Deep Trouble: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) Read online

  If all else fails, find the most vulnerable spot and come out swinging, kid.

  Time slowed like a rubber band stretching out before her. Pure instinct had Kylie gathering all her strength in the very center of her chest, letting it collect and build and burn. With a definitive snap, her will burst upward…

  And she slammed her head into Xavier’s nose with all her might.

  “Ah! You bitch.” The force of the contact made him stumble back, and Kylie didn’t wait to take advantage of his loosened grip. She spun around with every intention to run. But Xavier was already regrouping, his massive body coiling tighter as he hunched forward at the waist to catch the blood running down his face, and she didn’t think.

  Just moved.

  Her foot came off the floor, connecting with Xavier’s chin in a sickening crunch. His torso whipped back, hanging upright for just a split second before he fell into a heavy heap on the concrete in front of her.

  Go. Go go go go go.

  The command pumped through Kylie’s brain, slamming against her throat with every heartbeat as she ran up the stairs two at a time. She barreled through the kitchen and into the front of the house, slowing from warp speed only long enough to put a hasty grab on the purse she’d left on top of the bar. Clutching the black leather to her chest, Kylie flung herself through The Corner Tavern’s front door, not stopping until she reached the driver’s side of her Mustang.

  “Oh come on.” She cursed, fumbling through the depths of her bag while keeping her eyes locked on the entrance to the bar. Relief sailed through her when finally, finally, her fingers closed over her key fob, her tires spitting gravel a mere ten seconds later as she tore out of the parking lot at conservatively ninety-five miles an hour.

  “Okay. Okay. You’re tough. You got away. You’re okay,” Kylie babbled, forcing herself to breathe even though each inhale was thoroughly soaked in fear.

  She had to call the cops. Better yet, she had to go to the police station herself. Yeah, she’d witnessed a horrific murder—don’t think about it, don’t think about it—but if she was surrounded by cops, she’d be safe.

  Kylie dumped the contents of her purse on the passenger seat, and for Chrissake, how hard was it to find one little cell phone? Mashing her foot even harder over the accelerator, she snatched up her iPhone, tapping the screen to life with a shaky jolt of her thumb.

  …it wouldn’t matter if you did. I’ve got half the force in my back pocket anyway…I buy Feds like Christmas presents…

  Oh. God. Xavier might’ve just been talking shit. After all, he didn’t strike Kylie as a trustworthy kind of guy. Then again, he did strike her as a dangerous-as-hell kind of guy, who dealt drugs and shot people in the face and threatened to rape and murder innocent bartenders.

  Tempted as she was to call in the cavalry, one wrong step could land her in the middle of God’s country with a murderer who was likely furious at having been kicked in the teeth and left bleeding all over his own crime scene.

  Getting away a second time wouldn’t be an option. She had to make sure Xavier didn’t find her. As much as she hated admitting that she was in over her head, the stakes were too high for her not to face the hard-nosed reality staring her in the face.

  She had to find someone to help her. Someone to trust with her life.

  Kylie scrolled through her contacts, the white noise of her own heartbeat pressing against her ears as she pushed the send icon below the only number she knew by heart.

  “Please…please…please answer…”

  “It’s four o’clock in the morning here on the East Coast, kid. This had better be a doozy.”

  She fought the urge to laugh, along with the even stronger urge to cry. “Kellan? It’s me. I’m, uh—I’m in a little trouble. How fast can you get to Montana?”

  Chapter Two

  Devon Randolph rolled over in the darkness, cursing up a blue streak at his cell phone. More accurately, he was cursing whoever was on the other end of his cell phone, making the fucking thing ring loud enough and long enough to yank him out of the first REM sleep he’d managed to snag in weeks.

  There had better be grave goddamn danger attached to this call, otherwise he was going to kick someone’s ass halfway to China.

  “Randolph,” he grated, his mind and body both on full alert by the time he’d finished the exhale. Zero-two-thirty. SIG Sauer P229 under his pillow. Graphite-bladed KA-BAR on the night stand. Empty motel room, empty bed.

  Business as usual.

