Stripping Her Defenses Read online

  Sitting back down, I laid my beat up, old guitar across my lap, as I lit up a cigarette. After my first deep inhale, I dropped the lighter on the table next to me and then positioned the instrument in a stance I’d used since my dad first taught me to play, when I was still a boy. My callused fingers strummed the strings for a few minutes with no particular song in mind, and then I found myself drifting into one of my favorite songs, “Nothing Else Matters.”

  Closing my eyes, I savored the haunting rock chords as the notes seemed to seep into me, calming my internal storm.

  Halfway through the song, I heard movement behind me, the soft footsteps of a body coming down the stairs. I assumed it was Dec when nobody asked me to shut up so they could sleep. Nothing more was heard for the next few chords; as a result, I assumed he’d turned around and gone back upstairs to his hook up. My brother would know, if he found me down here playing like this, at this God-awful time in the morning, it was probably best to leave me alone.

  Instead of stopping when the song was over, I slid into one of my father’s favorites next. The almost jazzy, soulful rock sound caused me to drift even further away in my mind. A distant part of me hoped to stay lost in the space forever.

  I would have stayed there, too, if it hadn’t been for the husky feminine voice that started singing. If not for my seal training, I probably would have jumped straight up in the air like a startled cat.

  Teagan had quietly snuck up on me in my solitude and sat on the sofa catty-corner, facing me. My eyebrows shot up in surprise to see her, of all people, but I managed to keep playing without missing a note as she crooned words with a sultry voice which had goose bumps popping up all over my body.

  My father was a gamblin' man

  Down in New Orleans.

  Now the only thing a gambler needs

  Is a suitcase and trunk.

  And the only time he's satisfied

  Is when he's on a drunk.

  Oh, mother tell your children

  Not to do what I have done.

  Spend your lives in sin and misery

  In the House of the Rising Sun.

  Well, I got one foot on the platform

  The other foot on the train.

  I'm goin' back to New Orleans

  To wear that ball and chain.

  Well, there is a house in New Orleans

  They call the Rising Sun.

  And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

  And God I know I'm one.

  By the end of the song, I was glued to the sight of the tiny woman who had been singing with such feeling that her head was tipped back, eyes closed, and the look on her face was nothing short of heartbreaking. Why Teagan was in the Marine Corps and not on some stage making her living, I had no damn idea. Her voice was one of the most amazing things I’d ever heard.

  Her smoky voice brought me out of my contemplation. “That’s an awfully sad song to be playing this early in the morning, Riley.”

  Pursing my lips, I grabbed a new death stick out of my pack and lit it up, taking a big inhale before responding to the inquisitive redhead “That’s an awfully sad song for you to know by heart, Teagan.”

  She nodded her head in silent agreement.

  Tipping my head to the side, I took in her rather put together appearance without letting my surprise show on my face. It couldn’t be but three-forty in the morning by now. What in the world was Teagan doing fully dressed, as if ready to walk out the door, instead of still sleeping soundly next to her lover?

  “Surprised to see you here. Didn’t know you were in town. You’re up kind of early, aren’t you?”

  “Same could be said of you, Sullivan. Being up early, that is.”

  When she didn’t further elaborate, I responded, “Well, I know why I’m up. What’s your excuse?”

  She snorted back at me. “Last time I checked, I didn’t need an excuse to leave a man’s house. Your brother knows the score. Don’t worry about his heart being all broken up over me.”

  I laughed. “No morning nookie for Dec, huh?”

  An unexpected, charming blush slid up her neck and eventually covered her cheeks. “Nope. No morning nookie for Declan. In fact, I should be going.”

  “What’s the rush, Teagan? You’re trying to run out of here like a scared rabbit.”

  Sitting forward, she rested her elbows on her legs and seemed to consider me for a minute. Extending one finger out in my direction, she waved it in a bit of a circle at me and then asked, “You want to talk about that? The reason why you’re down here before the sun is up, all by yourself, playing sad songs and lookin’ like someone just ran over your dog?”

