Breathless: A Stalwart Security Series Military Romance: (Follow-up to The Alpha Company Women Series)

by Beth Abbott

  She spun around to see Tulli in the doorway to the sunroom.

  “Umm, yes.” She tried to smile but failed miserably. “Well, not really.”

  Candy stepped forward, knowing she was going to have to explain what was going on to Tulli.

  “Where are your sisters?” She asked.

  Tulli nodded back to the sunroom.

  “They just finished breakfast with Joel, and are in the sunroom, watching the rabbits on the lawn.” Tulli glanced back and pulled the door shut behind her. “What’s going on?”

  “We think Gregor’s place is about to come under attack from Lucky and her men.” Candy said quietly. “Tuck and all the guys have gone over there to provide reinforcements.”

  She watched Tulli visibly pale, but the woman held it together well.

  “And the police?” Her voice barely trembled.

  “Are on their way, as are the Feds.” Candy nodded. “And don’t forget, Gregor has a good security team around him. He’s going to be fine.”

  Tulli nodded automatically.

  “Of course, he is.” She murmured.

  “Come into the office. Hannah is following progress over the communications devices the guys wear.”

  “I’ll join you.” Sara was slowly coming down the stairs. “Sorry I wasn’t here to see you off, but Marcus hid my hearing aids to slow me down. The asshole thought I was intending to jump in the car and go with them!”

  “Weren’t you?” Candy smiled.

  “Maybe? If you could have found Kevlar to go around the baby I might have.” She patted her tummy.

  “Well, I’m glad we couldn’t.” Candy grinned. “We’re better off with you here.”

  “I’ll let Lara know where I am.” Tulli turned to the door.

  “Don’t mention what’s going on in front of Joel.” Candy instructed. “Charlie has gone with them.”

  “I’ll make sure he doesn’t hear me.” Tulli nodded.

  Candy headed towards the office, to where Hannah was playing with her satellites.

  “Can you get a live feed?” Candy glanced up at the fuzzy TV screen.

  “I’m working on it.” Hannah nodded, not looking up from her laptop. “I just spoke to the General, and he might have a helicopter or two in the area of Gregor’s house in around ten minutes.”

  “Might have?” Candy frowned. “Doesn’t he know where his helicopters are?”

  “Of course, he does, but they haven’t taken off yet.” Hannah smiled. “And by the time they do, he has to have logged a flight plan for a training flight which will take them right over Gregor’s house.”

  “Erm, why would that be?” Sara asked.

  “Because they can’t be seen to be going out to start anything.” Hannah explained. “Of course, if someone were to fire on them as they flew overhead, then they are at liberty to return fire to defend themselves.”

  “I see.” Sara smiled. “He’s a good bloke, that General.”

  “Yes, he is.” Candy smiled, picking up some earphones, and handing off two others to Sara and Tulli. “He’s also a good friend of Tuck’s, so I know he’ll come through in any way he can.”

  “Yes, well, once we get the satellite…. And there it is!” Hannah clapped her hands in triumph.

  The picture cleared, and they were looking down from space onto an area over a thousand miles wide.

  “And we just have to put in the coordinates and zoom in just a little… or a lot, maybe?” She tapped her laptop keys at a ridiculous speed, and all of a sudden, they were staring at the Gregor’s house and gardens. “And voila!”

  Candy stepped closer to the screen to try and identify what they were looking at.

  They stood in silence while they figured out that the large gate was lying flat on the driveway, and three vehicles were parked in a row in front of the house.

  They watched as men slid out of the vehicles, and using them for cover, began firing at the house.

  At the top of the screen, Sara pointed to where another convoy had broken through the wall and were racing across the grass.

  Hannah tapped her earpiece.

  “Tuck, can you hear me?” She said clearly.

  Candy heard her husband’s voice mumble an affirmative through the earpiece, glad that she couldn’t communicate two-way and distract him.

  “Two teams have broken through, one through the main gate and the other through the wall as expected. They’re firing on the house as we speak, but by the looks of it, they’re also under fire from inside, so the security team must be doing their job. How far out are you?” Hannah didn’t pause for breath.

