Hard as It Gets (15 page)

“I’m not questioning you or her.”

Miguel let the statement hang there, his meaning clear. Miguel Olivero, decorated veteran of the BPD, thought the police were dirty on this. Rixey had to agree. He looked from Beckett to Easy to Shane. “This is why we can’t hand Charlie’s disappearance over to the authorities. This stinks of a cover-up.” And damn if that smell wasn’t too fucking familiar.

Miguel nodded, his whole face frowning, an unusual look for the usually gregarious man. “You said someone tried to grab Becca from a staff break room at the hospital?” Rixey nodded. “That means uniforms, credentials, knowing schedules. Operation like that requires planning, resources, know-how, and brass balls.” Murmurs of agreement rose up around the bar. “Add that to all these missing records, and this is big time.”

Shane tugged his fingers through the top of his hair. “So, you’re talking about running a kidnapping investigation and hostage rescue operation? Completely off the books.”

Rixey braced, his stomach muscles going tight. “Yeah.”

“We don’t even know whose yard we’d be pissing in,” Shane said. Despite the negativity of the words, there was a note of consideration in the man’s voice. “But I guess that’s where we’d start.”

Nick’s gaze flashed to Shane’s, hope surging that he was on board. From the expressions on everyone’s faces, he wasn’t the only one looking at the numbers and seeing that one plus one plus one seemed to add up to five, too. Didn’t matter if that shit didn’t make any sense. It just meant they didn’t have all the factors relevant to the equation. Yet. “Does that mean you’re in?”

Shane stared at him a long moment. “This whole thing is nuttier than a squirrel turd, but my gut’s telling me that yours just might be right. And if that’s true”—he glanced to Miguel like he didn’t want to say too much in front of an outsider—“we might find some other useful info, too. So, yes, I’m in.”

Rixey nodded, when inside he was fist pumping all over the place.

Easy scrubbed his hands roughly over his bald head, then looked up. “If there’s a chance here to clear our names, you can be damn sure I’m in.” He was obviously less concerned with what Miguel heard.

“Beckett?” Rixey asked.

The man’s cold blue eyes glared at him. “I sure as hell ain’t letting you three get yourselves killed or arrested without me, and Easy’s right. This could be our best shot at setting things right. I’m not missing out on that. So, let’s do this.”

Relief melted the tension out of Rixey’s neck. “Okay, good. And thank you for hearing us out.” Heads nodded around the bar. “First, goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway as a reminder: Becca’s on a need-to-know on the backstory of all this,
right
?” Knowing glances flashed back at him. No way any of them could forget about the goddamned NDA. “Okay, so, Shane’s correct. The first step would be finding out who we’re up against. We can start by searching both their houses for clues and canvassing Charlie’s last known whereabouts for witnesses.”

“What did the perp at the hospital look like?” Miguel asked. “Any identifying features?”

Rixey tried to resurrect the man’s image in his mind’s eye, but the clearest details were of his hand over Becca’s mouth and his knife in her side. “Tall, African American, early twenties, lots of tats and brands on his arms.”

“Get a good look at any of the ink?”

Rixey shook his head. “No, but Becca might’ve.”

“Well if the guy was any kind of organized crime—mafia, jailhouse, or local gang—there are some online databases of tattoo identifications. These won’t help if he’s a lone wolf, but if he’s running with any of these outfits, there’s a chance. I might be able to get her a look-see at some mug shots, too, and I got a friend who’s a genius sketch artist,” Miguel added.

Nick nodded. “Good. Plus whatever computer magic Marz can work when he gets here tomorrow.” Derek DiMarzio was a god among men on all things computers. Maybe he could even trace Charlie’s digital trail.

Beck’s gaze whipped up. “You invited Marz?”

Aw, shit, here we go
. “Fuckin’ A, I invited him,” Nick replied, his tone making it clear he thought this a no-brainer.

A storm rolled in over Beck’s features. He swung off the stool and rounded the bar toward Rixey. “Christ, Nick, the guys’s got a—”

“He’s part of the team, Murda. Simple as.”

