Justice (Bad Boys of X-Ops Book 2) (23 page)

When I shuddered, she held me tight.

“Tilly, Tilly. I love you. You are my home.”

“And you are my love.” She moved only to get closer.

A knee bent.

A hand sifting down my back.

A small, spirited laugh.

I nestled her head in the slope of my shoulder, glancing at the flower from her hair—slightly crushed—resting against the sand dollar—completely intact.

“Mrs. Justice Lawless-Chase. How does it feel to be married?”

“Absolutely marvelous.” She pleated her hands beneath her chin and popped up above me. “What about you?”

“Absolutely
fuckin’
marvelous.” I lunged up, taking her lips with mine.

With a soft suck, she plucked free. Her smile shone so bright, warmth shimmered all over me.

“You are mine.” Tilly sighed, sinking against me. She found my hand, twining our fingers together. “
And Justice most certainly has been had
.”

“Yes, I have.”

Storm: Bad Boys of X-Ops #
3

Coming May 2016!

Location: Old Blighty

September 2015

NO PEDESTRIAN WALKING ALONGSIDE the inner streets of London was safe from Bane when he was behind the wheel of the fast, fancy car. Fuck, I wasn’t even safe, and I was sitting inside the vehicle right beside him.

“They drive on the left side of the road here,
pahdnah
.” I gritted my teeth, holding onto the fucking dainty
oh shit
bar in the Jaguar XKR-S GT.

“I know. I’m trying to throw them off our scent. And don’t call me
pahdnah
, you Cajun half-breed hillbilly.”

“Don’t know where you come off callin’ me hillbilly. You’re just another piece-of-trash street thug.” I snarled.

Bane shifted down, taking the hairpin turn with a squeal of tires and a wide grin I wanted to punch right off his face.

I glanced back, checking out the rear window to make sure we weren’t being tailed too closely.

I encountered Walker’s face as he sat in the backseat. He looked ready to puke in his jump boots. His normally, naturally copper-colored skin as pale as thin smoke, and sweat popped out on his forehead.

When I straightened around, I tried pumping my foot on the brake pedal that wasn’t there. “Fuck’s sake, Bane. Is this a one-way street?”

“Looks like it,” he muttered, staring at the oncoming traffic in the tiny brick-paved lane.

Honking the horn with the heel of his palm, he swerved up onto the sidewalk. He narrowly avoided clipping an innocent civilian before taking a swift right that put us back onto a double-lane street.

“Jesus Christ.” I swiped my forehead. “Someone sure named you right. You definitely gotta be the biggest motherfuckin’ bane of my existence.”

“Them’s some
mighty
refined words for a no-count country boy.” Twisting the wheel into a hard right, Bane looked briefly back to make sure no one followed us.

“I worked my way into this job just like you did,
thuggy
, I just didn’t commit crimes along the way.”

Bane laid more rubber tread on the road, punching down and making the engine scream through crowded streets. He swerved in and out of standstill traffic, raced over a bridge, and brought us to a slamming halt that spun the Jag one hundred and eighty degrees in its tracks.

“Missed a turn,” he mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

I reached for my holster. The holster that was missing. Walker bitched and moaned in the back, taking up where I’d left off.

We were all weaponless and not a single one of us was happy about being stripped of our sidearms, knives, or brass knuckles. Or, in Walker’s case, semtex and C-4.

Bane chewed his lower lip, his eyes darting between the windshield, rearview, and sideview mirrors.

With another gut-twisting turn like the aerobatic aeronautical tailslides I liked to maneuver in an airplane just for the sheer fucking fun of it, Bane’s eyes lit up.

“Jesus cunting Christ! Why don’t you just take the next corner on rails?” I braced myself against the dashboard to stop from sailing headfirst through the windshield.

Tailslides worked better when I was at the controls. In a plane. Without goddamn Bane.
Jeeeesus.

“Good idea.”

And so he did.

Couillon.

Walker was heard gulping down his gorge, quietly trying not to retch all over the backseat.

“You still blame me for what went down?” Bane stomped on the gas, sending the transmission into sixth gear.

“Will to my dying day.”

“Let’s see if we can speed that up, then,” the bastard answered.

Bane blew through Piccadilly Circus like he was drag racing in a jacked-up ’71 Camaro.

We sped past red double-decker buses. Cruised by camera-toting tourists. We took the rounded three-lane juncture on skidding, probably balded tires.

Oh look! The famous neon billboards!

Sirens sounded in our wake. Loud and unmistakable. Possibly unshakeable.

“Hey, guys?” Walker’s voice sounded quaky.

Bane glanced back,
inadvertently
misdirecting the Jag into two lanes of oncoming traffic.

“Remember what I told you about being air sick, Storm?”

“Yeah.” I prepared for a ditch and roll move before Bane crashed us in a head-on collision.

Bane swung us out of harm’s way, bumping into a narrow alley where tall stone buildings nearly kissed above us and blocked out the fall sunlight.

“Make that motion sick.” Walker was getting ready to upchuck.

Jerking the car left, Bane blasted onto a road, his hard face showing the joy of the hunt.

“Bullshit. You’ll be fine.” He laid on the horn, swearing out the window at too-slow pedestrians.

They hustled to the curb, and he gunned the engine, nearly stripping the crosswalk of its white paint.

“You ride a motorcycle.” I pointed out to Walker, trying to take his mind off his—
uuuh
—imminent demise. “And a horse.”

“And Jade!” Bane pounded the horn just to scare a few extra people while I chuckled.

Then I remembered I hated him.

Then
Walker’s long arms reached out, and he punched us both on the back of the head with punishing blows.

“You fucking mention anything about Jade again, and I’ll pack so much C-4 up your asses you’ll shit from colostomy bags for the rest of your lives.”

