Rush: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) (2 page)

He put down his beer on the counter and reached out for the phone, pulling back at the last minute. He looked at Brant.

“I know her.”

“You do,” he answered with a nod. “That is Katrina Hickman.  Senator Alan Hickman’s daughter. You met her four years ago when the president pinned another medal on your chest.” Brant’s voice took on the cadence of a very patient teacher who would keep adding facts until the student understood the lesson. “She was at the ceremony and followed you around the entire time. She had quite a crush on you, as I recall. Was devastated when you showed up with a bride six months later.”

Boom. All the memories came back like a wave. He
did
remember her.

“She was cute. Loved telling awful knock-knock jokes. She wrote me for a year, included drawings in the letters.” He swallowed hard, already dreading the reason why Brant was holding up her picture. “What happened to her?”

“Someone took her this morning.”

Rage replaced the dread and coated his veins in ice. Katrina’s attention had embarrassed him at times; her crush was obvious to anyone who saw how she looked at him. He’d tiptoed around the minefield of little-girl feelings and worked hard to make sure she didn't get the wrong impression. In spite of his best intentions, his marriage to Livvy had broken Katrina’s heart.

The thought of her in the hands of anyone who might hurt her was goddam unacceptable.

“When? How?” He barked out the questions.

“All I know is that she was on her way to school and they took her on the sidewalk. Disabled her security so effectively we can’t discount an inside job. They left a note in the guard’s pocket stating they would call later with their demands.”

“So why do you need me? You’ve got an entire security firm at your disposal.”

“The senator asked for you.”

Oh fuck no. He reached out and minimized the photo on the screen and pushed it back toward Brant. He’d promised to never do any more work for that man. Yeah, he was a mercenary but he had his principles and Hickman violated all of them.

“Put your guys on it. I don’t do this anymore.”

Brant’s snort was derisive. “Really? You don't sell your skills to the highest bidder? Navy SEAL for sale. Throw enough money at him and he’ll ignore how dirty you are or…”

Rush moved fast and Brant was spun around and slammed against the fridge before they could take another breath. It was no small feat to get the jump on Brant. He was highly skilled but Rush was bigger at six feet five inches and had about forty pounds on him. He pressed his forearm against Brant’s throat, enough to make it hard for him to talk, enough to make him rethink the next words out of his mouth.

“Listen, I don’t need to justify to you how I make my living. I’m very selective.
I
get to choose. Which is a hell of a lot more choice than I got when I worked for the senator.”

“You worked for Hickman? Doing what?” Brant’s expression was clouded with confusion, his fingers pulling at Rush’s arm until he relented and loosened his grip. They both backed away, staring each other down across the kitchen. Rush racked his brain for what he could tell him. What came out was true but trite.

“That’s classified.”

Brant gave that two beats before he nodded. “Classified?” He ran a hand over his face in exasperation. “Rush, what the hell have you been doing since you left the Navy?”

“You really don't want to know.”

The silence stretched out between them and Rush exhaled slowly when Brant turned toward the front door, but his breath caught in his chest when his friend grabbed the phone off the counter and thumbed it on again. The screen lit up with Katrina’s smiling face.

Her innocent face. Her father was an ass and quite possibly a criminal, but she was just a kid. It was like Brant could read his mind.

“She’s just a kid, Rush. We don't know who took her or where she is but you and I both know that if we aren’t prepared to act when we get the demands, death will be the lesser of many evils. Our intel says her father has been dealing with people who make young girls disappear and make a tidy profit at the same time. A young white woman with her pedigree would be a prize and you know it.”

He didn’t need to be told the horrible things that could happen to a pretty girl these days.

And yes, death would be the least of these.

He had no choice. Not really. He was a dick but he wasn’t heartless. But he also wasn’t stupid and he had his own demands.

“I want you, Elena, Jade, and two more of your best guys. If they have ex-fil experience, that would be ideal. I won’t have time to train any newbies on this field trip.” He moved past Brant, headed back to his office to gather the equipment he’d need. “No commercial flights. I need to take some shit that would ensure both of us getting multiple cavity searches from TSA. I don't mind a little ass play but not from a ham-fisted guy named Bob at the security checkpoint.” 