Fact that the man had lost the bottom half of his leg to a grenade made no friggin’ difference to Rixey. Marz deserved to be part of this gagglefuck of a reunion if he wanted to be. And he did. Of all of them, he’d been the most readily receptive to the meeting and the mission. The man’s amputation was no different than Rixey’s back being shot to hell or the loss of acuity in Beck’s right eye. It wasn’t just about Marz’s amputation, though, and Rixey knew it. It was more the fact that he’d lost the leg saving Beck’s life that day.

Limp aside, Beckett was up in Rixey’s face in about two point six seconds. It was like an eighteen-wheeler barreling down on him. “You really think
you,
of all people, should be talking about our team?”

The unresolved agitation from the day’s events banked in Rixey’s gut caught fire, heating his blood and sending him another half step closer to a man common sense generally told you not to antagonize. Huge, grim-faced, and lethal beyond measure, Murda was the kind of guy instinct had you crossing the street to avoid. But Nick had his own killer arsenal to draw from, fueled by a sea of rage that roiled just below the surface. “I fought for it. I bled for it. Damn straight I can talk about this team.”

Just when Nick was sure Murda wasn’t gonna back down, he did. Shaking his head, he turned and scoffed on a laugh. “Right. You just didn’t care about it enough to keep us together.”

A flash fire ripped through Nick’s veins. He’d agonized every goddamned day of the past ten months over what had happened to these men. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“You heard me, Rixey. You
acted
all gung ho brotherhood when things were good, but five minutes after we were stateside”—Beckett shoved him—“it was out of sight, out of mind.”

It was the contact that did it. Something inside Nick’s brain snapped and sent a roar of aggression flooding through him, deadening his hearing and dulling every sense that wasn’t focused on defending his honor against the accusation.

Rixey charged.

They clashed in a wall of muscle and a battle of wills. Nick took an uppercut to the gut that rearranged more than a few of his organs, and he dished out a jab to the throat that had Beckett choking and rasping for breath. Rixey’s conscience dripped acidic shame into his chest cavity over the fact that he
had
withdrawn from the team once they’d all returned stateside, but his sense of loyalty and honor infused his spine with steel because, while he might’ve been fucked in the head—he’d own that every day of the week and twice on Sunday—he’d never once given up on any of them or surrendered to the bullshit that had so unjustly stripped them of everything they’d once been.
Out of sight, out of mind?
Jesus, there were times he would’ve gotten on his knees for five minutes of reprieve from the guilt and the loss.

Another hit landed against the kidney on his bad side and he flew back against the steel doors of the fridge, his head glancing off the metal and his lower back screaming at the jarring impacts.

Beckett came at him swinging, brute strength his biggest asset. But Rixey had speed and agility, and a carefully timed dodge earned Murda’s knuckles a
hi-how-are-ya
with the immovable freezer door.

Raised voices sounded and tugging hands touched as if from a distance, but he and Beck were caught up in an exorcism of demons that had to play out to its brutal end.

“Stop it! Oh, my God, stop!” Becca.

Her voice hauled his conscious brain out of the fog of war and he rebounded into himself. Struggling to focus, he blinked and scanned the kitchen, looking for her. His gaze finally latched onto hers at the precise moment Beckett’s elbow connected with his face.

B
ECCA FLINCHED AND
gasped at the force of the impact. Nick’s head whipped to the side, sending his whole body careening into the edge of the breakfast bar. The groan that ripped out of him when his side hit the granite had her struggling out of Shane’s grip and lunging toward Nick.

She wrapped her arms around his back and shoulders, hunched over the bar. “Jesus, Nick, are you okay?” Beckett hovered just behind them, his face twisted with anger. She nailed him with a glare and said, “Whatever the hell this was is over. Back off. Now.”

“Fuuck,” Nick groaned under his breath as he forced himself upright. Bleary eyes cut to Beckett’s retreating form and made a circuit around the room before turning to her. He grimaced, and the muscles down his left side spasmed, judging by the way he held himself.

Fierce protectiveness squeezed her heart and bloomed into outright fury. But taking care of Nick was all that mattered right now.

“Come sit down,” she said, tugging an empty stool closer and guiding him onto it. His face. God, his right cheekbone was split wide, blood streaming from the cut and the skin already puffing up the whole way to his eye. “You got a first-aid kit?”

“Under the sink in my bathroom,” he said, his words sounding like they’d been dipped in sandpaper.

“Would someone see if you can find it? His room is the last door at the end of the hall.”

“Sure, kid.” The older man—Nick’s PI friend?—double-timed it out of there.

