Hotter Than Wildfire
A Protectors Novel: Delta Force
Lisa Marie Rice
To my darling Festivalettes.
You know who you are.
Other Books by Lisa Marie Rice
INTO THE CROSSFIRE
DANGEROUS PASSION
DANGEROUS SECRETS
DANGEROUS LOVER
Credits
Cover photograph by B2M Productions/Getty Images
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
HOTTER THAN WILDFIRE. Copyright © 2011 by Lisa Marie Rice. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-207893-3
11 12 13 14 15
About the Publisher
Australia
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United Kingdom
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United States
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Baileyd @ Demonoid.me
Contents
Prologue
It was Christmas, but not for Harry Bolt.
Chapter 1
Gerald Montez paced his study as he listened to the…
Chapter 2
Ellen walked in to the office warily. Her friend Kerry had…
Chapter 3
She’s scared shitless, Harry thought. Words wouldn’t reassure her, so…
Chapter 4
Harry met Sam’s eyes and refrained from wincing. Sam’s eyes…
Chapter 5
They weren’t checking in. Montez had sent three men—three men…
Chapter 6
She was just so fucking beautiful.
Chapter 7
Piet van der Boeke hadn’t aged in the past eight…
Chapter 8
“Two silk shirts, three cotton sweaters, a cotton skirt, two…
Chapter 9
Harry stood in the elevator with Ellen, going down to…
Chapter 10
“Christ, hurry up.” Montez hopped from foot to foot, breath…
Chapter 11
“Any more news?” Harry asked quietly.
Chapter 12
They crowded round Nicole. Ellen noticed that Sam kept a…
Chapter 13
They drove up out of the condo’s garage in single…
Chapter 14
“Fuck fuck fuck!”
Chapter 15
Monday morning, they drove into the city center in the…
Chapter 16
Sam drove. Harry wasn’t in any condition to. He said…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Lisa Marie Rice
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
San Diego
Christmas Day
It was Christmas, but not for Harry Bolt.
The whole city was gripped by Christmas fever. You couldn’t walk anywhere in the city center without being blasted by carols and hit up by old farts in fake white beards and red suits asking for money for the poor. Poor Africans, poor earthquake victims, poor illegal aliens.
Of course, no one really thought of the poor on their own doorstep. Those nice folks in church basements, the men in white beards and red suits, the school kids caroling, would run screaming if they had to see where Harry Bolt lived with his mom, her methhead fuckhead boyfriend of the month, and his baby sister, Christine.
There weren’t any Christmas lights on their street down in the Barrio and there wasn’t a Christmas tree set up in the basement rooms they lived in. No Christmas tree, no decorations, no presents. Hell, no food or milk, either.
Well, at least Crissy would eat today. He’d scrounged in the dumpsters behind three restaurants on restaurant row and, shaking his head at what people threw away, found fried chicken, mashed potatoes, turkey breast, and about five slices of cake.
On a roll, he’d walked into a toy shop and stolen a Barbie. The door alarm had gone off, but Harry was fast. He was always fast and he’d never been caught.
He smiled, thinking of giving Crissy the Barbie. She’d have to keep her squeals of joy down, not bother Mom and Fuckhead. Though when Mom was high, which seemed to be all the time lately, she didn’t give a shit.
The last fuckhead had given a shit, oh yeah—he liked little girls. Harry had seen him get a hard-on when Crissy’s panties showed once. But a knife held to Fuckhead’s ribs, and a very clear warning—touch my sister in any way and I will cut you up for dog meat—kept him away. The next day, Harry stole six pairs of little-girl trousers for Crissy and she never wore a skirt again.
That fuckhead left and the current one—Rod—took his place. This one didn’t like little girls, not in any way, but he did like beating up on people.
It was dark by the time Harry made it home on foot. He didn’t have any money for the bus, so he had to hoof it everywhere.
He walked down the moldy stairs and pushed open the cracked wooden door. There was complete, utter silence in the house. That was bad news. It meant either that Mom and Fuckhead had left a five-year-old alone in a house with broken locks in the worst neighborhood in the world, or they were high. Again.
They were high, he saw, as he closed the rickety front door behind him.
His mom was sitting on the broken couch, head lolling to one side, stare vacant. Shit. Where’d she get the money to score?
All the lights were out. The only light visible was from under the door of the room he shared with Crissy.
A shuffle in the corner where the table was. Rod, drinking a beer. He didn’t even turn his head when Harry walked in.
The door to his bedroom opened. There was a low-wattage bulb in their room, and the light spilled into the living room.
