by Cynthia Eden
Now, he had to take care of the guards. But before those guys could rush inside—
The cell plunged into darkness. Savannah gave a sharp gasp.
And…
I got your six, buddy. Sawyer’s voice drifted through Jett’s mind. Took out the power. Thought it might give you an advantage.
Hell, yes, it gave him an advantage.
Use the advantage while you can. I’m betting there is a fail-safe that will have the electricity coming back on soon.
Just as he’d done in Savannah’s shop, Jett instantly let his shadows sweep out. He could still see perfectly in the darkness, but the two guards who now rushed into the cell—they weren’t so lucky.
Both of the guards were armed. Jett didn’t give them the chance to fire. He erupted in a flash and took their weapons. As soon as they were disarmed, Jett slammed the men into the nearest wall. When the guards fell to the floor, they were unconscious. They’d be staying that way for a while.
He gripped one of the guns.
Savannah held the other.
They hurried into the hallway. Darkness was everywhere. The only illumination came from the faint, golden glows near the floor. Probably some sort of back-up security lighting. It was no match for the darkness, though. And with the dark, his shadows would win.
Savannah twined her left hand with his.
Let’s get the hell out of here, sweetheart.
***
Bennett had his gun aimed on Rowe—and then the lights went out. The alarm that had been blaring fell silent as the control room was plunged into thick darkness. “Shit!” Bennett fired anyway.
But…
“You missed.”
The voice came from low and to the left. He fired again.
“I had my doubts about you,” Dr. Rowe announced. “Always thought you might be a weak link.”
Now the doctor’s voice was to the right. Bennett whirled.
But he didn’t fire, not this time. Because he was starting to suspect…
“I mean, I think this case changed you. It’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. Let me guess…it’s because she’s pregnant? And there’s just nothing more innocent than a child.”
This time, the doctor’s voice seemed to be behind him. Bennett held himself perfectly still. I don’t think that voice is coming from the right or the left. I don’t think it’s behind me at all. He thought the voice might just be in his head. He’d always wondered exactly what Rowe was capable of doing…
Isn’t that why he’d needed an in-person meeting? He hadn’t been face-to-face with the bastard since he’d signed on for the team. But he’d known that if he could deliver Savannah and Jett, then Rowe would come out in person to claim that special prize.
He’d just had to wait for the right moment. Wait until the moment when other agents weren’t around…
“You’re right, McNeely. I am in your head. And I know that you went soft because of the kid. I can’t have someone like you working for me any longer. So if you’re not with me…”
Bennett knew Rowe was armed. He knew—
A bullet fired. This time, it wasn’t from Bennett’s gun.
“If you’re not with me…”
Bennett fell to the floor.
“Then you’re dead.”
***
“Turn here!”
Jennifer yanked the steering wheel to the right. The patrol car fish-tailed, then was lunging down a tiny dirt road.
“Savannah is this way, I’m sure of it!”
Sam had better be sure.
“I can feel it. Savannah gives off—shit, it’s like a little light, okay? She gives off a little freaking light path for me, and the closer we get, the warmer I feel.”
He was just pissing her off more and more. “If you can feel her, then when she was abducted by Patrick Zane months ago, why the hell didn’t you go and save her?”
Silence. Which meant…she was going to hate his answer.
“Because Dr. Rowe planned her kidnapping. He wanted her thrown together with Lazarus soldiers. He arranged for three of them to find her.” Sam’s voice was miserable. “And he’d hoped that the longer she was thrown with—”
“Just stop!” And she slammed on the brakes. The patrol car bounced. Jennifer whirled toward him. “Tell me how to find Savannah.”
He swallowed. Looked grim. “Go straight down this road. She’s there. I feel her.”
“And this Dr. Rowe jerk—he can feel you, is that the deal? So he’ll know that you’re coming?”
A miserable nod.
She jumped out of the car. Opened the back door. Pulled him out.