  “Hey, Dev. It’s Walker. Sorry to wake you, but I’ve got a situation on my hands, and I need your help.”

  Devon read the seriousness between the lines of his fellow Ranger’s words, digesting them in a blink. Kellan Walker was a friend, a brother. If the guy needed backup, Devon was in, no questions asked.

  “You straight at the fire house?” he asked. Kellan had channeled his adrenaline into fighting fires after they’d gotten out of the Army three years ago. Funny, really, that Devon put out fires, too—just that the heat he dealt with while freelancing private security jobs was a lot more figurative than literal.

  “Yeah. This is actually a family thing. Not about me. Well, not directly, anyway.”

  Devon took in the intel, keeping his surprise to himself. “Copy that. What’s going on?”

  “Please tell me you’re still out there in BFE.” Kellan’s voice stretched thin, barely covering the words.

  “I’m crashing in Montana, not outer Mongolia,” Devon said for the sake of clarity. After all, he and Kellan had done no less than a dozen ops in places more remote than Surrender, Montana, and Devon couldn’t help it that his sister Cat had ended up marrying the town doc here. There were worse corners of the world to kill time between jobs with MacKenzie Security, and he and Kellan had been to most of them. “But if that’s what you mean, then yeah, I’m still in the zip code.”

  His buddy exhaled a hard breath. “Thank fucking God. You remember my sister Kylie, right?”

  “Yeah. Of course.” Probably five years had passed since Devon had met her when he’d hung with Kellan on R and R, but between her smart mouth and her tough-girl demeanor, Kylie would be difficult to forget. Especially since she and her brother were tight, to boot.

  “I just got a phone call from her. She’s been working at some dive bar in Grant’s Pass for the last six months.”

  Devon’s mind spun in calculated thought. “I passed through the town on my way here a few weeks ago. It’s about an hour from Surrender.” Not much to write home about, if he remembered right. And he always did.

  “Well, that puts you a hell of a lot closer than me.” Kellan paused. “She’s jammed up pretty bad, Dev.”

  Shit. “How bad?”

  “Bad enough to call me and ask for help for the first time in our lives. She witnessed a local drug dealer by the name of Xavier Fagan murder her boss, and then the guy came after her.”

  “Jesus,” Devon breathed. “Where is she now?”

  “Safe,” Kellan said, and didn’t that explain why the guy hadn’t gone completely over the edge in the re-telling. “She managed to get away from Fagan, but she says the guy is no joke. Apparently he’s really well connected, all the way up to the Feds.”

  On second thought, “shit” wasn’t even in the same hemisphere as this. “So she can’t call the cops.”

  Kellan murmured an affirmative, followed by a couple of nasty curse words. “Exactly. I got her about fifty miles from Grant’s Pass, and she’s safe for now, but the first flight out of North Carolina doesn’t leave until oh-seven-forty my time.”

  “Which won’t put you in BFE until nightfall.” Commercial flight across the country was a bitch and a half. The drive from the airport to Surrender? Even worse. “So how do you want to run this?”

  Kellan paused, his normally unshakeable demeanor sounding like someone had taken a whack at it with a tire iron. “Do you think you can sit on her and just make sure she’s okay ’til I can get there tonight? Kylie’s
tough, and I’ve got her holed up pretty tight off the grid…”

  Devon frowned, running a hand over his dark blond high and tight. “But?”

  “But she’s my kid sister, and you’re the nearest resident badass,” Kellan said. “Fagan sounds like a nasty son of a bitch. I’d feel better knowing you’ve got eyes on her until I can get there.”

  “Then I guess I’d better get eyes on her ASAP.” Devon tossed the sheet off his hips, skinning into the pair of jeans he’d left on top of his duffel at the foot of the bed.

  “Thanks, man.” Relief marked his buddy’s words, but Devon didn’t even break stride in the search for his bruised and battered work boots. Everything he did, he did full throttle. Plus, he owed Kellan, and not a little.

  And since Devon’s biggest fuck-up had nearly cost both their lives, the least he could do was get his ass out of bed and prove his worth by looking after the guy’s little sister.

