Honor Avenged (HORNET)

by Tonya Burrows

  “Is this better?” he asked.

  “Who’s that behind you?” Rick reared back, yanking her toward the stairs. The gun came up and dug into her temple again.

  Marcus chanced a glance back as two SUVs pulled up on the road outside. He swore under his breath. “My team. I told them to meet me here. Our medic needs to look at Jean-Luc. You knocked him out, probably gave him a concussion.”

  “Tell them to go away or I’ll kill her.”

  When he pulled on her again, she felt his hand slip in the blood dripping down her arm from her wound. She could rip out of his grasp, try to make a run for it, but then the kids would be left upstairs. Alone. Defenseless.

  Marcus caught her gaze, silently pleading with her not to try anything.

  “I love you,” she mouthed.

  His breath hitched, but he recovered quickly. He refocused on Rick and held out his hands in a peacemaking gesture. “Let’s not do anything we can’t take back. They’re not coming inside, okay? I’ll make sure of it, but you gotta give me something in return. You know how it works.”

  “I’m not letting her go.”

  “How about you take the gun away from her head again, okay? Let her go upstairs to the kids. You can stand guard right there by the stairs and we’ll talk.”

  “Get me alone so you can shoot me? I don’t think so.” Rick yanked her backward, dragging her up the stairs while simultaneously using her as a shield.

  She held Marcus’s gaze as long as possible. Just before the wall blocked her view, he mouthed back, “Love you, too.”

  It gave her strength. He loved her, and she trusted him more than anyone on this planet. He’d make sure she and her children survived this. And he had HORNET to back him. After seeing them in action, she knew Rick—the bastard—didn’t stand a chance.

  Upstairs, he shoved her into the twins’ room. Her daughter sat in the middle of the floor, a boy tucked under each arm. Their faces were white with terror, their eyes huge and overflowing with tears. Colton broke down sobbing when he spotted her. Cooper tried to be brave, but his lower lip wobbled. And Maya, she was a picture of stoicism, even with the tears tracking silently down her cheeks.

  Leah lunged for her babies the moment Rick released her, gathered all three of them, and kissed each of their heads. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here now and Marcus is downstairs. We’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Colton said between gasping sobs.

  “I know. It’s fine. I’m okay.”

  “Fuck!” Rick slammed the door shut and paced in front of it. He dragged his free hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Fuck! This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “What did you think would happen?” Leah snapped. Probably smarter to keep her mouth shut, but she was pissed beyond reason, and the anger overrode her common sense. She had considered him a friend. She invited him into her home and he tried to kill her.

  Rick jabbed the gun toward the door. “He wasn’t supposed to show up and bring his team. Fuck!”

  “Well, surprise. He’s here. HORNET’s here. You’re not getting out of this. It’s over, Rick.”

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He swung the gun toward her and the kids.

  She shot to her feet and blocked them with her body. She stared him down, no longer afraid. Her anger had burned away the fear. “Danny would be so disappointed in you.”

  “Shut up!” He grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked it as he paced. “Let me think. I just need to think.”

  Leah sat down again and gathered her babies close. He could think all he wanted. It wasn’t going to do him any good.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Marcus swore under his breath as Rick dragged Leah from view. They should’ve connected the dots sooner. But now that they had, HORNET had Rick O’Keane’s number and a thirst for revenge. They would not let another Giancarelli die on their watch.

  “Give me an update,” Lanie demanded as she jumped out of the passenger seat of one of the SUVs and met him in the front yard.

  Jesse climbed out of the driver’s seat and followed his wife after retrieving his medical bag from the back. “Anyone hurt?”

  “Jean-Luc was knocked out,” Marcus said.

  “I’m fine,” Jean-Luc called, waving from where he still sat in the driver’s side of the surveillance car. Jesse headed in his direction anyway.

  “And Leah was shot.” It killed him to say it, twisted like a knife in his heart. “Don’t know how bad, but she’s conscious and walking. The HT is Richard ‘Rick’ O’Keane. Danny’s former partner.”

