by Shauna Allen
“She’ll be back part-time next month.”
“Nice.” I pulled out some silverware rolls to begin placing them on the tables just as one of the cooks strolled in and got to work. “I was hoping you guys might help me start getting the nursery ready for the baby.” I glanced up. “We found out it’s a girl.”
“Really?” Her smile was genuine.
I nodded, surprised Tanner hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe he’d left it for us girls to discuss.
“I’d love to and I’m sure Scarlett would, too, but if you would’ve waited, we could’ve done one of those fun gender reveal parties when the guys got home with everyone there. It would’ve been fun.”
“Oh. No.” I shook my head. “It was perfect just Cody and I. We don’t need all of that.”
“Well, we’ll have to plan a big baby shower in a few weeks.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Of course, it is, Carissa. We’re friends. Basically family.” She frowned at me. “I want to.”
I remembered what Cody had said about the teams and how they felt about each other. It seemed to extend to the women as well, and I really wanted to be a part of that. “Okay. If you’re sure . . . something small though.”
“I’m sure.” She grinned. “And no promises. I love girly stuff!”
I shook my head and moved to the front to seat a customer. The day was blessedly busy, keeping my mind preoccupied, though my feet were aching by lunchtime. I barely had time to grab a snack for myself, but I couldn’t complain. It took my mind off missing Cody too much, and I only had the chance to check my phone once, hoping for a text or a voicemail—something to let me know he was okay—but there was nothing.
The dinner shift waitress called in sick, so I volunteered to stay and work.
“Are you sure?” Rebekah asked, her brow wrinkled in concern. “It’s already been a long day, and I don’t want you to overdo it.”
“I’m sure. I’d just be going home to an empty condo anyway. This will keep me busy. It’s a good thing.” I forced a tired smile.
“Well . . . okay. If you’re really sure.”
“I am. Just let me sit for a minute and grab a drink of water.”
“Sit for ten minutes and eat something. You both need it.” She shoved me into a booth and forced a sandwich on me before letting me back up to serve, making me realize I was really starving. I wolfed down the ham and cheese plus a bag of chips then got back to it.
After chatting with a four-top, I found out what all the craziness was about . . . there was a music festival happening down on the beach, which had brought in more tourists than usual, crowding the area and bringing in booming business to all the area businesses, including the café. When I shared this with Rebekah, she grumbled that it would’ve been nice of the organizers to give them a heads up, so they could’ve planned accordingly.
By closing time, my entire body throbbed, and I was so exhausted I was nearly seeing double. I moved to lock the front door behind our last customer, breathing in the faint tang of beach air as the echo of fading music carried from down the boardwalk. Out of the corner of my eye, a shadow crossed the sidewalk. I glanced over, but it was just a cloud passing over the moon, casting a weird shape over the walkway. Still, something made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, so I hurried to close and lock the door, stepping inside to dim some of the lights and help Rebekah wipe down the tables.
The cooks finished up in the kitchen, said their goodbyes, then headed out the back.
Once I was done with the tables, I found Rebekah in her office, working on the books. She glanced up with bleary eyes and a tired smile. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I tilted my head toward the back door. “I’m just gonna take out the trash then I’m going home unless you need anything else.”
“No, I’m good. If you give me about ten more minutes, I’ll walk you out.”
“Sounds good.”
She nodded and turned back to her paperwork.
I gathered up the trash and lugged it to the back door. I hauled it outside and down the alleyway to the dumpster. The music was louder now as some new band amped things up at the festival and a few people hooted and hollered.
I struggled with the heavy, metal lid on the dumpster, straining with the weight, especially after our long day. My arms shook and quavered, but I finally got it open and hauled one bag over the lip and inside. It landed with a dull thud.
A shuffling sound echoed behind me.
A step.
I turned, but before I could get my bearings, I was ripped off my feet by a vicious yank of my hair and thrown to the ground. My bones jarred and rattled, bringing the automatic hot sting of tears to my eyes and a cry of pain to my lips.
