Fear rolled through him. If Gina had been the target—and he was pretty certain she had—she could be anywhere by now. But he wasn’t giving up. He would find her, and he’d kill the motherfuckers who thought they could take her away from him.
He went up a set of stairs and listened for movement. All was silent, but he smelled cigarette smoke. He checked the weapon—a nine mil with a nearly full clip—and prepared to burst through the door.
After counting to ten in his head, he kicked the door open and emerged topside. Two men whirled, hands reaching for weapons, and Jack fired, taking them down before they had a chance to draw. He battled his nausea and a sense of dread as he checked the rest of the boat. It was a fishing boat, and he was the only passenger aside from the guards. One man was locked in the hold and these two were dead. He bent over and sucked in a breath, blinking back the agony of a blinding headache.
A check of the GPS indicated they were on the Chesapeake, southeast of Annapolis. The depth readings here were 174 feet. He had no doubt what they’d intended to do with him. The net, some concrete blocks maybe, and good night, sweet prince.
He throttled up the engine and steered for the nearest harbor. A quick check of one of the bodies landed him a cell phone. He checked the other, just in case they had his, but that was a no-go. Fortunately, the phone numbers he needed were imprinted on his brain. He punched in the numbers one-handed and pushed the throttle higher.
“Girard,” came the answer on the other end.
“Hey there, Richie,” he yelled over the roar of the wind and the engine’s chugging. “Got a situation here.”
“What, another one? Where the hell are you?”
“Yes, sir, another one. And I’m on the Chesapeake, making for harbor. Two dead, one captured.”
“Son of a bitch. All right, I’ll round up the posse. Give me your coordinates and we’ll get it cleaned up.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
GINA WAS PARALYZED. She knew she needed to drop to her knees and do what Stavros wanted, but she was frozen. He stood there with his hand in his trousers, stroking himself, and she hated him so much in that moment that she wished she could kill him with her bare hands.
“Gina mou, I’m waiting,” he said none too gently.
She pulled in a breath, and then another, willing herself to comply. To be the biddable woman he wanted until she could ensure her child’s safety. And Jack’s, though she didn’t know that Stavros would keep his word. For all she knew, Jack was already dead. Her heart cried out at that thought.
“I need more than a phone,” she cried. “I need to see Eli. And I need proof that Jack is still alive.”
Stavros’s face turned dark with rage. He lashed out and grabbed her hair, twisting his hand into the heavy mass and jerking her forward. Gina screamed.
“You’ll do as I fucking say! You’re mine, Gina! Mine! And you will obey me when I command you.”
Gina’s hands went around his. “You’re hurting me.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” he hissed in her ear, tugging her toward the couch. “I want to be inside you. I want us to make a baby brother for Athenasios.”
Her stomach turned upside down. He meant Eli, but he’d said his brother’s name. He wasn’t sane…
“Stavros, please, not like this—”
There was a knock on the door that made her jump. Stavros seemed to ignore it entirely, but it came again, louder this time. “Mr. Metaxas. You have a call.”
“Take a message.”
“The caller says it’s important, sir. Regarding the deal.”
Stavros stilled. And then he shoved her away and Gina huddled into her corner of the couch, shaking with fear and anger. Stavros zipped up and stood over her for a long moment, his eyes as mad as ever. “When I come back, you will be happy to receive me.”
He turned and strode from the room and Gina deflated. Then she shot up and hurried over to the desk sitting against one wall. She yanked open drawers, looking for a weapon of some kind. There was a silver letter opener, and she grasped it in shaking hands before shoving it beneath her T-shirt and into the waistband of her jeans. Thank God she’d worn a loose shirt today.
The door swung open again and she shot over to the window, pretending to be looking outside. It wasn’t Stavros who’d entered, but the man who’d taken her from the hotel.
“I suggest you remove whatever you stashed in your pants and drop it, Mrs. Metaxas.”
