by Leslie North
“Shut up!” Felicity felt the last of her control unraveling along with her energy. “I'm having a hard enough time hitting the right buttons without you yelling and waving that knife at me!”
“Ma’am?” The dispatcher said over the line. “Is someone threatening you with a knife?”
“You goddamned bitch. You ruined everything for me. Everything!” He threw his hands in the air, the blade catching the dim light once more. “You couldn’t simply mind your own fucking business like a good little federal agent. No. You had to stick your damned nose in where it didn’t belong. These killings had nothing to do with you, Agent Belasko. Nothing!”
“Well, get over it,” she said, her voice cold.
“Stay on the line, ma’am,” the dispatcher said in Felicity’s ear. “We’re sending help.”
“I don't know,” Kevin said, moving in beside the window once more. “I don't think I can get over this, Agent Belasko. I don’t think I can this time.”
His level of paranoia had reached a whole new level now, if the way he was murmuring to himself and carrying on a conversation with his dead brother were any indication.
“I’m sorry, Ed. I did this all for you, you know. I wanted you to be proud of me, Ed. I wanted those bastards to pay for what they did to you. Pay for all those lies they told. And I’ll still make them pay, Ed. I promise I’ll make them pay if it’s the last thing I do.”
He walked over to her and held out his hand. “Give me the phone.”
Oh, shit.
She blinked up at him, unmoving.
“Give me the goddamned phone. I knew better than to have you help me. If you want something done, do it yourself.” He held the knife to the tip of her nose. “Give me that fucking phone right now, Agent, or I swear to fucking God I’ll cut your cute little nose right off your face.”
Slowly, Felicity held out the device to him, the screen brightly displaying the call to Ortega PD.
“What is this?” Kevin screamed, backhanding her hard across the face with the hilt of the knife. “You traitorous fucking bitch!”
Felicity tasted the copper tang of blood in her mouth as she crumpled to the floor again.
The sound of the phone shattering against the wall was followed by the sharp pain of Kevin pulling hard on her hair, pulling her head up as he placed the cold blade against the front of her throat. “Bye, bye bitch.”
19
Forgive me, darlin’…
Jace opened the door to the office wide enough to toss in a stun grenade. After the concussive force had detonated, he raced inside, weapon drawn. It was cleanup time. First on his list was making sure Felicity was okay. Second was eliminating Kevin Quinn, who stood swaying on his feet in the middle of the room, piles of debris around him. He had a wicked-ass looking knife in his hand that he was waving around as he bellowed about injustice and being a martyr.
As the dust cleared once more, Jace kept Quinn in his crosshairs, his finger twitching on the trigger of his sniper rifle. One shot. Just one and this would all be over. No more Kevin Quinn. No more killings. No more guilt over the awful, senseless deaths of his buddy Travis and so many more like him. Kevin Quinn deserved to die for his sins. No more questions.
“Don’t shoot!” Felicity shouted from the corner near Jace’s desk. “We need him alive. Please Jace, don’t kill him!”
Relief swamped him. She was okay. He wanted to run to her, wanted to scoop her up in his arms and take her away from all this carnage and pain forever, but first, he needed to make sure she was safe.
Cursing, he lowered the tip of his rifle and fired off two rapid shots, one in each of Quinn’s legs, rendering the guy immobile. Mark burst out of the bathroom just as the echo of the last round died.
“Jesus H. Christ! I told you not to kill him!” Felicity called out as Mark tossed Quinn’s knife away then leaned over the wailing man.
“I didn’t kill him.” Jace lowered his weapon and clicked on the safety before rushing to Felicity’s side. “Just hurt him. A lot.”
She was bloody and disoriented, her right shoulder banged up pretty bad, but otherwise okay. He hugged her tight while she sagged against him then cried out. “Ouch! You’re hurting me!”
“I’m sorry, darlin’.” He relaxed his hold and cupped her cheeks instead, so happy to see her he could burst. Jace leaned in until his forehead rested against hers. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry.”
She squinted up at him, as if blinking back the effects of the grenade. “Is he dead?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Jace glanced over his shoulder to see Mark cracking open the first aid kit from the bathroom and tying off the bullet wounds in Quinn’s legs with tourniquets. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second. “Did you call the police?” he asked Mark.
“I did,” Felicity said. “Kevin thought I was calling the airline to make a reservation for him.”
Jace chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
“I’m not your girl. I’m a grown woman.” She shifted in his embrace then winced. “My shoulder’s messed up.”
“Yeah, looks like a dislocation, possibly some torn ligaments.”