Crack! A heavy fist connected with my cheek bone, splitting my flesh.
Another to my mouth. The warm, coppery tang of blood flooded my tongue.
I automatically tried to roll over and curl around my stomach in a protective ball with one arm over my head in a fetal position. My screams were trapped in my chest. Panic surged through my veins like electricity, yet I was a prisoner in my own body. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t do anything, focus on anything, other than saving my baby.
“No! No! No!” I protested over and over and over, until my throat burned and my voice was hoarse as the vicious blows continued to my back, my ribs, my legs, my head . . . anywhere he could reach with his rage.
“We could’ve been together,” he spat, his low words a growl of pure hatred. “Instead you chose him.” He said the last word as if Cody were nothing more than an animal to be put down. “Now, you and your bastard child will pay.”
Then I felt the blade plunge into my back.
White hot pain roared through my body, ripping me to consciousness. I blinked my eyes open, petrified to move. My fingers clawed the concrete beneath me. I tasted blood. My own blood. Music still carried on the briny air. My body was on fire. My back.
My baby!
I couldn’t move. I could barely speak.
After a moment, I realized I was still alive, but I was weak and lying in a puddle of my own blood . . . and I was alone.
He’d left me for dead.
Pete.
Pete had done this.
I didn’t care what happened to me, but I needed to get help if my baby had any chance of survival. I gripped the ground again and tried to crawl, but the agony clawed my nerve endings like liquid flames. I glanced over, but I was trapped behind the dumpster.
Where was Rebekah? Would she even find me back here?
Shit. Think, Carissa.
Cody, I need you, I silently cried out.
Then his words came back to me. Tex is only a phone call away if you need him. Don’t forget you promised me.
My arm was gushing blood from a cut, but I could move it, so I slowly felt my pockets for my phone. Thank God it was there. Squeezing my eyes shut against the agonizing pain, I fished it out and scrolled to the emergency contacts that Cody had programmed in and located Tex’s number.
He answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Help,” was all I could manage to croak out, but it seemed to be enough. Thank God.
Cody
The intel had been good, and we were able to stop the bombing of the Mexico City Embassy well before it was executed within twenty-four hours of having boots on the ground. Brianne had come through.
Shadeek had bailed though and was no longer in town. According to Tex’s last correspondence with Wolf, he’d gone to ground the moment the last of the monies exchanged hands on his last deal with Esteban. He had no idea we were so close to him, which was good and extremely fucking frustrating at the same time. But, I figured it was only a matter of time before we were on his ass again.
But, for now, we were geared up and circling the block, caging in the house where Esteban and his crew were holed up. We parked the two armored Humvees and one Comms van about a half-click away and made our move under the cover of the
crescent moon.
Without a word, we split into our preassigned teams.
Wolf led the insertion team that would make entry into the house with Abe, Maverick, Bubba, Mozart, Dude, Benny, and me.
Cookie, Red, and Lucky broke off to their assigned posts on various rooftops as snipers.
Tito stayed behind in the van to lead the op on comms with Tex in his virtual back pocket if needed.
We all knew our roles. We’d trained for this, talked it through for hours, discussed every contingency, planned for every scenario. We all just wanted to get in, neutralize Esteban, snatch up Brianne, and get the fuck out of there. Quick. Easy.
Except things were never quick and easy where Esteban was concerned. We should’ve known this.
All intel had estimated no more than a dozen hostiles and that was what we’d prepared for. The moment we stepped onto the property, it became clear there were at least double that. Voices and heat signatures out the ass.
Fuck.
Wolf and Dude exchanged a look from the front of the group as we neared the door where Dude was going to breach entry with a C4 ordinance.
“Bubba,” Tito crackled in over our earpieces. “You and Benny round to the front of the residence and divert the tangos with a flash bang while the team makes entry in the back. We’ve been given clearance to use deadly force if necessary. They want Esteban however they can get him, but remember we have a hostage inside.”
