Operation Ball N' Chain (Cottonwood Falls Book 11) Read online

  Her embarrassment at hearing Chase’s words, vanished in the blink of an eye. It was like it hadn’t even existed. Staring down at her mother, she shook her head.

  “Do you even hear yourself? The dress you chose. The frosting you wanted. I’m sorry but I swore this was supposed to be my wedding, not yours.”

  The pain in her mother’s face nearly broke through but her anger was to high and forward in her mind. Pushing by her, she paused at the edge of the sidewalk and turned back. Words were on the tip of her tongue, but she never let them fall. Whirled back around and headed for her bike.

  Straddling the machine, she slapped on her helmet, turned over the engine, and gunned it toward the edge of town. She went tearing by one of the few cop cars in Cottonwood Falls. Sarah didn’t even bother to slow, in fact, she asked her bike for more speed.

  The town limit neared, and she yearned for the open road. What she wouldn’t give to have Grey home so she could have gone and talked to him about this. And made him pay for agreeing to the wishes of her mother.

  “Should have just done a mother fucking reception.” She headed toward Turbin Park.

  The heavy rumble of her motorcycle eased away her irritation and flat out anger. She wished she could enjoy the ride without a helmet on but she knew she had to have one on per the Marine Corps.

  She began to slow to turn into Turbin Park but at the last moment, decided to keep going and get even further away from Cottonwood Falls. Right now, she just needed space away. Away from the wedding planning, from the stress, and most definitely from her mother.

  Sarah frowned and checked her side mirrors as an unpleasant feeling skating up her spine. Nothing was there but her intuition hadn’t failed her yet. And she didn’t like feeling exposed. Continuing on as if she was still blissfully unaware of whomever or whatever watched her, Sarah revved the motor and took a slow look around.

  For the next five miles, nothing out of the ordinary, yet that feeling wouldn’t let her free, it continued hanging around and pestering her to no end. Maybe it was just her exhaustion and the overwhelming stress this entire situation had heaped upon her that was making her think something was there when nothing was.

  Shaking her head at herself, she took a deep breath and screamed as a vehicle shot out of nowhere to hit her back wheel, sending her end over end to skid along the ground. Her world slowed to slow motion.

  I wish I hadn’t left my mother with anger now that I’m not going to see her again. I love you, Grey, so much. Those were her final thoughts as darkness enveloped her blocking out the momentary however excruciating pain.

  Chapter Five

  Grey leaned against the table in their situation room, listening to Harrier go on about this next mission. He’d done his part for the previous one and now it was time to move to the next. They weren’t lacking for work, that’s for sure. As he listened, he gripped the table edges with his fingers and blew out a slow breath. His trip home had been delayed but his Sarah was a Marine, she would understand all about how that worked.

  The door swung open and in walked a tall black man, Ethan, who used to be part of the feds but was a friend of Tyson, so he’d left the public sector and had come to work at Tungsten. His knowledge of tech scared the shit out of Grey. Ethan skimmed the room and focused in on Grey.

  He skimmed a dark hand over his black short-cropped hair. “There’s a call for you from some guy who calls himself Mucker.”

  Instantly his heart dropped to his belly. Harrier fell silent and the entire room pivoted as one to look at him.

  Grey rubbed his palm on his thigh. “Mucker is the tech guru in Sarah’s team. Maybe something happened to her.”

  “Take the call,” Harrier said.

  Ethan handed him a phone on a secure line. He nodded his thanks and took it.

  “This is Grey.”

  Mucker’s low voice crossed over the line as if the man were right next to him. “Based on the fact you’re there, I’m going to assume you’ve not heard.”

  Honestly, he didn’t think his heart could sink any lower. “Heard what?” Part of him acknowledged how the rest of the room had tuned into his side of the conversation. He gripped the side of the table and tried to make sure he breathed through this until he got the intel he needed.