  “Five or six minutes if we don’t hit any traffic.” Tuck replied without hesitation.

  “It’s pretty much rush hour, Tuck.” Hannah pointed out. “How are you gonna avoid hitting traffic?”

  “Well, apparently, your husband thinks that the sidewalk is the new fast lane.” Candy wasn’t sure if that was humour or terror in her husband’s voice.

  “Empty sidewalk!” Danny growled. “With the emphasis on the word ‘empty’.”

  “That’s true.” Tuck admitted. “So far, at least.”

  “Well, it looks like it’s gonna be close which one of you arrives first. You guys may be around sixty seconds ahead of the police and Feds, but the General’s chopper may beat you all by a minute.” Hannah grinned.

  “General Nichol is sending a chopper?” Tuck sounded surprised. “I didn’t think that would be allowed, what with operating on US soil, and all the red tape.”

  “Well, apparently, if someone so much as pops a cap-gun at them, they’re allowed to defend themselves.” Hannah explained. “Obviously with all the gun fire going on down on the ground, it would be easy for them to assume they were being shot at.”

  “Obviously.” This time Candy knew Tuck was grinning.

  “So, what’s going on right now?” Danny asked. “Do I take it the gunfight has already started?”

  “Yeah, there’s a lot of gunfire, front and back of the property. It looks like two of Lucky’s men in the front are down, and a couple more at least at the back, but there are plenty more.” Hannah confirmed. “I don’t know how many security people Gregor has on his team, but they’re certainly keeping Lucky’s people busy.”

  “The longer they can hold out, the better chance we’ll have of getting there and providing back-up.”

  “Whoa! Hold up! What are they doing?” Sara walked closer to the screen. “Are those what I think they are?”

  “Tuck? They’ve pulled a couple of rocket launchers out of the back of the first vehicle.” Hannah explained. “Oh, shit! They’re firing at the house.”

  “Ok, don’t panic.” Tuck was calmness personified. “Gregor has a completely secure basement. If the house comes under a major attack, they were going to retreat down there to wait it out.”

  Candy watched as a chunk of roof blew out.

  “Oh, double shit.” Hannah whispered. “Tuck, they’ve got more rocket launchers at the back of the house.”

  “Like I said, ladies, Gregor has this covered.” Tuck reassured them. “We’re not more than two or three minutes out. We’ll be there in plenty of time, just like the cavalry.”

  “Oh, holy mother of God!” Tulli’s hand covered her mouth in shock, as the four women stared on in horror.

  “Tuck, they just blew out the front wall.” Hannah was more than agitated now.

  “Tuck, did you hear me?” She repeated.

  Candy tapped her earpiece.

  “I can’t hear anything.” She whispered. “Has the line gone dead?”

  “Tuck? Danny? Can anybody hear me?” Hannah was officially panicked now.

  “It’s like all the comms have been cut.” Sara observed, pulling her phone from her pocket. “I don’t even have a cell-phone signal.”

  “Shit!” Hannah stared at the blank screens on her laptops.

  “Umm, Candy?” Tulli pointed at something on the wall. “Is that box supposed to be flashing like t
hat?”

  Candy’s head spun around.

  “That’s the alarm for the grounds. Somebody must have breached the perimeter somehow.”

  Hannah stared at her in shock.

  “They’ve come here, too?” She whispered.

  Candy shuddered in fear and then shook it off.

  “We have to assume the worst.” She nodded.

  “Sara, you and Tulli grab Joel, Lara and Mischa and hide out of sight.” Hannah instructed. “Candy and I will try and hold them off.”

  “But, you can’t…” Sara argued.

  “This isn’t open for discussion, Sara.” Candy barked. “Tell Joel it’s hide and seek. He knows the house better than I do.”

  Candy watched as Sara and Tulli reluctantly ran for the sunroom to get the others to safety.

  “Guns?” Hannah whispered.

  “Tuck all but cleared out the gun-room.” Candy admitted. “We have a few side-arms we use for personal security.”

  “Better than nothing.” Hannah shrugged.

