by Rie Warren
Afterward, I carried her to the bed, both of us covered in towels that drifted to the floor. She slipped in, and I followed after her. But when I tried to pull her back against my chest, she turned cold and stiff instead of the warm woman I’d just bathed.
My hand dropped between us. “What is it?”
“I can’t . . .” Jade abruptly sat up on the side of the bed, curled over with her shoulders shaking.
“Hey.” Inching forward, I tried to drag her around to look at me. “Hey. What’s going on?”
“I don’t do this.” She hopped up, quickly pacing away from me. “We can’t do this!”
I jumped up after her. “It’s a little too late, don’t you think?”
She whirled on me, punching me back. “Damn you, Walker! Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”
She kicked out at me, but I was going nowhere. I’d already proved that once tonight.
“You’re too much. Too close.” She swung another fist in my direction before her forehead puckered like a child’s, full of anger and . . . sadness? “You’re getting too close, and I can’t—” The hint of pain suddenly subsumed her, and she hunched over. “Don’t you get how bloody messed up this is?”
“You’re hiding something.” I reached a hand out to her, but she stepped back.
“No shit. So are you.”
“Aren’t we all?” Brushing the hair off Jade’s cheek, I cupped her face. “What happened to you that made you think you had to be so hard, so fearless?”
“I froze.” Her body stilled, her whisper broken.
“We all do.”
“I don’t know how much I can trust you, Walker.” Wary, wounded eyes lifted to mine.
I rubbed her cheeks with my thumbs. “You can trust me with everything.”
Suddenly it was true. She could trust me with her life.
Tears clouded her eyes, spiking on her lashes—the first time I’d even seen the woman break down. “I froze, and I lost an asset.”
“An asset?” I smoothed my hand to her neck, pulling her toward me. “You lost a person.”
“We were in Mexico.”
“We?” I asked.
“My team.” Her words tumbled out faster. “On protection detail. Guarding an important family who’d put a lot of money into cleaning up the streets, making the city a safer place to live. Get rid of the cartels. End the shootings.” She halted, swiping at her eyes. “We were with them, living on premises, for four months. You learn a lot about people after that amount of time. They become your own family. They had a daughter. Prettiest little thing. Bright, too. Four years old. She used to follow me everywhere she was allowed. And I . . .” Jade swallowed. “I played dolls with her. I never even played dolls when I was a little girl. I wanted to play with toy guns.
“Always pretended to work for Scotland Yard.”
I chuckled. I could just picture Jade as a child, making mischief everywhere she went. Sweeping my hand up and down her back, I held silent.
“She named a doll after me, her favorite one that had belonged to her mother. So old and well loved an eye had fallen off, and they’d replaced it with a black button. But she asked her mom to switch it to a green one.” Jade choked on the words. “She took that doll everywhere.”
Twin streams of tears ran down her cheeks.
My heart wrung inside my chest. I picked up a towel from the floor and tenderly wiped it across her face, but the tears didn’t stop.
“What happened?” I asked, gravel in my voice.
“One of the big cartels attacked. In public. And maybe it’s my fault! Maybe I wasn’t prepared enough, because I’d gotten too attached.” She dropped her head and smudged her face against my skin. “We were at the movie theater when shots fired. No warning. They gunned down her parents right in front of her eyes. But I had her. I HAD HER!”
Jade punched my sides, and I stood there taking it.
“She was in my arms. I was running for exit. Staying low. But she wouldn’t leave the doll called Jade behind! She . . . she . . .” Terrible sobs ripped from Jade’s throat. “She slipped from my arms and ran. Before I could reach her . . .
“They shot her.” The thick wave of pain and guilt engulfed Jade as she yelled. “She died! SHE DIED!”
All her strength fled as she clung to me, those heartbreaking tearful sounds wrenching my soul. I was right there, right there with her. Rocking her side to side. Trying to take her pain away.
Finally Jade’s grief eased with a last sniffle and a long jagged sigh.
