Scorch: A Soldiers of Fortune Romance (Military Bad Boy Romance) (25 page)

Major Lawson grins and cocks an eyebrow, looking almost excited; “Well the three of you are military trained, you all
own
planes, and I’ve got a SEAL team on speed dial and pretty much a blank check on matters I deem of interest to national security.”

Logan nods quietly, before he turns and shoots me a hard look; “Let’s go get our man.”

When I was younger, I used to have a lot more
machismo
, and a lot more bullshit swagger than I do now. When you’re young, and poor, and scrounging from the street, you talk a whole lot of bullshit to get you through each day. I can distinctly remember a gang of us, poking around the shadows of the market looking for pick-pocketing marks and bragging about how we didn’t care about death or dying; like that was some kind of badge of honor to not give a fuck. We’d make jokes about the devil telling us when and how so that we could pull all the shit we wanted to pull before he took us.
 

We weren’t fearless, we were just fucking idiots.
 

Because I can say now that knowing when, and how you’re going to die is…well, it doesn’t feel like I ever expected it to feel. I’m not standing there with arms wide open like the jackass kid version of myself who used to brag about it before stealing pocket change from old ladies. I’m not raging, or laughing in the face of it either.

I mean I’m pissed about it, because if this is my time to go, I’d just want one more day with her; one more perfect day with that angel. But I guess we’ll always want one more
something
when our time comes; one more day, one more drink with friends, one more time with a lover. But fuck it, if the last few days of this fucked up and broken life were the cards I got dealt, then I can call that a good run.

A very good run.

I can see the sun starting to peak over the treetops, through the bared window of the cell I’m in.

One more sunrise
.

They’re going to kill me today. Well, Benson’s been promising that for four days now, but there was something about the finality in him saying it last night that got me. And maybe it was that he’s just gotten tired of having me beaten, or electrocuted, or denied sleep, and wants to be done with me; not altogether different than most people I’ve known in my life. At some point, they just get
tired
of me and my bullshit.
 

Except for her.

I grit my teeth when I think of her; my one regret and the one thing I’m angry about having to leave. But I know she got out OK, and that’s all that matters. She’s safe, and if I’ve gotta take the hit for that, so fucking be it.

There’s the sound of yelling from outside the door to my cell, and I steel myself;
fuck it, let’s get this over with.

But the sounds of yelling are quickly drowned out by gunshots, a crashing sound, and something that sounds like an explosion in the distance.

What the fuck?

I’m wide awake then; well, as wide awake as I can be considering I’ve been tortured, beaten, and deprived of sleep for four days. But my eyes are glued to the door as I hear someone banging on the other side of it. The sound goes silent for a second, but suddenly there’s a horrible sound of wrenching metal as the door explodes inwards, rupturing in two in a cloud of black smoke.

And then suddenly Logan Goddamn Dempsey is standing in front of me, and it all makes sense.

I’m already dead. This is, in fact, death, and this is my afterlife. This is my judgment standing right in front of me, and when he pulls out a large, wicked looking knife, I find myself nodding and setting my jaw; “Let’s do this, devil,” I mutter, my vision swimming in and out of darkness; “Let the purgatory begin, demon!”

The Logan Archangel in front of me frowns and rolls his eyes before hauling back and slapping me hard across the face. The hit jolts me back into the now, and I blink; holy shit, it’s
actually
Logan.

“You’re not dead, Toro,” He shakes his head as he slips the blade through the ropes tying me to the chair and cuts me loose; “Not yet at least.” He yanks me roughly to my feet, and I groan at the the pain lancing through me from the beatings and from the burn marks of the electric nodes.

“Look, shithead,” Logan growls, hauling me upright, his eyes piercing mine; “I haven’t decided that I like you, or if I forgive you.” I swallow, eyeing the knife in his hands. He nods at me; “But you saved her life, and you showed honor; more than I’d have given you credit for.”

I nod my head, wincing when he yanks me closer; “If you fuckin hurt her, I’ll bury you. You know that, right?”

