Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three by Alexi Lawless Page B

he’d adored was warm and loving and enchanting, and the provocative queen she’d become was as cold and hard as a cut diamond. Had he taken the light from her eyes? Wes wondered again. Because the very thought of that—the realization that he’d had a big hand in changing her from the lovely young thing she was to the damaged, unhappy soul she was now made him want to commit hara-kiri . He didn’t know how long he sat there, brooding, watching over her as she slept. The one thing he did know was that he wasn’t going to run away again. If he’d done this to her—he had to make it right. He had to find a way to help her heal. A small penance for a terrible betrayal. He wasn’t the best man. Hell, Wes wasn’t certain he was good at all—but he loved her, and Sammy deserved better than what he’d left her with.
    When the nurses finally kicked him out of her room to check on her IV drips and give her a sponge bath, Wes wondered back out into the hall. Alejandro stood by himself, leaning against the wall, his booted feet crossed at the ankles.
    “Never thought I’d lay eyes on you again,” Wes admitted. He’d never particularly cared for the guy, but Alejo and Sam had been partners in ROTC, so they’d always had a sort of you-stay-over-there and I’ll-stay-over-here sort of wariness toward each other.
    “Likewise,” Alejo inclined his head.
    “How’s Rita?” Wes asked, more out of politeness than anything. Marguerite Ramos, Alejo and Rox’s cousin, had been Sam’s college roommate and best friend. The two were inseparable, two peas in a pod. Rita’s sass and sexiness had balanced out Sam’s buttoned-up seriousness in school. She’d been a firecracker, and Wes hadn’t laid eyes on her since he was an undergrad, when Rita and Sam had both entered the Navy.
    Alejandro looked away, his expression turning hard and cold. “She was pinned down in Tikrit in 2011.”
    “Jesus,” Wes muttered, wiping a hand down his face, grief biting through him. “Just before the U.S. withdrew from Iraq?”
    Alejo gave a curt nod. “Two more months and Rita would have been riding out the remainder of her service at a naval base in Hawaii.”
    “Goddamn, I’m sorry, man,” Wes told him sincerely. “Your cousin was a good one. I always liked her.”
    “She had no love for you though, asshole,” Alejo replied with a ghost of a smile. “After you bailed on Sam, she always swore she’d hunt you down and cut off your cojones .”
    “Sounds exactly like her.”
    “That’s partly why I’m here,” Alejo responded. “Wyatt did Rita and me a solid a few years back.”
    “For Roxy, your little sister?” Wes asked.
    Alejo nodded.
    “And Rox is going after Lightner now?”
    Carey turned down the hallway before Alejandro could answer, heading toward them and holding a fresh cup of coffee. Evan and Talon were nowhere in sight.
    “She good?” Carey asked, nodding toward Sam’s hospital door.
    “Out like a light,” Wes confirmed.
    “Good. Don’t want her suffering any more than she already has.” Carey turned to Alejandro. “So what did you have in mind for Sammy?”
    “Rox told me a bit about Lightner’s M.O. I don’t think he’s going to be brash enough to come after Sam outright, unless she’s a sitting duck in a place like this,” Alejo continued, gesturing toward Sam’s hospital room. “He’ll come at her sideways, like he did before, by kidnapping you in Rio or Jack in London. The good news is that Rox managed to put two slugs in him. But we don’t know where he is or who’s helping him, so I think it’s best to get Sam barricaded somewhere safe while she heals.”
    “The ranch,” Carey immediately told him. “We should take her back to Wyatt Ranch.”
    “There’s another option,” Wes offered. “I could take her and hide her anywhere in the world. Once she’s well enough, we could stay on the move for as long as we need to until you find that piece of shit and off him.”
    “No,”