by Brook Wilder
I would be with all this firepower around me constantly.
Eileen was dressed similarly and as I watched Gun Jesus outfit her, I felt the concern and emotion clog my throat. I didn’t like the idea of her going into that mansion, into the gunfire, and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to stay behind.
She wouldn’t listen, I knew that, but it would make me feel better to at least give it a shot.
“There,” Gun Jesus finally said, stepping back to admire his handiwork. “It warms my cold heart to see you like this.”
Eileen rolled her eyes. “You are too much.”
Gun Jesus smirked before taking a bow. “I try, madam, I try.”
I grabbed the control box for the drone. “Once we start flying this thing up there, you will have to be ready to release the launchers.”
“Yes, sir,” Gun Jesus saluted. “I will be ready.”
I nodded and motioned for Eileen to climb in the jeep. We would drive it a ways before lying in wait for the first explosion.
“Good luck,” she called out as I climbed in the driver’s seat and started the engine. Carefully, I inched the jeep up the drive, pulling over into a copse of trees. Reaching over, I pulled a surprised Eileen into a kiss. “For luck,” I whispered against her lips.
“For luck,” she sighed, touching my face lightly. I winked at her, sending up a prayer to whoever had watched out for me all this time that maybe, just maybe, they would give me another twenty years or so with the woman next to me.
I wanted that badly.
Grabbing the control from the console, I started up the drone, watching as it rose into the air. Widow Maker had been reluctant to give it to me, but it was our best option to cause some confusion so that we could storm the mansion.
I just hoped Chains didn’t beat me to a bloody pulp as a result. “Here we go.”
I adjusted the drone’s flight over the trees and soon it was on its way to the mansion, the blinking lights the only distraction. The signal for Gun Jesus would be the drone flying over the roof, catching the attention of the men who would likely shoot it down.
That, I hadn’t told Widow Maker about. Hell, if this worked, I would buy another damn drone for Chains.
It wasn’t long before I heard the whistle of the first launcher being triggered, the grenade whizzing past us and in the direction of the roof. There were shouts but it was too late, the side of the mansion exploding into a ball of fire.
“He aimed too low!” Eileen shouted as I threw the jeep into drive and sped up the rest of the driveway. Too low or not, it was enough commotion for us to drive straight through the gates and onto the mansion’s grounds as the second one hit, collapsing the right side of the mansion in a dusty heap. I slammed on the brakes and we both hopped out, our guns raised as we started toward the front door. The smell of burning wood was heavy in the air and I took aim through the smoke, taking out the first guard I saw. “Stay behind me!” I shouted at Eileen, wanting to shield her as much as I could.
It was my job to make sure we both got through this alive.
Thankfully, she did as I asked and we matched each other stride for stride, shooting down two more guards as we crossed the threshold. I motioned for her to go up the stairs, knowing we had ten minutes, tops, before the government would likely fly over and blow this place up to ensure that Polanco wouldn’t make it out alive.
I was going to kill him way before they had that chance.
We took three more guards down as we reached the second floor, me leading Eileen to the room where I was certain Polanco would be. The map of the mansion I had acquired was helping out greatly.
We found the room and I kicked open the door, surprised not to have a hail of gunfire meet us. “Where is he?” Eileen said, not lowering her weapon.
I motioned to the closet. “There.”
She covered me as I walked to the massive closet, finding that clothes had been pushed aside to reveal a solid door at the back.
A panic room. The man had a damn panic room.
Lowering my weapon, I grabbed a few of the grenades, placing them around the door before rushing out of the closet and at Eileen. We fell outside of the room as the first one went off, my body instinctively covering hers from any flying debris before I was up again, my gun raised to my shoulder. Eileen brushed past me and I let her take the lead, knowing she had more of a need to kill him than I did. While I would want to be the one to put a bullet in his brain, I would be satisfied for him to just be dead.
Eileen walked through the blown-out door cautiously and we found Polanco in the corner of the panic room, grasping his side. “You,” he sneered.
“That’s right, you asshole,” Eileen said before she fired a single bullet at his chest, striking him near his heart. Polanco gasped and I waited until the light had left his eyes before I pulled out my phone, snapping a single picture.
It was over. “We got to go,” I told her, looking at my tactical watch. “Now.”
She nodded, no emotion on her face, and I led us out, keeping my gun up in case we encountered any more hostiles. The sound of an approaching jet caught my attention and I grabbed her arm. “Run!”
She did and I ignored the screaming pain of my leg as we made it to the end of the hallway, seeing the pool in the distance. If only I could get us out of this mansion and into that water, we would be safe. Grabbing my gun, I fired at the window, shattering the glass as we ran full force toward it. “We’ve got to jump!” I shouted at her before launching into the air.
