Kaleb (Samuel's Pride Series)

Kaleb

Samuel’s Pride Series

Book 3

By

Kathi S. Barton

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

WCP

World Castle Publishing, LLC

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright © Kathi S. Barton 2014

Print
ISBN: 9781629891002

eBook ISBN: 9781629891019

First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, May 23, 2014

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Licensing Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

Cover: Karen Fuller

Editor:
Eric Johnston

Editor: Maxine Bringenberg

Chapter 1

Tania Thornton—Thor as everyone called her—stood as still as she could. This was the worst part of her job, the waiting. But when movement near her on the left got her attention, she knew in a second that she’d been made. Lifting her gun, she fired twice in the direction the man had gone and took off after him. It was show time, and she wasn’t in the mood to get caught this late in the game. She took him down just as he was reaching for his walkie-talkie.

Snapping his neck
, she disarmed him in seconds, putting his guns and ammo in pockets all over her pants. She smiled when she thought of the nice little collection she’d amassed only in the past hour. These people were out for blood. Her mike in her ear sounded just as she noticed another guard walking the perimeter and moved to intercept him. It was time to call in the big boys on this.

“I thought I mentioned to you, oh about fifty times
, that if you needed anything to call the shop. I’m in a very important meeting.” Thor grinned. Her boss, Lyod Sweeney, was sounding more and more pissed every time she spoke to him. “Who the fuck is this anyway?”

“Thor.”
She heard him cursing and had to work hard at not laughing out loud. The guard was only about ten feet from her. “I found where Lipscomb is hiding out.”

There was more cursing
, and she was slightly confused by it. They’d been hunting for Ansell Lipscomb for nearly six months. When he came back on the line, she had to stop in her forward motion to kill the guard when he started yelling at her. Did he really want her to back the fuck off?

“Where the fuck are you right now? I’ve told you several times that he was out of the country
, and now you’re telling me that you’re hunting for him? Do you ever listen to a word that I tell you?” She started to tell him that Ansell was on the property right now when he continued. “I want you to sit on this and wait to talk to me in the morning. Better yet, forget everything you think you know. He’s not fucking here.”

“But what if I told you that I’ve seen him at the address?”
He didn’t answer her, and she continued. This wasn’t what she’d expected from him, not at all. “There are more guards on this property than I’ve seen on detail at the White House. This guy is here.”

“You’re here…you’re at the property now?” She told him she was.
“Mother fuck. Do you have any idea what you’ve stepped into? Get back now before you get yourself killed.”

Something
was off about this whole thing. But before she could ask him what the hell he was going on about, the guard she’d been running down turned suddenly as his walkie squawked at him. When he turned in her direction, Thor dropped to the ground and waited. As he walked by her, she grabbed his leg and tossed him to the ground, slicing open his throat as he fell.

“Are you fucking listening to me?”
She didn’t answer. The guard had had a knife she’d not seen, and she had to pull it from her ribs before she could speak. The pain radiated through her entire body, and she had to take several deep breaths before she could speak.

“I’m hurt.”
He said something to the effect that she was going to be hurt more when he found her, but she saw three men coming toward her. Lifting her gun up, she took out all three before she stood up. “Something must be going on. They’re coming out to the grounds heavily.”

“You think?”
Sweeney took several long breaths, all of which echoed through her headset as she waited for him to explain. “There’s no hope for it now. You’re as dead as they come.”

The blow to the back of her head
made her pitch forward. The body that she fell on was armed, and she pulled his gun from his hand just as she fell. Turning as she landed, she lifted the gun and fired three times into the man’s head just as he was lifting his gun. When he fell on top of her, she rolled quickly and found it was too late for her to shoot the next two men. She was toast. She wasn’t going down without a fight, but bleeding and hurt wasn’t giving her the edge that she needed. They had her before she could do much more than hurt one of them.

