by Rie Warren
Panic started setting in.
Fuck that.
I was not losing another person.
“We’re taking heat!” I bellowed into the coms link. “Where the fuck are you dickless wonders?”
“Got your six.” Bane’s gruff voice came over the wireless.
“On your nine.” Storm squawked back. “Coming in from the stairwell.”
I heard him cracking shots and fighting through the fire, heading toward us.
“Cover me, Bane,” Storm ordered.
“Got it,” he crackled back.
The two worked together for once.
Great.
We still needed a fucking exit strategy and a goddamn miracle to keep Jade alive.
“Get ready to jump, Madge.” Reaching into the elevator shaft, I grabbed two cables and pulled them toward me. “Wrap it around yourself and rappel like your life depends on it.”
She hurried to do as told, steadying Jade as I did the same.
I squinted down the metal chute.
Fuck me and my fear of heights. “Jesus Christ. This shit better hold.”
I took the plunge, Madge right beside me.
We shuttled down into the depths. The strangling agony I felt wasn’t caused by the cables constricting my chest. It was because of Jade who bounced listlessly against me.
She’s alive.
She has to be alive.
Let her live, goddammit!
We landed with heavy thuds, quickly unlooping the cables. I pried the fucking stubborn elevator doors open using the blade Madge had given me and the rest of my strength.
Jade hadn’t moved, and my nerves of steel fizzled as if touched by a livewire.
Madge joined her hands with mine as a crack of light appeared. Wedging my free shoulder into the opening, I made the fucking stubborn doors groan wider.
“Run, Madge!” I shouted, the opening a big enough slice for her to shimmy through.
She squeezed out and grabbed from the other side.
The panels suddenly greased all the way open, and we raced to the entrance. The entire block was a ball of fire, filling my senses—bright red and flaming oranges and billowing smoke against the black backdrop of the night. But I’d kept the blast zone contained. Just the hotel. No innocent casualties.
Just Jade.
We shoved through the doors as Justice burnt rubber on pavement, skidding to a stop in an armored M1152 Humvee. Madge clambered into the front seat. I hopped in after her, clutching Jade against my body.
Jade’s arms flopped. Her neck listed at an odd angle. I pressed my ear to her chest.
“She’s not fucking breathing, Justice!”
Two loud stomps shook the back of the truck, and I peered out the tinted rear window.
Bane and Storm, reloading cartridges and firing away.
Justice threw us into gear as I braced myself over Jade.
I laid my hand on her chest. Fuck. It felt like her core temperature was cooling at a rapid rate. I had no idea what kind of narcotics they’d fed into veins.
“What should I do?” I asked Justice.
He was the computer dude, but he also helped Bane with medical emergencies.
He slanted his gaze at me. “CPR 101.”
My hands shook and my throat dried up. “Fuck. I don’t remember. How can I not remember?”
How many times is a female I love going to die because of me?
Jade was already turning cyanotic around the mouth.
“Jesus. Tell me what to do, Jus.”
“Hot RPG on our tail,” Bane crackled across the wires.
“You need to thump her—” Justice broke off, jerking the Hummer into evasive maneuvers.
Thump her chest.
Laying Jade half across Madge’s lap, I ripped open her shredded shirt and yanked the bra out of the way.
Tears fought my vision, falling onto her.
“Goddamn you, Jade! You are not fucking dying on me!” I hammered my fist onto her chest.
Pound.
Once.
Pound.
Twice.
Pound.
Three times.
Nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Life
NOTHING.
“Not working, Justice,” I snarled.
Anything.
I will give anything.
Everything.
I spoke through clamped teeth. “I need you to tell me how to save her. Now.”
“Madge. Med kit, under the seat. Grab it. Prep the epinephrine.” Justice took a hard right, growling under his breath, and I watched out the back window to make sure Bane and Storm hadn’t fallen overboard.
“Take the alcohol wipes, Walker. Swipe down her chest.”
He watched me follow his instructions like I was the cadet and he the drill sergeant.
Another fucking RPG ripped into a building far too fucking close to us.
With a scant nod, Justice gave Madge the go-ahead to give me the long needle.
“Insert the needle through the fourth intercostal space. Into her ventricular chamber.”
“I swear to fuck if you swerve while I’m doing this—”
“You got about five seconds.” Hitting the brakes, Justice stilled the vehicle. “Because we gotta get out of here.”
He turned in his jump seat. “I can do it if you’re too close to—”
“I got it.” Bracing myself above Jade, I punched the long, wicked looking needle into her.
Instantaneously, her eyelids peeled wide open. She gasped loudly.
I pulled out the needle and tossed it to Madge while Justice gunned the engine, driving like a madman.
Flailing up in my lap, Jade huddled against me. “What? What? What happened?”
“Shhh. Jade.” I pulled her ripped shirt together across her breasts.
She stiffened. “I . . . I died.”
“I’d never let that happen.” I kissed her hair.
The strands were matted, tangled. She was covered in bruises, pockmarked with needle entries all along her arms.
She’d lost weight.
Three days.
Three fucking days.