It seemed like time stopped as I felt myself floating in empty space, hearing the deafening boom of the payload hit the house before I hit the water. Water flew up all around me as I went in feet-first, the weight of the weapons strapped to me dragging me down instantly. I started shedding them as fast as I could, hoping that Eileen had jumped at the same time.
Stone and wood hit the water around me as I fought to kick my way to the surface, gasping for breath as I broke through the heavy water, my eyes instantly scanning for Eileen. The house was obliterated, a pile of rubble and smoke behind me from the payload. I couldn’t even tell where we had jumped from. “Eileen!” I screamed, my heart in my fucking throat. She couldn’t be dead.
Not now.
A loud splash caught my attention and I saw Eileen surfacing, coughing and gasping for breath. I swam over to her, pushing the debris out of the way as I reached her. “Are you okay?” I shouted.
She nodded, coughing up water. “I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.”
That, I could agree with. Grabbing her arm, I somehow got us both to the steps, climbing out in a wet, sodden mess. “Come on,” I urged, pulling her in the direction of the front of the house. “This way.” We needed to get the hell out of here before the Mexican police showed up and started asking questions we couldn’t answer.
Together we dodged the debris and dead bodies as we found the driveway and started down in a hurry, meeting Gun Jesus in a jeep that was clearly not ours. “Get the hell in!” he shouted, throwing open the door. “They are hot on my heels, man. We’ve got to get off this damn mountain.”
I groaned as I climbed up inside the jeep, grabbing Eileen and pulling her on top of me before Gun Jesus took off, careening down the driveway and past the approaching Mexican police, their sirens blaring. Eileen buried her face in my shirt, and I held her close, not believing what we had just survived.
Polanco was dead and I had Eileen in my arms again.
Life was fucking good.
Chapter 25
Siren
I couldn’t believe we had just survived that chaos.
Gun Jesus was driving the hell out of the jeep as we immersed ourselves into the Mexican traffic, the sights and sounds of the city filling my ears instead of the ringing sounds of the house exploding around me. When Daniel had told me to jump, I hadn’t hesitated, and I was glad I hadn’t.
If so, I might be dead. When the water had engulfed my body, I had thought for a moment that
I was dead. The cold rush had shocked me back to life and when Daniel had found me, I knew we had survived the craziest thing I had ever been through.
But now, I was shivering, and in Daniel’s arms again, holding me close as if his life depended on it.
That was where I wanted to be.
Gun Jesus made a sudden right turn and the sky went dark around us as I realized he had pulled us into a covered shed of sorts. He cut off the engine and I allowed myself to lift my head. “Is it safe?”
“Shit,” Gun Jesus swore, resting his forehead on the steering wheel. “I gotta catch my breath after that one. I think y’all took ten years off my life with that stunt.”
Daniel chuckled as I climbed off him and somehow got myself out of the jeep without falling to the ground. “That was cutting it close. I would prefer not to do that again.”
“Me neither,” Gun Jesus muttered, not lifting his head. “There’s extra clothing in that backpack back there. Get changed. We need to get the hell out of here. Hell, I need a drink.”
I grabbed the bag, seeing an old office off to the side of the shed. Daniel climbed out of the jeep, favoring his good leg, and we walked into the office, closing the door behind us. I barely got the backpack on the dust-covered desk before he was reaching for me, hauling me against him with his hand in my hair. “God, I thought you were dead.”
I shook then, wrapping my arms around his waist to absorb not only his body heat but also his strength. “The same could be said of you. Did we really jump out of a window into a pool?”
He let out a half chuckle/half groan, burying his face in my hair. “Yeah, we did, and somehow lived to talk about it. It’s over, Eileen. Polanco is dead.”
Thank God for that. I pulled back and he reached up, pushing my wet hair out of my face with a tender touch. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out, searching my eyes with his concerned ones. “I was a dumbass and I don’t know what I was thinking when I let you walk out of my life.”
My breath caught. “I was hurt.” There was no way around it. The moment he had told me he couldn’t come with me to kill Polanco, I had felt like I had been betrayed.
“I know,” he said softly, regret plainly written on his face. “And I will spend every waking moment attempting to make that up to you. I fucking love you, Eileen. I’ve never said that to anyone before and I will never say it again, only to you.”
My heart melted. “I love you too, Daniel, and I don’t care about the club or anything else anymore as long as I am with you.”
“Truly?” he whispered, as if he couldn’t believe what I was saying.
I gave him a small smile. “Truly.”
He leaned in and brushed his lips over mine with such aching tenderness that it brought tears to my eyes. “I missed you so much. I thought I wouldn’t ever see you again.”
“Did you really walk into the club?” I asked as he stole another kiss, still curious to what had happened in his meeting with Widow Maker.
“Yeah,” he said, nibbling on my ear. “And after I get my fill of you here, I will be turning in my resignation with the CIA. I am done with this shit.”