Shane grabbed the roll of paper towels, wet a few, and laid out a stack of damps and dries on the bar next to her.

“Thanks,” she said, angry as hell at the lot of them but appreciating the gesture.

Nick pushed her hands away from his face. “I’m fine,” he said in a voice that told her he still wasn’t drawing full, deep breaths.

“You’re about a million miles from fine.” She purposely echoed words from earlier in the day. His pale green eyes cut to hers and she arched an eyebrow. “Honesty, remember?” When her point registered in his gaze, she let it go. “Take your shirt off.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to examine you. Your breathing’s shallow and you’re protecting your side.”

His face went a shade paler as he removed the cotton over his head, and she didn’t miss for a moment that he performed most of the action with his right hand, his left still shielding whatever was hurting him.

“Turn,” she said, gesturing for him to swing his knees around so his left side was in front of her. “Can you hold your arm out of the way, please?”

The puppy whined and paced at Becca’s feet.

“Go lay down, baby. Go on,” she said. The dog curled up a short distance away, her eyes locked on them. Becca’s gaze scanned over Nick’s ribs and lats, down to where a mass of scars disappeared under his waistband. Her hands gently followed. “Tell me where it hurts.” Man, you could’ve heard a pin drop as quiet as the room had gotten. And, good. ’Cause if one of them uttered a single smart-ass comment, she was likely to lose her shit. Sparing about four seconds, she took a moment to glare at his so-called teammates, all collected around the far end of the bar watching her. Shane and Edward’s expressions were somber and serious, and Beckett’s head was hanging on his shoulders. “Somebody get some ice for Beckett’s knuckles.”

The big guy’s head whipped up, and he studied her as Shane made for the fridge.

Softening her touch, Becca palpitated the edge of the scar tissue. Nick sucked in a breath through his nose, and his muscles flinched and clenched.

“What happened here?”

“Gunshot wounds times two, one penetrating, one not. Fractured pelvis and perforated bowel that healed. Lingering nerve damage,” he said as if by rote. And she guessed it was. “It’ll be okay.”

She nodded, swallowing down the heartache and stream of comments that might embarrass him in front of his guys.
You don’t look okay. You can’t even take a deep breath. I’m so sorry you got hurt.
And, geez, not just hurt. That litany of injuries would’ve required multiple surgeries, a lot of pain, and a difficult rehabilitation. “Just gonna clean up your face.” At the sink, she scrubbed her hands thoroughly.

Shane found a plastic bag, filled it with ice, and tossed it to Beckett, who caught it in the hand that hadn’t had a head-on collision with a steel box.

The older man returned with a white metal kit in hand. “Found it,” he said.

Drying her hands, she gestured to the bar. Miguel set it down and opened it for her. “Thanks,” she said. “Are you Miguel?” Average height, he was a bit full in the middle, with graying dark hair and warm-toned skin.

“Yeah. I’m sure sorry about this whole situation, Becca,” he said, a kindness about him that drew her in.

If Nick trusted the man, so did she. “Me, too. But I appreciate that you helped Nick today.”

Unexpectedly, Shane stepped up and laid out everything she’d need—gauze, alcohol wipes, and a few packages of Steri-Strips. He opened a package of gloves for her and held it out. “Thanks,” she said, donning the gloves and appreciating that his actions allowed her to keep her hands sterile. Way he was looking between the supplies and Nick’s blood, it was like he wanted to help.

As she got to work, the weight of everyone’s observation pressed in on her, but she couldn’t think of them right now, or how badly she wanted to take a few heads off—Beckett’s, because he’d hurt Nick, and the others’, because they hadn’t done anything to intervene. Which was just as bad in her book.

In front of Nick again, she held his handsome, tired face with one hand while she cleaned it with the other. His gaze lit on her face, and she knew he was watching her work, but she kept her eyes on the task at hand.

She hadn’t really expected to say the words when they started coming out, but once they began, she felt their rightness down deep. “Nick asked you guys here as a favor to me. He apparently did so knowing some sort of tension existed between you. Had I known
this
would be the cost to him, I would’ve insisted he tell you not to come.” She opened the alcohol wipes and slipped them from their sleeves. “Gonna sting.” Her gaze flickered to his eyes, which bored into hers with blazing intensity.