Sweet One (Titan Book 8) Page 4

  “Traumatic brain injuries, what we call TBI, directly affect vision. We need to see how it’s affected your sight.”

  His chest puffed out. “It hasn’t.”

  “And we’ll know when we have the exam. Balance is also a concern. We have—”

  “Nothing has changed.” If it had, his career was over. The bile at the back of his throat climbed higher. His hands clammed up, and Nicola’s grip tightened until he realized he was hanging on to her with everything he had. “My eyesight is perfect. Give me a week or two, and I’ll belly-crawl a tightrope.”

  Dr. Lobani nodded. “To ensure that, let’s stay on the safe side for now. No high visual stimulus: no TV, limit your cell-phone usage unless you need to make the call, and don’t stare at the screen. No tablets, no movie theaters.”

  “Well, jeez, Doc. What is it that you suggest I do?”

  “Relax with your wife. Take a vacation before—”

  Nicola sputtered into a coughing fit. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Sorry. We can do that.”

  The doctor nodded. “Go lie on a beach.”

  Peachy… from action hero to a lump of nothing in the sand.

  ***

  “What aren’t you telling me?” He tugged her closer. It was enough to feel like a damn invalid, shuffling around the hospital, having his wife treat him with kid gloves, having the entire damn team act as though his mind would turn to mush if he so much as sneezed, but there was more, and he was done with the dance.

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit, Nic.” They pushed into the cafeteria. “Everyone’s got an eye on me.”

  “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  They grabbed two chairs and settled down. “Are you hungry?”

  Her face twisted. “No. But you have to be. What do you want? I’ll get it.”

  “Nic. Sit.”

  She flitted and doted to the point where she might as well have donned nurses’ scrubs. “Seriously. I’m going to take care of you.”

  “Sit down, Nicola.”

  “Cash—”

  “I can get my food. I can get yours. Nothing like that is going to change because I was hit on the damn head. Christ.”

  Toying with the edge of her shirt, she shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not hungry. I was just trying to help.”

  “I get the recovery thing. But I’m not helpless.” Everyone acting as if he was a wounded warrior when there were actual wounded warriors in this place was driving him mad.

  “I know.”

  “And there’s something everyone’s not telling me.”

  Her eyes shifted.

  “Damn it.” He groaned. “If they’re benching me indefinitely—man.” Cash pushed out of his chair. “Fuck this. I’m going to find Jared.”

  “Wait.”

  He turned toward the cafeteria’s exit sign. “His ass is around here somewhere.”

  “Cash, hold on.”

  Between the nonstop post-freakin’-coma headache and dealing with this shit, his head was going to explode. The pounding at his temples was literally jumping. If Nicola looked closely enough, she could probably see his veins bulging. She snagged his hand, easily catching up because, damn it, he couldn’t escape nearly as fast as he needed to.

  “Wait.”

  “No.” He brushed her off. “The conversation needs to be had.”

  Nicola pulled him hard, tugging him through a door that led to an outside garden. The cool air slowed him down and forced him to take a break, but it would only last for a shock of a second. His little thing of a wife was able to push him around. Thank you, damn TBI. This shit was going to drive him insane. However fast they said he’d rebound, it wasn’t going to be fast enough.

  Cash put his hands on her shoulders. “Good looking out, but I’m going to talk to him.”

  “That’s not it.” Her deep-chocolate eyes were wide, almost scared, but something more. Excited? Fearful? His brain couldn’t connect the dots to figure out what.

  Nicola put her palms on his stomach and ran them up his chest, encircling his neck, and hugging him.

  “Fuck, Nic. You’re starting to scare me.” What am I missing? He wondered if he had amnesia. Maybe he was off Titan. Maybe he’d dreamt the whole thing about marrying Nicola. Maybe his life sucked, and it wasn’t this grand, perfect thing that he’d forced himself to wake up for.

  She put her chin on his sternum and stared up, blond hair framing the face that he’d crawled through the darkness to come back to. “Don’t be scared.”