He flashed her a grateful smile. “Thank you, Jennifer! I knew you’d—”
She shoved him away from the patrol car. When he stumbled, she slammed the butt of her gun into the back of his head.
Sam crumpled.
“Nothing personal,” she whispered. Concussion number two. “If some evil villain is in your head, then I need to make sure he doesn’t see anything but darkness.” She bit her lip. “I’ll pick you up on the way out.” Maybe.
She’d let Savannah make the call.
Jennifer hopped back in the car and floored that baby.
***
More guards rushed toward them. Savannah tensed, but those guards just flew right past. Jett lifted his gun to fire after them—
Let’s just go. Savannah sent the desperate thought to him. Leave them.
She’d had enough death. She and Jett couldn’t be seen. They could get out of there and never look back.
He didn’t fire. They ran down the hallway. Turned to the right. The left. The place was like a maze, and Savannah had no idea where she was going.
They took another left. Burst into a small room—
And her foot collided with something soft.
“Baby, step back,” Jett whispered.
She staggered back.
The lights flashed on. Flew on and had her blinking quickly because it seemed too bright.
Then she looked at the floor and saw that she hadn’t tripped on something, but someone. Bennett McNeely lay in a pool of growing blood.
She reached for him.
Jett grabbed her. He pushed her behind his back.
“Jett, he’s been shot, he’s—”
“He’s not the threat.” Jett’s voice was lethal.
Savannah realized someone else was in the room. Someone else had been hiding in the darkness. She peeked around Jett’s shoulder and saw Dr. Rowe.
He had a gun in his hand. And the bastard was blocking the door. The only way out of that room.
He was hiding in the shadows behind the door. He waited for us to come inside. To get distracted by McNeely.
Then Dr. Rowe had planned to attack. Only Jett had sensed the guy before Rowe could get a shot off.
“When I fall,” Jett told her in his rough, rumbling voice, “don’t hesitate. You run out of here, and you get to Sawyer. I’ll follow when I rise.”
She knew that he was going to shoot Rowe. And Rowe was going to shoot Jett.
They were in a stand-off, and there was only one way for this to end.
Death.
“You’re miscalculating,” Rowe announced. “You’re assuming that I’ll just aim for your heart this time, but that won’t happen. I’ll shoot you in the head. Are you paying attention, Savannah?”
Yes, she fucking was. Prick.
He laughed. “I’ll shoot your lover in the head. He’ll shoot me, I’m sure, but my finger is tight around the trigger, and I’ll get my hit off before I fall. And if I don’t, I’ve given orders that all of the agents and guards at this facility are to only go for head shots if they see him fleeing. He’ll never make it out of here. You might escape, Savannah, but he won’t. I guarantee it.”
“Jett…” Savannah pressed her left hand to his back. Her right hand still gripped the gun he’d given her in the cell.
“You underestimate us,” Jett said
softly. “If I’d wanted to fire, I could have done it when I first heard the tap of your footstep. I’ve just been delaying, waiting on my team to get in position.”
Jett had pushed her further behind him. She couldn’t see the doctor’s face, but she felt his sudden tension.
In his lethal voice, Jett continued, “I couldn’t risk your bullet going through me and hitting Savannah, so I was waiting. Your dumb move was sliding over so that you blocked the doorway. You don’t even fucking realize it…” Jett growled. “But my man Sawyer is behind you right now. You’re heard of him, haven’t you? The first Lazarus subject?”
Again, the tension in the air seemed to deepen.
“Scared to look over your shoulder?” Jett taunted. “Scared to see your own death?”
“No one is there!” Rowe shouted. “No one can sneak up on me! I can feel everyone coming. I felt Savannah coming to this room. I felt you. I guided you to me when you didn’t even realize it! No one is—”
“Boo,” a masculine voice drawled. Sawyer’s voice.
Then things happened very fast.
