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

by Beth Abbott

  Every few breaths, his mind would wander, and Candy’s smiling face would appear, and his breathing would quicken as a feeling of despair threatened to choke him.

  “Tuck?” JT kicked his boot to get his attention.

  Tuck’s eyes shot open.

  “Thirty seconds.” JT nodded towards the front of the chopper.

  Tuck turned his head to look forward and before his eyes, his house and gardens came into view, looking as they always did, welcoming and tranquil.

  The only thing that spoiled the familiar view was the helicopter sitting on the lawn, it’s rotors turning, taking chunks out of the longest branches on his trees.

  “There!” He pointed towards the chopper. “She’s still there.”

  Every man aboard the Marine helicopter was craning his neck trying to see what Tuck was looking at.

  “Are you sure that’s her helicopter?” JT asked, probably already realising how pointless the question was.

  “Blast it!” Danny growled. “Go on! Blow the fucking thing to kingdom come!”

  The co-pilot turned and stared at Danny in surprise.

  “Sir, we can’t just fire on a civilian aircraft.” He pointed out.

  “They’re fucking drug smugglers and murderers!” Danny snarled in the guy’s face.

  “It doesn’t matter who they are, sir. Unless we’re being fired upon, we can’t fire at them.” The poor co-pilot was amazingly strong in standing up to Danny, who was one step short of turning into a rabid dog.

  “Stand down, Danny.” Marcus put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We’ll get them before they can get back on that chopper.”

  “Put us down on the driveway.” Tuck pointed. “That will make it harder for their chopper to take off, with the trees behind.”

  “Land with your weapons pointed straight at that fucker!” Danny grunted. “Because the chances of them not firing on you are slim to fucking nil!”

  “Aye, sir.” The pilot smiled, manoeuvring the chopper around.

  Tuck watched the ground come closer at an excruciatingly slow pace. For ten cents, he would have thrown out a line and roped down.

  When they were about fifty feet off the ground, the front door of his house flew open, and he watched two men and a woman run out.

  “Is that the cartel woman?” Hollywood pointed to the house.

  Tuck spun around trying to get a better view, but having told the pilot which way to face, they were currently pointing the wrong direction for him to see anything.

  “They’re heading for the chopper!” Danny yelled. “Get us the fuck down so we can stop them!”

  “I can’t set us down any faster, sir!” The pilot yelled. “If we hit the ground too fast, this chopper won’t bounce!”

  Danny scrambled out of his harness and pushed his way to the door. He grabbed the handle, and Tuck watched him pull with his whole weight, sliding it back.

  The noise inside the chopper increased as the wind rushed in, but Danny was on a mission.

  “Grab my belt!” He yelled at Marcus, as he raised his rifle to his shoulder.

  Both Marcus and Zach grabbed hold of Danny by the belt on his pants, and with one foot braced against the seats, he leaned out of the helicopter, much further than was probably good for his health.

  As the pilot turned them slightly, the three escapees on the ground came into sight, and Danny let off a volley of bullets.

  Tuck could barely see them from his viewpoint.

  “Turn slightly to give him a better view.” He instructed, and this time the pilot turned them about forty-five degrees.

  Danny started firing again, and this time he managed to hit one of the men.

  The bullet must have caught the guy in the shoulder though, because he spun off and hit the ground, but was up running again two seconds later, less than fifty metres from their own helicopter.

  The woman wasn’t exactly dressed for sprinting across grass, but she was keeping up with her men.

  As the helicopter completed it’s turn, Danny pulled the trigger and fired again. This time the other man was hit in the leg, and he fell to the ground. Danny kept firing, but it was difficult to stay steady when he was leaning out at a precarious angle, and their own chopper was dropping by the second.

  The two injured guys helped each other towards the helicopter, but the woman wasn’t hanging around.

  She hurled herself at the chopper, diving inside to avoid the bullets coming from Danny’s rifle.

