Phoenix

by Crouch, Janie

  “We’ll get her out, Phoenix. Nobody’s leaving here without her. Count on it.”

  He heard the grunts of agreement all around.

  “Thank you. I know you’re taking considerable risks, and you all have families of your own.”

  “We have family inside that compound too,” Wyatt said. “The Rileys are part of our family. Thanks for not having to make us say two different names. Makes heartfelt speeches a lot shorter.”

  Everyone chuckled.

  “Not to mention, Charlie will kick my ass if I come home without Riley.” The laughter grew at Finn’s comment. “Seriously, you guys. We’ve got a new baby in the house, and if you think Charlie is scary on a good day, you should see her when she hasn’t slept in four nights.”

  There was real fear in Finn’s voice, which was hilarious, considering he was well over six foot and his tiny blond wife was barely pushing five. “So, for me, Phoenix, please don’t die.”

  He loved these people. And Wyatt was right. They were family.

  He chuckled. “Roger that, Eagle. Everyone will get in and out safely just so you don’t get an ass whooping at home.”

  “All right, let’s cut the chatter,” Zac said. “Phoenix, we’ll see you on the ground.”

  “Roger that.”

  Two minutes later, the pilot signaled and said something in Arabic. Riley assumed that meant it was time. He slid open the door, making out the lights of Sayed’s house and grounds far below them. The plan was for the plane to be high enough that it wouldn’t draw any attention. Riley would free-fall for as long as possible, then pull his chute at the last moment.

  “I’m jumping in five, four, three, two, one.”

  He let himself fall out of the airplane.

  He wished he weren’t making this jump now, but he was never going to get tired of this feeling. That free-fall lurch, the wind flowing by him at speeds that made talking or even thinking almost impossible. All he could do was feel.

  The house and grounds came up quickly. At the very last minute, way later than what would be considered a recommended safe distance, Riley pulled the parachute cord, saying a small prayer of thanks when the thing actually opened correctly.

  He fought the winds to steer himself to where he needed to be. He hit the roof hard but ignored the jarring impact, unbuckled himself, and turned to yank at his black parachute. Once it was in his arms, he stuffed it into the sack and dumped it near the corner of the roof.

  “Landed.”

  “Roger that. We’re in position.”

  He wasn’t sure exactly who’d said that and didn’t stop to figure it out. Every second counted.

  Navigating off the second-story roof took a little bit of gymnastic coordination. Using his core strength, he lowered himself over the side and onto the open portico below.

  He pulled the tranq gun from one of his holsters and kept it pointed in front of him. They wouldn’t make this a bloodbath if they didn’t have to. And some of the people who worked here were regular household employees, not soldiers who would try to kill them.

  But Riley also had a second weapon in a back holster if tranquilizers weren’t an option.

  Keeping to the shadows, he made his way down the hall until he was outside the security office’s door. This place wasn’t well guarded. Sayed had concentrated his manpower on the outer walls, trusting no one could get inside. Riley opened the unlocked door and walked inside. A single man sat watching the camera feeds.

  The man never even turned around at the sound of the door opening.

  He was in the middle of saying something in Arabic as Riley squeezed the trigger, the tranq dart shooting out and hitting the man in the neck.

  The guy made an irritated sound, slapping at his neck before slumping over to the side, unconscious in his chair.

  Riley left him where he was and began typing in the code Kendrick had given him. Moments later the system rebooted. The cameras facing the southwest corner flickered to static, and the light on the console that had been red turned green.

  “Cyclone, the southwest perimeter systems are shut down. You can move in undetected.”

  “Roger that,” Zac said. “We’ve got a lot of extra manpower around here. Sayed might not be expecting us yet, but he’s not just sitting on his ass either. It’s going to take us a little extra time to get there.”

  Riley wasn’t going to wait. “I’ll meet you at the holding cell. If Girl Riley isn’t in there, we’re going to need to know that sooner rather than later.”

  “Roger that.”

  He moved silently out of the security room back down the hall the way he’d come.

  There weren’t very many of Sayed’s men around. Like Zac said, they were busy protecting the perimeter.

  Keeping his back to the wall, he made his way as quickly as possible toward the place he hoped they were holding Wildfire. The tranq gun had bought them a couple hours at most. A room-by-room search of this entire compound was going to take longer than that.

  When he finally got down the hallway and saw the two guards posted outside the door, he knew he’d found her.

  “Salām ‘alaykum,” Riley said as he walked down the hall, still in the shadows, using the Egyptian greeting Sayed himself had said to him.

  Again, not expecting trouble, the men responded likewise.

  Riley pulled up his gun and shot them with the tranquilizer before they could even realize something was wrong. He found the key to the door in one of the men’s pockets and immediately opened it, wincing when the door creaked way too loudly.

  His heart shattered into a million pieces at the sound of sobbing coming from over in the corner. Oh God.

  “Wildfire?” He ran over to her.

  “Riley?”

  He could make out the tear tracks and the bruising on her face in the dim light. Her arm was wrapped in some sort of bandage, blood seeping through it. And those were only the wounds he could see. God only knew what had happened to her.

