Cherish Me: A Stark Ever After Novella

by J. Kenner

  No. Oh, God, no. It couldn’t be true. He had to believe it wasn’t true.

  “Once we got one dead body we may as well have more,” Ron continued. “Our asses are on the hook if we get nailed for this thing. So we make it easy. We leave no witnesses. Take out the rest of the people in the bar, get the stuff, get the fuck out of here.”

  He’d been moving forward and a bit to the left, leaving Damien with only a view of his side.

  “You are as dumb as dirt, my friend. We kill them all, then what the fuck do we have to negotiate with if we get trapped?”

  They continued to argue on what Damien assumed was a secure line. He had to focus to listen. Focus and remind himself that he had to be careful. No risks. He couldn’t fail. Nikki was in that bar—she was still in that bar—but she was in danger.

  Not dead. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe that she was dead. But the danger was real, and he had to get back to her.

  Fuck.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. He wanted to pull out his phone. Wanted to look at the app and check her watch for a pulse. Wanted to send her a tap to let her know that he was alive. That he would come for her.

  Instead, he stayed completely still.

  “Security system’s disarmed,” a new voice on the radio said. “Everything’s nice and calm out here on the perimeter. Ron’s right. Just nail whoever stands in the way. We do the job. Get the rock. Badabing, badaboom.”

  “Now you listen, you two idiots.” Damien could hear the exasperation in the speaker’s voice. “Just because there’s no silent alarm that triggered some fucking guard station doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods. I swear to God, you two may be my blood, but I will kill both of you myself if you make me regret bringing you on this mission. So keep your eyes on the fucking prize, and let’s get this wrapped up. The sooner the better. And try to control your goddamn urges, boys. You kill everyone, we got no hostages. And hostages are the fall-back escape plan. You got that?”

  “Got it,” Ron said, and the new voice concurred.

  “Good. Clear your suite, make sure nobody’s tucked away on the shitter, and get the fuck out of there.”

  Ron nodded. “Yes, sir. Over.” He moved back into view, the radio hanging in his hand. “Fucking prick.” He started to turn toward the powder room off the entrance hall, and Damien knew he would see him. Right now, the rifle was hanging, and Ron was holding the talkie in his hand on that side.

  As far as opportunities went, it wasn’t bad. Besides, Damien didn’t have a choice. With only seconds before Ron would have seen him, Damien burst forward and grabbed the handgun from the back of Ron’s pants. Then he nailed him hard across the head with the butt of the gun.

  Ron stumbled and fell, landing on his back. He kicked up, and it was only by a miracle that he didn’t get Damien right in the balls, which would have made him curl up defenseless for a moment. Instead, Ron scrambled for the AK-47, got his fingers on it, and started to lift the gun.

  Damien fired, catching Ron in the chest. The thug howled, then started to roll. It took a moment for Damien to realize he’d fallen on the radio. If he called the others, Damien was a dead man.

  He fired again, this time putting a bullet through the son of a bitch’s head.

  He stood there, breathing hard as the radio buzzed back to life. “Ron, you motherfucker. What did I tell you about firing? Just finish up and meet me down here on five.”

  There was a pause, and Damien utilized the time to force himself to move. To sling the rifle over his shoulder and clip the radio to his jeans. The Glock he kept in his hand.

  Time to get the fuck out of there.

  The thug on the radio had said he was two floors below on the fifth floor, which meant Damien was going up. He couldn’t risk bumping into any of these assholes, and he still didn’t know exactly how many there were.

  He checked the hall—clear—then headed toward the stairwell. He paused, listening. No footsteps, no sound of the elevator. Good.

  With luck, he’d get to the roof without incident.

  But if he saw someone, at least he had the gun and the rifle keeping him company.

  Chapter Ten

  The stairwell opened off the end of the hall, and Damien paused halfway there, just by the vending alcove. A moment before, the floor had been silent, but now…

  Well, now he thought he’d heard a creak. A bang. Something.

