Read Online Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three by Alexi Lawless - Free Book Online

Carey shook his head. “Sam doesn’t run. She won’t. She’d rather face Lightner on her own turf than leave it to chance.”
    Wes wanted to argue, but he knew Carey was right. Samantha Wyatt may be a lot of things, but a coward was definitely not one of them. She’d never live life on the lam from anyone.
    “We should take her back to Texas as soon as the doctors can allow, and focus on fortifying for what’s to come,” Alejo said to Carey. “With the injuries Lightner’s sustained and the fact that Rox has sealed off access to most of his resources, I give him two months at minimum before he can respond with any kind of show of force. Probably longer, and by then, we’ll be more than ready.”
    “Where is Rox now?” Wes asked.
    “She’s narrowing down the leads on Lightner as we speak.”.
    Carey was silent a moment before he said, “If you’re still in service, man, there’s no way you can take that kind of time off to watch over Sam.”
    Alejo shrugged. “Let me worry about that.”
    Carey considered him a moment. “You work with my men. My team.”
    “With pleasure,” Alejo responded, his cocky, characteristic smirk back. “I’ll whip them into line for you.”
    Wes recalled the constant locking of horns though. She and Alejo mixed like oil and water. Always had. “You exacerbate Sam’s condition or rile her up in any way—”
    “Wyatt and I may never like each other, but she’s the best damn partner I’ve ever had, and I bet you she’d say the same about me.”
    Carey glanced at Wes for confirmation. “It’s true,” Wes admitted begrudgingly. “When they weren’t tearing strips of flesh off each other in ROTC, they were annihilating everyone else in the Corps. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
    For a moment, the sardonic cockiness that seemed to pervade Alejo’s every expression disappeared as he regarded Carey somberly. “You can trust me with Sam, Carey. You have my word on that.”
    After a moment, Carey extended his hand. “Swear it on your sister’s life.”
    Alejandro gripped his hand, steel in his obsidian dark eyes. “I swear on Rox’s life. We protect our own.”

Chapter 4

    December
    Asklepios Klinik Barmbek, Hamburg, Germany
    J A C K
    T hey say the first twenty-four hours in rehab are the hardest. Jack had no concept of time, space, location—he was just a mass of twisting, writhing pain.
    When Carey had checked him in, the rehab had offered all manner of options to help him through the worst of it. But Jack held fast as he signed the paperwork with a shaking hand, certain he should relinquish himself to the excruciating throes.
    There’d be no easy way out. Not for him. He needed the agony— wanted it. Because he’d done everything to deserve it.
    “Why are you punishing yourself like this?” Carey asked Jack as he was gripped with a convulsion so strong, he’d nearly slid to the floor of the check-in.
    “I can’t do this again,” Jack muttered through gritted teeth. “I need to remember what this feels like—I need the pain to get through it—”
    And he did.
    Jack figured it was far better to hold on to this palpable, living anguish being scourged from inside of him than the numb sorrow and helplessness he’d been existing in since losing Samantha in Rio. He’d allowed himself to get too distant from the acuity of living in his melancholia. And now he’d have to experience reentry into existence in the most vicious and difficult way possible.
    No more anaesthetized indifference. No more careless insensibility. No more cutting himself off from feeling too much, too painfully—
    “FUCK!” he shouted into his pillow as pins and needles seemed to distend themselves from his skin. “Oh, Christ—Jesus— fuck—”
    Jack twisted and turned in the hospital bed, sweating profusely but still shaking like a leaf on a frozen tree. He could find no relief as the waves of withdrawal hit him in droves, beating against him, relentless, powerful,