  Taking another deep drag off my cigarette, I questioned back, “Are you deflecting because you don’t want to answer me, or is this a tit for tat scenario you’re going for?”

  She shrugged. “A bit of both to be honest. But if you’re willing to answer, so am I.”

  Looking back down to my guitar, I started strumming another song. “I had a dream about my wife that woke me up. Couldn’t go back to sleep after that.”

  “And why would a dream about your wife cause you to dread sleeping again?”

  “Because they remind me of what I’ve lost. I don’t need those reminders. I live with them every second I’m awake.”

  She was silent for a second before she asked, “Is your wife dead?”

  The frank question from her surprised me. “No, she’s very much alive.”

  “Then what is it you’ve lost, Riley?”

  Stopping my strumming fingers, I waved around to our deathly still surroundings. “Do you see her here with me? Don’t you think if I still had her, I’d be in bed with her and not down here like some heartbroken jackass?”

  “If she’s not dead, then take a page out of Bobby’s book and try to fix whatever it is you think is broken. Then she could be here, instead of you sitting down here like a self-induced dumbass.”

  Shooting her annoyed look, I snapped, “I tried to fucking fix it, and I couldn’t.”

  “I thought you Sullivans were made of sterner stuff. I didn’t know any of you could be described as quitters.”

  “Says the woman who’s practically running out of my brother’s house instead of facing him the morning after having another one-night stand with him.”

  Rolling her eyes, Teagan huffed. “Your brother’s not in love with me, dummy. I doubt anyone would find him sitting in the dark at the crack of dawn, picking chords on a fucking guitar and pining away for me. You, on the other hand, are doing just that for your wife, which means maybe you should be thinking about trying to patch up things with her instead of sitting down here and feeling sorry for yourself.” Teagan got up from the couch and headed past me towards the front door.

  I stopped her right before she was ready to walk out by asking, “How do you know my brother’s not in love with you?”

  “Because that man isn’t capable of loving a woman more than he loves his own dick right now. And that works just fine for me because I don’t believe in love at all. And that, by the way, is also the answer to all the other questions you asked me this morning. Now we’re even.”

  With that, the door closed softly behind her, and I was once again left by myself with nothing to keep me company other than a small crackling fire, my now silent guitar, and new ‘if onlys’ about what I could have done differently to have won back my Kara.

  Chapter

  5

  Riley

  Sitting in the meeting room of the Ex Ops headquarters with my teammates, I watched as Jaxon walked in with a large bag and shut the door behind himself. He stopped at the head of the table, dropped the bag onto the floor, and picked up a file that had already been sitting there. Walking over to the dry erase board behind him, he quickly taped up two pictures. One was of Laura Moore; smiling, carefree, and very much alive. The second was Laura’s dead body in the morgue.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Bobby Baker tense up. A few of the other guy
s in the room shifted uneasily, as well. I figured they were probably thinking the same thing I was. Laura’s picture was a grim reminder of how close Baker had come to losing his fiancée, Annabelle.

  Jaxon turned around to face us, somber but determined. “Last night I was given the green light by Uncle Sam to pursue a lead that could tie to Ms. Moore’s kidnapping, torture, rape, and eventual death. We’re going over details today so we can head out tomorrow. I don’t think I need to explain why this mission is important.”

  Fuck no, he didn’t need to explain. There wasn’t a man sitting at this table who hadn’t been horrified when finding Laura with Annabelle and learning what the women had been through while being held captive by Rivera.

  We’d gone down to Mexico to save Bobby’s girl from a drug cartel the ATF and our team were investigating for gun trafficking. We had absolutely no idea that a sex slave ring was involved, too, until we’d seen poor Laura. Emaciated, bruised, and bloody. Obviously broken on the inside and the out. She’d been reduced to a terrified shell instead of the warm, vibrant human being her sister had spoken of.