  Thwump.

  He heard it again. Footsteps in the stairwell. Shit.

  With no other choice, he slid into the vending alcove and squeezed into the narrow space between the ice machine and the wall. He had the handgun at the ready. The rifle would be a better option for taking them out, but he had no way to know if the magazine was full, and he’d grabbed it without thinking that it could be empty. The handgun, thankfully, he’d checked as he’d moved down the hall. And except for the two bullets he’d fired, the clip was full.

  Almost immediately, he realized it was the right decision to hesitate before taking the stairs. He heard the creak of the hinges on the stairwell door, then the pounding of footsteps in the hall. Men who knew that they were in charge and didn’t have to be quiet.

  From his vantage point he could barely see the men. That meant that they could see him too if they looked in that direction, but he said a silent prayer that they wouldn’t, and when they walked right past, he breathed a silent thank you. Apparently the gods were looking out for him. Hopefully they were looking out for Nikki, too.

  He’d seen two men in ski masks. Tall and lean. Black T-shirts, black cargo pants. Tattoos on their arms. One had hair long enough to stick out the back of the mask. He took a mental picture of the tats, fully intending to have a sketch artist draw them.

  To do that, though, he had to get out alive.

  Focus, Stark. You need to fucking focus.

  He heard them enter his suite, and one must have kicked the door shut, because he heard it slam. He figured he had less than a minute as they went over to examine Ron’s body. After that, they’d burst out of the room, on the hunt for him.

  They’d assume he’d try to escape, and fast, probably by racing down the stairs. And that, of course, was another reason he was going up.

  He hurried to the stairwell door, then lingered once he was inside, manually closing it so that it didn’t slam. It cost him precious seconds, but better than announcing that he was there.

  There was no way to lock or jam it, so he left it shut and took the stairs to the roof two at a time. Once there, he did a quick reconnaissance around the roof, finding the metal fire escape stairs on the park-side of the building. It was dark now, but when he looked down he could see two men in black lingering on the sidewalk, illuminated by the glow of the city. He jogged the perimeter, and on each side, saw two more men. Perimeter guards.

  If he came down the fire escape, they might not kill him, especially if he went down a public side. But they were undoubtedly sharpshooters with silencers, and he wasn’t going to bet his life or Nikki’s on getting down eight stories without anyone noticing.

  So the fire escape was out, and so was the stairwell.

  He needed another way to get to the bar. Think. Dammit. Think.

  He didn’t have much time. He knew that. There were already men in the bar. When the two goons in his suite realized that Ron was dead and that he was missing his weapons, they’d search for him. They’d search the stairwell. They’d search the floors. They’d look at the fire escape. And when they didn’t find him there, they’d know he had to be on the roof. Which meant he needed to get off the roof and fast.

  How?

  He didn’t know. What he needed was clarity, and for that, he had to be sure Nikki was okay. Had to silence the fear that was underscoring every one of his thoughts.

  He pulled out his phone and texted her, then waited for the little dots to show that she was responding. But there was nothing.

  He switched to the app that controlled the watch, then exhaled with relief when he saw her p
ulse.

  Yes, he knew that someone else could be wearing it. But he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let himself believe that. She was alive. And considering the quick rate of her pulse, he knew she was scared. The reality ate at him, but it also gave him hope.

  Anyone who might have taken the watch would probably be steady. Nice and chill.

  They’d rehearsed this, after all. They were certain they’d get away with it. Why would their pulse be racing?

  No, this had to be Nikki, and he sent a quick tap to let her know that he was alive too and that he was on his way to her. He waited for her to send a response back through her phone, but there was nothing.

  They’d taken her phone.

  Okay. Fine. He could deal with that. So long as there was that pulse, he knew she was alive.

  His heart twisted with the realization of how scared and worried she must be. But he couldn’t think about that. He needed to focus on the basics. She was alive. He was certain now. If she were dead, he’d know it. He’d feel it in his heart. He would feel it in his soul.