Jett didn’t fire a shot at Rowe. Instead, he whirled and grabbed Savannah, pulling her with him to the floor. But her hand was up. Her gun was aimed. And she saw Dr. Rowe as he spun to confront Sawyer. Sawyer who was, indeed, standing in the doorway. As Dr. Rowe turned toward the new threat, she knew he’d shoot Sawyer.
In that instant, Savannah’s finger squeezed the trigger. The bullet flew, and it thudded into the doctor’s side. He staggered, and his attention whipped back toward her.
He gaped at her in shock.
She fired again. A hit to his chest. He jerked back, like a marionette on a string. He was gasping, shuddering.
Blood soaked him as he fell.
“Savannah?” Jett’s fingers stroked her cheek.
She was still holding the gun. Her fingers felt like claws around the weapon. “I want to fire again.”
Sawyer leaned over the doctor. He whistled. “No need. He’s dead. That was some excellent shooting.”
Her heart thundered in her chest.
Jett pulled her closer. She kept her gun, just in case. She’d be keeping that gun until they were out of there. Far away from this nightmare.
“God, I love you,” Jett whispered into her ear.
“I love you, too,” she told him.
His hold tightened.
“This one is still alive,” Sawyer announced.
Her head turned. She saw that he was leaning over McNeely.
“Leave him? Finish him?” Sawyer asked, not seeming very concerned either way.
Jett’s body tensed. “Bring him. He can answer our questions before I kill the bastard.”
“Fair enough.” Sawyer slung the bleeding agent over his shoulder. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Jay took the security system off-line. Our ride is waiting right outside.”
“Our ride?” Savannah asked.
“Yeah, the same van you guys arrived in.” He was already heading out of what looked like some kind of control room. Monitors everywhere. Monitors currently only showing gray screens. “Jay’s in my ear, giving me directions to the garage. He’s got schematics on this place. So just follow me.”
She started to follow, but stopped, glancing down at Rowe. She’d killed him. Hadn’t even hesitated.
Because he’d threatened Jett. Because he’d threatened her family.
Killing had been easier than she’d suspected it would be.
Jett scooped her into his arms. “Just in case,” he whispered before he kissed her. “I’m carrying you. If any guards come out, I’ll make sure no bullets hit you.”
But Dr. Rowe had said that he’d given orders for his men to shoot Jett in the head. He needed protection, not her.
So, as they ran through the twisting corridors, she kept her gun close. If a guard appeared to threaten Jett, Savannah knew what choice she’d make. She would fire. She’d protect him, at all costs.
But she didn’t have to fire. Sawyer took out two men before the guys could even get their weapons up. Left them in unconscious piles. No one else appeared.
An alarm began to blare. And… “Evacuate,” a robotic voice announced. “Clear the premises immediately. Evacuate.”
“That’s Jay’s work! He’s hacking the system, making it seem as if the place is about to explode!” Sawyer threw back at them. “Thanks to the alarm, everyone is busy covering their own asses.”
They burst into what had to be a garage. The van was there. They all got inside as fast as possible. For super soldiers, it was very fast. Jett wired the vehicle. Savannah hopped in the passenger seat and hooked the safety belt. The van growled to life and surged them forward. Jett drove right through the garage door, a metal sheet that gave way beneath the impact of the van’s front bumper, and then they were hurtling forward.
“Who the hell is that?” Sawyer thundered.
Someone was up ahead. Aiming a gun at the van.
“Stop!” Savannah yelled. “That’s Jennifer!”
Jett jerked the van to the side. The brakes squealed.
Jennifer bounded toward them. She yanked open the passenger side door. “Savannah?” Relief flooded her features. “Oh, God, I thought—”
“If she’s on our side, get her in the van,” Sawyer yelled to Savannah from the back. An instant later, he was sliding open one of the van’s side doors. “She can help me with this guy. He’s bleeding all over the place.”
Jennifer pulled back, lifting her gun toward Sawyer. “Who the hell are you?”
“A friend,” Savannah said quickly. “Get in, Jennifer, come on!”
Jennifer jumped in. The van took off.
