by Lexy Timms
“Once the FBI finds Jacob,” he said as he cocked his gun, “I’ll be implicated. It’ll be easy to find the paper trail that leads back to me. I have to finish the job and get my last paycheck so I can get out of the country before anyone catches me. So sorry, but it’s nothing personal.”
“You traitorous son of a bitch,” I said.
“I figured you’d be angry,” he said as he kicked me back over. “But that’s how the game goes. It was a good one too. I knew the moment Jacob went off book that night that you’d start seeing me in a different light. But that’s always been your downfall.”
I closed my eyes, waiting for my end as I lay there on the pavement.
“You’ve always been too trusting of those who save your life,” John said.
“Just get it over with,” I said with a groan. “You’ve never been good at last stands.”
I heard him chuckle as I drew in heavy breaths. My body was aching, and my vision was tunneling. It felt like someone was splitting my skull open with an ax. My ribs hurt, and blood was pooling around my leg, and all I wanted was for this nightmare to be over.
I wanted this shit to be done with.
I braced myself for death, prepared myself for the inevitable loss I would become. I conjured Derek’s smile in my mind, his warmth pouring over my body as I waited there to die. I felt his lips on my neck and felt his hand curling around mine. I smiled at the memory, waiting for John to finish what he had started.
Then, a gunshot rang out.
Chapter 23
Derek
I HEARD THE THUNDEROUS crash outside and rushed out of the office to see what had happened. Some guy came barreling into my office telling me Sam had a message for me. Something about a mission being accomplished.
I figured that meant she knew who the traitor was.
But instead of Sam meeting me in office like she would if all fifteen of them showed up, she was nowhere to be found. Just the screeching of tires, a loud crash, and a groan.
A groan I recognized.
I rushed out of the room with fifteen elite killers on my heels. I raced to the window, seeing John get out of his car. Sam was lying on the ground, groaning out in pain as she held onto her side.
“Everyone outside. Now,” I said.
The men and I ran down the stairs as a gunshot rang out. Adrenaline began to flood my veins as I rushed to the front door, pulling out my cell phone to call the police. I hit the red emergency button and then left my phone on the porch so anyone on the other end of the line could hear what was going on. Then, I ripped the front door open and saw Sam lying on the ground, moaning out in pain and bleeding from her leg.
Hovering above her, with his looming stature and a gun in her face, was John.
I knew there was a reason I never liked that jackass.
A gunshot rang out beside me from one of the men on the team. They had knelt down onto the porch, taking cover on either side of my house. John looked up and took in all of us staring at him, their gunfire trying to chase him away from Sam. My eyes locked onto her as I moved from the porch, shaking off the guy who had been late for the meeting. I had to get to her.
I had to cover her with my body like she had with me.
Bullets were flying as John took cover behind his own car. I rushed to Sam’s side, taking in the wound on her leg. I ripped my suit coat off, unbuttoned my shirt, and then wrapped it around her leg and tied it off as tightly as I could. She was crying out in pain as tears ran down her cheeks. I smoothed her hair back from her face, trying to figure out what had happened to her, what that asshole had done to her.
“We have to ... take cover,” Sam said.
“Okay. Okay. Just give me a second.”
I scanned my property and found my car parked off to the side. I scooped Sam up in my arms, trying to block out her agonizing sounds as I ran us for our car. Two of the guys in tactical gear broke off and headed to where we were going, guarding our car with their gunfire as I tossed us behind it.
“John!” I said. “John, stop this!”
The gunfire ceased and silence poured over my yard.
“I’ve called the cops. You’ve got nowhere to go. At this point, they’re probably less than three minutes out,” I said.
“Three minutes is more than enough time for a man like me,” he said. “You both have to die.”
“No one has to die today,” I said as my hired team surrounded us. “No one else has to go down for any of this.”
“Can’t get paid if the two of you are still alive.”
“Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll triple it if you back down.”
“And what the hell am I gonna do with triple the income if I’m sitting in jail?” he asked. “I kill you, and I’m out of the country in twelve hours, tops.”
Another bullet popped off, throwing the team into action as they rained down gunfire onto John’s car.
“We need to get the two of you back inside,” a man said.
“We’ll surround you, but you need to walk with us,” another one said.
I looked down at Sam, and she nodded, so I gritted my teeth and hoisted her into the air.
Six men surrounded us, walking in sweet tandem as we moved for the house. Sam was crying out in pain, trying her best to keep herself silent as she bit down onto her lower lip. John was still shooting, and the men were still trying to distract him, wanting to see him in cuffs as much as I did. I stepped us up onto the porch before I ran us into the house. Then, one of the men slammed the front door behind us.
“A room ... with no windows,” Sam said.
I drew in a deep breath as I ran down the hallway, tossing us into the half-bath I had downstairs.
“You stay here,” I said as I got up. “I’m going to go draw John out.”
“W-w-what?” Sam asked.
She reached up and grabbed my wrist, her grip light as a feather as I looked down at her.