  No, she was alive, and she needed him. And right now, his only purpose in life was getting to her and keeping her safe. The sooner the better.

  He did another walk around the perimeter of the roof, but there was still no safe bet for going down the fire escape. He couldn’t see how the men below were armed, but he was certain they were.

  The real question was how many men were inside the building. He’d turned off the radio, but if he turned it on again, he could listen to their conversation and try to make a tally. Ron was dead, he knew that. Barclay was alive, and presumably one of the two men who’d walked down the hall. At least one man must be in the bar, probably two. That meant a minimum of four alive in the building and at least the eight he counted on the sidewalk, probably more.

  He turned on the radio, keeping the volume as low as possible.

  “—fucking dead. There’s some prick on the loose and he killed Ron.”

  “Must’ve gone down. Want me to check?”

  “No. Barclay, you handle that. Search the floors, search the reception area. Deake, you go up. Check the roof. Kill the fucker.”

  “Don’t worry. I see him, I’m putting a bullet in his brain.”

  “But don’t we want to know who—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass. I want him dead. Go. We’re on a timetable, and I still need to get the goddamn vault code.”

  The roof.

  And there was the opportunity he was looking for. He hurried toward the main entrance to the roof, thinking about the vault and the gemstone and the thug who was going to be bursting through that door any minute.

  He waited, the radio on silent as his pulse pounded. He heard Deake’s footsteps first, then saw the door ease open.

  Deake led with the barrel of the rifle, and Damien didn’t hesitate. He got off a roundhouse kick against the door, sending Deake tumbling to the ground. Damien dove for the rifle and sent it flying out of Deake’s hand.

  With the other, Deake aimed his own handgun, but Damien had gone low and it was too late. Damien got his shots off, emptying two rounds into the bastard, chest and head.

  He stood back, breathing hard. He would have preferred to have caught the guy and broken his neck. Or drowned him in the pool. The odds that those shots had gone unnoticed by the boys on the sidewalk was slim. Which meant he had to figure a way off the roof other than the stairwell.

  And he had to hurry. This was clearly a heist, but he didn’t know their exact plan. If they decided to kill the hostages and blow the safe—hell, blow the hotel—then Nikki had no chance other than him.

  As much as the possibility terrified him, he knew he had to keep the worst case scenario in mind.

  She was relying on him, and he was going to get to her. But how, goddammit? How?

  And then he remembered. God, he was an idiot.

  He scrambled to one of the sofas in the cabana area, giving him a view of the stairwell in case anyone was on their way up.

  And then, from that point of relative safety, he dialed his brother and prayed that Jackson answered his phone.

  Chapter Eleven

  Damien conferenced Ryan and Jackson in together, and though the line crackled and reception was terrible, at least he could hear them both. And the sound of their voices gave him comfort. His brother, who had designed the hotel, and Ryan, one of the best operatives in the world of security and paramilitary operations.

  “Contact whoever you think best,” Damien said to Ryan. He’d already given them a quick rundown of the situation. “It sounds like a heist, but you can never be too sure. Apparently, they’ve already killed a woman in the bar.”

  He heard his voice break and Ryan’s soft, “It wasn’t Nikki. You have to keep believing that it wasn’t Nikki.”

  “I know. That’s part of why I called you two instead of 911. I want someone I trust taking charge. I don’t want any hero tactics that might put her at risk.”

  “We’ve got this, little brother. You and Nikki will walk out of that hotel. No other outcome is acceptable.” That was Jackson’s voice, and Damien almost smiled. He hadn’t known Jackson his whole life, but there was something about his older brother telling him it would be okay that cut straight to Damien’s soul.

  Even with everything he’d accomplished over his life and career, Damien had never faced a situation like this before. At the same time, he’d never been one to flounder in the face of a challenge. He had this. He was going to find his wife. He was going to save his wife. And he was going to nail to the wall the bastards who had done this.

