Page 38 of Rescuing Macie

Colt stopped his Jeep two houses down and all four men climbed out without a word. He heard a noise behind him, and turned to see three more cars stop and the rest of his men exit the vehicles. Ghost quickly made contact, and most of the men disappeared into the neighborhood. Colt knew they were taking up positions around his house, making sure Teddy—and, God forbid, anyone else with him—didn’t manage to escape.

That left him with Truck and Ghost. Colt looked at his men…and felt an odd calmness settle over his body. Teddy had made the decision to put his hands on Colt’s woman and he’d pay the price.

Colt led the way toward his front door. He knew Macie used the security code, and since he hadn’t gotten a phone call wanting his passcode, he assumed she’d correctly put in the code when she’d let Teddy inside the house. He very slowly turned the knob on his front door and held his breath as he pushed it open. When the security system didn’t immediately start beeping, warning him to put in the code, he thought, good girl. Macie hadn’t set off the alarm when she’d entered, which would have alerted Colt, but she also hadn’t reset it, allowing him and his men to enter undetected.

Colt didn’t have a weapon, but he didn’t need one. He was a weapon. A deadly one.

At first, he didn’t hear anyone in the house, and his heart sank with the thought that perhaps he was too late—but then he heard a man’s voice coming from upstairs.

Slowly and silently, Colt made his way up the stairs. The farther he went, the clearer he could hear what Teddy was saying.

“You’re so stupid! I can’t believe you’ve kept this shit after all these years. What’s this? A ticket stub? Fuck…ridiculous. And a napkin? Gross! What’s this? A picture? What the fuck is this?”

“Don’t, Teddy,” Macie pleaded, the fear easy to hear in her voice.

“Is this a sonogram? Don’t tell me you’ve got a kid stashed away somewhere?”

“No. Please, just give it to me.”

“Do you want to know why I picked you?” Teddy asked, but he didn’t wait for Macie to reply before he answered his own question. “Because you’re weak. You’re scared of your own shadow. I knew you’d be easy to manipulate, and I was right. But then you had to go and grow a backbone.”

“You hid drugs in my apartment,” Macie said, her voice shaking.

Colt gestured for Truck and Ghost to pass him and get to the other side of his bedroom door. They needed to make a coordinated entry if they were going to surprise Teddy and get between him and Macie.

“It’s not my fault you don’t have a shred of human decency in your bones. If you hadn’t left me at that restaurant when I had that anxiety attack, I might still be dating you.”

“Bitch!” Teddy said.

Then there was the sound of paper tearing, and Macie’s anguished voice crying out, “No!”

“Now,” Colt whispered—and as a unit, the three soldiers entered the room.

Colt had time to see Macie on her knees on the floor, in front of scattered pieces of paper and other odds and ends.

Theodore Dorentes saw them before Macie did, and he lunged for her with the taser he held in his hand.

Later, Colt mused that perhaps he would’ve reacted differently if the man had come after him with the taser…but he didn’t. He targeted Macie, who wasn’t even looking at him and couldn’t protect herself.

Colt threw himself at Teddy. The prongs of the taser crackled in the oddly quiet room, but Colt didn’t even feel them touch his chest. His arm was already moving toward the other man’s face and even though the electricity moving through Colt’s system jammed up his nerves, he threw his body weight behind his fist and managed to crash into Teddy with his body as he fell.

He felt Teddy’s nose break under his fist, and his head snapped back with the power of the punch.

Both men landed in a heap just feet from Macie. In seconds, Ghost was pulling Teddy out from under Colt and kicking the taser away. Colt forced his body to move, thankful that, once his fist had hit Teddy’s face, the man had dropped the device.

By the time Colt had regained his senses and turned to Macie, Truck had already wrapped her in his arms and turned his back, protecting his sister from whatever might happen next.

Colt crawled to the siblings and jerked at Truck’s arm. Surprisingly, Truck let go of his sister and all but thrust her into Colt’s arms. He felt Macie trembling, and assumed the same position Truck had, holding her in his arms and protecting her by turning his back to the room.

Within moments, the room was full of several pissed-off, hyped-up Special Forces soldiers, but all Colt could do was bury his face in Macie’s hair and rock back and forth.

Eventually, he realized that instead of being hysterical, she was trying to calm him.

“I’m okay, Colt. You got here in time. I’m okay.”

Taking a deep breath, Colt picked his head up and realized that he’d been crying, and he hadn’t even noticed. Macie shifted in his embrace and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I’m fine,” she whispered.

“He’s dead,” Ghost said matter-of-factly.