She felt frail in my arms. One foot in this life. The other in the grave.
Justice rolled to a stop outside a warehouse inside the middle of Beirut. He hopped out and Madge took over his seat. Quickly rolling open the doors, he directed us inside before closing us in a brightly lit capsule we’d alarmed and kitted out earlier that day.
Hostage situations always meant injuries. And we hadn’t known ahead of time how extensive Jade’s would be.
Briskly taking charge, Bane appeared, opening the door of the Humvee. He and I lifted Jade onto a gurney Justice had rolled toward the vehicle.
Bane attached portable monitors to her chest, pushing me out of the way.
I held her hand as he rushed her toward the triage we’d set up. “Hang on, baby.”
Jade clutched my hand, her face dead pale, a ghostly mask. “It hurts, Walk—”
She slumped down. She let my hand go.
If Jade died I’d relive every moment of this night for the rest of my life. I’d never forgive myself.
“V-fib!” Bane yelled.
Justice hurtled forward, cranking open the doors to a room where the rest of the equipment was waiting and ready.
The two of them rolled her inside where blinding bright white lights shone. I tried to shoulder inside right after them, but Storm blocked me.
“You don’t need to see this, Walker.”
“Fuck you!” I rammed forward, throwing him aside.
Pulling the doors wide open, I nearly collapsed. They had Jade draped in a blue cloth with bags of clear liquid hung over her. Justice compressed her chest while Bane got ready to shock her with the paddles.
Bane held up his hands. “I don’t know what they gave her.”
Justice halted the CPR. “Get her heart started then run a tox screen?”
&nbs
p; “Don’t know how far gone she is . . .”
“You’re just gonna stop?” I barreled forward, hearing the shrill alarm on the monitor telling me Jade was dead.
“Get the fuck out, Walker.” Bane’s menacing scowl warred with sympathy on his hardened face.
“Madge has the bags. What they drugged her with. MADGE!” I shouted.
She rushed in and handed over the IV bags.
“Tell me you’ll save her, Bane,” I bit out.
He held the paddles, prepared to shock Jade. “Can’t promise that.”
I dropped to the floor, cranking my head in my hands.
“Let them work.” Madge curled over me. “You will be strong for her, Wakiza.”
Under her guidance, I got woodenly to my feet, but every fiber of my being started unraveling.
Take me.
Take me.
Take me!
Not this. Not again. I couldn’t . . . I huddled on the cold floor outside of the room.
Seconds, minutes, hours?
I didn’t know how long I waited in that fucking bleak blank area outside the rough-and-ready ER for news on Jade.
I paced. I stepped outside, almost eating the cigarette I bent between my shaky fingers.
Hours.
I stalked to the door Storm barred with his hulking mass.
Grinding down on my teeth, I snarled, “I need in there.”
“No chance.” He formed a human barrier between me and the woman I loved.
“Let me in!” I punched him in his solid gut, and he planted me face-first to the wall.
I bucked against him until I squirmed loose then swung around to grab him in a headlock.
“They’re doing the best they can,” Storm choked out. “You need to stand dow—”
His voice froze in his throat when the outside doors busted open with a resounding bang.
I sprang off Storm, immediately handling the semi-automatic rifle. He shored up beside me, and we kept Madge at our backs, all of us guarding the door and Jade whose life hung in the balance behind it.
Ten troops filed into the ringing space, their features hidden by headgear and tinted visors, their boots sending up a hollow cadence. They’d come bristling with firepower, all of it aimed at us.
“Drop your weapons!” I belted out.
As one, they continued their steady march toward us.
“Drop your fucking weapons or we open fire!”
Beside me, Storm primed his pump-action shotgun, his sights on the obvious ringleader.
“You don’t want to do that, Walker.” The person at the forefront of the armed contingent spoke with a smooth feminine voice, accented the same as Jade’s.
Just then, Bane cracked the door. “I think she’s gonna make it, man.” Seeing the oncoming threat, he lowered his voice. “What the fuck?”
My relief about Jade’s condition was overwhelmed by a surging sense of danger.
“Close that fucking door and barricade it, Bane,” I chewed out before aiming at the forehead of the black-dressed bitch who’d spoken. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Chapter Thirty
Death
WE FACED EACH OTHER in a standoff, the tension mounting until a bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face. When I was about to squeeze the trigger and start a hailstorm of fire, the woman motioned to her team and they lowered their weapons en masse.
“We’re from the Special War Ministry.” After holstering her pistol she held up her hand in a peaceful gesture.
I glared at her, still prepared to rip holes through her and her entire team.
Withdrawing her hand, she took off her helmet, revealing a disfiguring scar across one cheek. “We’re here for Jade.”
The days of nonstop stress, seeing Jade in the worst possible condition, holding her while her heart fucking stopped . . .
No way in hell was I handing her over. “I don’t think so. I don’t even know who the fuck you are.”
“I knew you’d be difficult.” Leaning forward, the woman halted when I realigned my aim. “I have a message for you.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No way.” I pointed at the soldier. “I don’t care what you say, you are not taking her from me.”
“It’s for Jade’s own good.”
