Wicked Intentions (Steele Secrurity Book 4) (24 page)

Rebel held his breath while he made the cuts at the precise locations in which he was instructed. When he’d cut enough away for Heather to squeeze through, he scooped her up in his arms and crushed her to him while she cried tears of joy and relief. The team above lowered harnesses down to them to pull them out to safety and freedom. He helped Heather into her harness before stepping into his own and pulling her back into his arms for safekeeping.

The thunderous roar of the crowd when they emerged from the certain death trap was humbling. Heather looked around her, blinking repeatedly from the pain and from the tears that blurred her vision, and was awed at the scene. The mass of people who’d voluntarily worked hours on end to find and free as many as possible was unbelievable.

“Brax,” she choked out, unable to express anything else.

“I know, love. Believe me when I say every single one of them wanted to be here. To help in any way. And I’m so grateful for them.”

Paramedics were waiting in the wings and rushed in as quickly as the workers unhooked their harnesses. At first, Heather tried to resist medical treatment.

“I’m a nurse,” she rasped and waved the gurney away. “I’m okay.”

“Nurses are almost as bad at being a patient as paramedics are,” one of them joked but didn’t move away.

“You’re a wonderful nurse. You’re not okay. You’re injured, and you’re a patient as of right now. Get on the gurney.” Rebel crossed his arms over his wide chest and dared her to argue with him.

She climbed onto the gurney, careful to avoid further injury to her side and leg, and stretched out. One of the paramedics started an IV for her hydration while the other performed an initial medical assessment.

“Which hospital do you want to go to?” the one who performed the assessment asked her pointedly.

Resigned to the fact she genuinely did need medical attention, she nodded when Rebel gave the name of the hospital where she worked. The uncertainty swirling in her mind was the only reason she didn’t want to leave for the hospital. She knew she needed treatment, but she wasn’t ready to face the questions she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

Has my dad been found?

Was he transported to the hospital?

How bad were his injuries?

When can I see him?

Is he still alive?

Loaded and ready to go, Rebel jumped into the back of the ambulance with her, staying at her side as he promised.

“Do you want us to meet you there? I don’t want to intrude if the two of you need some time alone.” Noah stood at the back of the ambulance, holding the edge of the door.

Heather raised her head and replied for them both. “You’re our family. You don’t have to ask.”

Noah grinned and winked at her. “We’ll be there, then. Rebel, I got a call, and we’re back on for locate and eradicate. It’s your call, but personally, I don’t think you want to sit this one out.”

Through their nonverbal conversation, Rebel read between the lines and instantly understood the difference in their assignment.

“This investigation belongs to me. There’s no way in hell I’d miss it.”

O
n the ride
from the port to the hospital, Brax handed Heather his cell phone.

“Let your mom hear your voice so she knows you’re okay. She’s been worried sick, and they wouldn’t let her in the port.”

She dialed her number, and her heart ripped in two from the panic in Kay’s voice when she answered.

“Brax? Is she okay?”

“I’m okay, Mom.”

Completely choked with emotion, neither could speak after that simple exchange, so Rebel took the phone and finished the conversation.

“Kay, we’re heading to Heather’s hospital, where she knows the doctors and nurses. Meet us in the ER when you’ve calmed down and can safely drive. You don’t have to rush, she’s really okay. We’ll see you soon.”

Rebel leaned over and gently kissed Heather while lovingly stroking her matted hair. “It’s okay, baby. You can cry all you need to. I’ll be here to dry your tears and take care of you.”

Kay was waiting in the emergency room when the ambulance arrived. Even though it had only been a couple of days since Heather had last seen her, she noted how the stress and worry appeared to have aged her mother by several years.

Kay rushed to her when she was wheeled in and looked her over. “Heather, are you okay? How badly are you hurt? What can I do?”

“Just my ribs and my leg hurt, Mom. I’m okay. Brax has been taking good care of me,” she replied weakly.

“Thank God you were found. I don’t know what I would do if…”

What Kay didn’t say told Heather more than she wanted to know at the moment. Compartmentalizing the traumatic event was helping her stay sane. She wasn’t prepared to know everything all at once. Whatever information Kay had about Emmett’s condition couldn’t be good news, and that fact nearly pushed her into a panic attack.

She was thoroughly evaluated, questioned, poked, prodded, X-rayed, treated, and medicated for the injuries she’d sustained. From the trauma and stress her body had sustained, the doctor decided to keep her for a twenty-three-hour observation and make a determination about admitting or discharging her at that time. She was moved to a large private room to give Brax enough room to stay with her.