  “Nicola?”

  “I’m pregnant. We’re having a baby.”

  Shivers ran down his neck and spine. He blew out a breath as tears stung his eyes. “You’re pregnant, sweet girl?”

  She nodded into his chest, her eyes glistening.

  “Oh my God.”

  “You had to come home to us.” Her whispers ended with tears. “And you did.”

  His mind couldn’t find the words, but his body responded, and he engulfed her as completely as he could. The hug held the sentiment. He buried his lips into her hair. A tear escaped, then another, and he breathed her in, knowing that everything in the entire world had just changed.

  They clung in love, in tears, in relief, together, forever, before he took a deep breath. “You’re okay? Everything’s… okay?”

  She nodded. “I’m not very far along, but yeah.”

  “Good.”

  Her smile beamed as her eyebrow went up. “You’re going to be a daddy.”

  “Wow.” Just… holy shit. There were no words. “And that’s what everyone knows?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

  He laughed. “I’m sure concussive waves and comas threw off your big announcement plans.”

  “Yes!” She smiled and snuggled into him. “Exactly.”

  “So what now?”

  “Now I think we talk about your rehab. I’m off job. You’re off job.”

  Cash grumbled.

  Nicola rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. So here’s an idea. What if…?”

  “I’m going to hate it, aren’t I?”

  “Maybe.” She smiled and bounced on her toes. “But don’t say no at first.”

  “No way!”

  Nic smacked his chest. “Cash!”

  “Easy! They said to avoid reinjury.”

  “Lord. Glad you didn’t lose your humor.”

  He took her hand, threading fingers with hers. “Tell me.”

  “There’s a great place. It’s cute, quiet—”

  “Totally my kind of place.” He smirked.

  “Jared has a beach house in South Carolina. It’s near a good rehab place, and there’s a great OB nearby. Let’s go to the beach.”

  He couldn’t get back on the job. His mind was ten shades of fuzzy, and his muscles took more than a lazy-man’s second to do as ordered, and his wife wanted to relax by the beach. It fit with the doctor’s orders—lie low, sleep as much as possible—but damn if it didn’t feel as though someone was reaching over to take back his warrior card.

  This wasn’t living at the beach the way a SEAL might train for the battle zone. His career teetered, the idea of the beach house strangling him and shifting him one step closer to a forced retirement. But Nicola batted those beautiful eyelashes, and his mind couldn’t process the words needed to debate her.

  He stepped closer, terrified of too many things: that nothing would readjust back to normal, that she would see him as damaged, that this grinding self-doubt—feelings he had never had an inkling of before—wouldn’t dissipate. “Just for a few months.”

  “Promise!” Nicola bounced onto her toes and kissed him.

  His soul sighed. That—this—her. She was what he needed. If his mind couldn’t keep up, his body didn’t care, and kissing her was easier than breathing. Cash gripped Nicola to him, craving more than those stupid little hi-how-are-you kisses she’d peppered him with in the hospital.

  His tongue slid across the seam of her lips,
and her instant bounce of excitement melted against him. “Sweet girl.”

  She nodded, apparently needing this as much as he wanted to taste her. Fuck it. Who cared if there were cameras in the courtyard? She opened her mouth, and his tongue touched hers.

  Nicola ran her hands to his cheeks and into his hair, tightening her fingers, tugging at the strands, forcing him to kiss her harder. His chest tightened, and his head went dizzy—not in a TBI kind of way but because Nicola was his drug, and it’d been way too long since he’d had a hit.

  Cash pulled back. They needed to get the hell out of the hospital. Jesus. His erection would split his pants if he didn’t pull back. She clung to him, her eyes praying for more, her lips parted and panting.

  “Cash Garrison.”

  He raised an eyebrow and tilted his chin up, not sure he had the voice to say anything but I love you.

  “You kiss like a god.”

  “I love you.” Why even hold it back? “The beach house it is. You and me and nothing to do but each other.”

  Her lust-drunk eyes went wide, her lips parted farther, and she nodded slightly.

