How the fuck had we survived?

“Mama’s having a coronary. Please tell me you’re both okay, so I can tell your mother,” Nikki sighed.

I looked at my watch. “Yes, Nikki. We’re okay. And she’s your mother, too.”

I could practically hear her wave her hand in the air. “No. When she’s acting like this, I don’t want to have any relation to her.”

“Give her a break. Her favorite child nearly had his head blown off,” I teased.

Little did she know that that was true.

“Of course
you’re her favorite. You’re a momma’s boy. A titty baby. You know, you’re the only one who had your face pressed up against her vagina
,” Nikki ended with that comment, breaking the connection with her usual flourish.

I shuddered.

Yuck
.

Although, somewhat true.

I was the only one to be born vaginally, and my sister liked to point that out on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis.

“What was that about your mom’s vagina?” Downy asked.

“Why do you even care about my mom’s vagina? Keep your nose out of my business,” I snapped.

He looked me dead in the eye, and without even a crack of a smile he said, “But everything about your mom’s vagina is my business.”

Downy laughed as he skittered out of my reach.

The only thing keeping him from feeling what my hands felt like cutting off his breath via my hands wrapped around his throat was Georgia, who was sitting in my lap.

She snorted. “You’ve met Lolita, right?”

Downy shook his head. “Only twice when she brought Nico tamales to the station.”

I looked up in confusion. “My mom’s never brought tamales to the station.”

He gave me a look, and it slowly dawned on me.

“You ate my tamales? You’re such a son of a bitch,” I said, shaking my head.

Georgia started giggling.

“Alright, boys. Time to get out of here. Nico, you know what to do,” Luke said as he walked back from the front side of my house.

The large tow truck carrying my fifty thousand dollar truck started to rumble up the pasture road, and I watched as it took a left out of my driveway and started back down the street.

“Guess it’s back to old blue,” Downy said with an evil grin.

I flipped him off.

Luke cleared his throat, and I sighed.

“Yes, yes I do. Call if the prowler who was trying to steal my horses comes back. Blah, blah, blah. Don’t try to take care of them myself, blah, blah,” I said with forced patience.

He glared at me, but in the end walked away towards his truck, waved a dismal goodbye, and drove off.

Downy, Michael, Bennett, John, and James soon followed.

We watched as Michael, the last to leave, waved goodbye.

“So…” Georgia said.

I gave her a squeeze. “You want to stay the night?”

She looked at me for a few long moments before she nodded. “Yes. Just let me let my brothers know, and I’ll come inside.”

I shook my head. “I’m not leaving you out here alone.”

Her lips thinned as she took a look around the property.

Eyes lingering on the barn, and the hastily fastened door we’d used to cover the large gaping hole in the side of the barn’s wall.

Instead of bypassing the large door that I had an alarm on, they’d decided to just cut a hole in the side of the barn with a jig saw.

I, of course, hadn’t wired the outside, only using the wiring at the front and back doors.

That, however, would be remedied in the morning.

Fucking thieves.

Sometimes I felt like this world would never be saved. Not when there were so many bad apples out there willing to steal something somebody loved. Something somebody put their heart and soul into having.

“Nico?” Georgia’s soft melodic voice called.

I looked up.

She was standing in front of me, looking at me with concern.

“Call your brothers, baby. I’ll wait out here,” I said.

She looked at me for a long time, then nodded and walked inside.

I stayed where I was on the porch railing. One foot on the boards and one foot dangling as I half sat, half stood.

I could hear her talking quietly inside as I stood and made my rounds around the house.

I checked on the horses one more time. Then made a round down to the end of my drive to lock the gate before I walked back up to the house and inside.

She wasn’t on the phone when I got back, and I let her do her thing while I checked all the windows and locks. Pulled the shades. Then, finally, walked back to my bedroom.

What I saw made my knees weak.

Pussy. It’s what’s for dinner.

-Nico’s secret thoughts

Georgia

My legs were trembling.

My hands were shaking.

And I was fairly positive that if anything else
could
shake, which I wasn’t going to admit to it being possible, than it most certainly was.

I’d stripped out of my pants and shirt, then crawled into the shower.

I’d hoped that he’d make it inside in time for him to join me in the shower.

Except he’d taken overly long, and I’d lost hot water, which had forced me to get out before I was ready.

I’d hoped that by me being in the shower, I’d goad him into action.

The sad thing was that, despite all that had happened earlier, I was still just as ready to go now as I was when I’d started to undress in his truck.