  “Bug was in an accident. She’s laid up in the hospital.” He cleared his throat. “Grey.”

  That alone was enough to worry him, they rarely called him by his first name. Usually called him Squid or “the one who Sarah is fucking” but not his first name.

  “Grey,” Mucker repeated his name. “They’re not sure she’s going to make it.”

  His legs would no longer hold him and he sank to a chair. “What the fuck happened?” There wasn’t a world where he wanted to imagine life without Sarah in it with him. And on the other hand, he wanted to find who did this and rip their heart out of their chest while it was still beating.

  Mucker continued, as if he knew he had to provide more information. “We’re still learning but they’ll know more by the time you get there. You are going, right?”

  “Hell yes, I’m leaving now.” He pushed back to his feet, knees still not that solid.

  “Keep us updated.”

  The call ended and he dropped the phone on the tabletop, the thunk loud and echoed in his mind. He couldn’t wrap his mind around any of this, it was surreal. “Sarah was in an accident and they’re not sure if she’s going to live.”

  His words sounded so wooden and not at all like himself, but then, he was viewing the world from a grayscale view currently. So perhaps there was feeling, and he just couldn’t hear it for the roaring in his own ears.

  “What happened?” Cade demanded, getting to his feet while Harrier picked up a phone beside him.

  He shook his head. “Mucker didn’t have details.”

  “Head to the airfield,” Harrier told him. “Davies has the plane readied and will take you home.”

  Tears burned the backs of his eyes. Not going to make it wouldn’t stop rolling around in his head. “Thank you,” he muttered.

  “Let us know if you need anything,” Harrier added as Cade got to the door and waved him through.

  “I’ll drive.”

  Everything blurred into one long endless time of being suspended in a tacky substance. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. All he knew is he owed those men a case of whiskey when he was done, they’d set up for a car service for him as well. The driver didn’t make small talk, just got him on the road and headed for the lone hospital in Cottonwood Falls.

  He ran inside and stopped at the front desk. Lucille Jackflin another girl he had gone to school with sat there. She gave him a small, sad smile.

  “Room three-twelve.”

  “Thank you,” he muttered before dashing off again. He appreciated she didn’t make him wait or try to keep him there with any other words.

  He didn’t wait for the elevator, just took the stairs needing to get there as soon as he possibly could and the thought of needing to have the elevator come down then go back up seemed like an awful waste of time to him.

  Grey held his breath and pushed in silence into the room. His heart clenched. Sarah—his Sarah—lay there hooked up to so many tubes with white bandages covering a good portion of her body.

  Her mother—hell, his mother in law—sat beside her, holding her hand as she slept with her head on the bed.

  “Mrs. Mallery,” Grey said softly not wanting to scare her, yet also wanting to toss her out of the room so he could have Sarah all to himself.

  It took him two more times of calling her name to get her to stir. Mrs. Mallery looked up at him, her dark eyes sad and bloodshot. However, she rose instantly when she saw him there and pulled him into a huge hug. Grey wrapped his arms around her, holding tight.

  “My baby,” is all she said.

  Her warm tears soaked through his shirt, but he didn’t give a damn. After she stopped crying, he drew back enough to gaze in her eyes.
/>   “Tell me what happened,” he implored.

  Mrs. Mallery glanced over her shoulder to where her daughter lay on the bed, then guided him to the other side of the room. Every synapse in his body clamored for him to be by Sarah’s side, to touch her just to prove that she was still there with him and not dead.

  She wiped her eyes and exhaled once, sharply. “Tina Dobet, do you remember her from school? Anyway, she witnessed it. Told Ms. Vicki that she was coming home from a friend’s house and saw Sarah out riding toward her. Then she said, out of nowhere this black car shot out and hit her back tire,” her voice hitched, “sending Sarah spiraling head over heels and skidding along the road until she finally stopped. Her bike was destroyed.”

