Hot on the Hunt

by Melissa Cutler

  “So you can kill me?” Rory shouted back.

  It was Alicia’s turn to try. “We could kill you right now, and we could have killed you before you walked into that market. But we didn’t. We want to talk to you.” She almost couldn’t get that half-truth out, but her vengeance would have to wait until John had a shot at getting the answers he needed. “I can’t guarantee that Logan’s team will be so interested in what you have to say.”

  Rory laughed. “Boy, oh, boy, this is golden—you two working together to get me. Alicia, I hope you’re sleeping with one eye open so he can’t kill you while you dream.”

  John’s jaw rippled. His eyes narrowed.

  “I slept just fine, actually.” Which was the truth. She’d slept like a baby for the first time since she could remember.

  “Don’t engage him on that,” John said quietly. “He thinks his best chance of getting through this standoff alive is to pit us against each other so we’re distracted. He knows that when you and I are working together, we’re unbeatable.”

  She agreed with him about Rory’s strategy, though she’d never thought about the two of them like that. He was right, though. They did make a great team. “I know.”

  “Alicia,” Rory continued, “you have to ask yourself—why would I lie about John? I was already going to prison for the rest of my life.”

  “Don’t fill her head with lies. You’ve done enough damage.”

  Nobody was filling her head with anything except herself because she wasn’t some passive, malleable weakling. Not like she was before when she took Rory’s, Diego’s and Ryan’s word for John’s guilt. Now she didn’t only have John’s version of what happened, she had the man himself.

  She had John, who’d rescued her from Logan and freely admitted he was scared about what was going to happen to them. The man who’d kissed her like his life depended on it and who hadn’t abandoned her though she couldn’t tell him what he wanted to hear about her belief of his innocence.

  “Alicia, I can tell you don’t know what to think,” Rory said. “But I’m telling you the truth. John and I were partners. Blood brothers. You know that. Sure, he was too chicken to pull the trigger when it came to getting you out of the way, but he was more than happy to let me do the honors.”

  John steadied his rifle, keeping his eye in the scope. “You sound like a desperate man, which is good considering we’re about to kill you if you don’t surrender yourself to us.”

  But Rory was unfazed. “John, she’s playing you, too, you know. She doesn’t give a damn about you, never did. Not like you cared about her. She used you.”

  John lifted his gaze from the scope and stared across the gap to Rory. “You mean like you used me?”

  Rory laughed. “I didn’t use you. I was trying to show you a new path away from that life-sucking, low-paying team of bureaucrats we were a part of in ICE.” He was unconsciously inching out of the safety provided by the air-conditioning unit. She bet John could execute an accurate kill shot now with no problem. “Even the army screwed us over. They paid us a pittance to risk our lives for half-baked operations run by a bunch of suits in Washington. I was trying to help you take control of your life.”

  John shook his head. “By killing the woman I loved?”

  Only Alicia’s professional experience kept her from flinching or showing any outward change in expression. He’d been in love with her? Since when? Her thoughts returned again to the night he’d come to her two months after the shooting, the desperate hunger of his expression. He’d wanted to see for himself that she was okay. Thinking about it now, she knew he’d loved her then. Did he love her still?

  “She didn’t love you. You know that. She was holding you back, just like she’s doing right now. I knew you wouldn’t realize your true potential unless I took her out of the equation, but I underestimated the hold she had on you. I thought we were blood brothers, but you screwed me over, so I screwed you over.”

  “What is my true potential, do you think? Joining you on the dark side and becoming rich, evil bastards together?”

  Rory moved fully away from the air-conditioning unit, sneering. “You could have been somebody, John. Now you’re just a nobody, same as you ever were. You’re like one of those filler characters in a thriller movie—the kind they don’t bother giving a name to. Schmuck Number Three. The guy who always dies first. At least if you’d stuck with me, you would have had money and power to help you grow a backbone.”

  Rory sounded a lot like Alicia had when she’d first talked to John on St. Thomas. She’d called him a sidekick. The Robin to Rory’s Batman. God, what a fool she’d been. This whole time, since the moment she’d initiated the sequence to break Rory out of prison—no, further back, from the moment he and Rory joined their ICE team—John was the one who’d kept his honor intact. He’d never wavered, and he’d never compromised about who he was and what he stood for, no matter what vitriol and lies had been flung at him.

  And then, this week, he’d sacrificed his freedom and future to help her. He was the best man she knew and she loved him.

  My God. She loved him and yet she’d nearly followed through with setting him up to take the fall for the deeds she’d committed this week. It made her tremble, thinking about the monster she’d narrowly avoided becoming. No better than Rory.

  She touched John’s shoulder. His expression was hard but she sensed his compassion and goodness behind the stone mask. This man, this warrior, was no follower, nor sidekick. Rory was a sociopath and murderer. That she’d believed his word over the man who loved her, who treated her like a precious asset, was something she’d regret for the rest of her life.

  “Do you have this shot?” she asked.

  Sadness flashed in his eyes. “Yes. But there has to be another way.”

