Fatal, page 18
Raina just had to figure out what it was. Fast.
19
Raina chewed on her lip and watched the clock. She had to make a decision. Betraying Adam would mean keeping him safe. But it would mean he’d never forgive her.
It wouldn’t matter if she didn’t survive, though. Every time she came face-to-face with Damon made her think the chances of her surviving were slim, at best.
Adam was still angry when they made it back to the hotel. The entire team agreed to keep things as they were for now. The whole point was to get Damon to come after Raina, but now that he had, and he got away again, everyone seemed confused and overwhelmed.
Raina was just scared. She could feel the clock ticking down on her life, and it broke her heart that she wouldn’t get to live out all the dreams she once had.
A knock on the door had Adam looking at Raina, his agent face on as he drew his weapon and went to the door. Raina watched him, just as scared as the bunched muscles in his back said he was.
He leaned in close and looked through the peephole on the door, then sighed and tucked his gun away before unlocking and opening the door.
“Hi,” Edie said, walking inside while Adam checked the hallway. “Dex said I could come over here.” Edie smiled at Adam, then focused on Raina. “I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my room for a little while. Lorelei, Frannie, Stacey, Jessica, Karli, and Mackenzie are on their way. I thought you might want to see them, too.”
Raina could barely contain her excitement. It was the first time she felt like a normal person in far too long. Time with friends? Hell yes.
“Who’s going to be there?” Adam asked before Raina could agree.
Edie turned to face him. “Dex, Dunn, and Mason are all staying in the suite right now. They’ve been moving me around, so I just got here today. They said you’re welcome to join us, too.”
Adam nodded, as though that was good enough for him.
Edie turned back to Raina with an expectant smile.
Raina nodded. “I’d love to. Thanks.”
“You can come back over now while it’s still quiet in the hallway. If you want. They’ll all be here in about fifteen minutes, I think.”
Raina unfolded herself from the corner of the couch and slid on her sneakers, not bothering to tie them or add socks. She was too excited to see friends. She grabbed a sweatshirt from the bedroom she and Adam shared and tugged it on over the tee and sweatpants she was wearing.
Adam went into the hall first, knocking on the door across the way. Dex opened it within a few seconds, beckoning them all inside. Adam made sure Edie and Raina were in the other room before he checked that their door had locked behind them.
Edie pulled Raina toward the seating area in their suite. It was toward the windows, just like the room Raina and Adam were sharing.
Dex led Adam to the dining table near the kitchen, where Dunn and Mason were seated. The four of them spoke in low tones while Raina and Edie settled on the couch. Raina wondered what they were talking about, but she didn’t have long to think about it before Edie dropped a bomb on her.
“I know what you’re planning,” Edie murmured.
“What?” Raina asked, knowing there was no way Edie knew anything.
“I saw it in your eyes earlier today. You’re going to ditch these guys and let Damon take you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Raina crossed her arms and tucked her feet under her.
“The day I was taken, I was at a bar. I told the guy I was talking to that I didn’t have any family in the area and that I lived alone. He was funny and cute and I didn’t think about what I was admitting.”
“Edie,” Raina whispered.
Edie shook her head. “He put something in my drink. When I woke up again, I was in a room with four other women and I was high as a kite. I’d never done drugs before in my life, but I knew I was high. I could feel the need pulsing through me already. I don’t know how many days had gone by, but it was more than one. I was still wearing the same clothes, but I was sore and I was dirty. I could tell I’d been raped, but I had no memory of it. I thought that was a good thing.”
Raina put her hand on Edie’s arm. She admired the other woman’s strength, but Raina wasn’t sure she had enough to hear the story.
“Someone kept giving me drugs. They wanted us hooked because then we would do anything they wanted. Every time I woke up again, I knew I’d been raped again. One time, I woke up during. I screamed and cried, but the man didn’t care. He taunted me with it, said he liked it. After that, the drugs would wear off more quickly. I remembered more, and I was conscious for more.” She scratched at her arm. “I can still feel the needle going into my arm. The pierce of my skin and the welcome relief of numbness. I began to crave it because it meant I’d get a reprieve from the nightmare I was living.”
Raina’s tears rolled down her cheeks, horrified and scared for the woman who’d become her friend.
“I’m telling you this because Damon was one of the men. I don’t remember him, but I know he was. And if he did that to me, when I didn’t piss him off or leave him, when he said he liked me, I can’t even imagine what he’ll do to you if you go back to him.”
Raina’s throat tightened. She looked across the room at Adam. His arms were crossed, tension in every line of his body. He didn’t like whatever it was the others were telling him, but he wasn’t arguing. He was following the plan.
“I can’t let Damon hurt anyone else.”
“And you honestly think he’s going to what? Walk away? Once he has you, he’ll forget about Adam? And me and Stacey and Jessica? He’ll just pretend none of us existed?”
Raina closed her eyes. Edie was right. She was so focused on Damon’s obsession with her that she forgot about the rest of it. Damon approached Edie in the store. He framed Jessica for Karli’s death. He tried to kill Karli. He threatened Adam.
