Rescuing Emily (Delta Force Heroes Book 2) Read online

  He wanted Emily and her daughter for himself, but he had to be smart, go slow. When Fletch got back from the upcoming mission, he’d make a move and see if Emily had thought about him at all. Even with all the pitfalls in his way, he wanted to make it work…somehow. He hadn’t wanted anything in a long time like he wanted Emily.

  Chapter 4

  The man waited at the end of the driveway impatiently, hidden. He knew the asshole soldier and his friends were currently on some mission and it was time to put part two of his plan into action.

  He smirked, pulling the black baseball cap down farther on his head as he waited for the woman to get home. It had been so easy to put part one of his plan together. One of the soldiers who he drank and gambled with was a clerk in the same building where the team often had meetings. In return for some debt being overlooked, the clerk had been eavesdropping on their casual conversations for several weeks.

  The group was amazingly boring and never openly discussed anything related to missions, but they talked all about their personal lives. The clerk had passed along all sorts of random information about the group, including who had profiles on which dating sites and their favorite bar to drink at.

  But most useful—that Fletch’s new tenant was poor as hell and only paying five hundred bucks a month in rent. Apparently Fletch was an easy mark who felt sorry for the stupid woman and her kid.

  The clerk had said the men laughed all the time about the things the woman’s daughter said and did. She was some sort of freak brainiac.

  The man took off his cap and wiped the sweat from his brow with the bottom of his tank top, then replaced the hat on his head.

  The woman’s a slut.

  The man nodded in agreement with the voice in his head. She was. All women were. Even his ex-girlfriend had only pretended to like him in order to use him.

  She’ll get hers though.

  He smirked. Yeah. She’d get hers. He was smart enough to always find something to hold over people’s heads. He never knew when it’d be useful. And now he had all the information he needed to start on the second part of his plan.

  The asshole soldier and his entire team would rue the day they embarrassed him and his squad on the battlefield. No one fucked him over and got away with it. No one.

  When a car pulled into the long driveway toward the garage, the man silently and carefully made his way down the pavement, keeping to the trees as he went.

  * * *

  Emily pulled into the garage and sighed wearily. It’d been a long day, longer than most for some reason. Maybe it was the gigantic sale they were having at the PX, and the craziness that ensued whenever that happened. Maybe it was because she was actually missing Fletch. It wasn’t that she’d spent a lot of time with him, and it had only been three days since he’d left, but it was comforting to come back to the apartment and know he was right across the yard.

  Or maybe it was the fact that Annie was being extra talkative today. Emily told herself a long time ago she’d never tell her daughter she was talking too much. She was just expressing herself, it was what kids did. But, not for the first time, she would kill for some silence right about now.

  “And then John told the teacher she was stupid!” Annie exclaimed, obviously shocked someone would talk back to an adult, and her teacher at that.

  “He did? What happened then?”

  “Well, Mrs. O told him to prove it.”

  Emily smiled. Mrs. O’s name was actually Ogliaruso, but that was quite a mouthful for six-year-olds, so she’d happily told her students to call her Mrs. O instead. Emily reached in the backseat for the two plastic bags of groceries she’d picked up at work. The granola bars and the loaf of bread had been marked down since their expiration dates had passed, and the six cans of soup were discounted because they were dented. “And could he prove she was wrong?” she asked, waiting for Annie to step outside the garage so she could push the button to close the door and run out herself.

  “No. He tried though, and when he couldn’t, he pouted and threw his pencil across the room.”

  “Oh, that sounds dangerous.”

  Annie nodded and hitched her GI Joe backpack higher up on her back. “It was. And that’s why he got sent to the principal’s office. Mrs. O told us that he was in trouble, not for telling her she was wrong, but for throwing things. She says that it’s okay to question…atority, but not to remort to violence.”

  “Authority, and resort to violence,” Emily corrected automatically.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said,” Annie grouched at her mother.

  “Hello.”

  The voice surprised both Emily and Annie and they twirled around as the garage door closed behind them. A man was standing way too close to Annie for Emily’s peace of mind, and she reached out with her free hand and pushed her daughter behind her.

  Emily had never seen the man before. He held himself with the same sort of…conceit that she’d seen in Fletch, but it seemed different with this man. Fletch was confident, but in a protective way. He knew that he was stronger and more dangerous than most others around him. But not once had Emily felt as though he was dangerous to her or Annie.

  But this man was egotistical in the way bullies were. His lips were quirked upward in a smirk, as if he knew she was scared of him. His black tank top clung to the muscles on his chest, and Emily could see a black skull tattoo on his forearm. He wore camouflage pants, like she saw every day at work, and had a ballcap pulled low over his forehead, making it hard to see his eyes. It was obvious he was a military man. Emily concluded he must be there to see Fletch.

  “Fletch isn’t here.”

  “I know.” His answer was immediate and cocky. “I’m here to see you, Emily.”

  “Annie, go upstairs.” Emily used her “mom” voice, the one Annie had learned never to disobey. Call it a mother’s instinct, but everything about the stranger made the hair on the back of her neck stand up straight. Emily had no idea how he knew her name, but her protective side took over and she wanted her daughter as far away from this man as she could get her.

