by Jami Wagner
I need to tell Captain, and I need to tell him as soon I leave here.
“It’s a solid plan. I just need to get a few affairs in order before I do it,” Jimmy says.
I set the full bottle down and grab my jacket off the back of the couch before heading for the door. “I’ll call you both in a few hours when I have more to report.”
“Wait,” Jimmy says. “Tomorrow. Meet here around lunch.”
“You’re doing this in the daytime?” I ask.
“People are still at work at that time, and if I’m going to visit her at home, I don’t want any nosey neighbors around,” he explains.
“How do you know she won’t be at work herself?” I ask. The boil of rage building inside me is growing harder to contain. The wicked grin on his face doesn’t help.
“I have my ways.”
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
“Nice,” is the only word I can muster.
“I’ll meet up with you guys after my business is taken care of,” Clint adds, as if I have forgotten him.
Shit. Shit. They can’t both do this at the same time.
“You’re not helping him?” I ask with more interest than I should let on.
“No,” Jimmy says. “You are.”
“Yeah, man, what’s the big deal? I’m just dropping off some drugs and collecting cash. Done it once, done it a million times. I don’t need anyone else there with me,” Clint says.
I pull out my phone to text Captain and let him know we need to meet. Now. A notification of four voicemails pops up, and all the missed calls are from Charlie.
She’s already forgiven me!
I pound in my code and play them one right after the other. It’s her last voicemail that sends my body into alert. I glance at Clint and then Jimmy.
My teeth are grinding. I know Jimmy can see that something is up with me. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me since I stood from the couch.
“Cool, whatever,” I say and retreat for the door once more. “I have some things to take care of before this goes down.”
First, I need to get the fuck out of here.
“Need help?” Jimmy asks.
“Nope, I’ll call if something changes though.”
With that, I’m out the door.
I glance over my shoulder at least six times before I reach my Jeep. I shoot a text to Captain, Wade, and Michaels. It’s time to get this plan in motion, and with the voicemail Charlie just left me, I have the feeling she won’t be hard to convince that now is a great time for her and Sam to get out of town.
Chapter Nineteen
Charlie
I’m standing in my bedroom when I hear my door slam against the doorstop.
“Charlie!”
“Jett!” I holler, popping out of the hallway and leaping into his arms. He kisses me hard on the mouth and pulls back.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” I repeat, but he shakes his head.
“Charlie, we need to focus, okay?” His hands are cupping my face as he speaks. “Pack as little as possible for you and Sam. We need to get you two out of here as soon as we can.”
“But what about you? What happens now?”
When the tears fall, he pulls me against him.
“It’s all my fault. I led them to you,” I say, the words muffled against his shirt.
“None of that matters, okay? We’re getting out of here. Now hurry. I don’t know how much time we have.”
He pulls out his phone.
“I’m just going to text the team real quick now that I’ve made sure you’re safe, while you pack, all right?”
I nod and race down the hall for my purse.
“Okay, okay, I think I’m good.” I pop around the corner again. I don’t need anything but Sam and money to get him to a safe place.
“Where is Sam?” Jett asks, looking around the apartment.
“With your sister.”
“Fuck.”
With his hand at the small of my back, he guides me toward the door.
“Text Whit and—”
“Well, well, well, who do we have here?”
I look up at the sound of Jimmy’s voice, stumble to a stop, and my heart drops when Clint comes into view behind him.
Jett steps between me and them.
“Not to worry there, friend, I don’t plan on harming her … yet,” Jimmy says. “But I do thank you for coming straight here. By you choosing to be in the same place at the same time as her, you saved me the whole hassle of kidnapping each of you on your own. I’d have killed you on the spot back at the apartment, but I needed a clean getaway. The less attention I draw to myself, the better off I am.”
Clint pushes open the door so they can step inside. He clicks his tongue and a wicked smile takes over his face.
“Funny how you were supposed to watch her, not screw her,” he says and Jett takes a swing, knocking Clint to the ground.
“Enough!” Jimmy shouts, as he twists the deadbolt on the door.
“Jimmy, you can still get out of this, I’ll help you get a deal,” Jett bribes him. I take a step back as Jimmy approaches. Jett does the same, lacing his hand with mine as he blocks my body from Jimmy and Clint who slowly picks himself off the floor, spitting blood from his mouth.
“No deal is going to give me that fucking money. But you know who will.” Jimmy pauses, his eyes focused on me. “Your girlfriend.”
“But I …” The words on the tip of my tongue are lost.
“I want the money your fucking sister’s scumbag lover stole from me!” he screams and slams his hand through the wall next to him. “It’s mine, and I am not leaving here without it. How fucking hard is it for the people in this room to understand this?”
He moves quickly toward us; Jett braces himself when Jimmy raises his now-bloody fist. Before Jimmy can swing, Jett slams him shoulder into his gut, moving him back.
“Get out of here, Charlie,” he yells.
I glance to the door and then to Clint.
“Try it,” he tempts me. I sprint toward it—it’s only a few steps and just as I flip the lock, he grabs me at the waist, jerks me back, and tosses me to the floor. I curl up quick, but he still manages to get a single kick to my core.