When the doctor made his rounds the following morning, she convinced him she would convalesce much better at home than in the hospital. With assurances that Rebel, Kay, and the rest of their extended family would be there to help her, the doctor agreed to let her go home. Bull brought Heather’s Land Rover to the hospital, and Rebel drove his wife home.

Later that evening, she was surrounded by her friends and family in the comfort of her own home.

“I’m fine, really. You don’t have to put your lives on hold for me.” Heather tried to reassure everyone she was fine, but Rebel could see through her carefully crafted façade.

After everyone left, she attempted to rest and relax, but it was fleeting. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her father hanging from the broken steps. She saw the terrified eyes of the other victims looking to her for answers she didn’t have. She saw the building collapse on her, trapping her under an enormous amount of solid concrete inside a metal cage.

She was certain she’d die in that cage. That it would become her tomb, and she’d suffer an agonizingly slow death she couldn’t do anything about. She made the mistake once of turning on the television and watching the news. The list of the identified victim’s names scrolled across the bottom of the screen; each one was harder to deal with than the previous. When the footage of the attack scene filled the screen, it triggered a full-on panic attack.

Over the following few days, sleep mostly escaped her because the visions turned into nightmares, and she’d wake, screaming and crying. When Kay showed up, her eyes red and nearly swollen shut from crying, Heather knew they’d found her father before her mother had spoken a word. They’d found his body several yards from where Heather had been trapped, but he hadn’t been sheltered by the steel frame. He’d been buried underneath the concrete that had caved in on the stairs below him, where many other victims had been trapped despite her attempts to tell them to go back up.

As far as injuries sustained, she felt blessed to only have a broken ankle, hairline fractures in her ribs, and too many cuts, scrapes, and bruises to count.

It was the psychological injuries she wasn’t confident would ever fully heal.

“Good morning, my love.”

It was early morning, and they were still in the bed, facing each other. Rebel had been her lifesaver—both literally and figuratively. He’d gotten her out of that concrete tomb, and he’d been by her side through every episode of anxiety she’d endured since.

“Good morning, honey. You didn’t sleep at all last night,” she observed. “I can tell by your eyes.”

“You don’t need to be concerned about me. I’m the one who’s worried about you. You didn’t sleep much at all, and you were screaming and crying in your sleep.”

She dropped her eyes to focus on his chest, trying to hide the fear that had a tight grip on her. “I’m sorry if I woke you. Just having bad dreams.”

“Don’t be sorry. When that happens, I wrap my arms around you and whisper in your ear. Your entire body relaxes against me, and you go back to sleep. I’m glad I’m here to help you.”

“I’m glad you’re here, too, Brax. They haven’t caught Rashad yet, have they?”

She glanced up at his face and caught the flash of murderous rage before it was quickly masked again. “Not yet. Is that what’s scaring you so badly? You think he’ll come back after you?”

She nodded, and tears slipped from her eyes before she could stop them. “That, and I’m really not ready to attend my daddy’s funeral today. How can I say goodbye?”

“You don’t, sweetheart. Your love for him won’t end today, and you don’t have to say goodbye to it. His love for you didn’t end with his death, he took it with him. You’ll miss him. You’ll wish he were here. But you never have to say goodbye.”

“Is that how you dealt with it?”

“With losing Dalton? Yes. It took me a while, but I eventually realized that, and it helped me.”

“Thank you. It does help to look at it that way.”

“Back to Rashad. How much do you think about that? How often does he frighten you?”

“All the time,” she admitted reluctantly.

Rebel stroked her face with his hand, wiping the tears from her eyes with the pad of his thumb. “You don’t have to worry about him ever again. Very soon, he’ll be no more than a memory. Memories can’t come back to life and hurt you.”

“Is he dead?” she whispered.

“Not yet.”
But he will be.

“You know where he is?”

“I know exactly where he is at all times.”

“But you haven’t taken him in yet?”

“I’ve been waiting until you were feeling a little better, a little more secure. When I go get him, I’ll have some people come to keep you company while I’m out. It won’t take long. But no one has moved on him because his ass is mine. Now that I know he’s causing you most of this fear and anxiety, I’ll close up this case very soon. Today, we’ll pay our respects to your father.”

* * *

E
very pew
in the expansive church was full with friends, family, and employees who wanted to pay their respects to the man who was larger than life. Many who made it out of the building had asked if they could speak at his memorial, to share what he’d meant to them. Kay was so moved by the requests to honor her late husband she couldn’t deny them.

One after the other approached the pulpit with their written speech in hand, but most never even referred to their notes. The graphic memories of how he’d sacrificed his own life to save theirs in the stairwell that day were forever etched onto their psyche. Notes would never do the actual event any justice.