  Annie took the keys her mom held out to her with a shrug, turned around and went up the stairs on the side of the building without a word.

  “She’s pretty.”

  “What do you want?” Emily asked, trying to get his attention off of her daughter.

  “Interesting question. Here’s the thing…Emily…your landlord owes me money.”

  “Why don’t you wait until he’s back and you can ask him for it,” Emily answered with a hint of snark. She didn’t like that this man knew her name. She didn’t like that he’d been able to surprise her. She especially didn’t like the way he’d watched Annie.

  “Because. I talked to him before he left, and he told me you would have the money for me.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. He said that he rented this place to you for a steal, and that you would pay me monthly to make up what he owed.”

  Emily wrinkled her brow in confusion. It didn’t sound like something Fletch would do at all, but she hadn’t known the man for that long, and they’d really only talked in passing.

  “Come sit with me,” the soldier demanded, reaching for her groceries and setting them on the ground gently. “Don’t make a fuss about it and do everything I tell you, and no one will get hurt. Understand?” He took her hand in his as a lover might, but instead of holding it tenderly, he grasped it tightly, hurting her as her fingers were squeezed together.

  Not knowing what the man wanted—and more importantly, what he might to do her or Annie if she “made a fuss”—she followed along behind him without a struggle. “What’s your name?” she asked, as she was towed over to a large rock alongside the driveway.

  The man pushed her down, giving her no choice but to sit. He turned her slightly, putting her back to the main house, and took her other hand in his as well. He held them tightly as he kneeled down in front of her.

  “My name doesn’t matter. What matters
is that Fletch owes me a truckload of money.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You’re going to pay me two hundred a week.”

  Emily recoiled in shock. Two hundred…a week? There was no way she could pay that on top of her rent, food, and gas. Again, she didn’t think Fletch would put his debts on her, no matter how desperate he was. “I don’t believe you. Fletch wouldn’t make me pay his debts.”

  “No? He thought you might say that. He knows you’ve been eyeballin’ him, but he’s so far out of your league, he thinks it’s hilarious you thought he might be interested in you that way. The other day, when we talked about your situation here, he told me how he was only charging you five Benjamins a month. You told him with the money you were saving on rent, you were working on building up your savings account. How much you got saved already? A thousand bucks? Two? He owes me twenty times that.

  “Your landlord has a gambling problem, Emily. He owes me a shit-ton of money, and if you want to continue to live here with your too-smart daughter, safe from those predators who are all over the city, you’ll pay me.”

  Emily paled, but the man continued on, seeming to enjoy her distress.

  “And if you don’t? If you decide I’m bluffing and go to your landlord to try to straighten this all out? Get him to pay his own debts? Child Protective Services will receive a call about an abusive situation. They’ll hear all about how a little girl is living on a property with a single man who has parties with his male friends all the time. How she’s left alone for long stretches of time while her mom works.”

  “They wouldn’t believe you,” Emily said in a tone that wasn’t as strong as she wanted it to be.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But they’d have to investigate. And when CPS looks into allegations of abuse, the child is taken out of the home and placed in foster care. You want to see your daughter in foster care, Emily?”

  “No!” Emily exclaimed, horrified. The mere thought of being separated from Annie, of not knowing if she had proper meals, if she was being allowed to read what she wanted, ripped her heart out. “Of course not. But, I don’t have anything to do with him, I barely know him. I—”

  Emily now recognized the look in the man’s eyes as evil as he brought one hand up to her face and caressed it, brushing a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear. She flinched at the tender gesture, knowing it was anything but.

  “I don’t care. And I know you’re lying. You know him. He’s told us how you’ve undressed him with your eyes every time he sees you. He’d have no problem fucking you, if that’s what it takes; he’d never turn down a chance to get some. But Emily, know this—I’ll do everything I can to get your precious Annie taken away from you if you don’t pay me every week.”

  He must’ve seen the rebellion in her eyes, because he leaned in close and snarled, spittle hitting her in the face. “I’m a sniper, Emily Grant. You think I can’t take your daughter away from you? I can put a bullet between her eyes and no one will ever know I was there. Maybe you don’t give a shit about Fletch for more than a way to get off. But what about Annie? She likes to play outside, doesn’t she? You can’t keep her inside all the time. You can’t protect her while she’s at school during recess, can you?” He paused, then crowed, “I always get my way, babe. Don’t fucking doubt it.”

  Emily was trembling by this point, but she could see the man was one hundred percent serious. She jerked her head up and down once, letting him know she understood his threat perfectly.

  The scary man stood, keeping his head tilted down, and held out his hand to her as if he were a gentleman at a ball asking her to dance. “Good, I’m glad we had this talk.”

  She ignored his hand. “How will I get you the money?”

  “When Fletch isn’t home, I’ll come here. When he is, I’ll come to the PX.”

  “Not my job!” Emily protested, not wanting him anywhere near her coworkers. He could cause her a lot of trouble and she needed her job, especially if she was going to have to come up with an extra thousand dollars or so a month to pay him what Fletch owed and to protect her daughter.

