Fatal Courage: Shadow Force International, Book 3 (Shadow Force International Romantic Suspense Series)

by Misty Evans

  Deuce made a grab for the door handle. “Ask your partner.”

  “Wait.” Ruby jammed her foot out to stop the door from opening. “My partner broke out of prison and is on the run. I can’t ask him, and I need your help to clear his name. I know he was running Abdel Al-Safari as an asset. Were you in on that?”

  “Clear his name? You’ve got to fucking be kidding me. After what he did, you want me to help you clear his name? You got balls, lady.”

  He shoved her backward, smacking her into the metal shelf. “If he’s out of jail, you tell him I’m looking for him. And you get one of your bosses to guarantee my safety, asap. I’ll tell them everything they want to know, but I need help. Like yesterday.”

  “Deuce, wait,” she called as he went out the door, but the words were lost in the heavy bass echoing in the close quarters of the hall.

  One minute he was threatening her life if she didn’t help him; the next he was running away. Elliot had done a similar thing. Could this “fucking mess”, as Keon had called it get any weirder?

  She started to follow him, her heels sliding on the greasy floor, when she suddenly found herself surrounded by the three boys from earlier.

  The one she’d put on the ground led the posse. “Well, well, look who we have here.”

  Seriously? She didn’t have time for this. Deuce was disappearing up the stairs that led to the private suite behind the mirrors. “Move, Junior. I have business with someone.”

  The boys formed a wall of testosterone. Junior rubbed his hands. “Business? Like fucking some guy in the storage closet?” He glanced at his buddies. “We tried to take you somewhere nice for a party, but hey, whatever. Storage closet it is.”

  There was a lot of stupid grinning and posturing like the three of them were going to take revenge.

  So not going to happen.

  Roughing up Junior outside was one thing. Beating up him and his friends inside the club where there were cameras and witnesses was another. She didn’t need trouble with the owner of the club or the cops.

  “Alrighty, boys.” She cocked a finger at them. “Follow me.”

  It was like leading frat boys to beer. Hopped up on their own stupidity, the three of them practically salivated as they trailed after her.

  All she had to do was get them inside the storage room, bust their balls, and lock them in. Thirty seconds tops.

  Which might still be too long. But if Deuce had gone upstairs, he hadn’t left the building yet. She still had a chance to talk to him.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, boys,” a deep voice said from the shadows near the back door. A hulking frame emerged and Ruby saw a smirk on Jax’s face. “She’ll eat you up and spit you out.”

  Junior sneered. “Shut up, old man.” His good hand dropped onto the top of Ruby’s shoulder. “Get your own. She’s ours.”

  “You really shouldn’t have said that,” Ruby murmured.

  And then, as expected, all hell broke loose.

  Chapter Five

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  OLD MAN, HUH? Apparently Jax needed to teach these fuckwits a lesson.

  “Take your hand off her, half-pint,” he said and got the exact reaction he was hoping for.

  The kid took his hand off Ruby all right.

  And took a swing at him.

  Poor kid didn’t stand a chance. Not only did Jax outweigh him by a good thirty pounds—all muscle—but the way he telegraphed his punch, the fucker had never been in a real, down-and-dirty street fight in his life. On top of that, Jax had already smelled the alcohol fumes wafting off the kid and his friends from three feet away.

  So as half-pint went roundhouse on him, he grabbed the kid’s fist and used all of that drunken, angry momentum to smash the fist into the wall.

  The kid crumpled in a heap of screams. Baby.

  As Jax whirled around to take on the next boy, he saw he didn’t have to.

  Ruby’s high-heeled foot was in one of their stomachs. The flat of her hand was connecting with the other one’s nose. She was stretched out end to end, like a ballet dancer for the single flash of a disco ball, and then, bam. Both culprits ended up on the floor.

  Brushing her hands together, she did a causal glance over her handiwork. Her targets had joined their friend, writhing, crying, and bleeding at her feet.

  “Clean this up, will you?” she said, heels clicking on the tile floor as she headed for the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” he called, jogging after her.