  Five seconds later she was leaning back out of the door, a huge grin on her face, and what looked like a fifty-calibre gun propped on a swing arm.

  “Incoming!” Danny yelled, and in harmony, Zach and Marcus pulled him in as Brandon slid the door shut.

  The rat-a-tat of bullets hitting the fuselage was unmistakable.

  “Now can you blast them?” JT yelled at the pilot.

  “With pleasure.” The pilot nodded to his co-pilot as he swung the chopper around, throwing his passengers off their feet.

  Just as the bullets from Lucky’s gun started hitting the glass, Tuck felt the jolt as the co-pilot started returning fire.

  After a few seconds the incoming fire stopped altogether, and within five seconds of that, there was an explosion that was almost as deafening as it was bright.

  Tuck flew backwards as the sonic wave from the blast hit their chopper, and it was only thanks to Brandon blocking him that his thick skull wasn’t cracked wide open on the door.

  The pilot skilfully managed to keep them in the air, and no sooner they were level again, they were descending to the ground.

  Twenty seconds later they were down, and Hollywood had the door open.

  “Make sure none of them are still alive!” Tuck barked at the Marines. “We’ll take the house.”

  He charged towards the house, his men alongside him, with the exception of Danny who was already ten feet in front of him.

  The flash of colour in the windows seemed strangely out of place, for the split second it took him to recognise it for what it was.

  The windows seemed to explode outwards long before the sound reached them, and way before any of them had the wits to stop, turn tail and run.

  Not that any of them would have run, even if they had the opportunity, not with the women trapped inside.

  After the first rumble threw them backwards, they were pinned to the ground, as explosion after explosion blew whole sections of the front wall outwards, and masonry rained down on them.

  Tuck curled in a ball to avoid being hit by the worst of the debris, but just as it seemed they were coming to an end, there was a huge explosion as though half a dozen devices had gone off at once.

  What was left of the front of the house blew out, part of the roof exploded, and a fireball leapt fifty feet in the air.

  Within seconds, flames burst out of gaps that had once been windows, and the ground around them was littered with what was left of his dining room furniture.

  As the dust settled, and the noise faded away, Tuck lifted his head to see what was left of his house blazing away, with flames coming from virtually every side.

  “Candy!” He gasped, trying to get to his feet.

  “Hannah!” Danny yelled, scrambling towards the house on his knees, a huge gash on his head leaving blood trailing down his face.

  “Sara!” Marcus’ scream held every bit of the pain Tuck was feeling, watching the wreck of his house burn fiercely in front of him.

  “I’ve got to get Candy out.” He gasped, trying to get his legs to hold him up.

  Arms around him held him back.

  “There’s no way in.” JT’s voice was urgent. “There’s nowhere that’s not burning, and we don’t even know where they are.”

  Charlie got to his feet and started running around the building, looking for access points.

  “Joel!” He yelled, over and over. “Joel, can you hear me buddy?”

  He eventually ran beyond where they could see him, but they could still hear
him yelling.

  Tuck collapsed to the floor, realising that there was nothing they could do. The house was too badly damaged for anyone to have survived the explosions, and with the fire blocking any chance of a rescue…

  He stared at the house helplessly, watching Marcus pace back and forth, his hands seeming to be pulling chunks of hair out of his scalp.

  Zach was standing between Marcus and a suicidal attempt to run inside anyway.

  “Don’t try it.” He heard his nephew saying quietly to one of his closest friends. “There’s nothing we can do. It’s beyond all of us now.”

  “She could be alive!” Marcus screamed, his pain echoing every agony Tuck was feeling right then.

  Eventually Marcus fell to his knees and just stared at the property helplessly.

  They all knew there was nothing that could be done, but the instinct to charge in and rescue their loved ones was eating at their very souls.

  Charlie reappeared from the far side of the building looking like a beaten man. He caught Tuck’s eye and shook his head slowly.

  “They must have planted charges throughout the house.” He said slowly. “It’s all gone.”

