The Colt & The Cobra - THE SPECTER SERIES [book six]

Chapter SIX

Colt Knox

Mikki trembles violently, blinking up at me in fear.. Soaked in an alarming amount of blood and as dazed as a deer in headlights.. It takes a few seconds for my brian to catch up with the impossible scene..

"H-Help me, Colt.." Her squeaky voice warbles as she takes a weary step towards me, reaching out with bloody fingers, her gilded eyes cloudy and confused..

I feel a wrenching knot of guilt in my stomach.. It was supposed to be my job to protect her.. I'm supposed to be her bodyguard.. She's supposed to trust me to have her back..
How the fuck did this happen?

I hold up a hand to stop her from crossing the broken glass in bare feet.. "Whoa now, don't move Mikki.." I move fast, stepping closer to wrap an arm around her back, another behind her knees before hoisting her up into my arms, a tiny whimpering escapes her as she clings to my neck..

She's warm and soft against my chest and I can feel her shivering with shock as the meadowy scent of her shampoo teases my senses.. "Oh.." She sobs..

"You're alright.. I got you, Sugar.." I glance around the scene one last time, completely dumbfounded.. I had been posted by her door all night and hadn't heard a thing.. The shards of broken glass crunch beneath my boots as I carry her through to the ridiculously oversized ensuite bathroom attached to her room, setting her gently by the shower, reaching in to turn on the water.. "Take those clothes off and clean yourself up, Sugar.. I'll take care of the mess.."

I turn to leave but she latches onto my arm.. "No! Don't leave me alone.. Please.."

My gaze flicks down to her skimpy bloodstained nightdress.. Her bruised wrists..
She hadn't been bruised yesterday.. She had been perfect..

"Did you leave this room, Sugar?"

She shakes her head, her button nose scrunched up, her expression pained.. "I--I didn't.. Or.. I don't know.. I don't think so.." She begins to sob again, an uncomfortable writhing sensation stirs at the pit of my stomach..

Her crying makes me apprehensive.. Because it drives an instinctual desire in me to comfort her..
But I can't trust she is telling me the truth.. How could it be possible that she have no memory of where she'd been and what she'd done?... "Hey, hey.. C'mon now.. Don't cry.."

She sniffles, unexpectedly reaching for the straps of her nightdress before letting it fall to her ankles stunning me senseless.. I gape, marvelling at what I can only describe as the most delicious body I've ever seen.. I can't help but drink in the sight of her creamy olive skin like satin, her full chest, delicate dark red nipples, wide round hips, those crazy voluptuous thighs and that perfectly trimmed triangle of dark curls I want to bury my face in..

Fuck..

Stop staring,asshole.. I scold myself and recover from my leering quickly, practically snapping my neck to turn my eyes away from her.. I move to stand by the door with my back to her, listening to the drip of water running down the drain and the sigh of her breath.. "Can you remember anything, Miss Mikki?"

There is a long silence before she reluctantly answers me.. Only to confuse me farther.. "Charlie.. I was talking to Charlie.. " I twist to look at her and she shakes her head.. "I know.. Its insane.. I'm insane.."

She sinks to the shower floor, wrapping her arms around her knees.. She can't have been talking to Charlie, because Charles Everett is dead.. But that doesn't mean she doesn't still hold on to him..
So I take a guess that she doesn't mean literally..

"Aw hell.. Look.. Grief is - - it's not black and white.. You're having a hard time.. Doesn't make you crazy.."

She rocks back and forth.. "Okay, yeah.. Okay.."

I feel a strange sense of discomfort myself in not being able to comfort her.. More than I should feel for a mark I need Intel from.. "We'll figure this out Sugar, but right now I really gotta clean up that mess before anybody sees, will you be alright for a few minutes?"

Better if she doesn't get caught for whatever she has done before I've had a chance to get some answers for myself.. And maybe more than that.. Maybe I don't want to see her anymore hurt than it is..

In the last 24 hours it's become clear to me that Mikki De'lucca isn't exactly the woman she is portrayed as in the media..
She isn't like her father, she isn't ruthless or discompassionate.. She isn't callous or cold..
But she isn't what she attempts to portray herself to be either.. Innocent..

Instead, what I've come to see is that she is a woman lost.. Adrift.. She is broken in a way that is all too familiar to me..
Perhaps that is exactly the reason I had been reluctant to take this job..

My life outside of Specter contains more than enough grief and loss.. Maybe Mikki is just a reminder to me of all those things I could never change..

"Yeah, I think so.. Okay.. I'll be okay.. Im okay.." She is barely listening to me anymore, lost in thought as she rocks herself smoothingly..

I slip out the door and move to the bloodstained rug.. Pushing the sofa aside I begin to roll up the carpet with the glass shards of the mirror still inside..

Should I be covering up whatever happened here?
No.. Definitely not.. But my mission is to gain her trust.. Not hand her over to the police.. And it's clear to me somebody in this house cannot be trusted.. Maybe Mikki herself.. Or maybe somebody is setting her up.. Either way, I'm going to figure it all out and I will just have to cross the bridge of dealing with the fallout when I get to it..

When I fold the rolled rug in half to compact it's size, I notice something beneath the leg of the sofa.. A tactical knife, typical of those carried by police in the city.. I take the tanto blade and wipe it off on the carpet before I fold it up, tucking it into my pocket..
The exact opposite of what protocol dictates I should do..

I begin to walk around the room, looking for any hints of what happened here, stopping when I get to the doors that lead out to the balcony.. There is blood on the handle..

I open the door and step out into the tile, looking over the edge I see him.. A twisted mangled cold corpse on the grass below.. The now obviously owner of the blood that is splattered all over Mikki's suite.. "Aw, fuck.."

Dax Ranger is dead.

This changes everything.. What are the chances that this happening on my first night on the job is just a coincidence?..

Fuck all..

I spin on my heel and bolt back into the bathroom, terrifying poor Mikki in the process.. But there's no time for tact.. "We gotta go, Mikki.. Now!"