Brant followed close behind and Rush grabbed a duffel bag and moved toward his weapons safe, keying in the code and yanking the door open when the lock released.

“How fast can we get to the location? I’ll need scans of the area, topography, plans of the structure. You know the drill.”

Brant’s voice was low. “We don't know where she’s being held.”

“What?” Rush stopped his inventory of ammo and guns. “It’s going to be hard for me to get her out if I don’t know where she is. My specialty is extraction.”

“Understood. We’re short on time, so we need someone who can find anything…or anyone.”

“And?” Brant did that look-away thing again and Rush tensed, his gut telling him he already knew what was coming.

“We need you to ask
her
for help.” Rush didn’t have to ask the obvious question. “We need you to ask Olivia to help us out on this one.”

“No. You’ve got to find someone on your staff to find Katrina.”

“My best guy is out-of-pocket and I don't have time to pull him back. I would never ask you to contact her if it wasn’t important.”

Rush bowed his head, his heartbeat loud and rapid in his ears. It was the sudden rise in his blood pressure, the twist in his gut, and the stab in a spot under his left ribs. He looked down at his hands, white-knuckled with a slight tremor where they clasped the magazine full of bullets.

She still got to him and Brant knew it, knew what he was asking. He was one of the few people who did. Too much tequila on a ski trip and Rush had spilled his guts, telling the story of how a gutter kid from Baltimore had reached too high and fallen for the prom queen. The girl from the rightest of right side of the tracks, complete with generations of sterling silver spoons in her mouth and a title…several of them, actually.

Lady Olivia Rutledge-Cairn.

His Livvy
.

For a brief time also known as Mrs. Atticus Rush.

And known to a very few as “Irene Adler”—a name given to her by a charmed Interpol agent who had failed to catch her half a dozen times. As the world’s most infamous modern-day thief, she was uniquely qualified to find the location of anything of great value, including a young girl.

Rush knew she could do it. She’d stolen his heart and he’d never gotten it back. She was
that
fucking good.

Goddamn, he’d loved her. He hadn’t known he was capable until she walked into his life on her ridiculously expensive high heels.

“I can’t ask her, Brant. She won’t do it for me.” He was about to say that the divorce had been ugly but really, it hadn’t. He’d found out who she was. She left. He filed. She didn’t fight it. It was final on their one-year anniversary. And three years later, he was still reeling from the body blow.

But maybe she wasn’t. All indicators were that she’d moved on. New lovers. New thefts. Her usual jet-set lifestyle of parties and vacations on private islands. If there was ever a reason to test the waters of how deep her hatred ran, this was the time.

“Fine. I’ll ask her.” He resumed placing the weaponry in the specially designed duffel, his mind already calculating the hours lapsed, the time to travel, and when they could expect the first call from the kidnappers. They didn’t have a ton of time to fuck around. “Try to get in touch with your guy just in case Olivia isn’t up to playing nice or shoots me on sight. I’ll be ready to go in ten minutes and your pilot needs to file an expedited international flight plan.”

Brant was nodding, already dialing his phone when he looked up. “International?”

“Yeah. Olivia is in Mexico.”

“You know where your ex-wife is at this very moment?”

He laughed and didn’t try to disguise the bitter edge to the sound. “Marriage to Livvy taught me that knowing where she is at all times is a
very good
thing.”

Chapter Two

She didn’t recognize the car in her driveway.

SUV. Rental. She wasn’t expecting any guests.

Olivia didn’t quicken her pace. This was her favorite time of the day, strolling the quiet streets of the waterfront Mexican village where she kept one of her several homes. July in Mexico probably wasn’t most people’s ideal time to visit, but an early lifetime of England’s soft rain and mild summers caused a bone-deep craving for the hottest of days. Heat that penetrated down to her marrow made her feel alive, vibrant, happy.