“Since when do you have a medical license, Jace Stevens?” she asked, her tone decidedly cranky and still the loveliest thing he’d ever heard. He’d take cranky Felicity any day over any other woman in the world.
“Since the woman I love got herself injured,” he said. Oops. Hadn’t meant to blurt out his feelings like that, but now that he’d done so, Jace couldn’t say he regretted it. Then he kissed her, just because he could.
Once he pulled back, she wrinkled her nose. “What did you say?”
Nerves made him hold back from what he knew she wanted to hear. He thought maybe she might love him too, but he wasn’t sure. “I said you got yourself injured.”
“No, before that.”
“I love you?”
“You do?”
“I do.” He grinned, then brushed the hair from her face. “Maybe someday you’ll love me too.”
“Maybe,” Felicity said, then laughed as his smile faltered. “Okay. Fine. I love you, Jace Stevens, even though you drive me insane sometimes.”
Joy like he’d never felt before burst through him like fireworks. She loves me too!
Gravel crunched as police vehicles and an ambulance swerved to a stop outside the building. Soon cops and first responders swarmed the place, securing the area and a pair of EMTs walked briskly toward Felicity. Mark stood off to the side with one of the officers, answering questions while Jace held Felicity’s hand as a paramedic attached an IV to her left arm and gave her some much-needed pain meds.
“You want me to come to the hospital with you?” Jace asked as they prepared to load Felicity into the back of a waiting ambulance. “I hate to leave you, Felicity.”
“No. You stay here and make sure they handle Quinn properly. He’s wily and I don’t want him getting away again.”
“Okay.” He leaned in and gave her a quick kiss before they wheeled her gurney away. “I’ll come up later to check on you. Love you.”
“Love you too.” She gave him a small, weary smile before they closed the doors.
He watched until the ambulance left the compound then turned his attention back to Quinn. Mark stood off to the side, arms crossed as the paramedics got the guy stabilized enough to load him onto a gurney. Jace’s shots were precise. He’d avoided any major blood vessels, but still done enough damage to keep the guy out of commission until he could stand trial for his heinous crimes.
“So, looks like we’ll need to contact the insurance company, huh?” Jace looked around the place. What a fucking mess. Papers and crap strewn everywhere., computers toppled and chairs on their sides. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Mark scrubbed his hand over his shaved scalp. “Man, this is just what we didn’t need. Not after all the crap press we’ve gotten lately.”
“Hey.” Jace frowned at his buddy’s uncharacteristic defeated tone. “We�
��ll get through this. We will. We’re SEALs. We made it through training and war and all out hell in the Kandahar desert. A few crumbled walls and scattered files is a piece of cake after that.” He held out is fist for a bump. “Brothers In Arms. Always. Forever.”
Mark looked at his fist, then him, a slow smile forming. He tapped his fist against Jace’s. “Always. Forever.”
Epilogue
One month later
Felicity walked along the newly installed section of fencing running the back border of Brothers In Arms. The woods loomed in the distance well beyond the enclosure and the sun felt warm and good on her skin. Blue skies shown bright above and for the first time in a long time, she felt totally relaxed and totally free.
She bent to tear off a large hunk of hay from one of the bales stacked near the fencing, grimacing a bit at the now familiar twinge in her right shoulder. The sling still bothered her sometimes, but she was growing more used to it each day, as she was the fact that her old life was over.
The wounds to her shoulder had been far worse than any of them had anticipated, including the trauma doctor who’d initially seen her in the ER. Since her surgery, she was starting to get some of the feeling back in her fingers, though her surgeons had warned her that she might never regain full muscle tone and use in that limb.
All thanks to Kevin Quinn.
That asshole was currently sitting in a California penitentiary awaiting arraignment on murder charges for Travis Felton and the other innocent victims of his misguided killing spree, and attempted murder charges for assaulting a federal agent, now ex-agent in her case.
Felicity stood near the fence and whistled loud, then waited.
Eventually, a small brown dot appeared from the woods beyond, growing larger as the animal moved closer. Fred, as they’d taken to calling the large buck, had a penchant for sneaking through the fence line and devouring the contents of the organic garden Vann’s fiancée, Mercy, had put in behind the storage shed on the compound. Jace had decided the best way to keep Fred out of Mercy’s garden was to keep him fed and happy-thus the straw.
Fred cautiously ambled up to the fence a few feet down from where Felicity stood and she slowly made her way over to him with the hay extended in her hand. Fred nibbled it through the fence, his large brown eyes looking up at her every once in a while as if to warn her not to come too close.