“No, no, no. You’re not. You’re not doing that,” she said. “I’m the bodyguard. You’re ... you’re just—”
“The man who loves you,” I said as I knelt down next to her. “And there’s nothing else you can do. You’ve been shot, and I haven’t. Twice now if my count is correct. You have no say in this. All this shit ends today. On the count of three.”
“No. No. Derek. There’s no count. No.”
“One,” I said.
“Derek, shut the fuck up.”
“Two,” I said as I walked down the hallway.
“Derek, please! Don’t do this!”
“Three.”
I opened up the front door, and the gunfire stopped again. The men turned their heads toward me, but I held up my hand to get them to stand down. John was peering at me from behind his car like the coward he was, and once he saw my hand go up, he stood and leveled his gun at my body.
“I knew there was a reason I didn’t like you,” I said as I stepped onto the porch.
“Guess you’ve got better senses than Sam,” John said.
“Maybe. But I’m a shrewd businessman. I have to be able to read people on the spot.”
I watched as John stepped out from behind the car as the team leveled all their guns at him.
“I can’t let you live,” John said.
“I know, I know. You don’t get paid that way,” I said. “But there is one thing you forget. One thing you underestimate about me and Sam.”
“We all know you’re sleeping together. Get off that high horse. She’s not the greatest lay in the world,” he said.
“Like you would know.”
I whipped my head around and saw Sam standing in the doorway. She had a massive gun propped up on her shoulder as she leaned against the doorframe. I grinned at her as she threw me a look, shaking her head before her eyes turned back to John. I looked back and saw him take cover again, but that wasn’t going to happen.
He needed to be exposed for Sam to get a good shot.
Before I could think, I took off from the porch.
I locked my eyes with John, knowing he would take the chance if he saw it. I made myself an easy target, running straight for him as my body ran around his car.
And the moment he stepped out and exposed his entire body to us, Sam shot.
One bullet in the head, and two in the chest.
I stopped in my tracks, leaning up against the car as John hit his knees. His lifeless eyes rolled into the back of his head as blood poured down his skin. He fell face-first as sirens screeched in the distance, and the burning of rubber began as they crashed through my front gate. I stared at his body, his still and stoic body as it lay at my feet.
But Sam’s groan of pain pulled me from my trance.
I turned my head and saw her go down on the porch. I ran for her, sprinting as fast as I could. The shirt tied around her leg was soaked with blood, and I knew she was in a great deal of pain. Her ear was bleeding, and she was still holding her side as she slid down the doorframe of my front door.
“Sam! Can you hear me?” I asked.
“You ... are an idiot,” she said.
“I knew you’d come after me. I knew none of these guys were given orders to take anyone down. If they had been, they would’ve already laid deadly fire into him. Why didn’t you give them orders to shoot?” I asked.
“Because I wanted to kill that son of a bitch myself,” she said.
“Then maybe I’m not the one who’s the idiot,” I said in a whisper.
“You could’ve been killed,” she said breathlessly.
“I wasn’t going to let the woman I love die. No matter what I had to do, that wasn’t happening today. And it’s never going to happen, not while I’m around.”
The police were screeching to a halt in my yard as I gathered Sam in my arms. I held her close against me, feeling her arms slip around my neck. She forced herself into my lap and pulled her head up to mine, colliding our lips as people began to hustle around us. I held her tightly in my arms as paramedics surrounded us, our tongues dancing like peaks of fire devouring a rainforest.
It was over.
It was done.
And we were safe.
Chapter 24
Sam
Two Months Later
“IT HAS BEEN CONFIRMED. Jacob Carl, former COO of Steele, Incorporated, has been found dead in his home. The fallen man, accused of attempting to murder his boss and best friend, Derek Steele, was found hanging by a belt in his motel room. Experts say his body was in the latter stages of decomposition, and a trusted source tells me Mr. Carl has been dead at least a week. More on this story and much more coming up after the break.”
I lay there, my leg bandaged up as I watched the news report. Suicide. What a cowardly way to end the life of someone as sleazy as Jacob. It was nauseating to think about. My team had been so close to tracking him down, so close to finding him and bringing him the justice he deserved. Death was too peaceful of an act for a man like him. He had deserved to rot in prison, forever haunted by the decisions he made. Forever reminded of how far he had truly fallen and of the life he could have lived had he not gotten so greedy.
But more than that, I was still haunted by John, a man I trusted with my life and my secrets. He had so easily betrayed me and my team for a quick buck. It had compromised everything I had built my task force on. It had compromised everything I had worked for in my career. The one person I should have been able to rely on was the one person who was ready to throw me underneath the bus at the first sign of convenience and profit
It made me sick.
Even though I was laid up in Derek’s home, I was taking some time off. I kept running things through my head, trying to pick out the signs I’d missed, the looks John had given me that should’ve tipped me off to what he was doing and the convenience of him being with Jacob at the time of Mr. Carl’s assault. He played a good game, put up a good fight, and added in some delectable acting, but there were signs. There always were.
And I was picking out each and every one of them.