“I… I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do. And if you don’t drop it, then I’m going to come over and take it off you.”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t think my husband will like it if you touch me.”
He snorted. “Like it? Actually, it’ll turn him on. Mr. Metaxas is quite generous with his ladies.”
The leer on his face made her reach for the letter opener. She dropped it on the ground and backed away, arms around her body.
He leaned down and picked it up. “You’re gonna be a fun one, I can already tell.”
“Fuck you.”
“If you’re lucky.” He winked and went over to sit on the couch, letter opener twisting in his fingers like a toy.
Gina huddled into one corner of the window and turned her face toward the glass. “Jack,” she mouthed silently. “Please come and get us one more time.”
But she feared it was a hopeless plea. Because Jack was most certainly already dead.
*
Mendez looked absolutely furious. His face was mottled with rage and his eyes flashed fire. “Goddammit,” he roared at someone on the other end of the phone, “you can’t keep information from us like that. We should have been told.”
Jack’s gaze was focused on the colonel. They were all focused on the colonel. HOT had arrived at the dock in full force, ready to take charge of the situation and clean up the mess. It was dark and muggy and mostly silent, except for Mendez. Jack had taken the boat into one of the inlets, to a private dock where he’d been instructed to meet his team. They’d swarmed over the boat, along with a few support personnel, and collected the bodies and the lone survivor.
The guy was happy to talk. He’d been hired by a man with an accent who’d told him to make Jack disappear. These guys had decided that disposing of him in the deepest part of the Chesapeake made the most sense, and if he never came up again, that was fine with them.
Iceman had given him some painkillers, and he’d suited up while they waited for Mendez to get off the phone. When the colonel finally turned to them, he was still spitting mad.
“Metaxas is alive. And he’s in DC. He was at a congressional fundraiser tonight, of all things, and he’s currently renting a house in the northwest of the city. Just fucking business as usual and no one thought we needed to know.”
There was an iron ball in Jack’s belly. Metaxas wasn’t dead. Jesus. “Does he have Gina?”
He was very afraid he knew the answer to that question. And it made him sick.
“She’s not at the hotel, and neither is her nanny or baby. I’d say the answer is yes.”
Jack saw black spots. He sucked in a deep breath, willing himself not to pass out. No fucking way was he going down for the count. He had to find Gina and Eli and bring them home.
“Hey, got a ping on Hawk’s phone,” came a voice from the van. They all rushed over to find Billy the Kid sitting at the console, tapping fast at his computer. “Northwest DC…”
A few seconds later, he rattled off the coordinates.
“Go,” Mendez said. “I’ll take care of it on this end.”
“What are the orders, sir?” Matt asked.
“Rescue the hostages. Lethal force authorized.” His gaze lit on Jack, but he didn’t say anything. They exchanged a look, and then Mendez was turning away and barking orders at the support staff.
The guys all piled into the van and Flash gunned the engine. It was about forty miles to where they needed to be, but they couldn’t risk inserting by helicopter. Metaxas
would hear them coming and he’d be ready.
“How’d he fucking get out of there alive?” Brandy asked. “The place blew to kingdom come. Nobody could have survived that.”
“He must have had a bunker. Goddammit,” Jack said, slapping the side of the van.
“It wasn’t on the schematics we got from Intel,” Matt said. “He must have added it over the last couple of years.”
That didn’t make Jack feel any better. He hit the side of the van again. Brandy reached over and squeezed his shoulder.
“We’ll get them back, Hawk.”
“Yeah,” he said, because he couldn’t envision a future where they didn’t.
This would be a delicate operation because they were in the middle of a city, but it wasn’t anything they hadn’t trained for. Matt went over the battle plan, and once they were all in agreement, it was quiet. Just the roar of the engine and the rattle of their gear as they sped up the road.
After what seemed like forever, they were heading up the quiet, tree-lined streets of Northwest DC. This was where the rich people lived, where diplomats, government officials, and captains of industry bought houses behind ironwork fences and automatic gates.