  “Oh God, baby, don’t cry. It’s going to be okay. I’m going to get you out of here.” He wanted to pull her into his arms but stopped himself. He had to consider the fact that the unthinkable might’ve happened to her and she might not want to be touched by him or any man.

  “You got here a lot faster than I thought you would.”

  He was amazed at how even her voiced sounded. “Are you okay? Oh God—”

  She reached out and cupped his cheeks. “I’m fine. I swear. Just this cut on my arm and a little bruising on my face.”

  “But you were crying so hard…”

  “Part of my plan. Make them think I’m scared and weak and useless as possible.” Her smile lit up her face.

  Lit up his world.

  “You are the most amazing woman I have ever known or will ever know.” He reached in and kissed her gently on the lips. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He helped her stand and led her back toward the door, but when she grabbed his arm and tugged, he stopped. “I want to get married.”

  So much for his planned proposal. “Yes. A thousand times yes. Every day for the rest of my life yes.”

  She reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  “Congrats,” Wyatt said in the barest of whispers through the comm unit. “We’re still pinned down.”

  He’d forgotten everyone could hear what he was saying.

  “Roger that. I’ve got Girl Riley. We’re coming to you.” He pointed to the comm unit in his ear so she would know who he was talking to. He grabbed her hand and they made their way forward.

  She stayed right on his heels as they crept back down the hall and then outside. They ducked around sections of the motocross course, headed for the hole he’d made in security. Maybe they’d make it out of this without needing the team at all.

  Riley had no idea what Sayed would do when he discovered Riley had somehow tricked him again. But that would have to be a problem for another day.

  He spotted
the low section of wall, and they were about to make a dash for it when suddenly all the lights from the motocross course turned on. It was nearly blinding after the dimness.

  Sayed and a dozen of his men surrounded them, weapons pointed directly at them.

  “Drop the gun right now, or you both die this second.”

  Shit.

  Riley looked around. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to send Wildfire running while Riley fought them off.

  Sayed stepped out of the shadows, head tilted, eyebrows raised as he looked at Riley’s gun. Riley eased his finger off the trigger, then set it on the ground. One of Sayed’s men came and took Riley’s other weapon out of its holster and stepped back.

  “So, we meet again, Phoenix. Once again on the motocross course. I think this time perhaps I will be the winner.”

  There was no sound from his comm unit. Riley didn’t know what that meant, perhaps that the team was too close to be able to talk safely.

  But it could also mean that the team had been silently taken out.

  “This was never personal for me, Sayed. Just a job. Business. You understand that, right?” He slid an arm around Wildfire and pushed her behind his back. It wouldn’t do much good, there were guys behind them too, but if Sayed decided to shoot him, he didn’t want the bullet to hit her.

  “You got here much more quickly than I expected. You’re a tricky one. And, once I discovered you had links to these men from the company called Linear Tactical, I wasn’t expecting you to come alone. But skydiving was smart. Except, how did you plan to escape?”

  “I was just taking it one step at a time, honestly. I figured I’d get us off your property first, then worry about the rest.”

  Sayed had no idea Riley’s friends were here.

  Sayed nodded, obviously trying to understand Riley’s plan. “You might have made it to Cairo, but that would be as far as you could go. I have eyes and ears everywhere in Cairo. That’s how I learned a plane had taken off from Quwaisna Airport with a single white man who wanted to skydive in the middle of the night. Sounded like someone I was familiar with.”

  “Sayed, listen, I know you took it as a personal insult when I helped break out the people you were holding. But it was business.”

  “Business or not, you insulted me and my household and my hospitality. That must be answered for. Not only you, but all those you work with. How does it feel knowing that you have unleashed the wrath of old? Not only on you, but on your associates and their families.”

  He held up a file in his hand. “Zac McKay. Looks like he has a fiancée named Anne Griffin? Finn Bollinger. What a shame the death of his wife and children will be.”

  “Goddammit, Sayed. This is between you and me. This medieval-revenge bullshit is out of control.”

  “No, not medieval. Much, much earlier than medieval. Ancient revenge.” Sayed’s smile was pure evil. “You chose the wrong person to slight, to steal from. It is a matter of honor. Something you and your young country know nothing about. It is time for you to learn these actions will not be tolerated any longer.”

  “Buy us two minutes,” Wyatt’s voice whispered in his ear. Riley had never been so happy to hear a voice.

  But two minutes was an eternity in a situation like this.

  “Sayed, be reasonable.” Riley held his hands out in front of him. He could feel Wildfire plastered against his back. “You’re talking about killing innocent women and children. They have nothing to do with anything that has happened here.”

  “Oh, I know all too well that innocent women and children are sometimes collateral damage.”

  Oh shit. This was way more than just spouting ancient-end-of-days bullshit. This was personal for Sayed.

  And when Sayed lowered the file in his hands and raised a gun, Riley wasn’t even sure they had the last few seconds the team needed to get into place.

  “Don’t worry, they will die quickly, which is more than my wife and children were given.”

  “Sayed, look, man, I’m really sorry about your family.” He reached out and tucked Riley more firmly behind him. “I’ve got an idea. You and I can work together. Take revenge on the people who did this to your family. I have connections all over the world.”

