Final Exit

by LENA DIAZ,

  They both ran into the other office.

  “Bailey?” Panic had Kade’s own throat closing and he had to force the word out. He suddenly realized what was wrong. She was choking on the ball of paper she’d had in her mouth. He grabbed her up in his arms just as the door exploded in a rain of glass and flames behind him. He ducked down and ran into the other office, then pulled the panel shut, cutting off the flames.

  He sank to the floor with his precious burden and rolled her onto her stomach. Then he squeezed his fists together beneath her diaphragm and jerked them back against her—once, twice. The wadded-up paper flew across the room. Bailey gagged and threw up on the carpet.

  Kade pulled her hair out of her face, holding her until she stopped retching.

  “I thought I was going to lose you,” he said, when she finally looked up at him. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

  She grabbed him and buried her face in his neck.

  He rocked her in his arms. “What was on that piece of paper that Faegan was so worried about?”

  “Swiss bank account numbers,” she said, her throat sounding raw. “He stole money from all the Enforcers he murdered. I couldn’t let him get away with that. I couldn’t let him profit from their deaths.”

  He shuddered at how close she’d come to dying and clasped her more tightly against him.

  “Kade, the Enforcers who were captured, we have to find them. Sebastian and Amber—”

  He pulled her back, looking into her eyes, hating what he had to say next. “The Enforcers who were in the tunnels have already been rescued. Bailey, I’m so sorry. Your friends didn’t make it.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “That bastard. Faegan is going to pay for this.”

  Another loud roar sounded from outside the doorway. Black smoke belched underneath it and the first finger of flames clawed its way under the threshold.

  Kade grabbed her hand and pulled her up. “We have to get out of here. Let’s go.”

  She nodded, and he was so damn proud of how courageous she was. He could see she was hurting over the deaths of her friends. But she was strong, a survivor. She tamped down her grief and focused on what had to be done.

  They raced through the opening on the other side of the office, down into the tunnels. They never saw Mason or Jace as they ran toward the exit that would take them into the woods. Sirens sounded overhead. Fire trucks were finally arriving. They were careful not to draw any attention to themselves when they rushed from the little landscaper’s hut at the end of the parking lot that was really the tunnel exit.

  Ten minutes later, Bailey and Kade were back with Devlin and Austin in the woods near the field. Kade couldn’t seem to let Bailey go after coming so close to losing her. He had his arms around her shoulders and kept her tucked up against him. She seemed to be struck with the same affliction as him, because both of her arms were around his waist and she was holding on tight.

  “Have you heard from Mason and Jace?” Kade asked. “We lost them in the tunnels when they were chasing Faegan.”

  Devlin nodded. “They caught him and cuffed him, said they’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  Kade exchanged a relieved look with Bailey.

  Austin was on his cell phone, trying to arrange some alternate transportation for them. With the fire trucks and, soon, police all over the EXIT parking lot, they wouldn’t be able to use their cars, parked just inside the woods. Thankfully the rest of their crew had already left, just ahead of the fire trucks’ arrival.

  He hung up the phone. “We’re gonna have to hike through the forest about a mile and a half to get to a second rendezvous point. I’ll have some vehicles waiting for us there.” He frowned down at the hole in his prosthetic leg. “I hope this thing lasts that long.”

  Bailey looked down at Kade’s leg.

  “Don’t even say it,” he said. “If Austin can make it, so can I.” He kissed her to soften his rebuke. It felt so good, he kissed her again.

  “Here they come,” Devlin said.

  Kade turned to see Mason and Jace striding toward them. “Give me a minute,” he told Bailey. He gave her another quick kiss, then strode over to intercept the two before they reached the group.

  “Devlin said you caught Faegan. Where is he?”

  Mason and Jace exchanged a glance, then shrugged.

  Kade stared at them. “Did you kill him?”

  “Not yet,” Mason said, sounding defensive. “We figured we’d interrogate him when we get a chance. Just to be sure there aren’t any more loose ends we need to tie up. I’m sick to death of EXIT Inc. and don’t ever want to go through something like this again. I’m getting too old for this crap.”

  Jace nodded and stood shoulder to shoulder with Mason.

  “Do you really think that’s going to stop me? Where is he?”

  “What are you going to do? Arrest him?” Jace scoffed.

  “He deserves justice,” Kade said. “None of this vigilante crap you’re so used to dishing out. It’s vigilantism that got us all in this mess to begin with. I can’t think of a better night to end that kind of thinking than tonight. Can you?”

  Mason frowned. “It’s not like he can get his say in a court of law. He’d tell them everything about us. We’d all end up in prison for all the laws we’ve broken, even though most of them were broken in service to our country.”

  The bitterness in Mason’s tone wasn’t lost on Kade. He knew what this war against EXIT had cost Mason, and what it had cost Jace. They shared a lot of war stories in the past few days, planning this assault. Both of them had nearly lost the women they loved because of EXIT. But so had Kade. He’d almost lost Bailey. And he had a right to see it through to the end—to its rightful end—just as much as they did.

  He glanced back at Bailey, then said, “Take me to him.”

  Mason cursed, but turned around and led the way deeper into the woods, with Jace and Kade following. They’d gone a good quarter mile from EXIT by the time they stopped. Faegan sat at the base of an oak tree, his arms and legs bound to the lower branches. With shoe strings.

  Kade looked down at Mason’s and Jace’s shoes, which were missing their laces. Faegan’s shoes were missing the laces, too.

  “Seriously? Shoe laces?”

  “It was all we had,” Jace said.