  No one with a sliver of a good soul would lay a finger on a woman in such a manner. My parents might have died while Declan and I had still been young; but, at ten, I’d been old enough to learn from my father that women were precious. You handled them with care and protected them from the dangers of the world.

  The men who had taken Laura and broken her weren’t men; they were monsters. I planned to track every single one of them and put them down like the vicious animals they had become. Only it wouldn’t be a sterile, comforting euthanization. No, I wanted their deaths to hurt in the most unimaginable ways. Those bastards could start their trip to Hell feeling every bit of the pain they’d inflicted on others first.

  We’d all promised Baker’s girl we would do our best to get the assholes who had led poor Laura to her death in Mexico. Of course, all of us would have promised her anything and everything to keep her calm and happy these days. Her health was of the utmost importance, not only to Baker, but to all of us. I didn’t think any of us would be forgetting what she’d looked like cut up, with a bullet hole, and covered in blood; damn near dead in Mexico.

  Annabelle had been beside herself with the traumatic loss of her fellow captive, who had died right in front of her during our botched rescue mission. It was something I knew was going to haunt the tough, little ATF Agent for the rest of her days. It was never easy seeing someone killed right in front of you, but given the extenuating circumstances the two women had endured together, Annabelle had been extremely traumatized.

  In fact, she’d been so upset that we’d had to bring Ms. Moore’s body back with us in the choppers to the States just to help keep Annabelle calm enough to get her to the San Antonio hospital that would ultimately save her life. It had also unknowingly saved the life of Baker’s unborn little girl.

  The guilt that she’d been kidnapped right in front of us by the Rivera Cartel, and we’d missed it, had driven most of us to spend a lot of time at Baker’s place. I thought the entire team often felt the need to see with our own eyes that she was alive and okay. Thankfully, after everything that had happened, it was the truth.

  She was currently on leave from the ATF, something her agency had insisted on since she was five months pregnant and considered a high risk due to her injuries from being kidnapped and tortured. Besides that, Annabelle and Seth both seemed happy living with Baker here in Virginia. From what Baker had said, she’d even been okay with the fact that he was about to bug out with us.

  I could imagine many insanely hormonal pregnant women would have had a shit fit if they’d found out their fiancé was leaving for a job right after they’d moved in together, but not Baker’s woman. He’d told us that she’d asked one thing of them all and one thing only: find out whoever was responsible for the kidnapping, torture, rape, and auctioning of Laura. The team was all onboard for that. If it was what brought Annabelle some peace, we’d find those assholes and shut them down.

  The initial investigation had involved contacting Laura’s only living relative, her sister Jessica Moore. They’d had to notify her of Laura’s death while also trying to find out whatever she might know about her sister’s life here in Miami. Unfortunately, Jessica could only give us a few details about Laura, due to her sister’s vagabond lifestyle. She had been able to point us in the direction of the strip clubs. It wasn’t a lot, but it had been better than nothing.

  Watching Jaxon drop the paperwork he’d had rolled up in his hand on the table, I noted that he seemed on edge, as if ready to spring into action. Hopefully this meant whatever new intelligence he had was going to lead us to the fuckers we were all anxious to bury eight feet deep.

  “And the reason I was given the green light by Uncle Sam is because last night Lucas received a call from one of his former teammates with the first credible tip we’ve received in months. Apparently, Lucas has some very interesting friends.”

  Picking up the black duffle bag up off the floor, Jaxon dropped it on top of the table in front of him and then undid the zipper. Reaching in he pulled out what looked to be black leather, unfolding the material in front of us until we were looking at the back of what resembled a vest with different patches sewn on. The biggest patch was in the middle of the back and was an insignia of an eagle with a sword held in its talons and two small letters “MC” off to the side. Above that was a curved patch that said “REGULATORS” and below the eagle was another curved patch that said “FLORIDA”, all in red letters.