  Riley was just making shit up as he went, praying he was giving the team enough time.

  Sayed gestured with his head, and two of his men began walking toward him and Riley.

  “No. The loss of my family was a gift. It showed me that the modern way holds no honor, only the ancient way. Yes, I like my motocross course and the internet. But when it comes to what is inside a man”—Sayed tapped himself on the chest with his gun—“modern is useless. Your friends will die. Their families will die. Because I have learned the laws of the ancient. Mercy is for the weak.”

  “It doesn’t need to be this way.”

  “These men around me, they do what I tell them to because they know what will happen to their families if they do not. What I do to your friends and their families will just reinforce that in their minds.”

  Sayed’s man ripped Wildfire from his grip.

  There was nothing Riley could do. All he could do was trust that his friends—his family—would take care of them.

  “Kill her. Shoot him in the knees and take him back to the cell.”

  “No!” Girl Riley began to struggle against the man holding her.

  This was it. They were out of time. The team was either about to make their move or they were going to be too late.

  Riley turned his back on Sayed. “Wildfire, look at me.”

  Those beautiful hazel eyes, wide and full of fear, turned to him. He didn’t want her to see what was about to happen. He yanked her from the man, into his arms, holding her face against his chest. “I love you. Should we go back to Bali for our honeymoon?”

  A single shot rang out in the night, but Sayed and all of his men fell to the ground, including the ones closest to him and Wildfire.

  Riley didn’t hesitate; he knew what had happened.

  Sayed had signed his own death warrant as soon as he had mentioned harming the families of the Linear Tactical team. He didn’t know which one of them had made the kill shot, but it didn’t matter. Any of them could have, and would have, done it.

  The rest of the men were merely unconscious, shot with tranquilizers. Whatever hold Sayed had had on them would be gone once they woke up.

  He grabbed Riley’s hand and they ran for the closest section of the wall.

  Chaos and shouting went up behind them, but they didn’t look back.

  One by one the rest of the Linear team joined them, and they disappeared into the night.

  It was time to go home.

  Chapter 29

  “I love you. You know that, right?”

  Riley was perched on the countertop, watching the world-famous Phoenix load the dishwasher.

  They’d been home from their very short stint in Egypt for a week and had barely gotten out of bed the entire time.

  He shot her a look from the corner of his eye. “I’m already doing the dishes; you don’t have to butter me up.”

  Her hands were stiff, and she was a little tired. MS stuff. Instead of making a big deal about it, he’d just set her up on the countertop and done the dishes himself.

  And she did love him. To distraction. But there was something she needed to say.

  “That stuff I said about getting married when we were in Egypt? We don’t have to do it. We were both under a shit ton of stress at Sayed’s compound.”

  She was glad Sayed was dead—she wasn’t going to lie. They’d found out later his family had died pretty horrifically, and she was sorry for that, but he had been half insane. He never would have stopped coming after Riley or her or the people at Linear Tactical. So no, she wasn’t sad.

  Phoenix turned slowly and deliberately away from the dishwasher, grabbing a towel, and dried his hands. “Do you not want to get married anymore?”

  She stretched her hands out in front o
f her, easing their stiffness. “I do. Just…you haven’t mentioned it again since we’ve gotten home. So I thought maybe you’d just gotten caught up in the moment while we were there.”

  “I wanted to marry you day four after meeting you.”

  She rolled her eyes. There was no way he’d wanted to marry her for that long and never really mentioned it. “Look. I just want you to feel like you have options. I don’t want MS to be the reason you tie your life to mine.”

  He pushed back from the sink and walked over to her, stripping off his shirt as he went.

  Good Lord, would the sight of his naked chest ever not affect her? “Are you trying to distract me with sex, Harrison? If so, it’s working.”

  He reached down and took her hand and placed it on his heart. “I want you to look at this tattoo again.”

  She trailed her fingers along the words. “My greatest adventure. You still never told me what that is.”

  He took her hand down from the ink. “Look at it closer.”

  She had no idea what point he was trying to make. There were the words around the outside of the globe. What more was there to see?

  He flexed his pecs just a little—show off—and she saw the upper edge of the globe wasn’t made of a solid line at all.

  “They’re numbers.” She looked closer at them and realized they were…“Coordinates? For where?”

  “Yup. Ready to go geocaching? Grab your coat and pocket tracker. No cheating.”

  She jumped down from the counter. They both enjoyed geocaching, even though it wasn’t so trendy anymore. She could cheat and google the coordinates, but what would be the fun in that?

  “All right, you’re on. But what does geocaching have to do with us getting or not getting married?”

  He moved in closer, his arms resting on either side of the counter around her. “You think this idea of marriage is new to me. It’s not. MS, no MS, crazy Egyptians kidnapping you, it doesn’t matter. You have always been it for me, Wildfire. I just want to prove it to you so there is no remaining doubt.”

  Not that she had much doubt anyway.

  He’d basically moved in over the past week. She’d sat with him as he’d had numerous video conference meetings with both the Adventure Channel and his YouTube video team.