There was security in a neighborhood like this, but it was amateur hour in comparison to HOT. Flash brought the van to a rolling stop at the designated drop zone and they piled from the van and fanned out, guns drawn and ready.
The lights around the perimeter of the house blinked out, and Jack knew that Billy had hacked into the system.
The team poured over the fence and onto the grounds. Jack wanted to bolt for the house and keep going until he found Gina and Eli, but he knew that wouldn’t be wise. If they were still alive, he’d endanger them if he did anything like that. No, he needed his cool. Now was not the time to have it desert him.
But goddammit, his heart pounded as his mind raced with thoughts of what Gina might be going through in there. Metaxas was obsessed with her, and he’d had her captive for hours now. Had he hurt her? Raped her?
Jack’s stomach twisted. Brandy was beside him as they came up against two security guards. The men had their backs turned and were talking and smoking. Jack and Brandy each took a man and delivered a knockout blow. No shooting until necessary. This wasn’t a foreign op, and these men weren’t part of a terrorist cell. They could be Metaxas’s own men, or they could be hired security from a local company.
The lights were still on in the house, but Iceman and Knight Rider would take care of that soon enough. Jack and Brandy drew up closer to the house—and Jack went utterly still. He gave Brandy a signal, and his teammate nodded.
Gina was looking out a window, but Eli wasn’t with her. Jack’s heart twisted with relief and frustration. He wanted to charge up there and get her, but they had to take this easy and do it right. He had no idea who was in that room with her.
“Visual on Gina,” Jack said into the mic. “No sign of Eli or Metaxas.”
“Copy.”
“Hold steady, boys and girls,” Iceman said. “Power going in just a few moments…”
They were some of the longest moments of Jack’s life.
*
The lights had gone out on the perimeter of the grounds a few minutes ago. The second it happened, the man sitting on the couch stood up and stared out the window like a terrier sniffing out a rat. Gina’s heart thumped as hope swelled.
But nothing else happened and the man grunted something about timers before walking over to the door. Stavros came back inside the room then, his brows drawn low. He’d been gone for a long time. Whatever news he’d gotten hadn’t been good, judging by the look on his face.
“We’re leaving,” he said. “Get the others.”
“Yes, boss,” the man said before disappearing through the door.
“Wh…where are we going?”
“Home to Greece. I have business there.”
“Let me go, Stavros,” she begged. “Please just give me Eli and let me go. You’ll never get away with this—people know who I am, and I can’t just disappear—”
He came over and grabbed the back of her head, crushing his mouth down on hers, his teeth clashing with hers as his tongue plunged into her mouth. It was vile. He tasted like cigars and alcohol and her gorge rose swiftly. She pushed against his chest and finally he stepped away.
Then he laughed.
“You are my wife now. I have the papers to prove it, and no one will question me.”
“The ceremony wasn’t completed.”
“The papers say it was. It’s a nice, long ride to Greece. And you’re going to spend it naked, Gina mou.”
He wrapped his hand around her wrist and jerked her toward the door. His man was on the other side, waiting. Cassie was there, holding Eli, and Gina rushed forward to snatch her baby from Cassie’s arms.
“You bitch,” she spat as Eli put his arms around her neck and hugged her tight. “I trusted you!”
Cassie glared at her. “He’s a Metaxas. You have no right to withhold him from the family.”
Gina was trembling all over. But she had her baby, and she held him tight, her hand on the back of his head. She wasn’t letting him go again. Cassie reached for Eli, but Gina stepped back, bumping into the big man as she did so. She didn’t care. The man’s hands went to her arms, steadying her.
Stavros said something in Greek. Cassie answered, her eyes flashing, and Gina wondered that she’d not realized before how much her nanny despised her. Ten months, and she’d never known. The look Cassie gave her was filled with hatred. It shocked her.