I’d worked with John for years. We had gone all the way back to my latter military days. He was the person who’d convinced me to leave the military and go to a private contractor. He was the first person I brought onto my civilian team when I heard he had left the military as well. He’d saved my ass more times than I could count and picked up the phone more times than I cared to admit. He was my go-to. My comfortable teammate. My second-in-command and the person who always listened to me rattle on about my nightmares until three in the morning before acting like nothing had happened.
He had betrayed a client. He had betrayed my trust. He had betrayed this team, and I knew I had done the right thing in taking him out.
But it meant I needed time away from all this to screw my head back on straight and refocus.
The idea of John turning because of money was shocking. Especially with a client like Derek. We were paid beyond top-dollar for this assignment, so it wasn’t as if John was hurting for money. The average client we would take on shelled out anywhere between three hundred thousand and a million dollars a month for the teams we put together. Money was the last thing we worried about with clients like Derek.
“Hey there, beautiful.”
I groaned as I shifted on the couch, feeling Derek press a kiss to the top of my head.
“Yep.”
“It’s time for your pain medication,” he said.
“I can feel that,” I said.
“You shouldn't be watching that garbage. I know what you’re in here doing.”
I watched as Derek picked up the television remote and turned the news station off.
“I need to pick this apart so the same mistake doesn’t happen again,” I said.
“And I’m sure you’re doing a fantastic job of it, but it’s time for your pain medication.”
“I hate that shit. It puts me to sleep.”
“Which is what you need, given that you’ll be laid up for a couple more months.”
“But I’ve already been laid up for two months.”
“Then take it up with your body. I have no control over how your leg heals,” he said. “Now take this and drink.”
I sighed as I took the pills and the water from Derek’s hands. Two months. It had been two months since Derek had made the idiotic decision to put his life on the line to draw John out. Two months since I had put three bullets in his body and watched a man I’d trusted with my darkest nights fall to his knees, lifeless. Two months since the surgery in the hospital and Derek telling me I was recuperating at his house whether I liked it or not.
I threw the pills to the back of my throat and chugged the water. It tasted good as its coolness fell down my throat. My leg was throbbing despite the relatively minor damage that occurred. As far as bullet holes went, it had been as clean as I could have hoped for. Embedded into my upper thigh and didn’t nick a single major artery. A short surgery, a few stitches, and lots of pain medication and hobbling on crutches until the sinews of my muscle tissue could heal properly.
“Now, it’s time to sit back and relax,” Derek said.
“Not a chance,” I said. “I still have to brief the team.”
“The team’s no longer going to be here.”
“What?” I asked. “But I thought you were hiring on the team full-time.”
“Sam, think about it. It’s all over now. With John dead, and now Jacob, why do I need the protection? Yes, I need to hire three or four individuals for a full-time position, but that doesn’t mean I need fifteen men in full tactical gear running around this place.”
“Then use four of the men I have here. I vetted them deeply, especially after what happened with John. I can tell you who broke what bone when they were four, Derek.”
“You leave assembling a full-time team to me. I have specific things I look for in a security team. Don’t worry. Your men won’t only be well paid, but they’ll get fantastic bonuses for all the bullshit they’ve been through with this scenario.”
“Bec
ause that went over well with Griggs. Are you saying you don’t trust my opinion anymore on people?” I asked.
“I’ll ignore that comment for now. And I’m saying that you’re having a hard time trusting yourself right now, which is fine. I’m only now getting over my fear of hiring a new COO, and Jacob pulling a gun on us happened almost five months ago. You’ll mistrust yourself for a while, and that’s normal. Plus, I think your guys have earned some time off.”
“Danger never takes time off,” I said.
“Spoken like a true badass. And in a couple months’ time, you’ll be back to being the ass-kicking woman I know you are. But for now, you’re going to lie on this couch and let me take care of you so you can get better. I’m going to go talk to the team about bonuses and last paychecks. Then we’ll go from there.”
“Fine,” I said with a sigh.
But I could feel the painkillers weakening my system as tears crested my eyes.
Shit.
“Sam, talk to me,” Derek said.
“It’s nothing. I’m just tired.”
“I love you, Sam. I’d like to think I know you well. You don’t get emotional. It’s not your MO. What’s going through your head?” he asked.
“I put you in danger,” I said. “It was me the entire time, and I was too blind to notice it.”
Derek’s chuckle hit my ears as I opened my eyes. I watched a smirk grow on his face as his hand reached out for mine. His chuckle grew to laughter, and his laughter caused him to sink into the couch. What the hell was so funny?
None of this was funny.
“I don’t get the joke,” I said.
“Sam, it was my friend and COO who set this whole thing in motion. Not you. Had he not gotten so greedy and decided he could shoot me out of my chair, none of this would’ve happened. You didn’t put us here. He did.”
“So how’s that funny?”
“I don’t know,” he said as he shook his head. “I guess because laughing about it is all I can do. I’m relieved. I’m thankful. I’m ready to finally move forward with the next chapter of my life. It’s over, and I never thought I would know what that felt like to do something and not look over my shoulder to see who was there. Or look out the window to make sure someone wasn’t leveling a gun at me. I feel ... less burdened.”