  A little voice in the back of her head was screaming that something wasn’t right…that she only needed to talk to Fletch and he’d take care of this for her. But then she remembered what the man had said. The threat that if she went to Fletch he’d call CPS. And that he and Fletch had laughed at her obvious attraction to him. She hadn’t thought she’d been that transparent. There was also the man’s threats against Annie. How could she—or how would Fletch, for that matter —fight against a bullet? She was so confused and didn’t know what to do.

  The soldier leaned down, grabbed her hand and pulled her upright, putting both hands on her shoulders and leaning in, having the nerve to rest his forehead against hers in a pseudo-intimate way. He ground out in a low, menacing voice, “Yes, your job. Don’t fuck with me, Emily, and I won’t fuck with you. Two hundred a week. No more. No less. I’ll see you next week for our first installment. Say hello to pretty Annie for me.”

  He kissed her forehead, and all Emily wanted to do was scrub her arm across it to remove the slimy feel of his lips on her skin. He pretended to tip his hat to her after stepping away then headed up the driveway toward the road. She had no idea if he had a car parked somewhere nearby or not.

  She moved toward the garage, not turning her back to him for a moment. She picked up the groceries the man had placed on the ground and when she reached the bottom of the stairs, hurried up them. She pounded on the door when she reached it.

  “Annie, it’s me. Open the door!”

  Her daughter must’ve been waiting for her, because Emily immediately heard the lower chain being removed and the door opened within moments.

  “Mommy!”

  Emily burst into the room and slammed the door behind her, locking the chains and making sure the bolt was fastened. She knew she was breathing too hard and likely scaring the shit out of Annie, but she couldn’t control it.

  “Mommy?” This time the word was a question.

  Emily looked down and saw her daughter wringing her hands, eyes full of tears and her eyebrows drawn down in worry. “Who was that man?”

  She squatted on the ground and gathered Annie in her arms. Emily held her, caressing the back of her head, giving as well as taking comfort from the embrace. “Nobody to worry about, baby.”

  “I didn’t like him.”

  Out of the mouths of babes, was Emily’s first thought. She didn’t like him either. But she didn’t want to worry Annie. She was sensitive enough already. Emily needed to make sure Annie was cautious, but not scared out of her skull. She pulled back and put her hands on Annie’s small shoulders. Emily tried to find the right words to explain what the hell had just happened.

  “He wanted to talk about adult stuff with me, baby. I was proud of you for instantly obeying me when I told you to come up to our house. Thank you.”

  Annie bit her lip, and still looked worried. Emily spoke quickly. “You remember our old landlord, right?” When Annie nodded and got a disgusted look on her face, Emily explained, “I want you to do what you did when you saw him, if you ever see the man who was here today again.”

  “Run away and hide?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Is he bad?”

  Emily shook her head, not wanting Annie to share that with anyone. She loved her daughter, but she was notoriously bad at keeping secrets. The last thing she wanted was for her to tell Fletch about the “bad man” who was hanging around. He’d want to know more, and anything she told him would probably get back to the man who’d threatened Annie.

  Emily didn’t like her blackmailer, but she knew how it felt to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Fletch had done her a favor by letting her live here for such a low rent. She felt positive he hadn’t done it with the intent of having her pay the money to someone else. Sometimes shit just happened and you had to deal with it. She wasn’t happy with the way Fletch had decided to deal with his problem
, but she’d help him, and in return, would make sure Annie was kept safe. While she paid some of his debt—and looked for another place to live—maybe she’d suggest he find some help for his addiction.

  Resigned to doing what she had to do for the moment, Emily resolved to talk to Fletch and get him to own up to his problem, and hopefully deal with his friend without involving her and Annie. If she could convince him to take over his debt sooner rather than later, she’d be off the hook and they could each move on with their lives.

  “He’s not bad,” Emily told her daughter, “he’s just my friend, and you shouldn’t be around him. Okay? So if you see him, you get up here to our place. And if for some reason you can’t get up here, go to Fletch’s.”

  “And get the key hidden in the fake piece of grass hidden under the bush next to the door and then put in the code. Right, Mommy?”

  “Right. You remember the code?”

  “A-N-I-E-S.”

  “Yes, two-six-four-three-seven.”

  “I’m allowed to go into Fletch’s house when he’s not here?”

  “If you see that man, and I’m not around, then yes. Otherwise no. Only with me. Okay, baby?”

  “Okay, Mommy. I’m hungry.”

  Emily hugged her daughter to her once again, holding on tight and vowing to herself that no one would ever hurt Annie as long as she was around.

  Finally, when Annie wriggled in her grasp, she pulled back. “Why don’t you check out the soup I bought today and pick out which one you’d like tonight,” Emily told her.

  “Yay! I love soup!”

  Emily smiled and stood up. Annie did love soup. They didn’t have it a lot, and it looked like once the six cans she’d bought today ran out, it would be a while before she had it again. It was expensive compared to other things she could buy.

  Hearing her own stomach growl, Emily put a hand on her belly and took a deep breath. She had a feeling that the man knew she didn’t have an extra two hundred dollars a week to give him, but didn’t give a damn.