  “You have to take the shot. Please. Logan’s crew is going to catch up with us any second. If he gets taken into custody, neither one of us will get what we want. And if he escapes and kills another civilian, that blood will be on both our hands.”

  “I could shoot to wound, like I did last time.”

  She set her hand on his back, stroking. “He’s never going to tell you what you want to hear. But I can.”

  It was time to tell the truth and say what needed to be said—that she believed in his innocence and that she loved him. It didn’t compare with proving his innocence to the rest of the world, but it would have to be enough. This conversation was twenty months too late, but it was all she had to offer him.

  She drew a deep inhale and opened her eyes, ready to come clean about the way she felt. Then all hell broke loose.

  Chapter 12

  In John’s periphery, he saw movement on the roof of the parking garage across the alley. Logan and his two remaining operatives positioned themselves along the roof’s edge. One operative trained his automatic rifle at Rory, the other at John, and Logan’s gun was aimed straight at Alicia.

  John pulled her to the ground. She could insist all she wanted that she wasn’t the asset in this mission, but sometime between waking Alicia up that morning and spotting Rory from the restaurant patio, John had made peace with the truth that his mission was no longer to capture Rory. He was there to keep Alicia safe. To keep her from getting captured by Logan or shot by Rory or taken into custody by any one of the wolves at her door trying to destroy her.

  Whether she could admit he was innocent or not, he couldn’t live with himself if anything happened to her under his watch.

  “Is it Logan?” she said.

  “And two of his friends.”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  Good question. He peered over the edge at Rory, who stood in the same place, raising his arms in the air like Logan was presently instructing him. “I still have the kill shot.”

  “Then you have to take it.” />
  Could he really shoot the man who he’d gone to war with—his once-upon-a-time blood brother and best friend for more than a decade? He set his eye on the scope and slid his finger to the trigger, his heart warring with his head. Rory wasn’t his best friend anymore. He was the man who’d tried to kill the woman John loved. One shot would be all it took.

  Then all the yearning and betrayal, all the pain and hope that someday Rory would reverse his position, the threat he posed to Alicia, her quest for vengeance would be over in seconds, and he and Alicia could both move on with their lives, even if he’d never have the chance to prove his innocence. Even if killing the man who’d once been his best friend in the world—whom he’d spent holidays with, whom he’d been the best man for at Rory’s wedding and his shoulder to lean on when that marriage ended—was something John would never recover from.

  But even as his heart and mind warred, Alicia’s body pressed against him, her hand stroking softly over his back, reminding him of feelings he couldn’t repress, try as he might. Reminding him of what he wanted from her, what he’d dreamed of with her—the life, the love, the adventure of having her by his side.

  On an exhale, he steadied his aim and prepared to make the hardest decision of his life.

  “I know you’re on that roof, John and Alicia. Stand up slowly, your arms in the air, and we’ll do this nice and peacefully. I swear on my life that I won’t hurt her, John. If she turns herself in right now, I’ll personally see to her safety in custody.”

  Sure, he would. Because Logan had already proved to be such a stand-up friend.

  “If you two don’t stand up and surrender in the next, oh, thirty seconds, then I have a grenade with your name on it ready to launch,” Logan called to them.

  A grenade, huh? Great idea, if not a smidge repetitive after the rum distillery incident. Oh, well. All was fair in black ops. He grabbed his M4 automatic rifle, made sure it was fully loaded, then screwed on a grenade launcher.

  Alicia grinned and selected an antitank grenade from his bag. “We can’t even take credit for this being our idea.”

  He handed the outfitted rifle to her. “I can live with that if you can.”

  They tapped gun barrels.

  “You shoot that at Logan at my signal.”

  “Got it.”

  He took a fortifying breath, then stood, his sniper rifle aimed at Logan’s chest.

  “Are you crazy?” Alicia said in a harsh whisper, trying to pull him back down behind the protective lip of the roof.

  “There’s a good chance,” he answered. He locked gazes with Logan and called, “It’s either him or us. You’re going to have to choose.”

  His crewmates laughed.

  “How about I choose D, all of the above?” Logan said.

  John shook his head. “Getting greedy, Logan? I thought you knew better than that.”

  Logan’s smile was malicious. “My people have guns aimed at you and a directive to neutralize you both using whatever means necessary and you’re giving me a lecture on combat tactics? That’s rich.”

  “Go ahead, Phoenix. I’m tired of listening to this guy.”

  “If I do it, he’ll shoot you.”

  “No, he won’t. He’ll be too busy scrambling off the roof.”

  A loud crack filled the air as she fired. The grenade canister landed in front of Logan’s feet and rolled his way.

  Both of Logan’s crew members turned tail and ran toward the stairs. With a fierce growl, Logan lobbed his own grenade in their direction.

  As John watched the grenade spin through the air in his and Alicia’s direction, time seemed to slow down. He dropped his rifle, grabbed Alicia’s arm and helped her stand.

  “You have to make that jump,” he shouted, pointing to the roof Rory was on. It was the only idea he had to keep her alive. “Go!”

  She was already running. He ran, too.