When Heather rose and walked toward the pulpit, Rebel watched her in shocked amazement. She hadn’t mentioned to him she would be one of the speakers at her father’s funeral. The events had weighed on her heavily enough, and he was genuinely concerned reliving that day in front of everyone would be her breaking point. He sat on the edge of the pew, ready to spring into action and carry her out if that’s what it took to save her.

He watched as she took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She picked up a tissue and dabbed at the corners of her eyes, already fighting back the tears before she’d uttered the first word. She hid the slight tremor in her hand by gripping the sides of the podium. This was killing her, but she still faced it like a champion.

“Listening to all your stories of how my daddy saved you has been a blessing in disguise. I can’t describe how very much I have dreaded this day, this service, and facing what it’ll mean to my family when everything is said and done. But each of you has given me back a piece of my father to hold on to for the rest of my life, and for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

“I’m not here to share the story of how he also saved my life, which he did. That’s not something I can talk about just yet. But I do want to share with you a very different story about my father from that same day. You see, I went to his office to talk to him because he was rarely home while the acquisition process was underway. I love my dad very much, and I needed him to understand and support a decision I’d recently made.”

Brax sat motionless and waited for her to continue, to share with him and the rest of the congregation why she went to his office on that day of all days.

“He had offered my husband a job so we could stay here in Houston and be together as a family. Brax accepted it so he could be with me. He agreed to leave behind a business he’d help build from scratch, a group of friends who are as close as family to him, and a life he was accustomed to in Miami—all for me. Because he loves me.

“That day, I told my father about two decisions I’d made and wanted to explain why they were so important to me. The first one I told him was Brax and I have decided to start a family soon. He was thrilled about that, about the prospects of being a doting grandfather and spoiling the baby even more than we could.

“The second decision was that I couldn’t let Brax give up everything he’d worked so hard to build into a success just because I didn’t want to give up what I was comfortable with here. It wasn’t fair to my husband because I can be a nurse anywhere. So, instead of him moving here to work for my dad, I’d move to Miami and be a nurse there.

“What I thought would end up in a huge fight became the best conversation I’ve ever had with my father. We broke down walls that had been between us for years. We cried, we forgave, we healed, we loved. He asked me to pass on a couple of messages for him—from that conversation and then again after he saved me—because he knew he wouldn’t make it out.

“Mom, he asked me to tell you he loves you and he’ll be waiting for you.

“Brax, he asked me to tell you he loves you like the son he never had. In his office, he talked about some mistakes he’d made years ago, things he allowed you to believe but he never meant. He intended to ask for your forgiveness, and he said he’d be honored if you’d allow him to call you ‘son.’ He was proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished, and he was supportive of my decision to move to be with you.

“I’m sharing all of this personal information about my father with you to say this… He wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. He was stubborn and hard-headed at times. He was a hero. He saved my life. He saved many of your lives. All of these qualities and characteristics made him the man he was.

“We all have some variation of these qualities. So, in honor of my father, I simply ask this…in some way, it doesn’t matter if it’s big or small, be a hero to someone else who needs your help. You never know when one small thing you do makes a big difference in someone else’s life.”

After she took her seat next to Rebel again as the music played, he wrapped his arm around her and tucked her into his side, instinctively protecting and shielding her. He leaned over, his lips grazed her ear, and whispered to her. “I’m so proud of you for doing that. I know how hard that was for you to do. Are you sure you want to leave Houston, and move to Miami with me? Do you need time to think about it?”

She met his gaze with her tear-laden eyes. “I’ve thought about it for a long time now, my love. My mind was already made up before all this happened, but this has only reaffirmed to me I’ve made the right decision. You’re everything to me, Brax, and with you is the only place I want to be.”

When they left from the graveside service, Rebel noticed a familiar pair standing off to the side, patiently waiting for them to approach. He glanced over at Heather as she raised her hand to her face and wiped away the tears that continued to fall.

“Babe, I told you there was someone I wanted you to meet the night we got you out of that hole. She’s here now, and I think you’d love her.”

“Okay, Brax. Who is she?”

He led the way, holding her hand and giving her silent reassurances. “Heather, this is Robin. She worked with me, almost nonstop, until she locked on to your scent.”

Heather leaned down in front of her and was instantly drawn into her expressive brown eyes. She fondly stroked Robin’s shiny coat. “Thank you for finding me, Robin. You saved my life. You didn’t even know me, but you kept working without being asked or forced to do it. I owe you everything, sweet girl.”