She laughed as he ripped off a large chunk then shook himself all over.
“Here you are,” Jace said, strolling up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. “I wondered where you’d walked off to.”
He kissed the side of her neck and she leaned her head against his shoulder to give him better access.
“Everything okay?” he asked, resting his chin on her left shoulder. “I know that phone call had to be hard on you.”
“It’s fine.” She sniffled. “I’m fine.”
She was too. Really. Things between her and Jace had never been better, and if there was any lingering sadness over losing her career at the FBI, it was a small price to pay for all the love and friendship she’d found here in California. Still, Jace was right. That phone call had been hard. It was mainly the finality of it all. She’d known once she’d gotten the prognosis from her doctors that she’d not be able to return to her position as a special agent any longer. There was no way she could pass the physical skills requirement test—not with her right shoulder permanently disabled. For a week or so, she’d thought about perhaps returning to DC anyway, maybe taking a desk job, doing research and analysis, but that would never make her truly happy. She loved being out in the field, loved interacting with people and living life. Getting stuck in an office somewhere would be hell on earth.
Today, though, her Director had called and offered her a teaching position at Quantico.
Tempting as the offer had been, she’d turned it down, recommending Ted instead. The guy would make an amazing teacher and mentor to new agents and she wished him every good thing.
Felicity fed the last of the hay to Fred, then brushed her left hand off on her jeans and turned to head back to the gym facilities. They’d turned the break room into a temporary office space until the old building could be gutted and renovated once the crime scene technicians finished gathering their evidence.
“Hey,” Jace said, taking her hand as he kept pace beside her. “I’ve been thinking.”
“I’ll alert the media.”
“Funny. Not.” He gave her a flat look then grinned. “Okay. Funny. Anyway, the guys and I were talking and we think you should come work for us here at Brothers In Arms.”
She frowned over at him. “Me? Really? Doing what?”
“Whatever you want. Mark can always use help in the office, then once you’re all healed up, maybe you could teach some of the classes too. Vann’s been thinking about starting a new curriculum based solely on the needs of women professionals. He said traveling around with Mercy has given him a whole new perspective on security.”
“I bet.” Felicity snorted. Vann and Mercy were so in love and devoted to each other it almost hurt to look at them sometimes. She was all for cuddles and kisses, but they were still in that can’t-keep-my-hands-off-of-you stage of PDA where a quick peck could quickly devolve into a full-blown make-out session without warning. For a guy like Vann who prided himself on his tough-guy, Teflon exterior, it was surprising—and humorous—to watch. “I don’t know. Honestly, I haven’t even been officially unemployed for a day yet. I want to take some time and find the right fit for me.”
Jace tugged her closer and slipped his arm around her waist. “May I suggest by my side?”
“That’s a given.” She kissed him sweetly then laid her head on his shoulder. “But I don’t want to rush into another career too quickly, you know? This time I’d like to do something to help people and make a difference.”
“Like what?”
“I’d love to work side by side with you, but I’m not sure what exactly I’d do. Maybe something working with female veterans? I wouldn’t mind teaching them classes, training them to be security professionals.” She giggled. “Sort of like what you guys already do here, but catering more to a female audience.”
“Hey,” he said, chuckling. “I’ve not heard any complaints from you in that department.”
“I’m talking about the training, dumbass.” She patted his perfectly formed, denim-covered rear for emphasis. “I just think women benefit from being around and learning from other strong women. That’s all.”
“Fair point.” Jace kissed the top of her head. “What else?”
“I think Brothers in Arms should hire some disabled veterans too, maybe through the Wounded Warrior Project. Those guys are heroes and so deserving and we have the facilities to train them. We can help them learn to cope with their new disabilities and maybe even help some of those Wounded Warriors get new jobs and new roles in society. We might have to do serious fundraising to get the program started, but I think eventually it would briing in another revenue stream for the company too.”
“Mark will love you forever if you can accomplish that,” Jace said.
“What about you?” she asked, stopping and turning to face him.
“What about me?”
Felicity wrapped her left arm around his neck and cuddled her right arm up to his chest. “Will you love me forever too?”
Jace gave her his slow and sexy smile, the one that still made her knees go weak every time. “Come a little closer. That’s it. Just a few more inches.”
When she stood mere inches away, snuggled tight in his arms, he said, “You, darlin’, I will love for eternity.”
End of SEAL Guardian
Brothers In Arms Book Three
PLUS: Do you love strong, protective men, courageous women and suspense? Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from Leslie North’s bestselling novel In Safe Hands, Book One of The Safe House series.
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