Mission: Impossible to Protect (The Impossible Mission Romantic Suspense Series Book 6)

by Jacki Delecki

  Lars was aware that he was barely holding it together since it was obvious that Tom was a standup guy, respected by his men, and shouldn’t be the recipient of Lars’s frustration. Sten would understand Lars’s need for physical communication at this moment.

  Every man had a breaking point, and Lars was clearly close to his. He was within shouting distance of Danni but unable to intervene because the FBI and DEA were in a pissing match. If they didn’t move soon…

  Unable to save Sten and powerless to rescue Danni, who was barely forty yards away if the GPS tracker could be trusted, he was living his worst nightmares of losing control, his brother, Danni, all rolled into one day.

  He had never considered breaking the chain of command. He was used to waiting for the green light on a mission. It was his life as a team leader and an operator—Lars Jenkins, Marine Raider, chill attitude, remarkable control, mind in the zone to perform. But not today. This wasn’t K-stan or Syria with a possible highly valued target. This was Brooklyn, and Danni was in the building, suffering whatever torture Miro’s perversion could conjure up.

  And right when Lars was at the point of smashing protocol and charging the building himself, they were given the signal to engage. He took his position in line, ready to hit the front door. Lars would be the sixth man in, followed by Logan and then SWAT as rear.

  The SWAT team was split. He and Dylan would be included in the team of eight taking the warehouse’s front door. Ryder and Logan were with the team in the rear. Grayson, on overwatch, was positioned in a mobile command center that was parked on the street. Finally, Reeves, in Seattle, was online with the FBI.

  Lars had been adamant with Grayson that he wanted Reeves in the loop to have the ability to communicate with Lars and his team, to focus on rescuing Danni. The FBI and DEA maintained that their first priority was to rescue the hostage, but they also wanted to take down Miro and Lopez. It would be a big win and a career mover to make the connection between the Bushwick Crew and the Sinaloa Cartel. Lars didn’t want Danni caught in the crossfire.

  He wanted to assume that the SWAT team would perform perfectly and do their jobs, securing Danni and taking down the bad guys. But Lars had too much experience and knew that nothing ever went as planned on the ground. And he didn’t know any of these guys.

  Marine Raiders were trained for assault and hostage rescue. He trusted his men to do their job if anything went sideways. Lars had a backup plan with his team. All teams had backup plans to pivot if the unexpected happened. If Danni’s life were endangered, Lars and his team would shift into protection and save mode.

  Both front and back teams moved simultaneously, wanting the element of surprise since they were going in blind.

  The front team battered the door open, and Lars’s team moved forward like a well-oiled machine. The familiar sound and rhythm of the men moving in sync helped Lars focus on doing his job and block the gruesome images of how he might find Danni.

  The team cleared the entrance and moved methodically down the hallway. It was a slow process since there were what appeared to be side offices from the days when this building was a functioning factory.

  The back team took down two guys loading a big cache of heroin and cocaine into a van with no shots fired. DEA would soon seize the site.

  The hallway was cold, dark, and smelled of garbage, sweat, and urine. No different than any other hellhole he had been in. But Danni was here with brutal men. Sweat rolled down his back and neck from the armor and the terror of what they might find.

  Where were all the men guarding the millions of dollars of drugs? Was the Bushwick Crew so feared that they didn’t need a lot of manpower? The little hairs on Lars’s neck rose as they moved to the end of the hallway. Were they walking into a trap? Was the GPS a ploy to bring them here?

  His steady heart rate went careening out of control as he finally entered the room where the GPS had indicated Danni would be found. He steeled himself as he watched the team fan out to cover the rooms off the main area.

  His heart pounded against his ribs in a loud, relentless beat as he searched in the dim room for Danni. She wasn’t here. Lars combed the floor for her cast. Had she ever been here? Or was this another sick game of Miro’s?

  A Hispanic man lay moaning in the middle of the room. A splintered chair was on the ground next to him. Lars prayed that it was Danni who had broken the chair and escaped. He scanned the area around the chair, looking for any signs of Danni’s presence. Nothing to give any indication that she had been there, except for the location emitting from the tracker that had been here twenty minutes ago.