I’d lost the courage that I’d had when I first entered the shower, and now I was sitting in one of Nico’s worn Navy shirts and nothing else.

I was on the end of his bed waiting for him.

Was I supposed to crawl into bed?

Was I supposed to wait up for him?

I’d been finished with my phone call for nearly an hour. Surely he’d
be here shortly, right?

Except he wasn’t. I waited another ten minutes like that before I decided to crawl under the covers.

I waited another five minutes, laying there smelling his sheets, before my eyes got heavy.

And I fell asleep shortly after.

I didn’t even wake up when
he got to the room. Not when he called my name.
Not even when he crawled into the bed beside me.

In fact, I didn’t wake up until nearly five hours later, at three in the morning, when I heard the awful moaning beside me.

At first, I thought it was part of my dream.

I’d had the same one for eight years now.

I was lucky in that it stopped before I had to witness the murders of my mother and brothers.

That didn’t stop my heart from racing.

This time, though, Nico was there.

He’d moan each time my father would hit or kick me.

He was tied up next to my brothers, and his eyes were on me with a ravaged pain as he watched my father take yet another beating out on me.

Nico never knew of my plight at home.

My father was nice to leave all the marks on places that weren’t easily visible. It helped to avert the inevitable questions that were sure to be asked if anyone saw.

This time, though, Nico found out.

He’d come in when my father had the gun pointed at my face.

When he saw Nico, he forced him to get into the last remaining kitchen chair. The one he always used to sit in.

Then he proceeded to beat the shit out of me while keeping the gun pointed on Nico.

Nico would moan with each hit that my father served me with.

As if it were happening to him instead of me.

It wasn’t until a few minutes in that I realized that it was a continuous moan. That, and he wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at his hands.

That’s about when my dream started to dissipate around the edges and I found myself in a foreign bed.

The room was pitch black, not a single light was evident in the entire area.

I couldn’t even see my hands in front of my face.

Nico was making a tortured moan from his side of the bed, and my heart started to pound.

I felt along the bedside for my phone, but then I cursed, remembering placing it on the table in the kitchen.

Getting up from the bed, I felt along the wall until I came to what I assumed was the bathroom.

I was wrong, it was the closet, but it did have a light, so it served its purpose.

Flipping it on, I winced when the light blinded me, but I quickly adjusted and looked towards the bed.

Nico was hunched in on himself on his side, facing away from where I’d been sleeping.

He was naked,
save for a pair of black boxers, and the first thing my eyes zeroed in on was the large scar on Nico’s back. It spanned from the top of his left shoulder blade all the way diagonally towards the right kidney.

Walking around the bed I called, “Nico?”

He flinched.

“No. No. No. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t hurt her. Please,” Nico panted.

Hurt who?

“Nico. Nicolas. Wake up!” I said emphatically.

His moaning had gotten worse.

I was standing around three feet from the bed when he finally opened his eyes.

It was eerie though.

They weren’t looking at me. They weren’t really looking at anything.

They looked blank.

“Nico?” I asked.

His eyes turned to me, but Nico wasn’t home.

“Nico?” I asked, taking a step back.

His eyes tracked my movement, but he still didn’t move. Staying completely still.

“Nico, what’s going on?” I asked, worried.

He sat up, eyes staying trained on me as I moved back.

His face was lack of expression.

It was as if he was looking at some criminal. As if it was his cop face.

That was when it hit me. He’d looked like that when he was looking
in the rear view mirror when he was driving away earlier. When the shooting had started.

He leaned forward, his hand going to something I couldn’t see at the side of the bed.

Then in one swift motion, he had a huge black gun pointing at me.

No, not at me. At something behind me.

“Down,” he said.

I, of course, dropped.

And the world around me exploded.

“You could’ve fucking told me there was something behind me,” I snapped.

“Georgia, there was a fucking rattlesnake on the dresser behind your head. What exactly did you want me to do? He was ready to strike at the back of your head. The more you moved, the more coiled he got,” he growled.

I shivered in his arms, looking at the blood that stained the wall, even after scrubbing it with bleach.

The corpse of the long gone snake was now in the fire pit to be burned as soon as the weather was adequate, and all cloths used to clean up as well. I’d buy him more tomorrow.

He tightened his arms around me and skimmed his lips across the top of my head. “You’re a magnet for trouble.”

“No, you are. This is your house,” I snapped.

He rolled me over until his h
ips fell between my splayed thighs. “No,” he said, punctuating that statement with
a grind of his hips against my sex. “It started when you got here. There was no problem before you came along.”

I glared at him.