“You sent those threats to me, didn’t you?” She thought back to Cassie’s schedule and realized that the letters always arrived after her nanny took a long weekend. How difficult would it have been for her to mail them from wherever she’d traveled to?
“You had no idea. It was fun watching you after you got them.”
“You said you wanted me dead. I’ve never done anything to you.”
Cassie sneered. “No, you just thought you were the most perfect princess. So entitled, so rich and beautiful. You always get your way, Gina, but I wanted you to know you weren’t any better than the rest of us. You weren’t going to get away with keeping Eli from his family.”
“Go check on the car,” Stavros ordered, and Cassie turned and walked away while Gina’s stomach churned. She’d had no idea her nanny hated her so much. All that time, that poisonous woman was caring for Eli, and she’d had no clue. She gripped her baby tighter.
Please, God. Please let us get out of here.
The man holding Gina pushed her forward. She took two steps—and the interior lights went out, plunging them into utter darkness.
Stavros yelled. Someone grabbed her and pushed her back inside the room she’d just come from. A second later, there was a light. The big man had turned on the light app on his phone. Stavros pulled a gun from inside his jacket. The other man already had his weapon out. There was no noise but the sound of Gina’s heart filling her ears with its relentless pounding.
“We’re too late,” Stavros grated. “They’re coming.”
Gina prayed it was Jack and his team coming for her. He had to be alive. Had to be, or she didn’t know what she would do.
There was a crunch outside the door. Stavros whipped her back against his body, his gun pressing into her temple. She held Eli’s head down against her shoulder, determined to protect him even if Stavros shot her. She wouldn’t let her baby die. There was no way she would let that happen.
Everything was so silent and still. The big man crept toward the door, sliding up against the wall to hide himself from whomever came through. There was a tall plant near the door, and he would be completely hidden if he stayed behind it. Except that he didn’t shut down his light. That was the one thing he didn’t do, and it gave her hope. If Jack knew where to target, he could save her. She knew he could.
And then the light went out and the room was plunged into darkness once more.
CH
APTER TWENTY-NINE
JACK RUSHED DOWN THE hallway on silent feet, flashlight sweeping the territory in front of him, Sig in his hand and ready to fire. He knew the room Gina had been in. He’d studied the schematic of the house on the way over, as they all had, and he’d counted the windows. It was the library and he knew exactly how many steps it would take to get there. She’d stepped away from the window before the lights went out, but even if she’d been moved, they wouldn’t have gotten far.
He and Brandy reached the door. They looked at each other, and then Brandy kicked the door in. It swung open on silent hinges and crashed into something. But Jack’s attention was on the man standing in the center of the room. He had a gun to Gina’s head. Gina was holding Eli, who’d started to scream.
Metaxas ducked his head behind Gina’s, but he didn’t remove the gun from her temple. Fucking coward.
Gina kept cutting her eyes to the left, to the left, and Jack got that someone was there. Brandy got it too. They had to time this just right or Gina was dead. In that moment, watching her standing there with a gun to her head and tears falling down her cheeks, he knew that losing her would destroy him.
He couldn’t go through it again. Losing Hayley had nearly killed him, but this time he’d be done for. He’d been lucky enough to be loved by two incredible women in his life. And he loved them both with all the passion he had in him. Hayley was gone, but Gina was here. And he wasn’t letting her go.
“I’ll kill her if you don’t drop the guns.”
“If you kill her,” Jack said, his voice deadly calm, “I’m killing you. No second chances, Metaxas. Keeping her alive is your only hope.”
“If I can’t have her, you aren’t getting her either,” Stavros said. And then he laughed, the sound so unbalanced that it sent a chill down Jack’s spine.
Gina was trembling, but her mouth was set in a determined line. Eli was crying louder now, and she kept him pressed to her, his head on her shoulder. But she wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer. He would start struggling, and if she moved, Metaxas’s finger might slip on the trigger.
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