The car lurched with Bane’s stuttered reaction to Walker’s threat, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit it, my asshole puckered. So did my face.

“Where the hell’s Justice?” Walker rolled down his window, inhaling deep breaths. “Maybe he could drive without getting us all killed.”

“He doesn’t seem to understand the concept of
honeymoon
. You know, that it’s a finite thing,” I said.

“Think they’re planning on christening every country in the world, forget about every room in their house.” Bane roared through a red light.

“And Jus’s Jeep,” I added.

“And—”

Walker groaned. “What made you think I want to know about his and Tilly’s sex life?”

“You asked.”

“Didn’t really wanna know,” he muttered.

“Hey. We’re here.” Bane slammed on the brakes so hard my head nearly shot through the windshield.

That was probably his intention.

And surprise, surprise. We weren’t being fucking tailed, tracked, or pursued by anything other than an unwelcome police escort.

Walker stumbled out of the car, and I thought he was gonna hurl in the shrubs. Not bushes. The greenery was called
shrubbery
in England. I just referred to it as
green shit that grows
.

Bane and I exited the abused Jag after him, both of us dressed in swanky wedding gear instead of the usual camos and combat uniform.

Both of us reached up to loosen our neck-chokers at the same time.

Both of us
immediately glared at one another.

“Who’s gonna pay off the coppers this time?” I asked.

“Your turn,” Bane answered.

“D’you think they take Euros or pounds?” Pulling out my wallet, I flicked through my cash.

“
I
usually stick to Amex.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ. When they sang that song at my stag party last night”—Walker took several deep gulps of air as his color slowly returned—“‘Get Me to the Church on Time,’
they didn’t mean you had to risk my fucking life doing it.”

“A ton of fucking fun getting here though.” Bane hit the car locks and leaned against the hood with a shit-eating grin.

Here
was a goddamn church in London, England, with Jade Huntington waiting somewhere inside to get married to Walker.

“Wedding fever’s catching.” Bane looked none too impressed by the idea.

I had to agree. “Like an infection.”

“Marriage is the scourge of the single man.” Peering at his reflection in the window of the car, Walker straightened his tie and checked his ever-present braid. “And I for one cannot wait for my turn to say I do too.”

“You know what I liked about Justice and Tilly’s wedding?” I asked as we started up the stone steps of the massive cathedral.

“You got to drool over Blaize while she was wearing a party dress?” Walker smart-assed.

“I’m not gonna punch you because it’s your wedding day.” I narrowed my eyes on him, holding myself in check. “I was gonna say . . . Justice didn’t make us wear all this fancy shit.”

I pulled the collar away from my neck again. Still couldn’t get over the feeling like there was a noose wound around my throat.

“It’s called a suit. And normal folks dress nicely from time to time.” Leaping up the last few steps, Walker waited outside the huge, carved, double wooden doors.

“Rather have guns and leathers.” Bane kept peering around as if he expected an ambush attack in the middle of fucking Mayfair, London, or wherever the hell we were.

Bane’s speed-chase driving had fucked up my sense of direction.

“It was also on the beach. Beach weddings rank.” I lowered my voice as we stepped into the church vestibule.

Instead of heading into the nave, we were ushered down a side corridor. Whispers from the guests amassed on the other side of the statue-lined wall echoed in the hushed acoustics of the building, and the sound of our polished shoes—not combat boots—rang out loud and clear.

“Whatever. International. Culture. Good for you.” Walker peeked around the corner, and his eyes lit on the altar. “And if I have to put on a tux, you two losers do too. But about Blaize . . .”

“Hey.” I prodded Walker forward from the hidden screen. “At least my date wasn’t Baby Spy.”

“Baby Spy was an assignment,” Bane chewed out. “Blaize didn’t want her there without a detail on her.”

“Can’t believe Justice even invited her.” Walking up the marble-tiled steps that showed centuries of history and age, Walker got into place before the vicar.

“He didn’t,” I whispered.

“You mentioned infections, Storm. You shake that case of syphilis yet? That why you can’t get a date?” Walker—that jerkoff—did
not
whisper.

A sudden silence fell over the gathered guests in the cathedral behind us.

Groaning, I discreetly flipped him off.

Bane chuckled.

“Don’t forget. You caught Tilly’s garter. So you’re next.” Walker continued to show absolutely no wedding day jitters, mouthing off as usual.

After the groom shook the vicar’s hand and exchanged a few quiet words, he turned around to face the body of the church.

So did Bane and I.

Before us, the cathedral spread out for what looked like a mile. Flowers burst from four-foot-tall stands. Huge bows and ribbons punctuated the end of each pew. The pews were packed. Stained glass windows and bigass religious statues. The whole medieval shebang.

“Who the hell are all these people?” I frowned, once again wishing I had at least one blade on me.

Bane scowled, probably scanning for tangos and wondering if we’d been made by the Special War Ministry of the UK, forget about the SAS.

“Fuck if I know.” Walker turned to the vicar. “Sorry ’bout the language, dude.”

And this was Walker, on the verge of getting married. Shooting off at the mouth and cursing like a soldier on the battlefield while he stood waiting for his bride to appear.

“Wait. I know her.” He leaned forward, waving at an Asian beauty in the first row. “There’s Moms Huntington!”

“Where are your folks? Your brother? That dude Mahpee you told us about?” I asked.

Walker slid his hands down his tux coat and straightened his cuffs. “I ain’t stupid. Doing it both ways.”

“Double-dipping?” Bane held out his fist.

Walker tapped it. “Yeah, Kemosabe. Church first. Wedding at Inya Kara in two weeks. Double the presents.”

I laughed when Walker guffawed, but something changed in his eyes for a moment.