  Together, they launched themselves over the ledge. John twisted in the air, watching Alicia. She’d gotten enough air, but her momentum was slowing too soon. Panicking anew, their eyes met and held. John stretched his arms out, one toward the roof, the other to Alicia, grabbing hold of her wrist as she grabbed hold of his.

  The move slowed them both down more. They weren’t going to make it. He dug deep, willing them to safety before the grenade exploded. Willing them not to fall two stories to the concrete sidewalk between the buildings.

  His arm hit the roof edge. His fingernails scraped over the slick wet brick, losing purchase. Then Alicia’s weight lightened.

  “I’ve got a handhold,” she called.

  He looked down. She had a death grip on one of the decorative wrought-iron bars covering the window below him. He released her wrist and, as his fingers slipped off the last bit of roof, he grabbed hold of another wrought-iron bar, praying it held.

  Above them, a roaring boom ripped through the air. John looked up as a fireball eclipsed the sky but passed right over them in a wave of heat and volatile energy. Bits of building crumbled around them, and the air clouded over with debris, but they were alive.

  Alicia walked her hands across the bars toward the fire escape ladder. Neither spoke as they navigated the ladders to the ground, avoiding falling debris and spots that were slick with rain. John, for one, wasn’t capable of speaking yet because he was still processing all that had happened and how narrowly they’d escaped death.

  Had Rory been so lucky? What about Logan and the other agents? And worse, had any civilians been in the building and lost their lives? That last question was too dire to consider at the moment.

  On the ground, John pulled Alicia into a tight embrace. She hugged him back and they just stood there, breathing hard and coming down off the adrenaline rush.

  “Just launch the grenade, he said. It’ll be easy, he said.” He could hear the smile and relief in her voice.

  “Next time, I’ll give more consideration to your objections.”

  They shared a smile, then both turned their attention to the roof where Rory had been.

  Alicia jiggled the ladder they’d come down as though testing its durability. “We have to catch Rory. We can’t let a murderer stay on the loose.”

  “There’s no chance he’s on that roof still. He knows how to seize an opportunity to flee when it presents itself.” Sirens sounded in approach. “Time’s up, Phoenix. We’re out of luck and out of chances. We need to get out of here before we’re surrounded.”

  They rounded the corner to the street as fire engines and police squad cars sped to the scene. John didn’t even have it in him to act like a shocked bystander. He slung an arm across Alicia’s shoulders and kept walking.

  “John.” Her voice held a note of panic.

  “What?”

  “Is that...? Is he...? No.”

  He followed the direction of her gaze across the street, to what looked like a marina where Rory was sprinting over a dock toward a worker securing Jet Skis for the storm. They watched him knock the worker into the water, then grab a Jet Ski.

  “He can’t mean to go out on a Jet Ski. That’s a death wish,” John said.

  Determination made Alicia’s eyes shine bright. “We have to go after him.”

  John nodded. He figured as much. And, as she’d said before, they couldn’t very well let Rory escape. “Let’s rock and roll.”

  By the time they reached the marina, Rory was already skimming over the waves toward open water. Now that John was closer, the waves looked way bigger than they had from across the highway. Where the hell did Rory think he was going?

  “Alicia, this isn’t a good plan. The sea’s too rough. We’re in the middle of a damn hurricane.”

  But she was already on another Jet Ski, giving chase, leaving John with no choice but to follow. He jumped on the first Jet Ski he saw t
hat had the key in it and revved the engine. At least Rory had veered left and was now running parallel to the shoreline.

  They curved around Saint-Anne to the southwest side of the island, jumping waves and generally trying not to die a watery death. Alicia was so focused on the hunt, he doubted she even noticed the deteriorating conditions, but John had never felt so waterlogged, not even when he was hanging on to the outer rail of the speedboat Rory had stolen.

  More than once, Rory looked over his shoulder at Alicia and John, seemingly furious that he couldn’t shake them. After the last time he looked, he shot back toward shore, then swerved around a rock formation, then another, as though he hoped to get them off his tail by taking huge risks.

  Alicia was relentless. She followed him every step of the way, though once she nearly overturned her Jet Ski. John stopped watching Rory and devoted all his brain power to keeping track of her movement in case she fell in the water.

  In a rocky section of coast that had John’s anxiety peaking, Rory swerved right, out toward open ocean again, straight at a massive, churning wave. He jumped it handily.

  Alicia followed, but the erratic waves changed and swirled without warning, and John was relieved when she slowed down and maneuvered around the worst of it, though she’d lost a lot of ground on Rory. He looked over his shoulder at Alicia again, smiling this time like he was impressed with his own skills.

  That was why he didn’t see the huge jagged rock jutting out of the water ahead of him.

  * * *

  Hitting Rory with a bullet was an impossible shot, but Alicia had to try. The water conditions were getting too dangerous for them to continue on for much longer. It was too much of a danger to John. If anything happened to him because she’d insisted on this crazy chase, she’d never forgive herself.

  She fumbled in her bra for her handgun, when she heard John shout something.

  She looked up in Rory’s direction and what she saw was like a dream sequence. His Jet Ski hit a massive rock, sending Rory into the air. A boom sounded as the Jet Ski exploded.