Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(98)

The way he treated me.

Like I matter.

My hands are starting to shake. “I promised him I’d take care of him. And I thought I was taking care of him by stepping back. But now…I don’t know.”

“You need a cheeseburger,” Luna says sagely.

“And a solid round of kickboxing,” Emily adds.

Cam nods. “While jamming out to eighties music.”

A party with my best friends.

That does sound better than wallowing in my lady cave for the next three years.

“But you have to shower first,” Luna tells me. “And then we’ll help you find your footing again. Promise.”





Forty-Three





West



I miss being on missions, but right now, creeping through the sand, approaching a beach hut just after sunset entirely too close to Miami, getting ready to serve justice to an asshole of the nth degree, my heart isn’t in it.

My heart’s back in Miami. My entire heart.

I make eye contact with Jude.

He nods, and we split up. Him to the back. Me to the front. We’re both unarmed, but we’re plenty dangerous without traditional weapons.

I crouch in position between the door and the open window, waiting.

Doesn’t take long.

“Hey, ugly motherfucker,” Jude says inside. “It’s justice time.”

“What—who—fuck!”

Footsteps on the wood floor.

The bang of the door flying open.

A man darting out.

And I leap.

Takes me all of a half-second to have Anthony Roderick’s face shoved in the sand while I wrap his wrists. He’s gasping and spitting when I lift him and shove a gag in his mouth.

Jude joins me as I’m tossing the fucker over my shoulder. Doesn’t ask if this is him. Doesn’t have to. We’ve both been staring at his picture nonstop for days, and much as I swore I’d forget the one day I met him in person, back when I was doing Remy’s first nursery, I didn’t.

“Remember me?” I growl low. “You paid to have someone kidnap my son. And now you’re going to pay.”

He screams in terror, but it’s muffled behind the gag.

And I don’t feel a lick of remorse.

Thinks his money can buy his way out of trouble. That he’s above the law. Sitting here on a fucking beach, in a country that doesn’t give two shits that he’s here and wouldn’t extradite him even if they knew, probably cooking up another scheme to kidnap my boy and whisk him away here.

Am I breaking some kind of law?

Probably.

Do I care?

Not. One. Fucking. Bit.

Daisy won’t rest until this asshole is completely neutralized. I won’t fucking rest until this asshole is completely neutralized.

So we’re neutralizing him.

And yes.

My son.

In all the ways that count.

Our helicopter is at a makeshift landing zone three hundred yards away in a small clearing in the jungle. Jude leaps into the cockpit and starts the rotors.

I dump Anthony Roderick into the man-sized trunk behind the two seats.

And we lift off, heading over the Straights back to Florida, in a helicopter courtesy of Miami’s best vagillionaires, our flight very courteously being ignored by local air traffic controllers.

Guess it’s true.

Money can buy anything.

Even justice, occasionally.

The ride isn’t long, or high, and I climb in back to give Roderick some fresh air after we’ve sufficiently scared the fuck out of him.

He’s pale as a ghost.

Goes paler when I strap headphones onto his ears and let him know much dirt Derek’s company dug up on him and sent over to the FBI.

Funny, the things Derek Price can find. Usually he cleans up people’s reputations. But being around people who need cleaning means he knows a thing or two about dirt.

I like the guy.

We land at the private Bluewater airstrip, and my nerves kick into high gear. My balls tell them to stand down, but it doesn’t help.

And no, I’m not nervous about the fact that I just kidnapped a criminal from a country without an extradition treaty. Nor am I nervous about dropping the fucker with a guy Jude knows who doesn’t ask any questions about where we found him, but who we can trust to make sure the asshole gets where he needs to be.

Jude drives me back to where I need to be. He offers a fist bump before I get out. “Nice job out there.”

“Ooh-rah. Where’d you learn to fly a helicopter?”

He grins. “Same place I learned to kick old ladies’ asses in shuffleboard.”

The liar follows me into the house—habit, probably.

It’s been ten days since Remy’s attempted kidnapping. Ten days too long to do what I need to do right now.

But we both need to see that Remy’s still safe.

And he is. Comfortably swinging and sleeping in the bright living room while Becca plays Angry Birds on her phone next to him.

She jumps up when we enter, her gaze going to me, then up, up, up to Jude. “Hey! You’re back. That was…quick.”

“Just lunch,” Jude says. “Windows locked?”

“Yes. Everyone’s safe.”

He nods, and without another word, turns and leaves.