  While I didn’t ride motorcycles, or grow up anywhere near that sub culture, I’d been around the world enough to know that was a cut to a motorcycle club. Just what, exactly, were we getting’ into here?

  "Boys, Young took it upon himself to do some digging. While I don't usually condone that sort of lone wolf behavior-" Jaxon paused to give Lucas a glare, "BECAUSE WE'RE A TEAM – this time I have to admit that it paid off. Apparently, one of Young's old teammates joined a group of bikers when he got out of the Army. They're known as the Regulators. Young's contact, Ethan 'Hammer' McCoy, is the motorcycle club's Sergeant At Arms. Young asked him if they knew anything about missing women in Florida and it turns out they've got their finger on that pulse for personal reasons. The women going missing are strippers. Apparently, they own a strip club. So, the minute they heard about the second stripper going missing in the south Florida area, they did their best to lock their girls down. That hasn't stopped them from being worried about them, or the situation, though. Hammer spoke with his club president and they've invited us down to their turf to run an undercover operation to look into the matter."

  "What's our cover?" I asked as the wheels started to turn in my head. I was ready for a mission to keep my mind occupied. Hell, I was ready for this mission. More than ready to give Baker's woman some piece of mind. To say I was eager to get my ass to Florida and shut these sadistic motherfuckers selling women was an understatement. Taking these assholes out and finally closing this mission wouldn't only give Annabelle peace, but it would also give me an outlet. I'd been dreaming of Kara again every night. I was tired. I was fucking restless. And because of that I was anxious and ready to work the anxiety out one way or another. I couldn't bring myself to touch another woman when Kara was all I could see in my head. And unless I wanted to become an alcoholic in the span of a week, I didn't dare try and drown my fuckin’ sorrows. So bashing some heads and dumpin’ bodies sounded like the perfect way to keep myself occupied.

  Jaxon's smirk brought me out of my head and caught me off guard. If he was smiling like that I knew we were in for some crazy shit.

  Holding the black leather cut, loaded with patches, up again for a few seconds for all of us to see, he then threw it in my direction.

  "Welcome to the world of outlaw bikers Sullivan. I've been assured we're in for one helluva a ride."

  Chapter

  6

  Riley

  After Midnight. The glow of t
hose blue, neon words were shining brightly from the large sign over the front of the large brick building. It wasn’t a subtle sign to promote the premier gentlemen’s club, it was advertising. Instead, it was a strong, almost proud, visual statement that said ‘This is where it’s at.’ It was a hell of a lot better than those bright and obnoxious ‘Girls Girls Girls’ signs we’d seen at many of the other places we’d already scouted out in the area.

  Anyone passing me on the street probably thought I was just another biker from the club, smoking a cigarette and wasting time. The truth of the matter was, I was observing the high-dollar strip club. My recon involved looking for trouble and watching the bouncers as they did their job with absolutely no trouble from their patrons.

  Since we’d been pulling outside surveillance on this club and several others for almost a week, we’d learned that here, at After Midnight, this level of calmness seemed the norm. It more than likely meant that the club had a reputation for not putting up with shit. I wasn’t one to frequent strip clubs, so I had to admit I absolutely dreaded going inside. If the boys on the team knew this was what was running through my head, they’d take my man card from me.

  On the outside, I always portrayed a quiet façade, which was in direct opposition of the truth. My brain was always going at what usually felt like a million miles an hour. If I wasn’t mentally running over the specifics of our current mission, then nine times out of ten, my brain was somewhere buried in the past, drifting between the good times and the bad. Focused on the one person who’d ever hurt me and whom I’d hurt irreparably in return. My wife, Kara. Or, as my brother Declan liked to remind me all too often, my ex-wife.

  Too bad the heart in my chest never seemed to agree with Dec’s correction. To it, she would always be wife, no ex in front of her title. Maybe that was why I couldn’t seem to work up the motivation to move on with life. Who wanted to live life to the fullest when you felt like half of yourself was off somewhere in the world, missing from your side?