“You know
, there is no reason for you to be this rough with me. First of all, I’m not in a position to play as rough with you as I’d like, and there are five of you to my one.” The man that held her left arm grunted at her. Thor grinned and winked at him. “I think I broke your jaw. Does it hurt much?”

He jerked her arm behind her
, and she felt it tear. Thor supposed she should really keep her mouth shut, but they were going to kill her anyway, so she’d have her fun. And beating the shit out of them had been a great deal of fun. They took her to a van and threw her in the back, where she blacked out for a time. When she woke, they were dragging her to a large cinderblock building.

“You’re going to pay for this.” The guy at her right holding her other arm cuffed her in the head.
Though she saw stars, she didn’t let him know she was affected by it. But the second time he hit her, she felt her teeth cut deeply into her lip.

“You do know that others know I’m here.
I mean, any moment now the entire police department is going to pull in here and you’re going to be sorry.” He laughed, and she frowned. “You think you know something I don’t?”

“I’m sure I do.
And no one is coming to help you. We have it on good authority that you’re alone and will always be that way. We have an inside man, so to speak.” He jerked her forward and tied her to the wall that had grommets on it. She didn’t bother now trying to get away. The gun pointed at her head kept her from being stupid. By the time she was secured against the wall with her legs and arms tied tightly, she knew as surely as she was standing there she was dead meat. When the men backed away, she had a second to think they were going to kill her now. But someone else had entered the little cell she’d been put in.

“Hello
, Tania. I’ve heard a great deal about you.” Thor looked at the man she’d been chasing for months. He looked impeccable in his three-piece suit and dark tie. There was not a hair out of place, and he looked like he was finding a great deal of humor in her situation.

“I’ve heard some shit about you
, too. In fact, I have a thick file of all kinds of stuff about you. Like you’re a drug runner, murderer, as well as a hired gun. Whatever will you do when you’re behind bars?” He laughed at her, and she laughed as well, even though laughing was the furthest thing from her mind. “The police know you’re here. I’ve called in backup.”

“No, you have not.
And as for you getting anyone to care that you’re gone, that’s not going to happen either. You don’t even have a cat or dog to mourn your passing.” The guy to her left walked up to her and rammed a knife into her shoulder. He stepped back, leaving the blade where he’d put it. “That’s for killing some of my best men. You should know that each of these men in here are going to play with you, though I doubt very much any of it will be fun for you.”

The next man rammed a knife into her other shoulder
, and she cried out despite her trying not to scream. The pain was making her dizzy, yet she stared at Lipscomb as he sat in a chair.

“You’re
not going to enjoy this, I think. The men have been waiting for a while to have a little bit of fun.” The bullet to her thigh startled her. When she screamed this time, she felt tears roll down her cheeks. Lipscomb found humor in that as well and laughed for five minutes. Thor simply tried to breathe through the pain.

This went on for over an hour.
She knew that was all it was because Lipscomb told her so. By the time he and the men who’d abused her left her to hang there, Thor knew that it wasn’t a matter of if she was going to die, but how soon. Moving her head, she pulled the first blade from her shoulder with her teeth and spit it to the floor. Blood poured from the wound, and she watched it for a few seconds. Then she closed her eyes against the pain and tried to think of something pleasant. There was nothing in her mind that would make her smile.

When she opened her eyes
, she realized that she was fading fast. Looking around the room, she saw a rug on the floor and thought of a man she’d not thought of in fifteen years. Samuel Payne. And as she reached for him, just wanting someone to know that she had died, she remembered their times together. They had been each other’s back.

“Did he hit you again?”
He’d told her that he had. His father hit him like her dad did her. “I hate them. Both of them. Someday I’m going to be bigger than him and I’m going to make him pay.”