  She spun around and pointed a finger in his face, speaking barely over the music. “Do not follow me. You’ve already screwed up enough of my life.”

  Yowza. Harsh. The burn of guilt lit up his solar plexus. Don’t let it show. “Your pizza’s getting cold,” he said and grinned.

  She huffed out a breath and circled back toward the stairs. “Stop following me, Jaxon. I’m not helping you.”

  Keep dreaming, honey. “What did Keon James say to you?”

  His words brought her up short on the bottom step. She seemed to think about it for a moment, then glanced over her shoulder at him. “I’m not sure.”

  What the hell did that mean? He leaned closer, making sure she heard him. “That was him in that room with you, right? What did he say?”

  She started climbing again. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Jax went after her, ignoring her stint of complaints about him tagging along. Two young women dressed in sequins and not much else came down the stairs, slowing to smile at him.

  “Hey,” one of them said.

  He smiled and nodded back. “Ladies.”

  Giggling ensued. Ruby stomped back down a stair and smacked him on the shoulder. “Pay attention here.”

  “What?” he said, warming to the fact she was jealous and hated him paying attention to anyone else. “You told me to get lost.”

  Sequins 1 and 2 continued on, shooting him ‘come-find-us’ looks over their shoulders as they descended to the dance floor.

  Ruby was on the step above him, which, thanks to her heels, brought her eye-to-eye with him when he stopped gawking at the sequin sisters and turned to face her.

  “You’re pathetic,” she said over the music.

  “And you’re jealous.”

  Outrage fired in her eyes. She started to spit some of that at him, but bit her bottom lip instead. Then she turned on her heel and jogged up the stairs, skirting other club goers.

  Jax stood, watching her hips sway under the slinky dress as she hustled away from him. Since when did Ruby not have a comeback?

  More people were coming and going, creating a traffic jam on the stairs. Over the side of the railing, he saw a couple of security guys escorting the three fuckers he and Ruby had leveled out the backdoor of the club. The kid with the bloody nose was yelling and swinging a finger in his direction. He gave the kid a salute. Lucky you didn’t end up with more than a broken nose.

  If he’d had his way, all three of them would be in the hospital.

  Whoa, buddy. Take it down a notch.

  As Beatrice kept reminding him, he couldn’t let his anger management issues cause problems for SFI.

  Managing his anger was the least of his worries at the moment, and really, since the source of his immediate anger was hightailing it away from him straight into a clusterfuck of trouble, what choice did he have but to go after her?

  Taking the stairs two at a time, he caught sight of her dress in the crowd on the terrace overlooking the dance floor.

  I should have gone after Deuce myself instead of hanging back to watch Ruby’s six.

  When that stupid kid had touched her, all of Jax’s instincts had gone ballistic. Talk about anger flooding his system and making him see red. Ruby could take care of herself; she’d proven that. But something inside him drove him to protect her anyway. That caveman in him—that’s what she’d called him when she’d dressed him down in front of the
Justice Department the day he’d given his testimony against Elliot.

  Yeah, he was jealous of the bastard. So what? Elliot had been Ruby’s partner for five years. Five years of being with her day in and day out, learning her secrets, sharing her life. They might not have ever done the nasty, but Jax knew Elliot had tried. That he would keep trying to get Ruby into his bed.

  One night with Ruby and all of Jax’s instincts had gone straight to possession central. She was the drug in his blood he couldn’t shake. No amount of abstinence was going to clear his system. No prescription for another drug would do the trick. He wanted her, now and forever.

  Up ahead, she looked back over her shoulder and caught Jax staring at her. Her eyes narrowed and she mouthed something he couldn’t read. Probably another threat to stay away, go home, leave her be.

  Not happening.

  Tweaking his big body sideways, he sidestepped a couple making out against the back wall. Ruby stopped in front of a door with two security guards in front of it. Both men were Jaxon’s size, wearing navy blue suits and sunglasses.

  Ruby said something to one of them and the guy shook his head, motioned for her to get lost.