  Mrs. Mallery rubbed her arms and took a deep breath. “Tina said three men were out there around her when she screeched to a halt and jumped out. She said she’d told them she’d called the cops already so not to worry. Not long after that they took off and she waited until the ambulance and cops arrived.”

  He needed to talk to Tina. However, right now there was something more important that he had to do.

  Grey walked over to Sarah and sank to his knees beside her bed. Staring at her bruised and battered face, he reached out carefully to touch her exposed skin. He knew she’d been wearing her helmet, she refused to ride without it but for there to still be damage to it, means she hit hard as fuck and was god damn lucky to still be alive.

  “I love you, Sarah. Don’t you fucking dare leave me.” He glanced to Mrs. Mallery. “I’ll stay with her for a while. Go home and get some rest.”

  Sarah’s mom walked back over and pressed a lingering kiss to Sarah’s cheek. “She was so mad at me because I was making this wedding all about myself. That’s why she went off on her bike. This is my fault.”

  It was apparent she had no desire to leave her daughter but understood that he needed some time with her alone. And he was thankful for the fact he didn’t have to push the issue, because he would have.

  “No,” he said, tone gentle but firm. “This isn’t your fault. It’s the fault of the trio who hit her and ran off before the cops could arrive.” No mistaking the menace in his words at that last sentence. He touched her hand. “Go home. I’ll be here with her.”

  “I’ll be back soon.” Another kiss to Sarah and she walked around the bed to give him one as well then she left. There wasn’t any way for him to miss how little she wanted to leave her daughter as she lay there on the hospital bed.

  As he sat with her, he updated Mucker and also called Tungsten. He spoke with the doctor and put in a call for Vicki to come see him when she got the chance. His parents stopped by and so did Vicki who didn’t give him anything he wanted to hear. They had no leads and not much to go on. No one in the area aside from Tina remembered the car, so the people in there hadn’t been hanging around Cottonwood Falls.

  Grey longed to crawl into the bed with her and gather her close but he refused to do that because the lengthy list of injuries she had sustained.

  When Mrs. Mallery returned, he got up and told her he’d be back. Then he went to the hardware store where Tina worked. Pushing into the shop, he waited for his eyes to get acclimated to the darkened interior. He walked along the aisles until he found her restocking nuts and bolts.

  “Tina.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him, her light brown hair up in a ponytail. “Grey,” she said putting down the boxes she held to give him a hug. “I’m so sorry about Sarah.”

  “Thank you.” He held her arm. “They said you were there, and you were the one who called nine-one-one after witnessing the incident.”

  She nodded, her creamy skin going paler as she recalled. “I was. Never seen anything like it before. I swear, it was out of a movie or something.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I was heading to town, she was heading away, coming at me. We were out past Turbin Park, then it was just there. Shooting out of nowhere to hit her back wheel and knocked her over. I punched the gas to get there to do what I could to help and called the cops on my way.”

  “Then?” He strove to keep his tone modulated so he didn’t scare her but deep within, anger grew and stirred to life.

  “The three men got out and walked to where she lay.” She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t think they wanted to help her.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “One guy had a gun in his hand that he hid when I pulled up and jumped out. Plus, they weren’t even attempting to help stop all the bleeding.” She sighed. “When I told them, I’d called the cops they looked uneasy. Then they said they would grab some things from their vehicle but the tore out of there.”

  “What type of vehicle?”

  “Black and silver Cadillac DeVille with tinted windows. Mid to late nineties.”

  “Anything on the plate you remember?”

  “No.”

  His expression fell and she held up a hand before crossing her arms.

  “Not because I didn’t look, but because they didn’t have any plates on the vehicle. I tried to get as much as I could because I wanted to be able to help find them. I gave sketches to Vicki as well for the three of them. These were men I’ve never seen around here before.”

  “If you remember anything else, let me know Tina.”

  Her eyes shown with unshed tears. “I will. And we have both y’all in our thoughts and prayers. Can’t wait for the wedding.”