Pulling back, I looked at his expression, searching for any sign of hesitation. That was crazy. He was an agent through and through. Plus, he was a damn good one. That would be giving up everything he had worked hard for. “Are you sure? Your career, that’s your life.”
He framed my face with his cold hands. “You are my life, not my career. I’ve lived far too long letting it dictate what I thought I wanted. Now I know I want you for as long as you will have me.”
“Oh, Daniel,” I breathed, touching his stubbled cheek. We both were a mess in terms of our lives, but maybe that was what was working so well.
Maybe that was what had brought us back to each other.
So, I kissed him hungrily, pressing my body up against his. He growled low in his throat as he slid his arm around my shoulder, pressing me against the desk. I could feel the state of his arousal through his pants and my body reacted in kind, the warm wet feeling overcoming the cold that seeped through the clothing. Daniel’s hand slid up under my shirt and I arched against his touch as his hand palmed my breast, kneading it to his liking. When his thumb ran over the tight peak, I gasped, breaking the kiss.
“You like that.”
Not a question, but a statement. “I like your hands on me wherever they might land.”
His grin was all that I needed to see. I grabbed the front of his tactile vest, pulling him back to my lips, which he devoured greedily.
This was what I had been looking for all my life.
Daniel’s arm hooked my knee and he spread my legs apart, pressing insistently against me. “God, I want you,” he whispered against my jaw before nipping at it.
I wanted him as well. Call it the near-death experience or just plain lust, but I was nearly to the boiling point for him.
No one else.
With my hands, I started to work on his vest, my movements frantic so he had to help me unfasten it. His shirt went next, a sodden mess slapping onto the floor as my hands roamed over his cool chest. Daniel pulled away, his eyes glowing with intensity as he did the same to me, until I was naked from the waist up, lying half on the desk. “You’re fucking gorgeous,” he said softly, his hand running from the cleft of my breasts to my navel and back. “I could look at you all day long.”
“There’s no time,” I shot back, pulling him over me again. Any minute, Gun Jesus would be telling us to pull out and I wanted as much time as I could with Daniel before that moment.
Who knew what the next hour or day held for us?
His hand snaked into the waistband of my pants and I gasped as he touched the hard nub waiting for him, attempting to hold back a sob. I was so ready for him, so ready to feel him fill me to the core now and for the rest of our time together.
Daniel hung his head, his eyes closing as he moved his finger across the space. “You are so wet.”
I whimpered softly, grasping at his hand and urging him to do something about this burning desire building inside my body. If not, I was going to combust at any moment.
“Hey, y’all ready yet? We have got to go.”
“Shit,” Daniel swore, removing his hand when I was just about to fall over into the abyss. “We will be there in a minute.”
A chuckle was all the response we got as I pushed up off the desk, feeling the dust sticking to my wet clothing and hair. “That was nowhere near good timing for him.”
Daniel grinned. “I agree. I was so close to being buried inside you.”
I shot him a look of pure intensity, reaching for the clothing that was inside the bag. “Next time I will shoot him.”
Daniel’s laugh carried throughout the small office. “I think you would have to beat my bullet.”
“Hey, you know I can hear you, right?”
Smothering a laugh at Gun Jesus’ reply, I threw a wad of clothing at Daniel’s bare chest. “Get dressed so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I quickly donned the clothing and left my wet ones on the floor, not bothering to pick them up. It didn’t matter. There was nothing I needed from that set anyway. Polanco was dead.
Daniel did the same, grabbing the vests still full of extra rounds before giving me a nod. “All right.”
I gave him a smile. “All right.”
“It’s about fucking time,” Gun Jesus grumbled the moment we reappeared, stubbing out his cigarette on the wall in front of him. He had pulled up the back on the jeep, effectively making us look like tourists out on a joy ride through the city. “Come on. I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.”
I climbed in the back, letting Daniel sit in the front, his gun resting at his knee. We weren’t out of the woods just yet.
Gun Jesus cranked the engine and we backed out of the garage, pointing the jeep south, back the way we came. “I called in some reinforcements,” he called out over the engine as we bo
unced along the road.
“What kind of reinforcements?” I asked lightly.
His grin was visible in the review mirror. “The clubs, of course.”
Daniel swore, slumping into his seat while I groaned. “Why would you do that?”
“Don’t worry,” Gun Jesus said, pointing at Daniel. “They promised not to shoot him on sight, especially since he has the only picture of Polanco dead.”
“If I can get this waterlogged phone to work again,” Daniel said darkly. “All right. Let’s see what they want to say.”
I swallowed, wishing that we could jump out right now. Sure, Widow Maker had been willing to help, but there was still the matter of what Daniel had done to Machine Gun and my subsequent relationship with him. Widow Maker might have kicked me out, but that didn’t mean that was her only punishment.
