Solitary Soldier

IT TOOK A FULL ten seconds for the words Rachel Larson uttered to fully assimilate in Sloan’s brain. His gaze shifted to the dark-haired boy seated a couple of tables away. As if feeling Sloan’s gaze on him, the boy looked up. Wide, curious eyes stared back at Sloan. The same black eyes that haunted Sloan whenever he tried to sleep without getting half wasted first. A tremor started someplace deep inside him, like an earthquake before it reaches the surface of the earth. Sloan’s right hand shook and he curled his fingers into a tight fist. Something dark and ugly filtered through Sloan’s mind, but he pushed it away.

This was Angel’s son. Sloan didn’t need to see a birth certificate; the proof was written all over the boy’s face. He was a mirror image of his father. Sloan averted his gaze and blinked to dispel the image that somehow evolved into a full-grown version of Angel. Sloan reminded himself that this was only a child, innocent of his father’s heinous crimes.

“What do you want?” Sloan heard himself say, his voice so cold and hard that he barely recognized it as his own.

“I need your help,” she repeated, her tone low and pleading.

Sloan blew out a breath. “Yeah, well, you said that already.” He leveled his gaze on huge brown eyes that made his gut clench with an old feeling that was familiar yet alien to the man he had become. He squashed the protective instincts that rose automatically at the sight of this needy young woman and her son…. Angel’s son.

Sloan swallowed. Hard.

“Exactly what kind of help is it that you think you need from me, Miss…”

“Rachel Larson,” she told him again.

Sloan studied the woman as she worked up the nerve to spell out what she wanted from him. She was a real looker if a guy liked his woman a little on the skinny side. From the dark circles under her eyes though, Sloan would lay odds that she didn’t sleep long or often. But all that thick brown hair hanging around her shoulders was her saving grace…and the lips. She had those full, kissable lips that any man breathing would lust after. The blouse and long flowing skirt were too loose and concealing to determine if there were any curves at all hidden beneath them. Strappy sandals with sensible heels adorned her feet. It wasn’t until his gaze collided with hers again that Sloan realized she hadn’t spoken yet because she was too busy fighting the urge to turn tail and run. His blatant appraisal had seriously disturbed her shaky bravado.

“No matter where we go,” she finally burst out, then caught herself. She took a calming breath. A combination of frustration and fear danced across her pretty face. “Or how many times we move, he always finds us.” She clasped the shoulder strap of her bag more tightly. “The last time he found us he told me that he was tired of my running and that very soon he was going to take Josh…and…and then he would have no further use for me.” She blinked furiously to hold back the tears threatening. “I don’t know what else to do. You’re our only hope.”

Sloan mentally stepped back from what every instinct urged him to feel. He refused to feel any of this. It was a hell of a sad story but it had nothing to do with him. Angel’s former lovers held no interest for Sloan. Besides, this sounded too good to be true. That someone Angel might care about, with his son in tow, would waltz into Los Laureles looking for Sloan’s help seemed a bit too pat. This had setup written all over it. Still, she had said that Victoria sent her.

“Sounds like a domestic problem to me, Miss Larson,” he suggested, testing the waters of sincerity. Sloan pressed her with a steely glare intended to intimidate. “And I’m no social worker.” She faltered, but didn’t scurry away as he fully expected.

“I don’t need a social worker,” she said with determination, and a hefty dose of bitterness. “I need someone who can protect my son from Angel.”

Still skeptical, Sloan cocked his head and eyed her speculatively. “Call a cop,” he offered.

The flash of anger that brightened her eyes took Sloan by surprise. He almost smiled, but he was too busy watching the metamorphosis in Rachel Larson.

“You know the police can’t help me,” she returned with barely controlled fury.

“Then tell me, Miss Larson,” he goaded. “What is it you think I can do that the police can’t.”

The look that passed between them proved immensely more telling than the words that followed. “Angel will come for his son. I want you to do whatever it takes to stop him.”

A long silence followed, but her fiery gaze never wavered. She was dead serious, Sloan realized then. Rachel Larson wanted him to do the one thing he had longed to have the opportunity to do for seven endless years. She wanted him to kill Gabriel DiCassi.

Time had not dulled his fierce desire for vengeance, only the urgency of it. His wife and son were dead. Nothing could change that. Sloan set his jaw hard against the paralyzing emotions that wanted to surface even now, after all this time. The finality had crashed down around him long ago, after almost a year of nonstop searching for Angel. Grief and the need to avenge his wife and son had kept him looking when everyone else had given up. The realization that nothing he did would matter, it sure as hell wouldn’t bring them back, hit him eventually. Then there was nothing. He stopped feeling anything at all.

But now anticipation surged anew through Sloan’s veins. The mere notion of killing Angel made him almost giddy. His gaze traveled back to the boy. The woman was even providing the perfect bait. How far would a piece of crap like Angel be willing to go for his own son? A strange calm settled over Sloan then. He knew just how far any man would go. And he wouldn’t have to do anything but wait Angel out. Long buried sensations bombarded Sloan. A dozen snippets of memory flashed through his mind. He closed his eyes in overwhelming despair when the sound of his son’s cries echoed through his soul. Sloan wanted to kill Angel more than he wanted to draw in his next breath. For the first time, Sloan had the perfect means by which to lure him.