The breeze from the ocean swept up the back of her dress and ruffled her hair as she mounted the steps and turned the latch on the gate. Inside the walled courtyard the air was cooler, the shade deeper, and the smell of flowering tropical plants almost overpowering. She followed the sound of voices to the seating area, wondering if she’d forgotten an appointment.

“Matilda, I’m home,” she called out, rounding the corner with a curious smile on her lips.

She should have done something cliché, like dropping her straw tote and spilling the fruit, vegetables, and fish across the terra cotta paving stones. At the very least she should have teetered on her high-heeled sandals, had to grab the chair to keep herself steady. But she didn’t do any of that.

She was Lady Olivia Rutledge-Cairn, only daughter of the Earl and Countess of Lisdale, and she damn well knew how to keep her cool when a ghost appeared on her patio.

Even if the ghost was Atticus Rush.

A large, dark, brooding specter rising from the burial ground of her heart, their volatile love and disastrous marriage. Time had changed him a little. There were more lines around his eyes, and a long, nasty scar on his forearm that hadn’t been there three years ago dissected one of his favorite tattoos. The full beard and mustache was new but suited him. But the biggest change was the dark mane of hair, pulled back with a leather thong and ending just below his shoulder blades. It was the polar opposite from the severe Navy-issued “high and tight” he’d worn when they’d met.

“Atticus, what the bloody hell did you do to your hair?” It slipped out before she could stop herself.

The man beside him snickered and Olivia recognized that he was Brant Scott, an old friend of her ex-husband. He’d been on the list of people to call if she’d needed help when Atticus was deployed.

“Why the fuck is everyone so concerned about my hair?” Atticus growled as he pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest. The heated glower on his face, combined with the hostile stance, reminded her of stories of marauding Norsemen depicted in some of the old tapestries covering the walls of her childhood home.

“You look like a Viking ready to plunder the shores,” she said, hoping her tone was lighter than she felt inside. Gut tight, heart pounding, mouth dry, she had to clutch her fingers tightly around the handles of her tote to keep from taking the few steps between them and kissing him or something equally insane.

“I won’t be invading any Saxon territory today,” he said, his tone less grumpy but devoid of any soft or suggestive innuendo. She took his words at face value. Whatever brought him here, it wasn’t the sudden urge to reconcile.

Olivia swallowed down the regret-soaked lump in her throat and turned to the thing she could do in her sleep and in any state of disappointment: hospitality.

“Well, then…” She turned and handed her bag to her housekeeper with a smile. “Matilda, the invaders come in peace. Can you bring out some cool refreshments?” She approached the man standing beside Atticus, leaning up to accept his kiss on her cheek. “Brant, it’s wonderful to see you.”

“You too, Olivia.” He smiled back at her but it faltered when he shifted back, glanced over, and left a clear path toward her other guest.

She stood still, waiting for a cue from her ex-husband on how this would go. It was awkward when you went from knowing every intimate detail of each other’s bodies to people who only spoke through their attorneys. They both stared at each other for a moment and then she remembered that the last time she’d seen Atticus she’d been the one to blink first and this wasn’t going to be a repeat. She waited him out, only letting out her breath when he spoke.

“You look good,” he observed in a gruff tone. The brusque compliment was accompanied by a brief nod in her direction. There was no move to touch her or close the distance. It was… disappointing, but she’d never let it show.

“Thank you,” she said and covered up her nerves with taking over serving the refreshments delivered to the table. Olivia motioned for them to sit as she offered up the icy drinks. “Tea? Beer? Iced coffee?”

“You drink cold tea?” Brant asked, indicating his choice of beverage.

“Have you noticed how hot it is? I’m British, not insane.” Olivia turned to Atticus, handing over the iced coffee she knew he would prefer. Actually, he’d want black, hot coffee but the thought of being within five feet of a steaming urn of anything made her cringe. Their fingers brushed but she was ready for it, schooling her features to disguise the leap of her heart and the full-body shiver at the contact.

Atticus did jump a little, enough for her to tell, and she smiled a the grin growing wider when he glowered and placed his glass on the table without taking a sip.

“You’re not thirsty? I can get you…”