Jett is shouting and Jimmy is shouting and Clint is now dragging me by my hair to the living room. I beat against his wrists, yanking, pinching, anything else I can think of as I twist and thrash my legs to escape his hold.
A loud thud distracts me. I try to stretch my neck to see what it was, but I can only make out a figure on the ground, groaning and failing to lift himself, but still alive.
When Jimmy comes into view, my heart drops.
“Five years in lock up and I can still whoop a cop’s ass. They’re going to have to start training you better than that,” he says.
I steal another glance at Jett, who is on his knees now.
Come on, Jett. You can do this.
He’ll get to his feet and take these guys down and then we will be out of this situation and it will be like it never happened.
My eyes are still trained on him when Jimmy pulls his leg back to line up with Jett’s head. My heart drops, my eyes widen, and there is no mistaking that my scream can most likely be heard another state away.
The piercing noise and Jimmy yelling “shut her the fuck up” are the last thing I remember before everything goes black.
Jett
I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill them all.
I watch Clint smack Charlie across the back of the head, her body falling limp. That’s all the motivation I need. I growl, pushing myself off the ground before Jimmy can follow through with that kick.
“If you would have just followed my orders, I’d have my money by now and we wouldn’t fucking be here,” Jimmy barks at Clint, stepping away from me. Or at least I think he’s moving. My vision is blurred.
“I tried, but the bitch kept saying she didn’t have it.”
“I want my money, and I don’t giv
e a fuck how that happens. She’s out cold. What do you expect us to do now?”
“She’ll wake up,” Clint says, just as my sight starts to come back to me. Jimmy slides a set of brass knuckles off his right hand.
That explains a lot.
“She fucking better. Until then, search this place. Find my money.”
The two start to bicker at each other, and it’s as if they have forgotten I'm here. Against my better judgment, still waiting for my full vision to restore, I lunge toward them.
Jimmy spots me before I can make contact, and when Clint grabs my arms, holding me firm, Jimmy takes a swing. I drop to my knees. He gives a knee to my gut and Clint lets go as I fall face first onto the carpet. Hit after hit, my ability to see starts to return to darkness.
“Keep him awake,” Jimmy says. I assume it’s Clint who has been striking me since I hit the floor. “When she wakes up, he might be the only leverage we have to get her to talk.”
I try to open my eyes to get a look at who is where. My right eye won’t open, but my left can still make out some shapes.
“The kid would get us the info we want faster,” Clint suggests.
“Touch the kid and I’ll kill you myself,” I warn them.
Every ounce of my body feels numb as everything unfolds in front of me.
“We’ll leave the kid out of it for now,” Jimmy says, shoving Clint to the couch. “Now, fucking tie him up before he can make any more noise to draw attention to us,” he adds, stepping toward the window and pulling the curtain back to look outside.
If I play along for a few minutes, or at least until Charlie wakes up, I can regain some strength. I can get us out of here.
Captain will wonder where I am. Fuck. I should have given him a timeframe on when I would call him. Who knows how long it will be before he decides to track me down. If he does. It could just be Charlie and me fighting our way out on this one. Till someone shows up, those are the odds I’m taking.
Clint yanks on the roll of duct tape in front of me, the sticky noise loud in my ear. What did they do? Watch a really bad thug movie and decide to copy it?
“I was actually really starting to like you, till Jimmy figured out what you were up to. I trusted you and you let me down. I’m going to take pleasure in watching you suffer today,” he says. I don’t even give him the satisfaction of a rebuttal before he sticks the gray strip over my mouth.
Both of them disappear down the hall. I hear things breaking and drawers slamming coming from the direction they went.
Clint tied me up but not to anything. Which, in my opinion, make him even more stupid, but right now I am going to applaud it. His stupidity is what might save our lives, especially if Charlie—
A groan to my right snaps my attention. Charlie is slowly sitting up, her palm to her head as she scoots to lean against the couch. I wiggle my body until I’ve made it across the floor to her and nudge her with my shoulder.
“What happened?” she says with her eyes still closed.
All I can muster is a string of grunted words.
“I have no idea what you just said,” she says. “Every part of me feels like I've been hit by a semi-truck.”
I nudge her again and string out more words that sound like moans.
“What?” she asks, finally turning to face me. The moment her eyes take in my appearance, her body jerks as her eyes go wide, darting in every direction of the room until they land on me. Her panicked expression softens slightly before she shakes her head, her body leaning into me.
I take a small moment to comfort her the best I can before I nudge her again to gain her attention. I glance to the kitchen, where a set of knives is sitting on the counter. She looks at me and then down the hall before slowly standing. She has to hold onto the couch. I know this is hard for her. It can’t be easy waking up from unconsciousness to discover you need to spring into fight or flight mode to keep not only yourself alive, but someone else too.
Slowly, she tiptoes her way to across the hall, pausing to glance toward the bedroom. She looks back at me and I nod for her to go on.
She’s doing so great. I wish I didn’t have this tape on my mouth.
“All you had to do was follow orders,” I hear Jimmy say from the other room. “If there was a problem, you should have told me.”
“I was figuring it out without getting you all worked up,” Clint says. His comment is followed by a grunt.