  “No sweat,” Devon said, covering his shrug first with a white T-shirt, then his shoulder holster. Hell, he had a sister, too. As tough as Kellan’s might be, Devon got the guy’s need to look out for his family. “I’m awake, and you need backup. What’s Kylie’s location?”

  Kellan released a slow breath over the phone line. “She stopped at the El Monaco Motel about an hour outside of Grant’s Pass, room 202. She’s driving a red Mustang with California plates. I told her not to open the door for anyone, no matter what.”

  Easy enough. “I’ll head out there, see what I can see.”

  “Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.”

  “You give her a code word so she’ll know I’m a friendly?” The last thing Devon needed was to have Kylie panic—or worse yet, run—in a case of mistaken identity.

  “I wasn’t sure if I’d get you, but tell her you’re there to deliver the jelly donuts. That’s my code word, so she’ll know you’re solid.”

  Under different circumstances, Devon would be tempted to give his buddy a ration of shit over his choice of code words. But they had a job to do, someone to protect, so this shit would have to wait. “Copy that.”

  “Her cell reception’s pretty crappy, but I’ll try her back to let her know you’re coming. And Dev?”

  “Yeah?” he asked, switching to his Bluetooth device so he could use both hands on the job they were meant for.

  “Do me a favor and watch your six, would you?” Kellan asked. “On the off chance Fagan gets lucky enough to find her, he won’t hesitate to hurt her. Or worse.”

  For the first time in ages, Devon let loose with a smile, triple checking the clip in his SIG before turning to get his backup nine millimeter from its hidey hole under the bathroom sink.

  “Trust me, Walker. I’m on my toes. Your sister will be safe with me ’til you get here. I swear it.”

  The El Monaco Motel turned out to be twenty rooms of stop and fuck about a mile off the highway. After doing a drive-by to give himself a mental map of his surroundings, Devon parked his year-old Dodge Challenger around the back of the place, sinking low in his leather jacket as he walked the perimeter. The motel was a good thirty minutes closer to Surrender than Grant’s Pass, but then again, distance was different all the way out here. The open stretches of land, the way the remote plains and uninhabited landscape unfurled on an endless loop, reminded Devon of a less dusty version of Afghanistan.

  If you move, I will kill your friend.

  “Knock it off,” he muttered, shaking himself back to the here and now. Stepping so his shit-kickers remained silent on the cracked pavement, he scanned the space in front of him from left to right. Two-story motel, ten rooms up top, ten ground level. Points of entry open to either an outdoor walkway or the front parking lot itself. Six vehicles in the lot beneath the blue neon sign boasting rooms for the night or by the hour, three pickup trucks, a newer-looking SUV, a rust-encrusted Toyota…

  And what do you know? A red Mustang with California plates.

  “Hmmm.” Devon moved toward the vehicle, his eyes taking a quick tour of the empty interior. He flattened his palm on the hood, swinging his gaze up to the door marked 202 in cheap, reflective numbers.

  The car was still warm. Kylie was here, but she hadn’t been for long.

  “Don’t fucking move.”

  The purposely roughed-up voice came from behind, accompanied by a steely nudge that told Devon he had his work cut out for him. Goddamn it, now he was going to have to break someone’s kneecaps before the sun even came up.

  Bright side was, at least he’d get a workout.

  “All right,” Devon said, lifting his hands to feign submission. “Take it easy. I’m just looking for a friend.”

  “A friend.” The voice dripped with sarcasm, but there was something weird about the disguised tone, something Devon couldn’t quite place. The figure came into view in the reflection of the windshield for just a split second, but it was all he needed to gain the advantage. Spinning around, he wound his arm over the guy’s above the elbow, capturing both his arm and his weapon in one decisive move as he pulled the guy forward…

  And realized he wasn’t a guy at all.

  “Ow! Oh my God, get off of me.” The woman’s chest, which was now all sorts of up close and personal with Devon’s, expanded with a brewing scream, and he reached out to clap his free palm over her mouth before she woke the dead.

  “Kylie?”