“This is Special Agent McNeely!” Jennifer cried from the back of the van as she spied the injured man. “What happened to him?”
“Better question is…” Jett muttered. “What will happen to him?”
Savannah shivered.
“Um, hey, you might want to stop near the end of the dirt road. Or not,” Jennifer added nervously. “Your cousin is there, Savannah. I think he’s got, uh, a concussion. Or two.”
Savannah glanced back at her.
But Jennifer wasn’t looking at her. She’d put her hands over McNeely’s wounds and was applying pressure.
“Savannah?” Jett asked. “Want me to stop for Sam or keep going?”
She still had her gun. She was afraid to let it go.
“Savannah?” he prompted.
She could see Sam’s slumped form up ahead.
“He led me to you,” Jennifer called from the back, her voice tense. “I think he’s a traitorous bastard, but he took me out here.”
Dammit. “Get him.”
Jett braked. A few moments later, he’d dumped Sam’s unconscious form into the back of the van. None-too-gently. “Where the hell am I going?” Jett shouted back at Sawyer as he got the van moving again.
“Turn right at the main road,” Sawyer barked back, apparently still getting directions in his ear-piece. “Keep driving until you see the helicopter.”
“The helicopter?” Savannah repeated, already leaning forward to peer out of the windshield.
“Yeah, Jay says they’re going to find us. As soon as they get a visual, the chopper will land in the middle of the freaking road.”
And a few minutes later, that’s exactly what it did.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Savannah Jacobs is dead,” Jett said those words flatly as he stared at the man in the hospital bed.
Pale as the sheets around him, Agent Bennett McNeely swallowed at Jett’s announcement. The machines around him beeped faster. “I am so freaking sorry.”
“You should be. You worked for a lying psychopath who wanted to destroy the people I care about. You killed me three times, and you will pay.” He stalked toward the bed.
The hospital door opened behind him. Jett caught the sweet, familiar scent even as he watched the shock flash on McNeely’s face.
“Wh-w
hat? Savannah?”
She came to Jett’s side. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Savannah Jacobs is dead,” Jett said again. “She died in a fire at her shop in Biloxi. That’s what you’re going to tell anyone who asks. That’s what you’ll tell the local cops and any reporters. You’ll back up Detective Jennifer Adams’s story, and if anyone from the US government ever asks…”
McNeely released a slow breath. “Savannah Jacobs is dead.”
Jett nodded. “Now you get the picture.”
McNeely glanced around the hospital room. “Where am I?”
“A private place just outside of Jackson, Mississippi. There will be no records of your stay here.” Because money could make almost anything happen. Since Jay Maverick had money to burn, he was using those assets to help the team.
“I’m sorry, Savannah,” McNeely said, and it sounded as if the jerk meant those words. “I didn’t realize how far gone Rowe was, and when I did finally see the truth, I knew that I had to stop him. But he was protected, insulated. I had to get a one-on-one meeting with him, and the only way to get the guy to come out from behind his cloud of protection—”
“Was to serve us up to him,” Jett finished.
Miserably, McNeely nodded. “I was going to kill him. Then I was going to let you both go, I swear it. I went to the control room to end him—and to get access to all of the files he had on the other cases we’d worked. I wanted to make sure no other innocents had ever been taken.”
“One of our associates hacked into the not-so-good doctor’s system. I’ll make sure the guy gives you a copy of everything he finds.” Jett had quickly learned that Jay Maverick never met a system he couldn’t hack. “And you’d better make sure all innocents are safe.”
“I will—”
“The Lazarus team will be helping you. Because we really don’t like when people are put in cages for no good reason.” He offered a cold smile to McNeely.
“You’re going to kick my ass, aren’t you?” McNeely asked miserably.
Jett opened his mouth to reply—
“You killed him,” Savannah cut in, and there was a hot fury in her voice. “You can say that you were trying to do the right thing, that your target was Rowe, but I had to watch the life drain from the eyes of the man I love.”