“Roger that,” Wolf mumbled, signaling Bubba and Benny toward the front of the house.
They took off without hesitation.
The rest of us took our positions in silence, watching the unsuspecting tangos inside through our night vision gear, rifles locked, loaded, and ready.
The moment the flash bang boomed from the front, every hostile inside jumped to their feet and ran that way, fumbling for their pistols. Dude immediately set off his charge, blowing the back door off its hinges, and we made entry, eliminating one tango after another as they engaged, dropping them where they stood before they registered what was happening.
The television droned on in the background with the dramatic sounds of a Spanish telenovela as we systematically cleared each downstairs room.
“Anything?” Tito sounded in our ears.
“Negative,” Wolf replied as we moved from room to room in the huge house.
We all replied in kind as we continued to look, until we ended up at a back bedroom door.
Wolf held up a hand for silence and tried the knob slowly. Locked.
Dude stepped forward, pack at the ready. Wolf shook his head. Dude frowned. “I can blow that door in two seconds flat,” he murmured in a growl.
“We also don’t know what’s behind there,” Wolf cautioned, nodding Benny forward. “Do your thing, brother.”
Benny nodded, drawing out his lock-picking supplies from his bag. He got to work, and that lock was like putty in his expert hands. He stepped back. “Piece of cake.”
Wolf nodded, glancing back to make sure everyone was ready, including Mozart in the back with his medic supplies just in case.
Bubba and Abe took flank, and Wolf took lead with me behind him.
“Let her go,” Wolf growled. “Now.”
I moved out, gun raised, immediately on alert.
Esteban came into my sights. Fury-filled eyes. Sweat rolling down his temples. He only wore pajama pants and one slipper. We’d caught the fucker unaware. Good.
Dude, Benny, and Maverick filtered in and fanned out to form a periphery of firepower, all aimed on the shirtless bastard, holding a 9 mm to a weeping Brianne’s temple.
We rushed in for the quick kill, but Wolf halted us. “Stand down!”
Esteban’s face lit in wicked glee as we took in not only the pistol he held, but the makings of a bomb he had strapped to Brianne’s chest. It was impossible to tell if it was live, but he held what looked to be a detonation device in his hand, and we couldn’t be sure.
So we stood down. For now.
“Dude?” Wolf murmured, silently asking him to discern the nature of the explosive.
“Gimme a sec.”
“Please,” Brianne whimpered, her impossibly blue eyes stuck on my face for some reason as she fidgeted under the explosives.
I kept my finger tight on the trigger, my gaze locked on Esteban. The bastard was not getting away tonight.
He cursed us to hell in Spanish and refused to negotiate.
“I can take him,” Abe muttered, growing impatient after several moments of Esteban’s ranting and Brianne’s cries.
Wolf ignored him as we all stood, guns raised.
“You move, I kill us all,” Esteban said.
Finally, Dude spoke up. “It’s a live bomb, brother.”
“Well, fuck,” Wolf huffed under his breath.
Esteban just leered and jammed the pistol harder into Brianne’s head, making her sob louder. “So, what now, big, bad American soldiers? You going to kill me and the girl? Then you all die.”
Wolf stepped back with Dude, nodding for me to keep Esteban in my sights.
I could hear their discussion in my earpiece. The bomb was live. He could detonate with the button in his hand or manually on the bomb itself. The only way to neutralize it was to kill him before he could press either button then dismantle the bomb. The question was how?
I did a quick calculation of our location. Glanced at the window. “Hey, Wolf!” I hollered. “I think I’m feeling Lucky tonight.”
Esteban stared at me like I was insane. Even Brianne stopped crying to look at me like I was a freak.
Wolf and Dude made their way back into the room but bypassed me to be near the window. “I do, too, buddy,” he said.
Lucky chuckled over the comms.