“How long ago?” I asked.
“Right when I started with the Ministry. My first mission. I thought I’d learned not to get attached anymore, Walker, but Majedah . . . and . . .” she whispered.
Me.
But she wouldn’t say it.
Her hair coiled over her shoulder when she glanced up, and tears shone in her eyes. “Have you ever lost a child, Walker?”
My chin dropped.
I stepped back.
I rubbed my chest.
She’d sparked a pain I’d hidden so deep inside I thought I’d buried it under six feet of dirt.
And Jade’s open, trusting expression closed up just like that.
She spun around, grabbed a pillow and a blanket off the bed, and marched past me as if the last couple of hours had never happened. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I’ll sleep with Madge.”
“You don’t understand, Jade.” I latched onto her wrist.
She stilled. “I understand perfectly well. And I’ll ask you to remove your hand before I break your fucking fingers.”
I didn’t doubt her for a second, but just because I couldn’t tell her about me didn’t mean I was ready to let her go.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the little girl.” Your pain is my pain. “You don’t get to freeze me out, Jade.”
I released her wrist just long enough to gather her in my arms. I carried her to the bed and laid her down.
“Too late for you to leave me.” Climbing in next to her, I kissed away the last of her tears, this time ones I’d caused her. “I won’t let you.”
“We’re enemies.” Her glistening eyes shuttered for one brief moment.
“We’re good together.” I linked our fingers together, drawing our hands to my chest. “We’re better when we’re together. You feel it.”
I felt it. The hard knocking beat in my chest. My heart that suddenly felt so attuned to hers.
“Walker . . .” She shook her head, but she grabbed onto me.
Her legs folded around my hips and the hungry way she sought my lips pushed down all the pain. Powerful unstoppable desire trumped everything.
“Tell me you feel it too.” I drove deep inside her with one hard stroke.
Jade arched, crying out into my neck. “No! It’s just sex.”
Her hips rolled with my every entry, guiding me so deep inside . . .
I took her lips with mine, setting my thrusts at a long slow pace. She was stripping me down, taking me apart with every single soft sound she made.
“Why do you have to fight me?” I grunted, scooping her ass in my hands, diving in to the hilt.
Her belly trembled between us.
She grabbed my hair and crushed her mouth to my chest. “Because when I’m fighting you I don’t have to feel you. Want you. I don’t have to be vulnerable.”
Her cries came faster as she clung to me.
“It’s too late. You’re feeling it.” Like nothing I’d ever experienced.
Soft and sweet and warm.
No hiding.
No running.
I pulled out and waited, waited with the tip of my cock barely breaching her. “Look at me when I make love to you, Jade.”
She shook her head tightly, burying her face against my chest.
I eased so slowly inside, the hot pressure sent a backdraft down my spine and my toes curled.
A woman to love.
“Look at me.” Stopping halfway inside, I
pulsed inside her velvet vise.
Her head drifted back. Her eyes slid open, the jade so dark it was nearly black, and so full of emotion she couldn’t conceal it.
“Yes.” I drove the rest of the way into her.
“Oh, God, Walker!”
Jade was more than a worthy adversary. She was a woman of worth.
Our lips met as our bodies did, locked tightly together when the most extreme emotions, the most intense sensations collided into one excruciatingly blinding, binding release.
I came back to earth like I was fucking soaring on thermals. Sinking back into the bed, I drew Jade with me. She rested against me, her breath fanning across my chest and her fingertips tracing the Thunderbird tat that spanned my pecs.
“How’s the shoulder?” she murmured.
“Can’t feel a fucking thing, so it’s good.” I lifted her hand and kissed the heart of her palm. “So damn good.”
“We should immobilize it, don’t you think?”
“Shit. First time left shoulder. Stings but it’s okay.” I rubbed her hand against me. “We’re okay.”
“Walker.” Bracing herself above me, Jade swung the long black-and-fuchsia-striped hair over her shoulder. “You realize we’re in the center of the biggest international and Middle Eastern fuck up no one will ever hear about. Getting involved is the last thing we should be doing.”