  The team continued to sweep the room and then the side offices, but Lars crossed to the man on the floor. He was their only lead. The only possibility of finding any clues to Danni’s whereabouts.

  Tom had his M-4 pointed at the sprawled-out man who had been flipped onto his stomach. One of the men searched him before securing his hands.

  Tom directed the team guy, “Get him up.”

  The overweight man staggered to his feet and grinned like some maniacal clown.

  Tom Harris spoke into his mic to command. “No sign of the hostage yet. We have another male, in his thirties, in custody. We’re still clearing the warehouse.”

  Tom’s words delivered a liver punch of reality that sent him reeling. Danni was still in the hands of Miro. Lars grabbed the guy by his stinking bloodstained shirt to beat the truth out of him. “Where is she? Did Miro take her?”

  The man flinched with the mention of Miro. Judging by his wide dilated eyes, white powder on his fingers, and the mad smile, he was flying high.

  “Donde esta ella?” Lars tightened his hold on the guy’s shirt.

  The asshole shrugged and smiled again.

  Lars was stopped from punching the crazy-ass smile off the guy’s face when the message came from the team that there were women hostages in the next room.

  Lars and Tom ran to the room off the main area, his pulse jumping and his heart filling with the hope that Danni was there.

  He halted in the doorway, quickly scanning the room. Danni wasn’t among the hostages. Bile rose in his throat at the sight of the women and the possibility that Danni had been locked up or still was caged somewhere. He shut down the vision of a terrified Danni waiting for Miro. She was clever and a fighter. He had to believe, or he wouldn’t be able to function to find her.

  He had seen awful shit, but he didn’t expect to see such inhumanity in this country that he fought to protect. Young women, mainly teenagers, huddled together in the back of their cells, their eyes haunted and strung out. They were drugged, and some were barely conscious by the way their heads lolled against the bars.

  Every muscle in Lars’s body tightened, ready to kill every one of these bastards who imprisoned innocent women. And when he got a hold of Miro…

  Tom barked out orders to the men. “Open those cells.” And then into the mic, “We need medics, team support. There are twenty-four imprisoned women in the back room.”

  And then Lars heard Reeves. “Danni’s GPS is on the move one alley over from the warehouse. If you exit the back door, there is access to the alley through a narrow opening between buildings.”

  “Anything else?” Adrenaline raged through Lars’s body.

  “The signal is moving due east at a slow speed. Danni may be on foot.”

  Lars’s heart rate did an uptick as his brain flooded with exhilaration. Could it be possible that Danni had escaped? Could she actually be close by and safe?

  “We need to move out. My team and I are leaving.” Lars widened his stance to confront Tom.

  He didn’t need permission to pursue Danni, but he wasn’t fool enough not to use the resources available.

  Tom shouted orders into his mic. “Alpha team, with me. Charlie company, stand by until personnel arrive.”

  Lars was glad that he hadn’t taken a swing at Tom as he sprinted next to the commander toward the back entrance.

  “You and your te
am should circle to the street, and we’ll come up from behind,” Lars shouted.

  Tom grinned as they made tracks, the loud whacks of their boots echoed in the empty space. “You’ve shown great restraint today considering… Let’s go get your girl.”

  The teams split off—Tom and Alpha toward the street where the command center was parked, Lars and his team between the buildings to the alley.

  Lars and his men ran down the gap. He raised his fist for his team to halt when they reached the entrance to the alley, not sure what waited for them. He slowly peered around the corner. Empty to the west except for industrial-sized dumpsters. To the east was a black SUV parked near another dumpster. Two men with M4s stood on each side of the SUV, their heads on a swivel. Trained and ready to kill.

  Lars raised two fingers to signal that they had engaged two armed hostiles. He had a blocked sight line, obscuring the view behind the dumpster. In case Danni was nearby, Lars hesitated to charge the dumpster and start a shootout.