I grin, raising my hand to clap him on the back; “Irish, if I ever hurt that girl, I’ll dig the hole myself, comprende?

Logan’s face splits into a grin right back at me. He’s nodding as the rest of them come crashing into the room; Bryce and Hudson, and some older guy holding a Goddamn revolver, and-

-And her.

I let myself drop into her as Chelsea shoves Logan out of the way and wraps her arms around me; “I love you.” She whispers, hugging me fiercely and crying into my neck; “You never let me say that at the airfield.”

“I love you too,” I say, for the second time ever, feeling like the world is somehow aligning right; like somehow God and fate and karma are giving me a second shot.

“Ready to get out of here, princess?”

“You gonna steal me if I say no,
criminal
?”

I grin at her; “Definitely.”
 

Change is a funny thing, and it comes in ways and shapes you’ll
never
see coming.

As it turns out, Javier was a
wealth
of information on illicit activities in the Americas; in particular, the drugs and weapons traffic routes through the Caribbean and Florida. So much so, in fact, that the State Department was willing to forgo all pending charges in order to put him on task forces with the D.E.A.

Yeah, bad-ass, criminal, smuggler, thief, extortionist Javier Toro is working for the good guys now; who would’ve thought?

“Informant?
Fuck
that,” He declared during the initial sit-down meeting with D.E.A. Commissioner on the offer; “Informant sounds like a fucking
weasel
.”
 

Yep, that’s the man I love; pushing buttons and trying to get cute at a meeting that literally determines his fate for the next twenty-five years to life. But I’ve gotta say, the man knows what he wants, and he won’t stop until he gets it.
 

And he does, of course. In the end, he even got them to
officially
grant his title as “Master of Secrets”; I swear I could
not
make this stuff up if I tried.

Family is family, and after they forgave me for all the secrets surrounding my job stuff, they slowly started to get on board with the Javier thing as well. My sisters - well, I mean
come on
; those two really don’t have a rock to stand on when it comes to getting involved with men they shouldn’t. It’s worth pointing out that things worked out
just fine
in those circumstances too, and I think once they realized I knew exactly what I was doing, they took it just fine.

“Will it be hilarious or awful if I get him a neck warmer for Christmas?” Quinn says with wicked grin. Yeah, we’re going to be just fine on that front.

Bryce oddly enough ended up being the first of the guys to warm up to Javier. Apparently, a mutual love of the Barcelona soccer club has a way of mending fences in ways I couldn’t - and honestly still don’t - understand. Hudson moved from standoffish to indifferent, and then eventually to casually friendly with him; Reagan’s helping me out there.

Logan we’re still working on. Life isn’t a cutesy movie ending, and saying that everyone just decided to be best friends after everything that’s happened would be a lie. Logan and Javier have some
serious
history to work through, though they’re trying. They’re apparently going to start boxing together, which should be, well,
interesting.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner too, and we’re actually going to have
all
of us together under one roof for the first time ever. The mercenaries, the soldiers, the politician, the mother, the doctor, the spy, the philanthropist, the recovering alcoholic, the ex-addict, the long lost sister, the princess, and the criminal. Because sometimes family is who we choose it to be, and I couldn’t have picked a better one.

And Javier and I? There’s supposed to be this big happy sappy ending where we get married and live happily ever after, right? Except that would be this big dumb cliche, right?

Well, then deal with it, because that’s exactly what’s happening. The spy and the criminal who stole her heart; how’s that for a happy ending?

The wedding itself isn’t until spring, but the happy-ever-after part we’ve already started on. I might add that we’re amassing a
very
colorful collection of straps, handcuffs, ties, and restraints in our bedroom as well.

We’re all capable of change, if we want it bad enough. We just have to try, because if you don’t try, what’s the point? For every shadow, there’s a light somewhere, and for every lost, there’s a found. And none of us is lost, as long as we can hang on to what’s good in this world.

Even if you have to steal it.