“Hawwy!” Crissy’s excited voice rang out. She ran to him and clutched his legs, grinning up at him. “You’re back! Mewwy Chwistmas!” She was small for a five-year-old, hair a lighter blond than his, eyes the same light brown as his.
Her little arms reached up, their usual game. “Cawwy, Hawwy!”
He picked her up, holding her in one arm, keeping
his bags tightly by his side with the other. Crissy weighed nothing.
Harry’d put on a spurt of growth recently and was developing muscles. Fuckhead watched his step around him now.
“Harry,” came the deep voice in the corner. “Whatcha got in them there bags, boy?”
Harry’s heart plunged. Fuckhead’s voice was slurred, eyes narrowed and unfocused. He was higher than a kite.
This was bad. His mom just drifted off to sleep when she got high. Fuckhead turned viciously mean.
Harry swung the bags behind him, dropped them quietly to the ground. Fuckhead had a short attention span. If he didn’t see them, he’d probably forget about them. “Nothing,” he said. “Just some junk I found.”
Fuckhead turned his head more fully and Harry’s heart started pounding. Fuckhead’s eyes were cold, inhuman, like the eyes of the feral dogs that ran in packs through their part of town. When he had that expression, trouble came fast.
Fuckhead’s big, meaty fists opened and closed on the table, over and over again. Another bad sign. He was just waiting for an excuse to blow up, become violent. And though Harry was young and strong and fast, Fuckhead weighed almost 300 pounds and when he was high he didn’t—probably couldn’t—feel pain. He was like a violent robot.
Not to mention the fact that Harry couldn’t run fast while carrying Crissy, and he’d never leave Crissy behind.
Something bad was coming. It was in the air. The dank, cold basement stank of the brewing violence about to be unleashed.
Harry did the only possible thing he could do, the same thing he did with the feral dogs. He couldn’t fight a pack of dogs and he couldn’t fight Fuckhead while he was high, particularly with Crissy to look after.
So he stared at the ground in submission, and kept quiet. The one thing Fuckhead hated was what he called a “mouthy” kid.
Crissy was utterly silent. Usually, you couldn’t shut her up, but in her short life, she’d learned who was dangerous. She always took her cue from Harry. When Harry was quiet, so was she. In her five years on earth, she’d seen a lot of really nasty shit from this fuckhead, the fuckhead before him and the fuckhead before that.
Harry’s hand covered Crissy’s back. Though she was silent, turning her head into his shoulder for comfort, he could feel her little heart racing, fluttering with panic. She was terrified.
She was only five years old and she was fucking terrified.
Still staring at the ground, quietly picking up the bags, Harry backed away slowly, again exactly as if he were facing a pack of wild dogs. It worked. He quietly stepped into their room and closed the door.
He waited, listening.
Quiet, on the other side.
Crissy’s head was buried in his shoulder. “Hawwy?” she whispered. “Okay now?”
“It’s okay, sweetie.” Harry pasted a smile on his face and patted his little sister’s shoulder, wishing for the billionth time that Crissy had been born into another family. A family that would love her for the sweet kid she was instead of bringing her up in this shithole, where only Harry stood between her and being beaten to death.
Or worse.
He listened for a long time, but his mom and Fuckhead were quiet. For the moment. Mostly they were either fighting or fucking, sometimes both at once.
He had a stash of plastic plates and plastic forks he’d retrieved from a dumpster that he kept hidden in the closet. He brought them out and put them on the bed. Crissy watched him, wide-eyed, thumb in mouth.
Harry had once tried to break her of the habit, but it finally dawned on him that Crissy needed to suck her thumb for comfort. God knows there wasn’t much of that in her life. He tried to shield her as much as possible, but he couldn’t stop it all.
Well, even he and Crissy deserved something that would pass for Christmas.
He cut up pieces of turkey breast on her plate, spooned some mashed potatoes and slid it over to her. She was hungry, he knew she was hungry, because no one would have thought to feed her all day, but she waited until his own plate was full and he had a fork in his hand.
“Eat, Crissy,” he said and she did. But only after he started eating.
It was funny. His mom had ignored Crissy all her life. She’d have aborted Crissy except she found out way too late that she was knocked up, and no doctor would perform the abortion.
It had fallen to Harry to bring Crissy up, though he knew fuck-all about bringing up a little girl and he was half wild himself. So though he’d done his damnedest to keep her fed and warm and at least moderately clean, he sure hadn’t done anything to drill manners in her.
And yet it was as if Crissy had been born in some fucking palace in some far-off kingdom. No one had ever taught her how to eat. She’d picked it up herself, watching Harry. But where Harry ate like a wolf, she ate daintily, never making a mess.