“Yeah.” I dragged her back down so I could nuzzle into her sleek warmth. “You smell like flowers and gun oil.”
“Walker . . .” She released a breathy sigh. “What about you? Who did you lose?”
A piercing pain lanced into my heart. I shook my head. I couldn’t . . . just couldn’t. Not yet. No one knew. Not really.
Her hands framed my face when my eyes blinkered shut. “Walker?”
I shrugged away from her.
“You and I both know everyone in this business is running from something.” The covers rustled as Jade sat up behind me.
My shoulders slumped. I turned, the words I’d never spoken aloud on the tip of my tongue.
The very second my mouth opened, lights came on all over the place. Low-level LEDs lit along the walls and doorways so the interior of the warehouse resembled an airplane at night.
Jade stared at me.
There was no shrill alarm. No screeching noise. We didn’t need it. Any change in scenery was enough to raise our hackles.
I glanced at the remote controller I’d set next the bed.
The fucking thing started pulsing, flashing with bright colors.
I grabbed the nearest clothes and my pack. “High alert. HIGH ALERT, Jade!”
No doubt about it, the building had been infiltrated.
Fifteen
Daredevil
“WE’VE BEEN COMPROMISED!” I gathered Jade’s shit, slinging her bag to her after she dressed head-to-toe in black in five seconds flat.
Kicking the glowing control pad beneath the bed, I handled one of my sidearms and holstered the second.
We strafed through the apartment, black shadowy silhouettes on the wall, ghosts of images. Jade lead with her Beretta drawn, me as backup.
After a quick rap of her knuckles on the bedroom door, Jade opened the way into Madge’s room.
Our woman of the hour sat at the foot of her bed, her rucksack on her back, fully clothed and completely clear-eyed.
“Moving out,” I hushed.
She nodded.
Jade stood at the door, scanning all around the larger studio area.
Madge came to her feet and stared at me expectantly.
“Women,” I muttered. “Whatever.”
I gave her my spare revolver, which she caught with surprising single-handed ease.
“Necessary kills only.” I cautioned, taking point with my fist raised for them to follow me.
The warning lights blipped off, drowning us in darkness. What I wouldn’t give for a pair of night vision goggles, but we rarely worked with fancy gadgets like that. I figured Jade’s sight adjusted to the depthless blackness as quickly as mine. We moved in silent single file, Jade and me with guns raised and ready. With the electrics killed in the building, the elevator was out.
We stuck to the wall, aiming for the emergency stairs.
Plunged into pitch blackness, I unlocked and eased open the heavy metal door. The blue beams of flashlights shined from within the stairwell. I peered over the railing, spotting two units on the move toward us.
I signaled back to Jade with the numbers headed toward us, and she silently relayed the info to Madge. We could jump them first and take them by surprise or lie in wait.
Either way, the three of us were getting out of this.
Jade followed me into the concrete shaft where we watched the halo glow of flashlights gaining ground.
On my quiet count, we dropped over the railing to the platform below. I didn’t hear a sound as Jade snapped the neck of the man she landed on. She softened his fall to the floor before wheeling around, ready to come to my aid.
No aid was needed.
Unprepared, the man I slammed into pointed his gun at my chest two seconds too late. My KA-BAR cut into his jugular, precise and clean apart from all the blood that pumped out.
I grabbed his tactical flashlight and shined it on him and his partner.
Two dudes in black suits. No idea about true UC.
They were dead ringers for Feebs. A quick search for IDs solidified my theory.
“The fucking FBI are after us now?” I ground out.
Madge joined us, and we clicked off the LEDs. Making our way to the second level, we left the stairwell.
Justice may have done up the top level, but this floor was nothing but barren cement, wide-open space, and low level emergency lighting that momentarily blinded me.
But not before I saw the man standing in the center of the cavelike room.
Fuck.