  “If this is a heist,” Jackson said, “that may be a bit of good news.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “The vault has a failsafe. I worked with DysonArt Systems, and they installed one of their top models. Two combinations. One will open the vault, no problem. The other opens it, waits fifteen seconds, then drops a hidden wall, trapping whoever is inside. If it’s a good guy, he can get out using his control app. If it’s not, bang, you’ve caught your bad guy.”

  “Control app?”

  “A phone app, but it’s also wearable as a watch. Looks like one of those fitness tracker watches, with the DysonArts logo on the face.”

  “Hopefully the owner will be thinking straight and give them the code to trap them.”

  “Even if he panics, he can drop the interior wall from the app.”

  “I’m impressed,” Damien said.

  Jackson laughed. “I’ll tell Morgan Dyson you said so. The Damien Stark seal of approval. They’ll probably want to add it to their brochure.”

  “Funny man,” he said, but he appreciated the levity. It had centered him again, helped him focus. “Okay, it’s time to do this. You know the drill, Ryan. And get Dallas involved. I should have hooked him in already.”

  “Already on it,” came a new voice. Liam Foster. One of Stark Security’s prime operatives, and one of the former members of Dallas’s team of agents, Deliverance.

  “Liam, good to hear your voice, man.”

  “We’ve got hostage rescue, a bomb squad, and a federal task force already underway. They’ll move in quiet and quick and take out the perimeter guard.”

  “Let them know I’m here. I’m not in the bar with the others. And make sure they don’t do anything rash. I don’t know what the situation is down there.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ve worked with these people before. They’re solid. Seagrave knows them, too,” he added, referring to Colonel Anderson Seagrave, the western commander of the government’s covert Sensitive Operations Command. Seagrave worked out of California, but he knew the teams all over the country. He was a solid operative, both before and after he’d lost the use of his legs, and there’d been more than one time that Damien wished that the man worked for Stark Security directly. Seagrave had good instincts.

  “You know I trust you all to do what needs to be done. Right now, I need to figure out a way to get down to the bar. Jacks
on, that’s where you come in. I need to get to my wife, and I’m open to suggestions that won’t get me killed. The stairwell’s a risk, but unless I can figure out another way, I may have to take it.”

  “You could let the team handle it,” Jackson said after the others got off the line to get busy. “This isn’t exactly what you’re trained for.”

  “Would you trust anyone else if it were Sylvia?”

  There was a beat, then his brother said, “Understood. How can I help?”

  “You designed this place. Tell me how to get down there without being seen. Soon enough, they’re going to realize they haven’t heard from the goon they sent up here. I need to get off this roof.”

  “Okay,” Jackson said after Damien explained exactly where he was holed up. “I want you to go around the pool and behind the bar. You’ll see some equipment for the air-conditioning and the elevator shaft.”

  Damien was already on the move as Jackson kept talking. He hated getting out of sight of the stairwell, but he knew it was inevitable. “Okay,” he said as he passed the bar. “I see the equipment.”

  “Good,” Jackson began, then told him how to get inside. “Once you’re in, there’s a workman’s access ladder inside the elevator shaft. If you can get into the shaft, you can go all the way down to ground.”

  “I don’t need to go that far. I just need to get to the bar.”

  “Understood.” Jackson sighed. “Okay. Let me think. The panel on the lobby level is part of one of the wall panels near the reception desk. It’s not intended as an access point, so it’s screwed shut. But when you first enter the elevator shaft, there should be a ledge with a back-up stash of tools. If the workers haven’t moved it—and they’re not supposed to—you can grab the tool belt and strap it on.”

  “Right,” Damien said, picturing it. “Got it.”

  “You’ll need the screwdriver, so you could just take that. But better have more than you need than not enough.” He continued to walk Damien through the process of getting down the elevator shaft, locating the lobby level, and getting out through the access panel.