Damon wouldn’t stop. Even if he got his hands on Raina, he wouldn’t stop.
Knowing Damon, he’d enjoy killing every last person she loved before he finally killed her. Sharing his successes with her in punishment for putting all the people she cared about on his radar.
Raina got it. She finally got it. She had one option. She had to kill Damon.
The acceptance of it felt freeing as much as it terrified Raina. She’d said she wanted Damon dead, and she’d said she wanted to kill him, but it was all in thickly shrouded fear. Not only did she not know how to kill someone, she wasn’t sure she could actually do it.
Adam had been teaching her self-defense every day for the last few weeks. He’d shown her how to disarm someone, how to break free if someone had a hold of her, how to get someone off her if she was pinned down. All things they both knew Damon was likely to do.
One thing Adam hadn’t done was teach her how to use a gun. Raina had been too afraid to ask, and Adam hadn’t offered. But now that Damon told her how close he was, how much he knew about her routine, it was time for her to learn how to kill someone intent on killing her.
Before she could voice her thoughts, a knock on the door drew the attention of everyone in the room. Dex and Adam went to the door, guns in hand. Dunn and Mason were right behind them, blocking Raina’s view from her spot on the couch. When the men tucked their guns away and opened the door, Raina nearly cried with gratitude.
All the women hugged, and some tears were shed. Raina hadn’t realized how much she missed the connection to other women until it had been taken away from her. Spending time with Adam had been good, but it was different than being around friends.
When the women all settled on the couches and chairs in the living room of the suite, Raina realized the men had moved to the first bedroom in the suite. The door was open, so the men would hear if they were needed, but the separation gave the women privacy.
“How are you?” Karli asked, taking Raina’s hand in hers. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too. Although I’m happy you’re safe now and Damon hasn’t come after you again,” Raina told her friend.
Karli nodded. “I just wish he’d leave you alone. That he’d accept that things are over.”
“She wants to go back to him,” Edie told the group.
Gasps and shocked faces met Raina’s gaze.
“Why would you do that?” Stacey asked. Stacey knew more about what Raina had been through than the others. As the counselor at Shelter in the Storm, Stacey was the one who helped Raina feel strong enough to live without Damon. She helped Raina believe in herself again.
But that was before Damon started killing people to get to Raina.
“I don’t want to go back to him. I just want this to be over. And we talked.” Raina looked over at Edie. Edie wasn’t telling everyone out of ill-intent. She wanted the others to know what Raina was dealing with. “Edie helped me see Damon is never going to stop. He’s going to come after all of you, eventually. Whether I’m alive or not.”
“That sounds about right,” Francesca mumbled. “I’ve never known evil like him. I wish I’d been able to bring him in decades ago, but he’s continued to destroy the city. He’s smarter than any of us ever thought. And the way he manipulates people is horrifying.”
“I know,” Raina said, having been a victim of Damon’s manipulation.
“What can we do?” Stacey asked.
Raina looked around the room at the women she considered her closest friends. She’d known Karli for years, but the others she’d only met recently. All of them were women who were strong and brave and would stand with her if she asked them to.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t risk their lives.
“She wants to face him herself,” Francesca answered for Raina. “She needs to do this alone.”
Raina looked at the woman who was a confidant and supporter. Francesca was not afraid of anything. She’d faced more than one angry ex and more than one threat to her life. But she understood the need for closure. The need to deal with your shit in your way or it would haunt you forever.
“I know he’s likely to kill me. He’ll definitely try. I was thinking about trying to sneak out tonight, but Edie convinced me not to. What I don’t know is how to stop him.”
“He won’t go down without a fight,” Karli said. “He told me he enjoys breaking bones.”
“He also likes knives,” Jessica said. “And secret poison.”
“And dominating,” Edie added. “Anything he can do to be in control.”
“So maybe that’s it,” Mackenzie said. “We take away his control.”
“How would we do that?” Lorelei asked.
Mackenzie looked around the room at the others. “What makes you feel most in control?”
“My family,” Stacey said.
“My Shelter,” Francesca said.
“Cade,” Karli said.
“My job,” Jessica said.
“My skills,” Lorelei said.
“You guys are doing that for me right now,” Raina told them. She smiled at the others and realized Edie hadn’t answered. “What about you, Edie?”
Edie slowly shook her head, her gaze vacant and trained on the coffee table. “I don’t ever feel in control. It was so easy for them to take me. For them to make it feel like I chose that life. It was so easy to beg for drugs and ache for the numbness. And since I stumbled into the fire station,” she lifted her gaze to Mackenzie, “and met you and Holden, I still haven’t felt like I’m in control. I’m not being controlled, but I’m also not in control. Does that make sense?”
Everyone nodded.
“That’s a big difference,” Mackenzie said. “Damon liked to be in control. He wants to tell someone to do something and know it’ll be done. We don’t have to control him, we just have to take away his control.”
“And again, how do we do that?” Lorelei asked.
“By taking away his most important asset,” Mackenzie said.
“Which is?”
“His network.” Mackenzie met the gazes of everyone else.