  As he spoke, the rest of the team joined them.

  “What the fuck?” Ian muttered.

  “You gonna try to talk him out?” Harvard asked.

  “Fuck, no. He killed Danny.”

  “How? You were Sebastian Haly’s target,” Ian said.

  “No, he lied to Mercedes. He shot exactly who he was aiming at that morning. It’s all on the flash drive Cabot gave to Leah. And that fucker in there”—he pointed up at the house—“is the reason Danny’s dead.”

  “Jesus,” someone muttered.

  “He didn’t show Danny any mercy, so we won’t show him any. We’re taking his ass down, but not before I find out why. I want to talk to him again.”

  “We’re behind you one hundred percent,” Lanie said. “This is your show. How do you want to do it?”

  He scanned the quiet, middle-class, family-friendly neighborhood. Somewhere down the street, a dog barked. Music and laughter floated on the air from someone’s back patio. Dusk was fast approaching and street lights began to switch on. “First, we need to make sure no innocent neighbors are caught in the crossfire here, but at the same time, we need to keep this as quiet as possible. Did Harvard brief you on the flash drive intel?”

  Lanie nodded. “He gave us the bare-bones facts.”

  “Then you know this thing is a political time bomb. If Harvard’s right, a presidential nominee is involved. We don’t know who we can trust in the police or FBI.”

  “That’ll cause some problems,” Jean-Luc said as Jesse finished placing a couple butterfly bandages over his wound. “We’re not operating on foreign soil. This is our home turf. Nice neighborhood like this, the local authorities will catch wind and want in. Especially if there are any more gunshots. We’re lucky they aren’t already here.”

  “I can keep it offline if you guys can keep it quiet here,” Harvard said.

  “I’ll call Gabe,” Lanie said. “He has friends in the government we can trust and if worst comes to worst, we can bring Tuc in to smooth things over. Let’s just get this handled and make sure nobody dies tonight.”

  “That’s the plan. I’ll keep O’Keane talking—”

  “We want to record it,” Sami cut in. “If he confesses, we’ll want a record of that in case things go south on us.” At Marcus’s hard stare, she swallowed. “I mean, things aren’t going to go south. We’ll get them out. Just want to make sure our asses are covered here in case the police do show up. I’d prefer not to go back to jail again, you know?”

  He was being too hard on her. Technically, she was still in training. And she had a point about recording the conversation. He dug his phone out of his pocket and passed it to her. “Do whatever you need to do.” Then he faced the rest of the team. “If I can get him to come down, I will, and we need to be ready to take him into custody. If not, Seth—”

  Seth nodded and picked up his rifle bag. He hitched his chin toward the house next door. “Looks like the neighbors are out of town. I’ll set up on their balcony. Gives me a nice, clean shot through the north-facing windows.”

  “As a last resort,” Marcus cautioned. “Don’t take the shot unless you’re positive you can hit him and not Leah or the kids.”

  Seth gave him a steady sta
re. “Marcus, man. You know me. Have I ever taken a shot I could miss?”

  “Yeah, dude. I know. Sorry.” He rubbed a hand over his face, surprised that his fingers were steady because inside he was shaking apart with fear. O’Keane had a hand in killing Danny, and he’d already shot Leah once. Would have killed her had Marcus not arrived right then, and that knowledge made his stomach churn. This whole sitch had the potential to go incredibly wrong tonight if he made one wrong move, said the wrong thing.

  He’d left the FBI because he’d gotten too emotionally involved in a hostage situation and a young girl had ended up dead. It had nearly destroyed him and when he joined HORNET, he’d vowed to never allow himself to become that invested in a case again. But he couldn’t disconnect from this one, not with Leah’s and the kids’ lives on the line. He should step away, but there was nobody else on the team with the amount of crisis negotiation training or experience he had.

  He was their only option. The only choice.

  He’d walked away from Leah once before when she needed him because what he felt for her had terrified him. It had been a mistake. He saw that now. He would not leave her again.