She was a little princess stuck among the trolls.
She put her fork down neatly and smiled at him.
Harry reached out an arm and rummaged around in the bag, pulling out the box. Of course it wasn’t gift wrapped, but Crissy sure wouldn’t mind.
“Here, squirt,” he said, holding it out to her. “Merry Christmas.”
Crissy’s face lit up. Her only other doll was some raggedy thing that was missing an arm, but she loved it and fussed over that doll for hours.
A brand-new Barbie—Crissy was in doll heaven.
“Oh, Hawwy! A Bawbie!” she squealed. He tried to shush her, but it was too late.
The door to their room slammed open, bouncing off the wall and Fuckhead stood there, head almost touching the top of the door frame.
He swayed, shot out a hand to steady himself. His head wobbled as he tried to focus, and Harry thought, Oh man, this is going to be bad. This is going to be real bad.
Rod finally focused on Harry, who’d put Crissy behind him. She was clutching the back of his legs, completely quiet now. She never made a sound when Rod was in this mood. Rod was breathing heavily, already somehow in a rage.
“What’s that brat hiding?” Rod’s head thrust forward, like a bull ready to rush. “Hmm? What the fuck’s she got in her hand?”
Rod lumbered forward and Harry stepped in front of him. He could feel Crissy following him, holding on to his jeans.
“Nothing. She doesn’t have anything. Leave her alone.”
Rod lifted his eyes, more a creature of the night than a human. Harry was only twelve years old, but he knew he was looking evil right in the face.
Rod leaned down and Harry tried not to flinch at the smell of his breath. This close, he could also smell the sweat and the grease and the craziness. It was a terrifying smell.
“So what the fuck’s she hiding?” Rod screamed, punching Harry in the chest. Harry stepped back, didn’t fall.
A movement to his right. Harry looked down. A small hand held out the doll. Harry’s heart twisted. Crissy was sacrificing her Barbie to the monster, to save her brother.
Harry tried to push her little hand back but it was too late. Rod’s eyes lit up with a wild light. He snatched the doll. It looked ridiculously small and frilly in his huge paw.
He looked at it the way a monkey would, holding it this way and that. Harry could almost see the steam rising in Rod’s crazy brain as he worked himself up into a rage.
He shook the doll in Harry’s face. “So where the fuck did you find the money to buy this? You been holding out on me?” His voice rose with each word until he was nearly howling. It raised the hairs on Harry’s neck.
The monster stepped back, dangling the doll from his hand. He lurched, rocked unsteadily, then found his balance again.
“You got money in here! I know it!” Fuckhead bellowed and ripped the head off the Barbie, then the two arms and legs. He tried to poke a huge finger into the holes, couldn’t do it, tossed the trunk of the doll away. He looked around, eyes narrowing when he saw Harry’s baseball bat. He picked it up, gave it a few experimental slaps against his left hand.
Har
ry backed slowly away, heart hammering.
Fuckhead stepped forward, giving a swing through the air with the bat. The whoosh of displaced air sounded loud in the room.
“What else you hiding from me, you little shit? I’ll bet you got lots of stuff—you’re not as stupid as you look. I’ll bet you got just shitloads of stuff that you’re hiding from me!” the last said in a bellow, as he turned and brought the bat down heavily on the rectangle of particle board resting on two trestles that served as Harry’s desk.
The rectangle pulverized in an instant, dust rising in the room.
Fuckhead poked around the ruins for a moment with the tip of the bat.
“Nothing here,” he growled, and swung the bat into the crates where Harry and Crissy kept their meager belongings. The crates exploded, tossing up jeans and hoodies and tiny T-shirts and shoes.
He turned to look Harry in the face. His eyes went down to Crissy then back up. He smiled into Harry’s eyes.
“I know what’ll make you talk. Take a bat to that little brat and you’re talking, oh yeah.” He swung it suddenly, viciously, against the wall, gouging a hole in the crumbly cement.
“Like that, punk?” he yelled. “What’s the little bitch’s head gonna look like, huh? Like a fucking watermelon that’s dropped on the ground, that’s what. You tell me where you’ve got your fucking stuff now! Now! Now! Now!”
He was screaming, slashing the bat viciously through the air, walking slowly forward. Harry stepped back, almost tripping over Crissy, who was clinging to his legs. He could feel her wild trembling. He didn’t dare pick her up, didn’t dare even acknowledge her existence. Fuckhead seemed to have forgotten about Crissy for the moment and Harry wanted to keep it that way.
“What you hiding, boy?” Thwack! Another huge hole gouged into the wall. “You tell me now!” Another swing, barely missing Harry.