  They ran for the hallway to get to the weapons just as the front door blew off it’s hinges, throwing Candy against the wall, and Hannah back through the doorway she’d just run through.

  The ringing in her ears, and the booming echoing through her head left Candy feeling nauseous.

  She turned and scrambled to her knees, but as she tried to get to her feet, the world tilted, and she collapsed onto her side again.

  As she tried to regain her senses, she opened her eyes to see the blurry image of a woman staring down at her.

  The woman had long black hair, and dark eyes, and was wearing a strangely comforting smile.

  “Hello Candy.” She said politely. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted to meet you.”

  As Candy’s vision cleared, she realised that the smile she had thought of as comforting, was actually anything but.

  “Luciana Vega, I presume.” She managed to whisper.

  Luciana smiled again, and Candy could see the father in the daughter in front of her.

  “Nice that you know who you’re talking to, even if you weren’t exactly expecting me.” Luciana shrugged as she stood upright.

  She glanced left and right, finally spotting the dining room.

  “Bring her in here.” She barked at one of her men. “The other one too. As a bit of insurance.”

  Candy was grabbed by the hair and yanked from the floor. From the corner of her eye she watched a man pick Hannah up by the arms and drag her unconscious body into the dining room.

  “Tie her to the chair.” Luciana pulled a dining chair into the middle of the room, and the men pushed Candy down onto it. Her hands were roughly pulled behind her back, and she felt thin straps applied to her wrists, as they pulled them tight together.

  Luciana stood directly in front of her.

  “I doubt that I’ll have time to do to you everything you deserve.” She smiled. “Unfortunately, we’re very low on time, as I don’t really want to still be here when your husband and his friends come rushing back to save the day! I just wanted to show you a few of the Castille family tricks, spiced up with a little of the Vega influence. I have a penchant for the spectacular, you see. I do hope that’s Ok with you?”

  Candy stared up at the woman defiantly.

  “Sure, whatever you like.” She shrugged. “And when you’re done, maybe I can describe to you how I blew your old man’s face off.”

  She didn’t even see the first punch coming.

  Chapter 44 – Tuck

  “Hannah?” Tuck tapped his earpiece. “Hannah, can you hear me?”

  He listened, but all he could hear was silence.

  “Can anyone else hear Hannah or the others?” He looked around.

  “Hannah, can you hear me, sweet-cheeks?” Danny crooned into his mic.

  When there was no answer, he turned to Tuck and shrugged.

  “I don’t suppose there’s much we can do about it now.” He shook his head. “We’re less than two minutes out.”

  “Don’t take your foot off the gas!” Tuck instructed. “This part of the route will probably be as quiet as a church, and the last we heard was that Luciana’s men were firing rocket launchers. It won’t take too many of them to bring the house down completely.”

  Tuck watched Danny handle the vehicle as well as any professional driver, as he dodged the last few cars before turning and heading west beyond the outskirts of the city.

  A couple more turns and he was in a quiet road, with just an occasional secluded gate telling you that there were probably large and very private dwellings beyond.

  Danny took the final turning and Tuck pointed ahead.

  “Three hundred metres ahead on your right. The gate is off by the sounds of things, so you can swing straight in.” He turned to the rest of the guys, with half a smile. “Locked and loaded?”

  Marcus grinned at him, holding his assault rifle in front of him.

  “It’s been almost a week since the last time I fired this thing.” He chuckled. “I hope I can remember how it works.”

  “Just remember…” JT pointed at Marcus’s rifle. “The thin end goes at the front pointing away from you, before you pull the little trigger thing.”

  “Aww boss.” Marcus smiled. “It’s just like old times, what with you schooling us n’all!”

  “Asshole!” Danny murmured. “I guess I’ll have to whoop your ass today, seeing as I don’t have Matt here to beat. It’s not even a fair competition. For you, that is.”

  “Don’t even go there!” JT warned. “Just for once, I’d like to go on a mission without having to listen to the two of you bickering like children.”

  Tuck braced himself as Danny turned the vehicle hard right, heading through the gates at nearly forty miles an hour.

  As soon as he and the vehicle straightened up, he could see the truck and Lucky’s men out front, just like Hannah had described.