  He strode back into the house and paused at the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t hear any sound from upstairs, and that had his nerves on edge. He took a moment, took a breath, and let it out slowly. He didn’t want those nerves coming through in his voice. He had to sound relaxed and in control.

  “Rick?” he called upstairs. “It’s Marcus. I’m going to call Leah’s cell phone.” He purposely used all their names. The more he could remind O’Keane that his hostages were real people—people he knew, people he had connections with—the less likely this would end in bloodshed. “Please answer it and talk to me.”

  Harvard leaned through the broken front door and handed over his cell phone. “You’re all set.”

  “Thanks.” He dialed Leah’s number. Heard the answering ring upstairs. It went on and on and on until Leah’s voicemail kicked in. He ended the call and told himself not to panic. There hadn’t been any gunshots while he was outside talking to the team. Nobody was dead or dying upstairs, and he planned to keep it that way. He tried again.

  While it rang, he called upstairs, “Rick? We can fix this if you talk to me. I know none of this was your idea. I know you’re scared and I know who you’re protecting.”

  Just when he thought he would get voicemail again, Rick answered, “You don’t know. I’m fucked if I don’t kill her.”

  “Do you plan to kill her in front of her kids? They’re innocent. Maya is ten. Cooper and Colton are seven. What did they do to deserve this?”

  “I’m not going to—” He stopped before completing the thought, but it was enough. Marcus could read between the lines.

  “I don’t think you want to kill anyone, Rick. We all want the same thing here. Just tell me how we can make that happen without bloodshed.”

  Rick said nothing, but the situation was getting to him. His nerves rang out in the silence, clear as jangling bells. Which was either an extremely good thing and he’d give up soon— or it meant he could snap. Hard to know which way he’d lean.

  “Okay, Rick. That’s fine. We don’t have to rush any decisions. We have all the time in the world.” He decided to try a different tactic and switched gears. “Why don’t you tell me about Danny instead? Tell me what happened. You were friends, right? At least he thought you were. He spoke highly of you.”

  “We were friends,” Rick whispered.

  “What happened?”

  “He wouldn’t let it go. I told him to. I begged him to let it go, but you knew him. You knew how he was. When he sank his teeth into something, he was a fucking dog with a bone.”

  “What did he sink his teeth into?”

  “You said you know,” Rick accused.

  Shit. Losing ground. The tentative trust between them would break if he didn’t think fast.

  “I do,” he lied easily. He had the gist of it figured out, but there was a lot of information gaps on that flash drive that he wanted filled in. “I know Clarence Hayes is involved, but I want to hear your side. Because, I’ll be honest, right now it looks like you had your friend and partner killed for money. It doesn’t look good for you, but I know there’s more to the story. I know you’re a good man, Rick. Danny told me you are. So talk to me. Tell me what really happened.”

  “It wasn’t just money,” Rick blurted. “My son is sick. He’s…” His voice caught. “He’s thirteen and he probably won’t live to see his twenties. He needs a lung transplant. I met Hayes in a support group for parents with terminally ill kids. His daughter needed a heart and he found her one through Aid First. He promised he could find lungs for Noah if I did him a few favors.”

  “What kind of favors?”

  “Little things at first. He wanted information. Would ask me to look into people—business and political opponents—look for dirt. Occasionally, when something popped up in my caseload, he’d want me to make it go away. And, all along, he kept saying he was close to getting those lungs. I just needed to do one more thing. And one more. One more. One more. I knew he was stringing me along. Knew he was lying and using me with no intention of helping Noah. I told him I was done if he couldn’t hold up his end of the deal. I was out of it.” Rick groaned like he was in real pain. “I wanted out.”

  Marcus, despite everything, felt a tug near his heart for the guy. Clarence Hayes had put Rick in an impossible situation. Didn’t excuse a damn thing he’d done, but he’d done it for his kid. Danny would’ve done anything to protect his children, too. Hell, Marcus would do anything to protect Danny’s kids.

