Kennedy's Redemption (The Protectors 3)

The laughter got worse. They thought it was fun to strip away her humanity, make her suffer because she was friends with Emily. Taking a peek from under her lashes, she gasped in surprise when she realized she wasn’t back in that shitty little cabin. They’d followed her to Italy. They were in her home.

“This isn’t real. You’re not here.” She tried to convince herself. The mixed laughter told her they were there. “Please just leave, I won’t tell anybody,” she begged still not seeing them but she could feel them. They were there, watching, waiting for her to screw up.

“Creed!” she screamed. “Linc!” She tried again hoping one of them would save her, but they weren’t coming. They were in another country saving someone else this time. She was alone, and she didn’t think she’d be saved.

“They’re not coming.” Whipping around at the woman’s voice, she was shaking with fear when she saw the gleam of a knife in the lightening’s glow. Letting out a scream she ran upstairs only to trip on something before falling back down, crashing into the wall and banister on her way to the bottom.

“Please don’t do this,” she begged again, laying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

Feeling a sharp pain in her side, she let out a scream loud enough to wake the dead and didn’t stop until black spots crowded her vision and she lost the fight to stay conscious.

·?•? ?•?·

Watching storms were one of Deidre O’Connor’s favorite things. No matter where she was or what she was doing, storms were reliable. They were there when nothing and no one else was. They were strong, solid, a piece of earth that not many people could appreciate.

Watching as the lightening hit the water fascinated her; it electrified it. Made everything clearer. The boom of thunder as the waves crashed in the surf was oddly cathartic. She’d waited so long to have a view like this that some days she took it for granted.

Hearing a scream in the distance had a shiver go up her spine. Stepping out fr

om the overhang of her small villa, she tried to look around for where it was coming from. Hearing it again she knew immediately that it was Kenny.

Taking off in the direction of her villa, she ran through the torrential rain, sticky sand, and sharp rocks as flashes of lightening lit her way. Slowing to a stop at Kenny’s back door, she pressed her ear to it and listened for any sound of an intruder.

She knew that Kenny had some horrible demons on her side, but she didn’t know if she was in danger from those demons. So she waited. When silence was her only greeting she tried the knob, relieved to find it unlocked.

Walking inside, she whispered, “Kenny? Where are you? It’s Deedee.”

Making her way through the back door, she felt a shadow of doubt at entering. Slowly walking through and keeping her eyes roving every surface, a flash of lightening lit up the room and she spotted Kenny lying at the bottom of the stairs unconscious and at an awkward angle.

Rushing over she knelt beside her, gently feeling her neck for a pulse. Slow but steady; thank my stars, she told herself. Gently shaking her, she whispered roughly, “Kenny, honey, wake up. Kenny!”

With no response she realized she’d have to run back to her villa for a phone. “Fuck a duck.”

“I’ll be back,” she whispered in her ear before making a mad dash back to her house.

·?•? ?•?·

Too easy. The job was simple. Literally, your average joe could have figured it out. They still didn’t understand why they’d been called in. The danger to the girl had been real, but any SWAT or tactical team with half a brain cell could have figured it out and gotten the child extracted before her kidnappers even knew they’d been there. Hell, they did do that.

Creed was still feeling suspicious about Jeffries’ motives as they walked into his office to find out exactly what the fuck he wanted. Without knocking, Linc opened the door and there he sat with one of their biggest rivalries in the business. Creed was beyond pissed. Linc was, well, Linc was fucking Linc and whipped out his gun pointing it at Jeffries’ head.

“So was this your play then?” Creed asked leaning against the door casually. Anyone who knew him knew it was too casual.

“What? How did you get in here?” Jeffries tried to act like they were in the wrong. Like he’d been the one that was played.

“I don’t fucking think so you shit head,” Linc answered him. “You tried to play us, didn’t you? But we found the girl faster than even you thought we would. Thought by having Dom here we’d what, screw up? Get her killed? Or get us killed?”

When he didn’t say anything at all and Dom just sat there looking more and more pissed off by the moment, they waited.

Silence was a guilty person’s worst enemy.

This time was no different.

“Fine, I was sick of you two. Always raking in the big bucks and never handing a little my way. Fucking greedy blokes. Never thinking of the people that get you the money. I was sick of it!”

“That so?” Dom asked.

Dom wasn’t necessarily an enemy, more of a work adversary Creed figured. Competition. There wasn’t any hate, not on their part anyway. They each had a specific skill set that made it so they didn’t cross paths very often.