“Cookie? You feeling Lucky, too, brother?”
“Roger that,” came Cookie’s reply.
“Keep it clean,” Tito instructed. “We have live ordinances. Lucky on the hand. Cookie drop him. One, two. Got it?”
“Affirmative.”
“Hey, Marco,” Wolf said. “I do have one question for you.”
Esteban just stared, his dark, beady eyes hateful.
“Got anything to say to the devil? Because you’re about to meet your maker.” Then he yanked the blinds down in a vicious pull.
Pop. One shot broke the glass, taking out his hand with the detonation device.
He screamed like a little girl, collapsing to the ground with Brianne still in his hold.
Pop. A second shot nearly took his head.
She screamed and scrambled away in a crab crawl, heading right for me.
Dude diverted her, going right for the bomb that was strapped to her and making quick work of disarming it while she stared at him as if in shock.
It was suddenly eerily silent. Cavernous.
I glanced around as something niggled my sixth sense. It struck me then, as if by divine inspiration. I did a quick headcount of the dead tangos.
I made my way out of the room and followed the hallway that was littered with blood and dead cartel bodies, counting and recounting.
I spun toward Wolf. “We only have—"
Bang!
A burning white-hot pain tore through my upper arm, and I toppled into Wolf, dropping us both to the floor.
“Fuck!” he roared, ripping his gear from his head.
“You’re hit!” Abe yelled, sprinting over, weapon raised as he popped off a double-tap without a moment of hesitation. A tango fell from behind a false wall and slumped to the ground, blood gushing from a chest wound, but Abe put one more bullet between his eyes for good measure before turning back to me and Wolf. “Shit. Mozart!” he hollered.
I stared up at the ceiling in a daze then rolled my head to look at Wolf lying next to me. His eyes were closed, his face pale. Blood was pooled beneath his body.
Something finally clicked.
We’d both been hit.
The bullet must’ve ripped through both of us.
“Wol
f. Wolf!” I rolled over and shoved at his chest.
He cracked an eye open and grimaced just as Mozart skidded into the room with his medic pack.
“What the fuck is going on in there?” Tito demanded.
“A goddamn rogue hostile,” Abe barked as Mozart got to work on us both, assessing the injuries.
“Who’s hit?” Tito asked, his voice tense.
“Kid and Wolf.”
“How bad?”
I hissed as Mozart poked at my left arm. “Looks like flesh wounds. Probably will need some stitches. Not too bad.”
I sat up. “What about Wolf?”
“A bit deeper, but he’s had it worse. Right, brother?”
Wolf grimaced and rolled to sit, his face still pale. “Right.”
“And the hostage?” Tito said.
“She’s fine,” Dude said, bringing her into the room, her eyes wide as she took in the bloody scene.
“Roger that. Well, grab what intel you can before we exit.”
Dude took care of settling Brianne down while we scrubbed the scene for any possible intel, but something deep and unsettling still niggled me. My arm ached like a bitch, but it was more than that. All of a sudden, I couldn’t focus.
“Kid!” Tito’s voice boomed on the earpiece.
“Yeah.”
“To the van. Now.”
Something in my gut caught like razor wire. “Roger that.” I grabbed my gear, hiked it out to the van, and climbed in.
“Call Tex on the sat phone.” He said nothing more, but it was clear it was urgent.
I picked up the phone and dialed.
Tex answered on the first ring. “Kid.”
I clenched my fist. “What happened?” I knew in my heart Tex would not be calling in the middle of a mission if it wasn’t deadly serious.
“It’s Carissa, brother. You need to get home.”
My heart dropped to my feet. “Why? Is she all right?”
“No. She was attacked outside of Maverick’s tonight, and she’s been hurt pretty fucking bad. She’s in the hospital now. She called me and thank God she did or I’m not sure what would’ve happened to her.”
I swallowed back the bile that crowded my throat as fury like I’d never known roared through my veins. “How bad?”