  “I can’t wait.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Twat Waffle.” Michael Mackerel, the junior IT analyst behind Billy, clapped. “Throw me that pen, would you?”

  “It’s literally two feet away, and you can’t call me that.” The rest of those morons who couldn’t find a reset button to save their medical-degreed lives apparently could call him that. But a fellow IT guy, newbie, and soon-to-be replacement? He couldn’t.

  Mackerel laughed. “Right on, brother. Get your briefs in a bunch. Do what you’re good at.”

  “Screw it.” Bill had no less than seven more Gianori documentaries to watch, and even with earbuds in, Mackerel was going to cramp his learning curve. “I’ll have my pager on me.”

  “Fight the good fight.” He chuckled then whispered, “Twat Waffle.”

  “God!” Billy slammed his work papers down and rushed him, both hands out, grabbing a shirt. He just couldn’t take it anymore. He was going postal. If only they’d given him a goddamn weapon. But they hadn’t. So he bit into Mackerel’s shoulder.

  Slam.

  Billy went up. Then down. His head spun. Everything went dark, then he saw stars.

  “Shit,” he moaned, grabbing for his head. God. He touched his back. Everything hurt.

  Mackerel laughed. “Dude. How’d you even make it in this place?”

  Billy rolled over, seventy-five percent sure he’d bruised the backside of a kidney, and coughed. “Asshole.”

  All Billy wanted was to get free of his commitment to Uncle Sam. He pushed off the ground, snagged his laptop to the sound of Mackerel’s laughter, and rushed out. Billy had banked documentation and had spent the last day spying on Room 6806. He had enough information to fire off a communication to the Gianori mob.

  Not that he was initially sure how to do that. He thought about leaving a cryptic message on Facebook, a vague blog post, or a comment on an Instagram pic. Surely, one of the Gianoris had an email address, but it was likely monitored. Billy needed to be stealthy and think like a criminal. Maybe they’d pay him for his research or offer him a job. No, that was thinking too big, too… corporate.

  But people like the Gianori clan, according to everything he’d seen in twenty-two hours of documentary video, paid their informants well. Billy could finally have cash and respect. Maybe the Gianoris could kill off his urge to go postal in this hospital. Selling what he knew about Nicola Hart would actually save lives.

  For the first time, Billy had something to look forward to. He hugged his laptop to his chest and skipped to a private conference room, barely ignoring someone who called out, “Watch out, there’s a twat waffle crossing.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Billy passed the room of Nicola Hart Garrison—otherwise known as his meal ticket— twice before he had the nerve to set up another “accidental” meeting. Learning her new last name had been harder than expected. He’d had to tap into medical files, bypassing several layers of security that his employer had in place, and only by chance stumbled upon a Garrison, C. on the corner of an MRI in a classified, unnamed medical folder. Someone had fucked up, and that was a big win for Billy. Thank you very much. He leaned into the room and—

  Empty. No strewn clothes, no sign of a woman living next to her husband in a hospital bed.

  “Shit.” Billy ground his molars and rolled a pen between his fingers in his pocket. Why hadn’t he hurried up his investigation instead of watching hours upon hours of investigative reporting into the Gianori mob?

  He paced the small space, letting the fresh fumes of bleach abrade his nose. No one had ever accused him of being a great reporter… but if he wanted to play Sherlock, what would he do next?

  First, find Nicola Hart Garrison.

  His shoes squeaked as he power-walked down the halls, almost ignoring the trail of Twat Waffles that followed him. All his life, people had made fun of him. Joining the Army hadn’t helped. The assholes. All he’d done was join a crew where the bullies congregated. Well, he wouldn’t be living much longer among the morons.

  He squeaked around another corner and descended the stairs into IT’s basement lair, passing the cool kids’ front offices and proceeding to the back dungeon, where he was supposed to just work on fixing mindless programs. But now he had free rein to Google Nicola Hart Garrison.

  He found nothing under that name, so he tried Nicola Hart.