“How the hell do you know that?” I railed back.
“This is her job. The Ministry is her life.”
Groaning as my chest grew more and more depressurized, I slung my gun over my shoulder. I stepped up to the woman and breathed out through my nose before nodding my assent.
She spoke lowly, just one word.
Pain seized me. The word, that goddamn codeword Jade had told me the night in the cabin, in front of the fire, after we’d made love.
In case of emergency, she’d said. “If it comes to the worst.”
I’d laughed it off then, rolling her to her back and rising above her, telling her nothing bad was going to happen. Then I’d fucked her with her legs wound around my hips, her neck arched back, her body the most tantalizing sight when I’d risen to my knees and pulled her onto my lap. Words of love had spun between us, as hot and fiery as the blazing hearth next to us.
She’d wanted her team to come to her rescue.
Not me.
“No! GODDAMMIT!” I denied the truth that bled through me. “I just got her back!”
“Walker. What do you want me to do?” Storm stood beside me, his weapon at the ready.
At a motion from the leader, four burly troops moved in on us.
“Wait!” I blocked the door. “Fucking wait! I don’t even know if she’s gonna live!”
“It’s time you moved out of the way. We can make this really ugly if you want,” the woman in charge said. “We could demand Majedah Chehab return with us too.”
At the sound of her name Madge gripped my arm. “Walker? What would Jade have wanted?”
How could I be sure? I could barely process anything beyond the fear of losing her again.
“You’re lucky we don’t detain you for kidnapping her and putting her life in danger.”
Refusing to relinquish Jade, I widened my stance in front of the door. “You tell me there’s a goddamn medic with you right now.” I swung the machine gun forward. “Or I shoot you all so motherfucking full of metal you’ll be unidentifiable by the time I’m done with you and fuck the consequences.”
“Duly noted.” She dipped her head, her body tensile-tight. “She’ll be taken care of with the best medical attention.”
I forced my feet to move one wooden step at a time. His eyes on me the entire time, Storm did the same, drawing Madge with him, away from the door.
Jade’s team rushed the room.
My voice lodged in my throat, I followed inside, staying long enough to tell Bane and Justice to stand down.
The two of them looked at me from where they’d been working over Jade.
“Walker?” Jus asked.
I clenched and released my fists. “She’s with them.”
I harshly swallowed—acid, bile, anger . . . the pain.
Jade’s team didn’t waste any time. It happened in a shutter-stop of a moment. Jade transferred to their stretcher. Jade unhooked from our equipment.
Alarms blared again.
Blinded by tears, I raised my gun. “You better fucking fix that right now or everyone’s dead.”
Bane grabbed my shoulder. “They just need to—”
I shrugged him off, almost cold-cocking him in my fury.
The medic beside Jade replaced the pads on her chest leading to his portable equipment.
Her heartbeat tripped across the new monitor. I could see it. Red spikes. Her heartbeat. She was still alive.
When they wheeled her out on the gurney, I hurried after her. The compact monitor continued its noise: slow blip, slow blip, slow blip.
Jade was hooked up to so many cables I could barely see her face.
“Stop! Fucking STOP!” I yelled.
; The wheels halted.
Our guns were holstered.
None of us were enemies anymore.
Reaching Jade, I grabbed her limp hand.
I didn’t give a fuck who saw me losing it because of her.
With my hand cradling her head, I brushed her lank hair behind her ear so I could whisper over and over and over, “I love you. I love you. I will always love you, mahasani.”
Then they were gone.
Chapter Thirty-One
Circling the Drain, Mt. Not-So-Pleasant, SC
RETRIBUTION MC. ONCE AGAIN. I didn’t know what the hell kept drawing me back to the place. Sure wasn’t the company.
I scanned across the interior of the club. Even though it was a Friday night and the guys and gals were getting rowdy, no one would meet my gaze.
Hmmm.
So maybe it was me who was bad company. Probably. Slumped against the far end of the bar, I scowled into my glass of whisky. Hunter’s whisky Coletrane kept well stocked. Guess I didn’t cut the most welcoming figure.
Just as well. Didn’t want to talk to anybody anyway, and if Hunter tried to fob me off on his fucking therapist like he had Bo, I’d have to knife him.
Despair and loneliness had settled deep inside my bones.
Fuck. I was so not doing this falling in love crap for a second time. I curled over the glass of amber liquid, slowly obliterating the sights and sounds of the MC one damn drink at a time.
Hunter had been so glad to see me darken his doorstep again.
Not.
My R&R after getting Madge exonerated had amounted to this. Getting hammered.
Trying to forget.
Jade had wanted her team to come for her.
Not me.
Tail stomped over and slammed his empty on the bar. “What up, Walker?”
With a wry twist of my lips, I gave him the big middle finger, never once lifting my attention from my bottomless glass.
“What the hell is this? Loserpalooza Numero Dos?” he boomed out, shaking his head in dismay. “Who wants to shoot some pool?”
Only Brodie and Coletrane took him up on the offer.
I didn’t want to play pool, and—considering the funk I was in—the only thing I wanted to shoot was people . . . more people.