  Ruby being Ruby, no wasn’t in her vocabulary. Turning up the wattage, she smiled seductively at the guard and Jax stopped, hiking himself up against the wall to watch.

  Her red lips moved and she gave the guard a pout with a little exaggerated hip jut. Nothing about the man’s demeanor changed overtly, but Jax saw it anyway. The way he paused, hesitated, for a fraction of a second.

  Ruby raised her hand and ran a finger along the suit’s collar, slow, seductive, as she spoke to him.

  The man caught her wrist and leaned down to bark something in her face.

  Time to stop this before she gets into real trouble.

  Jax had just stepped forward when the crack of a gun echoed through the club.

  Bam, bam, bam!

  The music came to an abrupt stop. Screams ripped through the club, echoing off the high ceiling. People ran; shoving, tripping, jumping over others.

  In the commotion, Jax lost sight of Ruby.

  REFLEXES WERE AN amazing thing. At the sound of gunfire, Ruby ducked.

  As he drew his weapon, the guard knocked her backward, out of his way. Her right ankle went sideways and she tumbled into a couple passing right behind her.

  In their panic, they tripped her. She hit the floor hard, a grunt escaping her lips from the impact and sharp pains shooting from her palms up into her wrists. Hands and feet pummeled her as people ran past her, over her. The air was knocked out of her lungs, one of her shoes was knocked off her foot, and something heavy hit her in the back of the head.

  In her peripheral vision, she saw the door open, a host of booted feet stampeding out of Little Gus’ private party.

  Who had fired the shots? Had anyone been hurt?

  She curled up, making herself as small as possible and tried to scoot to the wall. Above the din of frightened, hysterical club goers, she heard Jaxon yelling her name.

  “Ruby!”

  Bam, bam, bam. More gunfire. Fresh screams and stampeding feet reverberated around her. Half of the lights suddenly went out.

  A return pop, pop, pop mimicked the earlier gun rhythm. A second shooter returning fire?

  While her body tried to hide, her brain analyzed. Gang related? Or something else?

  In the dark, a hard shoe connected with Ruby’s ribcage. The air flew out of her lungs, and she curled tighter, rolling to her right.

  Where is that damn wall?

  She had to get her back to it, find cover.

  “Ruby!”

  Jax’s voice broke through the chaos like a bell, a beacon in the maelstrom.

  “Here!” she yelled, finally touching the sweet, cool solidness of the wall and sitting up against it. Raising one hand above her head, she waved it for all she was worth as legs blurred past her in the darkness. “I’m here, Jax!”

  The shooting had come from her left, from the second private suite. Not the one Little Gus had been in. At least she thought that’s where it had originated—the acoustics in the club resonated to accentuate the music, causing sound to play tricks on the ears.

  For a half a second, she thought she caught sight of Jax, fighting upstream against the onslaught of the crowd, a wave of arms and legs surging toward the stairs.

  Ruby’s left elbow tingled and she felt a warm, sticky substance running down her arm. There was no time to worry about the cuts and bruises covering her body—she needed to get out.

  Her analytical brain cut through her flight impulse. Where was Deuce? Had he fled with the rest of the crowd?

  A part of her wondered if he’d been involved with the shooting.

  A man in front of her went flying to the side. Jax appeared. “Ruby. Jesus, are you okay?” he said bending down.

  In the distance, she heard sirens wailing. The last of the upstairs crowd made it down, and Ruby’s stomach cramped, her entire body throbbing with pain.

  Jax’s hands felt her arms, her shoulders, her thighs, checking her for injuries. “You’re bleeding.”

  The place fell silent as the last of the people downstairs pushed out the front doors. Ruby lowered her voice. “That’s what happens when you get trampled.”

  Calloused fingers lifted her face as he stared down at her. He was backlit by the emergency lights and she couldn’t see his face clearly. Didn’t matter. Urgency screamed in his voice, his touch. “Can you walk? We need to get out of here.”

  She nodded, not sure he could see it as he hoisted her up. “Where’s the shooter?”