  Sweat dripped down his back and face. His breathing was rapid and shallow. His body and brain were locked and loaded. Danni might be trapped behind the dumpster and in danger. The strategic and safe choice for Danni was to wait for Tom’s team to get into place for a united assault.

  Tom reported in a hushed tone, “We’re in position. Have the two hostiles in our sights. But my line doesn’t give me a view of the dumpster.”

  Lars’s team could rush the alley while Tom’s men took the two men down. Lars was about to turn to prep his men when suddenly Danni bolted out from behind the dumpster. She was immediately followed by the bastard Miro, who lunged forward, grabbing her long hair. Lars stepped into the alley, gun raised, ready to kill Miro, uncaring of the two men, but Danni blocked his shot.

  Danni twisted to face her captor. She raised her elbow for protection as she attacked. Fists flying, she punched Miro’s groin. She was fluid in her motion, using her Krav Maga training. Miro doubled over, grabbing his nuts, still shielded by Danni.

  She was relentless. With Miro’s head down, she went for his face, heel to his nose before she kicked him in the groin. Miro dropped to the ground, and Danni moved fast favoring her right ankle down the alley toward Lars.

  Lars ran out away from Danni to make himself the target. He felt Ryder and the team close ranks behind him. Lars raised his gun, but both of the guards fell before he got a shot off. Tom’s snipers had fired from the end of the alley.

  “Lars.” The joy in her voice unmanned him. He wanted to dash to her and sweep her into his arms. She was safe, alive, and fighting.

  Instead, he kept his gun in firing position as he covered the distance between them. He needed her out of the alley and out of the kill zone. He didn’t know who else might be hiding in the alley.

  Lars kept Danni and Miro in sight when suddenly, he heard Ryder’s shout.

  “Get. Down.”

  Lars dove and covered Danni with his body as Miro lifted an automatic. Ryder scored the kill shot as Tom’s men sprinted down the alley.

  Lars waited. Both teams rushed to the area. Ryder stood over Lars and Danni with his gun at point.

  “Damn, Jenkins. Why do you always knock me down?”

  Danni’s snicker was his undoing. The woman had just fought off a vicious killer, and she was joking.

  At that moment, Lars fell deeper in love with this difficult, wonderful woman who was his perfect match. His life would never be the same. It would be filled with wild adventures and challenges. He was irrevocably and unabashedly in love with Danni Knorr.

  Tom and Logan’s voices chimed in together. “All clear.”

  “Once again, I had to save your sorry ass,” Lars growled close to her ear, inhaling her scent. “Beautiful ass that it is.”

  “You’re wrong, Jenkins. It was Ryder who saved me.”

  Silently, he thanked the heavens above that, judging by her joking, Miro hadn’t laid a hand on her.

  “No, sweetheart, you saved yourself.”

  Lars lifted himself off the ground, and before he pulled her into his arms to kiss her, he said everything that was rushing in his heart. “I love you, Danni Knorr, and I’m never letting you run away from me. Do you hear me? Never. No matter how hard you try.”

  “I didn’t run away…” She grinned, her eyes bright with excitement. “In case you don’t remember, I was kidnapped.”

  Definitely high on the adrenaline. She would crash as he would, and the fears would come at night. And he would be there for her, as she would be for him.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “And likewise, Jenkins. You know that means no more one-night stands.”

  Lars could hear Ryder chuckle as he walked away.

  “Sweetheart, all I want is one-night stands over and over with you for the rest of our lives.”

  Epilogue

  Danni squeezed Lars’s hand as they approached the ICU. She had burst into tears when Lars received the news that Sten was in stable condition after the surgery. She had believed that Sten was dead. When Lars swallowed hard and turned away to hide his tears, she lost control, shedding tears of joy and relief for both of them in front of the entire FBI and DEA team.

  “I’m sorry that I can’t go with you into ICU.” She curbed her need to comment. Lars understood what he faced and wouldn’t appreciate platitudes. She didn’t understand exactly how twins communicated, but it had to be doubly difficult to see the person whom you shared such a close connection with so vulnerable, especially with the Jenkins brothers macho credo that expression of emotions was a sign of weakness and to be avoided at all cost.