  Right now, he wasn’t sure there was going to be one. “Thanks, Tina.”

  Grey left the store and pulled out his phone. Time to make some calls.

  αβ

  “I know you aren’t thinking of going anywhere without me.”

  Grey lifted his head as the door to his home office bounced hard off the wall. He wasn’t shocked to see him at all. Chase Ellery.

  The former Army Ranger now turned father stood there. No less hard than he’d been while serving and again, it wasn’t a surprise. Chase and Sarah had grown up next door to one another. She’d been the tagalong girl trying to keep up with Chase and her older brother.

  She and Chase grew closer as they got older, he’d barely noticed her back then but when he married Sarah, he’d been jealous of how close they were and how Chase had the privilege to know things about her and what she was doing where he didn’t.

  “Took you long enough to get here, Chase.”

  “You’ve been expecting me?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Of course. I may not have always approved how my wife and you are so close and how she told you things she didn’t tell me, but I know you love her and are almost as pissed about this as I am.”

  Chase strode across the polished wood floor and placed his large hands on the desktop. “Where are we going and when are we leaving?”

  “What’s your wife say about this?”

  He hooked his foot around a chair and drew it close before lowering his strong frame into it. Chase blinked and Grey shook his head.

  “You haven’t told her.”

  “Can’t tell her what I don’t yet know.”

  “Semantics.”

  “You’re not leaving without me, so tell me when we leave and where we’re landing to kick the ever-loving shit out of the fuckers who did this to my Sarah.”

  “I’m not sure when I’m leaving and she’s mine.”

  Chase gave him a grin that set his teeth on edge. Grey didn’t respond aware Chase was trying to get his mind off of Sarah lying there in the hospital.

  “We’re leaving.”

  “We’re coming with you, too.”

  Grey was shocked this time as he looked to the door and found Harrier, Cole, Mac, Jason and Livingston. Behind them stood two of the men that his wife worked with. Owl and a man named Jamieson.

  “What are y’all doing here? I can’t put Tungsten in danger.” He gestured to the two active duty Marines. “Or y’all.”

  Harrier cocked a blond eyebrow. “Put us in danger? How the hell woul
d us helping one of our own put us in danger?”

  The man’s own southern accent leaked through, a sure sign he wasn’t happy.

  “I’m going to go to a county to wage a war on some of it’s citizens. TPS can’t be mixed up in that. And neither can US Marines.”

  Jason “Snake” LaRue crossed his arms and spun the toothpick in his mouth. “Sounds then like you could use some help.” His words fell on his low smooth deep Louisiana drawl.

  “And Etta? She’s going to be okay with you doing this?”

  The man barely blinked. “Of course. Sarah is the love of your life. What would she think of me if I didn’t offer to help you bring down the assholes who hurt her?”

  Grey didn’t get emotional about a lot of things. In fact he could count them on one hand and still have fingers left over, but this right here, would have to go on that list now. He met each gaze and there was no hesitation and he received a nod from every man.

  “We also have a pilot waiting.”

  That told him Shea was going to be going with them as well.

  Owl and Jamieson pushed into the room and skimmed him with hard gazes. He understood. He was the outsider to that group and had met them when he and Sarah had reunited. They weren’t exactly pleased with him but they loved Sarah and he had no doubt they didn’t give a damn what rules they were breaking. They were going.

  He swallowed twice. “Not to sound like a mushy bastard but thank you.”

  Scott gave a brief smile as he stepped closer and the others followed him as one unit. “You’re family, you never have to say it and you never have to ask. I’ve said it before this is your family and you and Sarah are our family.”

  He let it go at that. His large oak desk was surrounded by men who’d all seen battle and one’s he fought beside and would die for. Right now, they were there to help him get the answers he needed and get his revenge.

  “You sure you want to go,” Chase asked. “Don’t get your little boy thong in a twist, I just mean with Sarah—”