  “What happened?” he prompted. The floodgates were opened now, and Rick wanted to spill all of his secrets. All he needed was a little nudge. “What drew you back in?”

  Rick swallowed hard, his throat making a dry click over the line. “Last year, Alexander Cabot showed up. He gave Danny information about some journalists who were killed in Africa for investigating a Kremlin-backed mercenary group. One of the journalists was an American, so Danny started looking into it. And that night, I get a call out of the blue. There was a transplant available and we had to take Noah to the hospital right away. So I’m there with my family, waiting for the surgery, pacing the waiting room, and Hayes shows up. He acts all benevolent, but then pulls me aside and says he can stop the surgery with a word if I didn’t do everything in my power to stop Danny’s investigation. At first, I told him to fuck off. I swear I did. He just gave me this smile—this sly, nasty smile that turned my guts to water—and left. A half hour later, Noah’s surgeon came out to tell us there had been a problem with transport and the lungs were no longer viable.”

  Yeah, okay. That tug near Marcus’s heart was now a full-blown ache. “Jesus, Rick. I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too,” Rick said, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m so fucking sorry. I haven’t slept right since that night. I was desperate. We were so close to seeing our son happy and healthy, and Hayes ripped it away. I talked to Danny the night before he left to go with you to Martinique. Tried to convince him to drop the investigation. I even told him the truth, spilled everything, and he still refused. He said Hayes wouldn’t be a problem for me anymore once we finished building our case against him.” He scoffed. “Our case. I didn’t want the fucking case. I just wanted my son to be healthy, and Danny wasn’t listening. He didn’t understand that Noah wasn’t going to get his lungs if Hayes didn’t want him to, and if Hayes was behind bars, my son would die. I was out of options. I contacted an associate from my military days. I knew he was involved in mercenary work and had heard rumors that he handled…” He exhaled hard. “Dirty work.”

  “Sebastian Haly,” Marcus said. Not a question. The pieces were coming together now, and it was taking all his willpower to keep the anger boiling inside him from spilling over into his voice. “You hired him.”

>   “I used all of my savings.” Rick sounded defeated now. “Hayes didn’t give me a choice. Danny didn’t leave a choice. I didn’t want any of this to happen, but I had to save my son.”

  “Has Hayes fulfilled any of his promises to you?”

  Rick let out a muffled sob. “This time it’s different. Noah’s at the hospital, waiting for a new set of lungs to arrive. As long as I call Hayes and tell him that Leah’s dead, Noah gets his surgery. Tonight.”

  “Okay. I hear you. Give me a minute, Rick. Let me see how I can help so nobody has to get hurt.” Marcus snapped his fingers at Lanie, who was hovering near the front door. She stepped in and crossed the foyer to him. He placed a hand over the phone and kept his voice low as he asked, “Have we been in contact with Tuc?”

  She nodded once. “He’s aware of the situation, but I don’t know that he has the contacts to procure viable lungs for the kid. He doesn’t have a black-market hospital at his disposal like Volkov did.”

  Marcus shook his head. “We don’t need lungs. We just need to protect the medical courier and make sure those lungs get to the hospital tonight.”

  “I’ll go,” Ian spoke up from the doorway, and they both turned to look at him in surprise. His face was an expressionless mask, but anger blazed in his dark eyes. He was pissed, and an angry Ian was always a wildcard.

  “You?” Marcus said.

  “Fuck, yeah. Using a sick kid as blackmail? Even a monster like me knows that’s fucked. Find out where the courier is coming from, and I’ll make sure they reach the hospital.”

  Lanie looked at Marcus, brow raised in question. She’d said this was his show, so she was deferring the decision to him. He studied Ian—the volatile badass who got off on blowing shit up. He was a scary dude. Even scarier when his K9 sidekick went into work mode, changing in an instant from a dopey, hundred-pound puppy to hellbeast. The sight of the two of them together gave even the most hardened criminals a moment’s hesitation. He’d seen it happen more than once.