  Tuck nodded as JT sat beside him. His friend couldn’t have looked more grief-stricken if it’d been his own wife in the house.

  Danny climbed to his feet finally, picking up his rifle. He turned to where the helicopter was burning on Tuck’s lawn.

  Walking, or more accurately staggering towards it, he raised his rifle and aimed.

  “Danny, they’re all dead inside.” Hollywood confirmed, his face grim. “There’s nothing left to do here. It’s finished.”

  Danny stopped thirty feet away and started firing. It didn’t seem to matter that there was nothing to aim at, the sounds of the bullets hitting metal was the only thing he seemed to need to hear.

  When he eventually heard the click of the empty magazine, Danny lowered his rifle and dropped it tiredly on the ground.

  “Now it’s finished.” He growled, turning and heading back to the team.

  Chapter 47 – Gregor

  Gregor stared at the screen, amazed at the sight before him.

  He was in the basement of his property, with Kris, Yuri, Dmitri, and the rest of his security team, where they’d been for the last ten minutes, all of them wincing with every explosion above them.

  They’d done what they could with the remote-firing guns sited in the attic and had taken out a number of the cartel’s men. But once Lucky’s men had started to use the rockets, one by one his guns had fallen silent.

  Amazingly, thanks to the live feed from the cameras hidden in the trees in his garden, he could actually see what was going on above them, and more importantly, could see the damage being done by the constant rocket bombardment.

  “Excuse me for pointing out the obvious…” Kris pointed at the screen. “But you’re going to need to hire a damn good cleaning service to tidy that little mess up!”

  Gregor turned to Kris with a smirk.

  “I was planning on redecorating anyway.” He shrugged. “I just hope they haven’t hurt any of the rabbits! Sophia will never forgive them!”

  “If those big ears they have are good for anything, once they heard the noise from the guns, those critters will have gotten themselves down in their burrows and stayed well out of sight.” Dmitri observed.

  “Let’s hope.” Gregor flinched as another rocket seemed to detonate right overhead.

  “Look!” Kris pointed out the vehicles making their way onto the property at speed. “It looks like the Alpha-Stalwart cavalry have arrived. And bizarrely, we get to have a bird’s eye view of the action.”

  They sat and watched as Tuck and his men took on the cartel, wincing as Danny firstly took out the two men by the feet and ass respectively, and then with JT, took out the rest of the men at the front of the house.

  Gregor had only ever seen Danny as the relaxed, funny giant married to the tiny genius wife. This was a whole different man, and it gave him an insight into what it might have been like to face Alpha Company in places like Afghanistan or Iraq. Places where they had no need to ever turn back into the loving family men they were today.

  As the cartel started to be distracted by the Stalwart men at the rear, Gregor actually started to believe they were going to get out of this situation alive.

  He couldn’t wait to get to Tulli and tell her it was all over.

  Just as he was about to breathe easy, the ground shook beneath his feet with the most violent tremor yet.

  Every man in the basement hit the floor, hands covering heads as the whole foundations shook.

  “Shit!” Kris scrambled to his knees to look at the screen, which was still miraculously broadcasting what was going on outside. “They’ve hit the gas pipe!”

  He pointed to the flame shooting high in the air.

  “Are we at risk of another explosion?” Gregor asked.

  “Nah, that’s it.” Yuri shook his head. “Once we isolate the gas intake, the flame will go out. It doesn’t look like there’s anything left close to it to catch fire, so we just need them to check if there’s anything on top of us. There shouldn’t be much.”

  When they saw the Feds and the police show up, Gregor finally believed it was all over. His heart was pumping wildly, but this wasn’t fear, it was relief, and it was almost overwhelming.

  “See if we can get the door open. If not, use the smoke bombs and the siren.” He instructed. The smoke bombs would release a cloud of yellow smoke through any cracks in the door, and combined with the siren, it would alert potential rescuers to where they were situated.