  A slew of mob articles and obituaries dating from years ago, and a few descriptions of real-life TV movies that looked to be real tearjerkers popped on his screen. Little did they know she was still alive!

  Nicola Garrison was his next search term, and again, he found nothing. He typed in “C. Garrison.” And that was interesting. The Titan Group. Billy clicked onto their website.

  Titan Group is a contract-based private security firm with superior security and technology consultants. It provides confidential for-hire assistance, ranging from paramilitary operations to law enforcement to hostage negotiation to rescue operations. Titan specializes in unstable conflicts. It is a privately held company.

  Well, damn. He tingled all over, knowing that he stood on the edge of his mobster payout and post-military retirement plan. Hell, call it his post-fuck-the-military plan. This was better than going postal if whatever dots he could connect were actually worth the effort.

  Billy clicked on Clients from the drop-down menu. The list made his eyes go money-bags wide: CIA, DIA, MI6, NSA, and on and on…

  Over the next five minutes, Billy fell down the rabbit hole that was the Internet, searching all things Titan Group. Finally, he took a deep breath and entered one more search term: Gianori Lawyer. Billy had a deal to make with the devil, and since they likely didn’t list their contact info in the Yellow Pages, their lawyer would be the next best thing.

  ***

  Alfie Accardi stared at the desk phone in his expensive Boston office, waiting for the Feds to bum-rush the expensive door separating him from the rest of his law firm. Time ticked.

  No Feds. No callbacks from what had to be the biggest goddamn moron Alfie had ever spoken to. But… he tapped his fingers on the edge of the lacquered desk. The moron had interesting things to say, things the Gianori would pay to know.

  Which was exactly what Billy the Moron had implied. If that was even his real name—given how ridiculously stupid the phone call had been, Alfie would bet money that the man’s name really was Billy Tway.

  Acting on the information wasn’t the issue. The question wasn’t whether to act but how. The Gianoris paid him handsomely to protect their interests. A key witness in Emilio Gianori’s prosecution a little more than ten or twelve years ago—that was big news. Acting on it would be bigger.

  He rubbed his smooth cheeks and contemplated how, or if, the exchange of information and payout should be handled. Billy the Moron had tipped his hand and basically given all of his information wh
ile Alfie had remained quiet. The ignoramus couldn’t stop talking.

  At this point, it might be best to let him continue to dig his own grave. The Gianoris had complete deniability, and Billy was hungry to prove himself—a military man of some nature. He could do the dirty work; it sounded as though he already wanted to anyway.

  “Eh…” Alfie debated the thought aloud. But the mob loved their revenge. Junior would want his chance at Nicola Hart Garrison, who was alive and well and married. He punched the intercom for his assistant. “Vicky, get Junior lined up for lunch at Vito’s today.”

  If nothing else, they’d get a piece of cheesecake, drink a little espresso, and talk about where to hide a body. Like old times. It’d been too long since they’d had one of these chats. Or they could do the practical thing and outsource the job. Time was money… maybe there was a variation that Junior might want to discuss.

  Alfie tapped on his desk again, spun the gold cufflink on his shirt before shaking out his sleeve, and punched the intercom for Vicky. “Get me everything you know on Billy Tway. Family. Friends. Military. Rank. Discharge. Where does a grunt like him find a fuck and who would attend his funeral?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Even for summer, the weather was colder than Billy had expected for Boston. He was free. No military code. No army assholes. No orders. No “Twat Waffle.” He could go where he wanted and do what he needed, which at the moment was wait for a phone call that his gut said would come. Today was the day.

  Until he heard from the lawyer, he’d need to live off the dollar menu at any burger joint he could find. Savings and his pension wouldn’t land him on a private island. Gianori money would.

  As he was ordering a burger and small fries, his phone rang. He took a seat and—yes! This was the call. He cleared his throat, aiming to look serious and deadly, but he got a weird look from a kid sitting nearby who would clearly grow up to call others names like Twat Waffle.

  “Jerk,” Billy mouthed before saying, “Hello?”