Samuel had taken her hand and held it tightly in his.
He had always been her best friend, and even more so when they were hiding from their abusive fathers. Thor could admit now that she’d been in love with him since the first time she’d seen him. She was drifting in and out just as she touched his mind.

~~~

Samuel tried to shy away from the pain. He had no idea what had happened to him, but he hurt in more places than he thought he had places to hurt. But something was off, and when someone touched his mind, he knew that it wasn’t him but whoever it was that disturbed his sleep. Then the memories came of when the two of them were just children.

“You’ll not be able to kill him. It’s not allowed.” The girl,
Thor, had snorted at him. “And you should know that it’s my job to protect you, not you getting yourself all hurt trying to kill him. Someday I’ll be much bigger than them and I’ll take them out.”

“Don’t be an idiot. You know that I can do just as much as you can. Didn’t I just prove to you that I could pee standing up?”
He laughed with her. “Course I got it all over my shoes, but I still did it.”

“So you did.”
Samuel remembered now with a full clarity that he and Thor, as she’d wanted everyone to call her, had been hiding in the basement of an abandoned house. He’d been beaten by his dad just that day, and she’d taken one from her dad the day before. Neither of them were in any shape to defend themselves from anyone. The nudge at his mind had him concentrating on it rather than the painful memories that had apparently come from her.

“I’m dying.”
Samuel sat up in bed and looked around the room. It sounded as if she were right there with him.

“Thor?”
Her laughter made him get up. She was in pain, and he could feel it like his own. “Where are you? I want to come to you.”

“Too late for that
, I’m afraid.”
He looked at Kennedy when she sat up in bed. Her belly was swollen with their first child, but all he could think about at that moment was his friend.
“I’m dying, and there ain’t shit you can do to save me. Not this time. They stabbed me and shot me up pretty good. Not what I thought would happen to me. I was trying to get the bad guys.”

“Tell me where you are.”
He got a pencil and paper and wrote down for Kennedy to contact Jimmy and get him there. She nodded and lifted her phone to call him. “I’m getting dressed now. I’m coming to you, and you’d better not be dead.”

“My God, you’re still
trying to save me, aren’t you? I’m in Ohio. Far away from you. You just need to come and get my body. I don’t want to hang here to rot.”
He started to tell her that he was in the same state when she continued.
“I don’t think I can remember the address, but the house is owned by an Ansell Combs. He’s a drug king, and his real name is Lipscomb. Not very bright in the change of his name if you ask me.”

Jimmy came into the room just as he pulled on his jacket.
Samuel was glad to see that he’d dressed for a run, dark clothes as well as a gun strapped to his hip. Right behind him was Gab, and she, too, was ready.

“I need an address now.” They headed to the office as he explained
what he knew. Samuel tried several times to contact Thor again, but she had either passed out or she was being hurt again. Her pain beat at him. Neither option was something he wanted to think about. They were able to pull an address by the time she spoke again.

“Do you remember that time when we were going to run away?”
He remembered and told her so.
“I wish your mom hadn’t talked us out of it. We might have gotten killed, but we would have been together. I’m all alone in this world. Are you?”

“No. I have a wife with a baby on the way.” He felt her weakening and told her to buck up.
“If you’re dead when I get there, I’m going to pound your ass.”

“I’m so sorry about this.
I don’t know why I bothered you, but I was afraid of dying alone. I never got me that cat I was telling you about. The one that had one green and one blue eye. Do you remember her?”

She was babbling
, and he knew it. Trying to keep her talking was draining him, and he wasn’t sure what to say to her when she started talking about things that she’d done in her life. Things he was sure that she’d never shared with another living soul. Then she bounced back to when they were kids.

“Thor, we’re coming.
I should be there in an hour. I want you to hang on for me.” She told him she’d try. “Good girl. I want you to meet my wife and my friends. Mother will be so pissed at you if you don’t come and see her garden.”

“Garden?
Your mom has a garden? What does your dad think of that? He probably chops the heads off the plants before she can pick them.”
She started singing to him, and he had to smile. She couldn’t carry a tune back then and certainly couldn’t now.