  She wouldn’t let Lars feel alone. She’d be at his side night and day until his twin was totally recovered.

  “You should have gone to the hotel with the team. You’ve had one hell of a twenty-four hours. You need to rest.”

  “I’ll have plenty of time to rest. I’m so grateful that we’re all alive. I’m high on life. Nothing else matters.”

  “You need to take more Tylenol. You want to have pain relief on board before your adrenaline crashes.”

  She had been on an adrenaline rollercoaster for the last day—escaping Paolo, slamming her cast into Paolo’s face, then smashing him with the chair; running down the alley to ditch her cast in the dumpster, only to be discovered by Miro.

  “At least put your feet up in the waiting room. Remember, I saw how torn up your feet are.”

  She finally caught on. It was easier for Lars to focus on her than his own fears.

  She touched his face, wanting to comfort him. “Sten is going to recover. He loves you and won’t leave you.”

  His eyes searched hers, wanting to believe her, before he nodded.

  “Yeah, he’s going to survive just to lord it over me for the rest of our lives. He’ll be an insufferable ass.”

  Danni ignored the slight tremble in Lars’s voice.

  “Absolutely. Your quad gunshot wound doesn’t even count now. All bragging rights gone.”

  His chuckle made her heart expand with love.

  “You still need to rest.” He laced his fingers with hers as he led her farther down the sterile white hallway.

  “You think I would be able to rest knowing what you’re facing? I’m not leaving your side. That’s how couples work.”

  “Is that so?” He grinned down at her, the stress lines around his mouth and eyes relaxing. “I never thought I’d be happy to be part of a couple.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. And you better get used to it, buddy.” She grinned back at him, the promise of a future with this man sparking joy that she hadn’t felt in so long.

  His boots squeaked loudly on the linoleum floor when he suddenly stopped to face her. He stared into her eyes as he pressed her hair behind her ear, his touch lingering. “I still can’t believe what a lucky bastard I am. And I never met another woman that I wanted to be a couple with. Only you, Danni Knorr.”

  She rose on her toes and pressed her lips to his. “I love you too, Lars Jenk
ins.”

  When Lars pulled her hard against him and kissed her possessively, she poured in all the love and gratitude for bringing Lars into her life.

  She was about to thrust her tongue into Lars’s mouth when she heard a throat clearing. “Guess this means you’re joining the family?”

  Nick Jenkins, with the same irresistible Jenkins grin, stood in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.

  “Lars already told you?” She paused, looking between Nick and Lars, whose eyes were the same shape and intensity. “I’m joining Jenkins Security.”

  Both brothers moaned at the same time in the same low rumble.

  And her heart overflowed with love and happiness for her life ahead, harassing and loving a Jenkins brother.

  Excerpt from

  Mission: Impossible to Resist

  by Jacki Delecki

  Jordan Dean couldn’t catch a break. There was no escaping the unwanted and, more than likely uninvited, guests this evening. Now Morley Townsend was in the receiving line. Her sister would never have invited Jordan’s ex, because Sophie knew exactly how Jordan felt about the possessive, self-absorbed millionaire. Morley was probably here as part of another of their father’s elaborate realignments of the people he saw as chess pieces.

  How could an evening dedicated to global peace end up seething with such hostility, resentment, and homicidal urges? And she’d only been here about twenty minutes.

  Jordan pivoted—intent on escaping to the balcony before Morley spotted her—and walked straight into a very big, very solid, very muscular wall. The sudden impact set her wobbling. The way this evening was going, she should have stayed in her flats.

  The solid, muscular wall grabbed her elbows with hot, rough hands and held on until she was steadier.

  “Running from a fight?” His voice was polished, smooth, and smoky, like the fifty-year-old Scottish single malt whisky Morley liked to go on about ad nauseam.

  Jordan looked up…and up…into penetrating aquamarine eyes. A darker blue circle rimmed each iris, like a ring around an outer planet.