Everyone was silent as Mackenzie’s words sank in. Raina sat back and considered what Mackenzie was saying. They knew Damon had a network, and that it reached far and deep. Police officers, judges, and a collection of criminals all worked for Damon. Possibly others. If they were running scared, they wouldn’t be available to help Damon. It was a good plan. There was only one problem.
“We don’t know who’s in his network,” Lorelei said, voicing Raina’s thought.
“Maybe not everyone,” Mackenzie said. “But we know some of the people. The cop Damon killed had other cops he worked closely with. Marcus looked into them and went through everything he could find on Bernard, but it’s likely there’s more. I have listened to hours of calls and heard dozens of names. Maybe Edie can help me figure out if any of them might be connected. And we have a radius of where a lot of things have happened. We can figure out where Damon is likely to be, and where he might be hiding out.”
Raina was beyond impressed with what Mackenzie had put together. Not only did it make sense, but it almost sounded possible.
“There’s a room full of military experts, an entire police force, and the FBI looking for Damon,” Jessica said. “What makes you think we’re going to find him when all of them haven’t?”
Mackenzie smiled. “Because they’re looking for the criminal mastermind. They want to bring down the leader of the organization. We just want the man. He’s far more simple and basic. He is not as smart as the organization. And we know a lot more about him.”
Lorelei stood and paced the room. “I think she’s right. If we come up with anything, we need to tell everyone else, but this isn’t about Damon Street, the leader. It’s about Raina’s ex-boyfriend, who’s trying to kidnap and kill her. It’s a lot smaller than what everyone else is looking at.”
“So, you actually think we can find him? That we can take him down?” Raina asked.
Mackenzie and Lorelei shared a look and nodded.
“I think we can,” Lorelei said. “I really think we can.”
Adam was only half listening to the conversation going on around him. He knew he wasn’t being very friendly to the other men, but his mind was on Raina. Something was off with her. She was acting jittery and unsettled earlier. She jumped at the chance to spend time with Edie.
Adam wasn’t sure if that meant she was sick of being around him or if she was sick of being stuck in a suite under guard, but either way, he didn’t like it.
Raina was more relaxed when they got out of town. Adam didn’t love the idea of going again, of leaving the extra support and protection behind, but after seeing the fear in Raina’s eyes after her encounter with Street, Adam hated that he listened to her and the others and let her use herself as bait.
“You good?” Dex asked softly.
Adam looked over at him, wondering how many times Dex had spoken before the words came through. “No, but there’s no alternative.”
Dex nodded. “We’ve all been there. My fiancée had someone after her, too. It’s how we met, and it was terrifying. To wonder if you’re capable of fighting off something you know is coming but don’t know when or how. Sorry you’re going through this.”
“Raina’s not my fiancée or anything,” Adam argued.
Dex exchanged a look with Mason and Dunn. All three of them smirked.
“She might not be your fiancée, but she’s a hell of a lot more than nothing to you,” Mason said, raising one eyebrow. “And none of us care about the lines you’re not supposed to cross. We all crossed them. I slept with Slade’s sister when she surprised him and showed up in town. Didn’t tell him when I found out she was pregnant and didn’t stop sleeping with her. Slade’s got a hell of a right hook.” Mason rubbed his jaw.
“My ex showed up on my doorstep asking me to protect her. It had been more than fifteen years since I threw away what we had and left her to join the service, after planning a future with her that I never intended to share. She was also married, or thought she was,” Dunn said.
“I thought you had a kid,” Adam said, trying to make sense of the story.
“Yep. Messed up on that protection,” Dunn said with a smirk.
The other two snorted their laughter.
Adam looked at the three men. They were all confessing their secrets. Telling him it was okay if he was falling for Raina. That they didn’t blame him.
“I’m in love with her,” Adam admitted out loud for the first time. “It scares the hell out of me. Not just falling for her, but the idea of losing her.”
“That’ll never change,” Dunn said. “Hell, it’ll probably get worse if you have a family.”
“Agreed,” Mason said. “But in a good way.”
“How is it good to be more terrified than I am right now?” Adam asked.
“Because that’s how you know it matters. Do you want to be a robot? Going through the motions and not really caring about what you’re doing? Or would you rather know that all of this is important?” Dex asked.
“It’s all important,” Adam argued.
“Sure, but what we’re saying is you fight differently when you’re not on your own. When you have someone else who shows you the good in the world,” Dex explained. “We all get a little lost in the hell we see. We focus on that instead of seeing the brightness. But when you have someone at home who’s showing you the brightness every day, you have a better chance of not letting the evil get to you. It’s all important, but fighting for the woman you love is different than fighting for a faceless organization because you know it’s the right thing to do.”
Adam nodded slowly. They were right. Protecting Raina was different. It was bigger. If something happened to her, it wasn’t just losing a witness. It was losing a piece of himself, too. Everyone he’d ever protected was important to the case he was working at the time, but none of them were important to Adam like Raina was.
He had already changed. Months of protecting her meant months away from his regular duties. Months of focusing on the woman he’d fallen hard for. Months of wishing for something different, and having it in his life.