  Less than ten minutes later, Gregor was stepping through the debris of his once beautiful home, and out onto the lawn. He didn’t even notice the damage caused by all the vehicles, so relieved was he to be breathing fresh air again.

  Paramedics tried to ask him if he was Ok, but he waved them off.

  “Mr Diminov?” He recognised the voice.

  Gregor turned to see Cole Arthurs the FBI chief walking towards him.

  “Are all your men safe?” Arthurs asked.

  Gregor nodded.

  “We’re all unharmed, thank you.” He looked back at the house. “The only damage was material.”

  “Relieved to hear it, sir.” Cole nodded.

  “Where’s Tuck, and the rest of the men?” Gregor stared around at the organised chaos of police, Feds, and assorted emergency personnel. “I haven’t seen any of them yet.”

  “No, well… it looks like Mrs Vega had this as a sideshow, and the real point of attack was Tuck’s house. They’ve pretty much hijacked the Marine helicopter to get them over there. I’ve sent more men in support, but we haven’t heard anything yet.”

  Gregor’s breathing slowed as the blood seemed to drain from his head.

  Tuck’s house was under attack by Luciana Vega?

  Tulli!

  “Get me to Tuck’s house!” He instructed Arthurs, who stared at him in surprise.

  “Please? I need to be there.” Gregor pleaded.

  Arthurs narrowed his eyes as if considering the request and then nodded.

  He yelled at his second in command to take control, and they ran for his SUV.

  As Gregor yanked on the door, he realised Yuri and Kris were right on his heels.

  “You don’t really think you’re leaving us behind, do you?” Yuri grinned.

  They climbed in, and before the door shut, Arthurs had the wheels spinning in the gravel, and then they were heading down the drive, through what was left of the gated entrance, and out onto the road.

  Ten long minutes.

  Ten excruciatingly long minutes, where even with the lights on and the sirens blaring, they still didn’t seem to be exceeding the speed limit.

  Gregor had a feeling Dmitri could’ve driven there faster!

  A couple of minutes out, Arthurs cut the sirens, unwilling to announce their arrival when they didn’t know what they’d be driving into.


  Half a mile out, and Gregor could have sworn he could smell smoke, which at this time of the morning would have seemed strange anywhere.

  As they closed in on Tuck’s place, the smell got worse, and by the time they were heading up to the driveway, the air was thick with it.

  Arthurs barely made it through the gate when they had to come to a complete stop, the other law enforcement vehicles blocking the way.

  Gregor threw the door open and leapt out, the scene in front of him reminiscent of the one he’d left behind.

  The only difference between Tuck’s house and his, was that his wasn’t a blazing inferno.

  He staggered forward, looking for Tuck and the guys, desperate to see the one face that had been filling his mind for the last week.

  He couldn’t understand why nobody was doing anything. Nobody was running around trying to help put the fire out.

  But then, what help could they have been? The house was entirely engulfed in flames.

  As his feet carried him past the last police vehicle, he finally found the men he’d been looking for, but not looking anything like he’d ever seen them before.

  The Alpha-Stalwart men were littered across the drive and grass, either alone or in two’s, almost without exception sitting with their heads in their hands.

  The only one who wasn’t was Marcus, and he was clasped in Zach’s huge arms, howling like a tortured animal.

  It didn’t take any explanation to confirm what had happened here.

  He found Tuck in the distance, sitting alone on the grass, his shoulders hunched as he wrapped his arms around his knees.

  “Ryan?” Gregor knelt on the grass next to the man he so admired and rested a hand on his shoulder.

  Tuck looked up, and the pain on his face was something Gregor would never forget.

  “Did… did anyone make it out?” He whispered.

  Tuck didn’t speak, just shook his head.

  Gregor’s heart shattered into a million pieces.

  One thought kept repeating in his head.

  If he felt this devastated over the loss of a woman he’d known a week, what must it be like for these men to have lost their wives? Their soulmates?

  He glanced over at Marcus and could understand the man’s devastation. He’d not only lost his wife, but his unborn child!