I pulled my gun up just as I saw him draw his firearm.
I kept the S&W raised. Jade, too, had her Beretta aimed at him. She pushed Madge behind her.
“I’m Agent Jenkins.” The tall man approached.
“And I’m fucking Crazy Horse. So don’t take another step closer,” I warned.
Jenkins halted five feet away, but he didn’t lower his Glock. With his other hand, he showed his government ID, as if that proved jackshit.
“Yeah. Yeah. Feeb. I can smell you from a mile away. Why don’t you and your backup singers take a ride right back to The Farm.” My lips curled into a snide grin. “Oh yeah. Your backup is spewing blood in the stairwell.”
A muscle leaped in Jenkins jaw like he was grinding his teeth, but his eyes didn’t flicker as he stared me down. “We’re here to take Majedah Chehab into custody. And you two are wanted fugitives.”
I glanced at Jade who maintained her stance in front of Madge.
“Wrong. We’re her protection, and Feds are the last thing she needs.” I shifted into place, joining Jade side by side to block Madge from Jenkins.
“You can’t run forever.” He slowly advanced again, using that psychobabble bullshit voice better reserved for nutjobs and crackpots.
We didn’t drop back.
“You obviously don’t know who I am.” I steadied my aim. “But I can show you if you want.”
Jenkins’s trigger finger pulsed. That twitch was all the warning I needed.
I dove for his stomach, grappling to knock his Glock loose. “Run! Run, Jade!”
The infuriating woman did no such fucking thing. “I wouldn’t leave Majedah, and I’m not leaving you.”
When I plowed Jenkins to the hard cold floor, a bullet shot off. It narrowly missed my fucking face. Enraged, I thumped his wrist on the unforgiving cement until bones snapped and his fingers spasmed.
When he released the gun, I knocked it aside. “Either you stay down or you end up like your partners.”
With a drill-hard fist to his face, I knocked Jenkins out cold.
Jade stood over his prone body, hefti
ng her Beretta. “Shouldn’t we kill him?”
“You are a menace to yourself and those around you, lady.” I reached over, lowering her weapon.
“Shut up and get us out of this hellhole, Walker.”
“I’m usually the one telling you to be quiet,” I countered, searching the unconscious man for anything that could prove useful.
I pocketed his clips then tied him to a pole in the middle of the room while Jade railed out loud. “The only good enemy is a dead one.”
Snatching her chin between my fingers, I drew the mouthy woman to me for a hard kiss.
“Is thees really the time?” Madge sliced out, her accent stronger than ever.
Good point.
“Fire escape.” I pointed the way.
Great idea in theory, really bad idea in reality. Forget the fact I had the whole vertigo thing going on, bullet-black SUVs crawled along the curbside up and down the streets like beetles below.
I handed Jade my gun and looked over the edge. “Give me a head start. No cover fire. I’ll create a diversion.”
Jade grabbed my arm. “By diversion you mean making yourself a target?”
“Copy that.”
“I told you I’m not leaving you.” Her haunting eyes almost swallowed me whole.
“I know. This time I’m the one leaving.” I shrugged her off and swooped down, only letting out a breath when I crash-rolled onto the tarmac.
Every single Feeb vehicle and agent in the area turned on me.
No time to think about the ache in my just-dislocated shoulder or the fact I’d bashed my knees on impact, I went full parkour.
From one Hell’s Kitchen building to the next, I scaled walls and jumped roofs with my stomach jumping into my throat.
This would be a lot more fun with plastics. Or grenades. Yeah, grenades would be awesome.
Gunfire spat at my heels and whistled past my head. Tires burned rubber below, the loud squeals a reminder I was the target.
My arms burned. My lungs fucking burned. My breath rasped from my chest.
I made it to the Hudson River. Closed my eyes. Thought if it was good enough for Jade in Beirut, it was good enough for me in New York City. With one last prayer to my ancestors, I performed a fucking Olympic-level dive from the last rooftop into the frigid river below.