  They pulled up fifty metres away, and immediately they stopped, everyone piled out and started firing at Lucky’s men crouching behind their vehicles.

  Tuck glanced at Gregor’s house and was stunned to see that most of the front had been blasted away, and you could see straight into the middle bedrooms, one of which, if he wasn’t mistaken was the room Gregor had set Tulli and her sisters up in.

  It only took a few seconds for Luciana’s men to switch to the other side of their vehicles, as it became obvious that nobody was firing at them from the house any more.

  As more cars piled through Gregor’s gate, Tuck saw the rest of the Stalwart team arriving and waved them around to the side of the house to where it seemed a large number of Luciana’s group was still intent on doing as much damage as possible.

  Tuck started firing again and noted with satisfaction that there only seemed to be four of Lucky’s men left returning fire.

  Boom!

  Jesus! The rocket hit the only part of the front wall still standing, and the whole front, along with a huge section of the roof slid down and hit the driveway with a crash.

  Tuck prayed hard that Gregor and his men had long since retreated to the basement.

  He glanced towards Danny and waved to get his attention.

  “The guy with the RPG must be behind the big truck.” He hissed.

  “On it!” Danny crawled past him and along to the end of the cars.

  Tuck watched as Danny lay on his belly, trying to look under the vehicles. He crawled a little further before stopping and looking under the car again.

  When Danny turned back with a grin and gave him a thumbs-up, Tuck figured he’d found what he was looking for.

  Ten seconds later, from his position laying flat on the ground, Danny let off a flurry of bullets. The yelp and groan that immediately followed was evidence, if any was needed, that he had hit his intended target.

  He turned slightly and lined up his sight again. Tuck held his breath for a few seconds until Danny fired again.

  This time it was followed by a screa
m and the loudest wail, as a string of curses followed.

  Danny crawled back to Tuck and smirked.

  “If you will sit on the floor behind a vehicle, you should always try and sit in front of the wheel if you don’t wanna get shot in the ass!” He explained.

  Tuck winced.

  “And the first guy? The one with the rocket launcher?” He wondered.

  “If he doesn’t bleed out, he sure as fuck won’t walk again.” Danny growled. “When you repeatedly fire at a house with a rocket launcher, knowing damn well that there are people inside, you gotta be prepared to take what you get. Forgive me if I don’t feel like shedding any tears for the guy.”

  “Fair enough.” Tuck shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood for sympathy either. “How many left?”

  “Maybe one or two still shooting at us?” Marcus pointed to the middle vehicle, from where they could hear the occasional burst of gunfire. “Don’t know where the idiots are aiming though. I don’t think they’ve even hit the cars yet!”

  JT scrambled to his feet, keeping his head ducked low.

  “Keep them busy and pinned down.” He instructed Marcus, Charlie, and Tuck. “Danny? You’re with me.”

  Tuck’s jaw dropped at being given an order by a subordinate, but then he grinned. JT wasn’t acting as a Captain, undermining Tuck’s rank of Major. JT was just doing what JT always did. He met things head on, from the front.

  Tuck copied Danny’s idea of lying on the floor, wincing at the rough gravel that bit into his skin.

  Damn, but he was feeling old these days! Old and delicate! Shit! He was never going to admit that to anyone.

  He pulled his rifle up and looked through the sight. He could just about make out the tires of the vehicles opposite, but the men had obviously learned not to stand or crouch where their feet were visible.

  Marcus pointed to the end car, the one furthest from where JT and Danny were headed.

  “I’m gonna make that one go boom!” He grinned. “Cover me!”

  Shit! Tuck rolled his eyes.

  Charlie and Tuck let off a volley of shots, aiming at the tires of the Mexican’s cars. If they’d figured out how easy it was to incapacitate a man by shooting at his feet, Tuck sure as hell didn’t want them able to return the favour.

  As he watched the tyres blow out on the middle car, he heard the rat-a-tat of bullets from Marcus’ weapon, followed by a huge explosion as he must have hit the gas-tank, the force of the blast lifting the car almost ten feet in the air.