  Her wild stare widened, unnaturally blue beneath the neon and moonlight, but she didn’t stop struggling.

  Jesus Christ. “Kylie, hey, take it easy. Your brother sent me. He—”

  Searing pain shot through his middle finger, and he whipped his hand back from her mouth as a low oath launched past his own. “Did you just bite me?”

  The venomous look on her face answered his question, lickety split. “My brother didn’t tell me he was sending anybody.”

  Damn it, Kellan must not have been able to reach her after he and Devon had gotten off the phone. “Cell service is for shit out here. He called me forty minutes ago, right after he got off the phone with you. I guess he couldn’t get you again.”

  “And you just happened to be in the area? I don’t buy it. Who sent you?”

  Devon’s brows shot upward. “You do realize that I’m holding you, right?” He squeezed the arm he had on lockdown, not hard enough to hurt her, but with enough pressure to punctuate the message.

  “I can still scream,” Kylie said, her breasts lifting against the stupid-low neckline of her T-shirt.

  His hand—which was bleeding, for fuck’s sake—clapped back over her mouth in an instant. “If I wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it six times by now. So do you want to do me a favor and let me help you like I promised Kellan I would? He said he sent me to deliver the jelly donuts.”

  At the sound of her brother’s name and the code word he’d clearly given her, she stilled, her dark brows drawing in tight. “How do you know my brother?” she asked as soon as he lifted his fingers again.

  “We were in the Army together. Afghanistan. Uruzgan Province. He’s a hell of a sniper.” It was an understatement, but the details worked to keep her from screaming her head off. “I actually met you five years ago in San Fran.”

  Half their team had done that R and R together, and they’d only spent one night of that around Kylie, throwing back beers at the local bar where she’d worked. It was a last-ditch to expect she’d remember him.

  Even though Devon sure as hell remembered her.

  “Wait…” Kylie’s eyes took a tour of his face, narrowing to near slits before springing wide. “Devon? Holy shit, is that you?”

  He eased his hold on her at the same time her muscles loosened beneath his grasp. “Yeah. It’s me.”

  “Oh my God, I didn’t even recognize you. You look…” She straightened, clapping her mouth shut instead of finishing her sentence. Not that Devon couldn’t fill in the blanks.

  He knew damn well how much harder around the edges he’d grown since the last time he’d seen her. Jus
t like he knew damn well what had caused the change.

  Kylie wrapped her arms around herself, taking a step back on the pavement. “When is Kellan coming?”

  “It’s going to take him at least half a day to get out this far. Until then, I promised to keep an eye on you.”

  “I don’t need any help,” she said, hiking her chin despite the waver in her voice, and yeah. Whatever paces Fagan had put her through tonight were clearly bad enough to come with an adrenaline letdown. Still, Devon needed to keep her safe, and that wasn’t going to happen if she went around trying to be all Brenda Badass in dark parking lots.

  “Uh huh. You’ve obviously cornered the market on assaulting people with—” He paused just long enough to spare a glance at the weapon he’d heard fall to the ground when he’d grabbed her, and seriously? This shit was too good to make up. “A Maglite.”

  “It was all I had in my car,” Kylie groused. “Anyway, you’re lucky it’s the smaller version, or I’d have cracked you over the head with it.”

  Guess she had a point there. “Do you want to tell me why you’re jumping people in the parking lot of the No-Tell Motel at three a.m.?” Devon asked, releasing her arm and taking a step back to look at her.

  “First of all, I didn’t jump you. Secondly, you’re the one who was poking around my car.”

  Kylie bent down to scoop up the discarded flashlight, stuffing it into her oversized purse and knotting her arms over her chest as she pushed back to standing. A swath of dark hair had fallen loose from the disheveled ponytail at her crown, cloaking her eyes in shadow. Her high cheekbones and lush, sassy mouth were on fully display though, and as Devon slid his gaze lower to take in her skimpy T-shirt, the flat slope of bare skin between the red cotton and the top of her jeans, and her legs that went on for days, he swallowed hard in realization.

  Kylie might be Kellan’s little sister, but she was one hundred percent grown woman.