Sloan opened his eyes to the woman standing before him. Self-disgust abruptly made him sick to his stomach. Uncharacteristic moisture stung his eyes. Had he fallen so very far? He shook his head. What kind of man would use a woman and child to assuage his own savage thirst for revenge? Sloan swallowed the answer that welled in his throat, the answer he didn’t want to acknowledge. But it was there, it had always been there. The urge was so strong that Sloan could taste it. Not one doubt had ever existed in his mind that, if given the opportunity, he would do anything, give anything, within his power to make Angel pay for what he had done.

But not this.

He would not use a child. He could not. Not even Angel’s child.

He leveled his gaze on Rachel’s and with his next words affirmed his decision, “I’m not the man you need for the job.”

Sloan walked away without looking back.

He pushed through the swinging doors and into the harsh light of day. He lifted his face to the sun’s warm kiss and drew in a ragged breath. No point wasting any effort on regret. There would be a day of reckoning, he had no doubt. He would take Angel down, Sloan had made that vow long ago. But he would never stoop to Angel’s level to do it. Sloan could not—would not—use a child.

Cool, soft fingers touched Sloan’s arm. He pivoted and glowered down at the woman who had followed him from the cantina.

“I told you I’m not the man for the job,” he growled. The little boy cowered behind his mother now, cautiously peeking past her skirt. Sloan swore under his breath. Now he was scaring small children.

Rachel held her ground, meeting his lethal glare with lead in her own. “You’re the only man for the job,” she insisted with quiet strength.

“Lady, you’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve coming to a place like this.” He gestured at all that surrounded them. “Do you have a clue the kind of men you walked past in there?” He stepped closer to her, putting himself in her personal space now and forcing her to acknowledge his superior physical strength. “Florescitaf is the bottom of the barrel down here. There are sleaze-bags here that would sell their own mother for their next drink. Any one of them could eat you alive and not blink. I’m surprised you made it this far.”

She opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated. “I had to come here,” she said finally. “This is where you are. And I need you.”

Sloan shook his head. Victoria had no business sending this woman and her son to him. He wasn’t a do-gooder anymore. Sloan took the jobs no one else wanted to take. The ones too dangerous for a man who cared whether he lived or died.

“I’m no knight in shining armor, Miss Larson. In fact, I’m so far from it that most women who know my reputation wouldn’t consider themselves safe this close.” He allowed his gaze to rove the length of her once more for good measure. “You’re sure it’s me you’re looking for?”

Uncertain now, she shifted nervously. “Victoria said you’re the best. She said you know Angel.” She licked her full lips. To Sloan’s irritation, he followed the movement with growing interest. “She said,” Rachel continued, “that if there was anyone who could help me, it was you.”

“Like I told you before, Victoria made a mistake.” He started to turn away, but something in those big, pleading eyes stayed him.

“You know what he’ll do,” she murmured. Tears slipped past those long lashes and streamed down her cheeks. “Can you turn your back on us knowing what he’ll do?”

Sloan looked away. He didn’t want to see or hear any of this. He wanted to go back into the cantina and finish off that bottle he left on the bar. He wanted to forget the name Gabriel DiCassi. He wanted to erase the image of this woman and her son from his mind. But he could never do either of those things.

“Josh!”

Sloan jerked his attention back to Rachel. She whirled around, calling her son’s name. Josh was nowhere in sight.

“Oh God, where can he be?” Rachel rushed forward, then hesitated as if unsure which way to go. “He was right behind me…. Josh!”

Sloan’s heart pumped hard in his chest. The vivid memory of endless days and nights of searching for his own son broadsided him with the force of a runaway train. The first moment of realization that his little boy was not at home…not at the neighbor’s…not anywhere. A cold sweat coated Sloan’s skin. The final gut-wrenching instant when he had to admit defeat. His son was dead…murdered. Sloan shuddered, then trembled with remembered pain so sharp that nausea burned the back of his throat.

“Josh!” Rachel cried out, her voice riddled with hysteria and the panic no doubt tightening like a steel band around her chest. She zigzagged in and out of the throngs of people milling from shop to shop.

Siesta had long passed and the streets were filled with shoppers and peddlers going about their business as the heat of the day slowly subsided with the retreating sun. Children played in the alleys and the streets. Dogs barked and sniffed about, looking for handouts. The occasional car horn honked to clear the way as it inched past on the cluttered cobblestone street.

Sloan scanned face after face, each distracted with his or her own agenda. Another handful of children skipped past, chattering and laughing. But none proved to be the one he was searching for.

Josh was gone.

Sloan moved toward Rachel, then caught her by the elbow and pulled her around to face him. He pinned her with a steady gaze, hoping to calm the fear dancing in hers. “Stay right here, out in the open where Josh can see you.” Another tear streaked downward. Before he could stop himself Sloan reached up and swiped that tear from her soft cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I will find him,” he promised, then turned away.

Josh couldn’t have gone far on his own….

Chapter Two

Rachel’s frantic search stalled in the middle of the street. Sloan’s warning to stay where Josh could see her belatedly echoed in her ears. She watched in utter despair as Sloan came out of the last shop empty-handed. Her heart pounded so hard that her chest ached with each heavy thud. She wanted to run through the streets screaming her agony, but her arms and legs felt like useless wooden clubs. This couldn’t be happening. The nightmare she feared most had reached long bony fingers from the blackest depths of her subconscious and climbed into her reality.