  Then, whoopsie daisy, she careened to the side, her balance completely off, the fact she was missing a shoe not helping the situation.

  Jax caught her, pulled her close to steady her. “It came from up here,” he murmured. “We need to haul ass in case the shooter is still here.”

  “Deuce was up here. I need to make sure he’s all right.”

  “Forget about Keon James. He’s probably long gone. We’ll catch him later.” He slid an arm around her waist. “Let’s go.”

  “Are there casualties? We can’t just walk away. We could help whoever was shot until the ambulance arrives. If the shooter is still here, we can catch him.”

  “You’re injured. The cops can handle it.”

  He dragged her forward, keeping an eye over his shoulder.

  “There was more than one,” Ruby said, losing her other shoe as she hobbled along. The ankle she’d twisted didn’t want to cooperate. “I heard two distinct guns.”

  “Me too.” Jax brought her in closer. “They probably went down the fire escape, but one or both perps could still be up here.”

  He smelled good, like a spice bomb of cinnamon, bergamot, and rich leather. He felt good too. She tried not to let her mind go there, but her body was a traitor. She leaned into him, soaking up his rock-hard solidness as he steadied her down the stairs.

  They were only a few feet from the front entrance when Chicago Metro officers rushed in, guns drawn.

  “Hands up!” one of them yelled.

  Jax and Ruby stopped in their tracks. Ruby raised her arms, and damn her left one hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but Jax didn’t loosen is grip on her.

  “Jaxon Sloan, Rock Star Security,” he said. “ID’s in my right back pocket. I have an injured woman here, and your perps were upstairs, but they’re probably long gone by now.”

  The cops swarmed around them. “Down on your knees,” the lead officer demanded.

  Through the glass window, Ruby saw press vans pulling in and people with cell phones videoing the whole thing. Crap. So much for low profile.

  She didn’t want to announce to the whole world she was CIA, but with six guns pointed at her and her vision swimming, she had to do something before she keeled over. “I’m Agent Ruby McKellen, consultant with the FBI. Contact Special Agent in Charge Richard Timms and he’ll confirm my identification.”

  “She needs medi
cal attention,” Jax said.

  The lead officer—his badge read Officer Perkins—repeated himself. “Down on your knees. Now!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Ruby started forward, ready to get in Perkins’ face when she was hauled back by Jax.

  “Do what he says, Ruby.” His voice was low, controlled. “The sooner we resolve this with the authorities, the sooner we get back to your mission.”

  Sighing, she let him help her down to her knees. He kneeled next to her, both of them raising their hands.

  They were pushed down to their stomachs. One of the officers ran his hands over her body, searching her for weapons.

  “What do we have here?” he said, pulling out her Sig.

  She clenched her teeth. She didn’t like other people touching her weapons. “My gun, and once you call SAC Timms and clear this up, I’m going to shoot you with it.”

  The man laughed as he handed the gun to Perkins, who bagged it.

  “Make sure to test her hands for gun residue,” Perkins said as Ruby and Jax were hauled to their feet.

  The officer who’d patted down Jax had found his ID and was on the phone verifying it.

  Jax stood stock-still. “Your perps are getting away while you harass us, officer. Mighty sloppy work for Chicago PD.”

  Perkins snorted. “Is that so? Club security claims you and your girlfriend here beat up some customers and were looking for a gang lord. They were about to kick you out when the shots were fired from up there, where you two came down from.” He pointed to upstairs, back to Ruby. “She’s packing a gun. Not hard to put two and two together.”

  They were herded toward the front door. Perkins leaned in as they passed by him. “I suggest you two get a good lawyer ASAP.”

  Jax stopped, kept his gaze facing forward. “And I suggest you run for cover, because when Ruby’s done putting a slug in your ass, I’m going to follow it up with another half dozen.”

  Chapter Six

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  JAX WAS RELEASED from jail just before sunrise, emerging onto State Street in the humid morning air. Shadows danced over the concrete; a big, black Caddie idled at the curb between several white police vehicles.