“From here on out, you don’t make any decisions,” Jimmy says.
“Why are we wasting time? Let’s hurry this shit up and get out of here.” This coming from Clint.
“We gotta wait for that bitch to—” He pauses, and I lean over to peer into the hallway. Clint’s eyes come into contact with mine.
Jimmy steps through the bedroom doorway just as Charlie comes back into view from the kitchen.
Jimmy sprints down the hall, his eyes blazing. But Charlie is faster, now kneeling in front of me, ripping the tape off my mouth. Fuck, that hurt. Then she quickly moves her focus to the knife in her hands as she cuts the tape around my wrists.
“Just breathe, baby, don’t focus on him,” I repeat, my eyes not missing a single movement. “You’ve got this.”
With the last flick of her wrist, my hands are free. I lunge up and tackle Jimmy away from her.
“Run!” I yell as Jimmy and I take a swing at each other.
I bash the side of his face hard and he stumbles. Clint leaps for me, but I duck and ram my shoulder to his gut and shove him against the wall, knocking the picture that Charlie loves most to the ground. Clint’s foot kicks the frame and he steps on it as he tries to get a grip on my hair. I jerk him away from the wall and deliver a blow to his temple, hopefully knocking him out. His foot snags on the canvas, ripping it away.
Everyone freezes for the briefest second. I imagine we are all staring at the same thing.
The money.
Jimmy moves first, but I swing for his face and push him back.
A gun drops to the ground from the waistband of his jeans. Jimmy and I exchange a glance before we all leap for the weapon. Charlie reaches it first. She grabs the gun and holds it up, facing Jimmy.
My eyes never leave hers.
Tears are running down her cheeks, she’s shaking, and it kills me that we are in this position. That I put her in a situation. It doesn’t take even a second thought for me to know, right here and now, this job isn’t worth it anymore. If we make it out of here, all I want is Charlie. I love her.
“You won’t shoot me,” Jimmy says to her with a laugh. If I weren’t so focused on watching everyone’s next move, I’d punch him for speaking. “Sam needs you and only you, Charlie. If you do this, his life will never be the same. He’ll lose another mother, and you wouldn’t want that, now would you?”
Her tears soon break out into full sobs as she lowers the gun. I’m not waiting for the villain to make his choice before I make mine. Not this time. My feet are already moving when Jimmy uses this distraction to make a move for the gun just as Captain, Michaels, and Wade burst through the front door.
Jimmy steps toward Charlie, I lunge toward him and someone behind us jumps for the both of us, taking us all the ground. Jimmy manages to hit Charlie. He scrambles up her body, yanking the gun from her hands as I grip the back of his jeans and jerk him back.
I catch a glimpse of Wade handcuffing Clint as Jimmy twists his body, failing to remove himself from my grasp.
“Jett!” Charlie’s heart-wrenching scream fills the apartment. The one word is followed by a gunshot.
My vision goes hazy, but I can still make out the silhouettes of the bodies moving around. People are surrounding me.
A hand touches my arms and it’s like fire. It burns, but I can’t pull away.
“He’s going to be fine, just step back,” I hear someone say.
Are they talking about me?
Charlie cries out for someone to let her go and by the repeated request, someone isn’t listening.
I can’t see or hear anything anymore.
Chapter Twenty
Charlie
Every inch of my skin feels cold. Frozen. Each step is like pulling a hundred-pound weight behind me and the tears are flooding down my face and soaking my clothing.
I just stand there, watching, not doing a thing.
They roll Jett farther and farther away. I want to reach for him, but he is already gone. The flashing lights in the distance are all I can see as my heart shatters and I collapse to the ground.
“Charlie, Charlie, wake up,” Whit’s soothing voice breaks into my dream, bringing me back to reality. Which unfortunately, is pretty damn close to that dream.
“How long have I been out?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
She hands me a cup of water. I take a sip and it hurts as it goes down.
“Probably a lot longer than you should be,” she answers. She’s hugging herself as she stares at the bed where Jett’s lying.
“He should be awake by now,” I say.
“They said it could take a few hours once the surgery was over,” she reminds me.
I want to scream at her. I don’t care what they said.
The last time he looked at me, he was saving my life, and now his own is on the line. I should have listened to him and let him handle everything. If I hadn’t been so stubborn, if I hadn’t led them right to Jett, we wouldn’t be here.
“I’m going to go get some coffee. Do you want any?” Whit asks.
“Please. I’ll wait here.”
I’m going to be here when he wakes up. I want to be here. I need him to know how much I love him.
“All right, I’ll check on the boys before I come back.”
“Thank you.”
The room remains as silent as it was even when she was still here. I keep my gaze on Jett. On his perfect lips, his tanned cheeks, his ruffled hair, and I tell myself I won’t cry. I won’t be a mess. I need to be strong for him.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
I startle at the burly voice behind me and look back over my shoulder to the door. It’s a hulk of a bald man I’ve only seen once before. In my apartment when the police arrived. His frame should put me on edge, but the soft look in his eyes tells me I don’t need to worry. I assume this is Captain, since that’s who has been sitting in the waiting room with Max and Sam.