  Kade turned back to face Faegan, the man who’d ruined his life in every way it could be ruined. He’d never wanted to kill a man in his life. But this man, who’d nearly killed Bailey, tempted him.

  “Faegan, you’re under arrest,” he said.

  Mason and Jace swore beside him.

  “Go to hell,” Faegan said.

  “I vote we leave him out here tonight, like Jace and I had planned.” Mason looked at Jace and Kade. “Give him some time to think about his sins while the possums and rodents chew on his flesh.”

  “Works for me,” Kade said, knowing full well he wouldn’t do that. But he wouldn’t mind giving Faegan a few tense moments thinking that he would.

  The three of them turned around and headed up the hill.

  “I don’t care where they lock me up,” Faegan yelled after them. “I’ll get out one day. And when I do, the first thing I’ll do is track down your women and kill them.”

  Kade stiffened, then stopped, his back still to Faegan.

  Mason and Jace stopped with him, exchanged glances.

  “That’s right,” Faegan yelled. “Sabrina, Melissa, and Bailey. I know all about them, where to find them.”

  Kade closed his eyes, tuning out Faegan’s tirade as he thought back to another time, not so long ago, when he and Bailey had been talking about Hawke.

  “What if one of the people involved was someone you loved? Hawke was the closest thing to a brother that I’ve ever known. I loved him. If he was someone you loved, would you have chosen to save his life, over Simmons’s? Would you have at least tried to save his life?”

  He’d said something self-righteous and condescending, h
e was sure. Because he’d thought himself to be so honorable at the time, his faith in the law, in justice, unshakeable.

  More of Bailey’s words came back to him. “Have you ever loved someone? Pretend Hawke was your loved one. Now would you have called Simmons?”

  He’d replied, “It wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t trade one life for another like that, no matter how much I wanted to.”

  And Bailey had said, “Then you, Kade Quinn, have never really loved someone.”

  He opened his eyes. She was right that day. He had never really loved someone. But he did now.

  “Keep looking over your shoulders, boys,” Faegan taunted. “Because one day, I’ll be there to do my worst. I’ll gut all three of them. And I’ll save Bailey for last. I’ve got millions of reasons for her to suffer most of all.”

  Kade looked at Jace, then Mason. Then they slowly turned around and pulled out their pistols.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  A week later, Friday, 9:30 p.m.

  Jace Atwell and his wife, Melissa Cardenas, had excellent taste. Kade could say that for them. He leaned against the chunky marble banister on their twelfth-floor condo’s balcony, looking out over Boulder’s twinkling night lights while he sipped a particularly exquisite glass of twenty-year-old bourbon.

  The floor-to-ceiling glass doors behind him had been pushed back into the walls on either side, opening the expansive balcony to the family room and turning it into one enormous entertaining indoor-outdoor space.

  But Kade didn’t much care for entertaining at the moment. He’d only come to the “post-EXIT” celebration out of respect for the men and women he’d fought alongside during the harrowing battles a week ago, both here in Boulder and in Asheville. He much preferred the quiet, and something on a far less grand scale. Which was why he was on the far end of the balcony, alone.

  He took another sip of bourbon, enjoying the burn, and wondering just how much longer he had to endure the party before he could leave without offending anyone.

  The moment that Bailey stepped out of the condo, he sensed her presence. He didn’t smell her perfume—she wasn’t the type to wear any. And he didn’t hear her laugh, or her smoky, sexy voice—she wasn’t saying anything. But he still knew she was there. Something about her always sent a jolt of recognition, of sweet, painful yearning through every cell in his body.

  He turned around, noting the surprise on her face as she stopped in front of him.

  “I didn’t think I made any noise,” she said.

  “You didn’t.”

  “Then how did you know I was here?”

  He shrugged, since he couldn’t explain it without sounding like a love-sick puppy. He’d made the mistake, apparently, of hinting around about marriage right after Asheville. She’d looked terrified enough to bolt, so he’d backed off, not sure what to do. He didn’t need months of dating to tell him what he already knew. He loved her, God how he loved her. And he wanted her so much he ached. Not for one night, or even a week, he wanted her in his life forever. But talk of forever for some reason petrified her. So now he was stuck in limbo, wondering if he’d pushed too hard, too fast, and the price would be that he might lose her forever.

  The very thought nearly killed him.

  She took a sip from his glass, then wrinkled her nose and handed it back. “Yuck.”

  “Yuck? That’s twenty-year-old bourbon.”

  She held up the bottle in her hand. “Three-week-old beer.” She took a deep sip then set the bottle on the railing. “Yum.”

  He laughed and set his glass down.

  “EXIT really is no more,” she said. “Hard to believe.”

  “Yeah. Hard to believe.”

  “Why are you alone?”

  He shrugged.

  She gestured toward Mason and his wife, Sabrina, on the other end of the balcony, laughing and talking with Austin, who must have replaced his damaged prosthetic because he wasn’t in his wheelchair. “Have you met Austin’s twin? Matt?”

  “Twin? Another Buchanan? How many are there?”

  “Six, seven, eighteen? Who knows? I’m thinking their mom was a good, devout, procreating Catholic.”

  “That’s not a politically correct thing to say.”

  “I was raised Catholic. I’m allowed.”

  He laughed. She always made him laugh. He wanted to tell her he loved her again, like he had the night they’d made love in the cottage. He wanted to get down on one knee, beg her to spend the rest of her life with him. Why was she pushing him away?

  He was losing her.

  And he didn’t understand why.

  “What’s next for you?” he asked.

  Say you love me. Tell me you want to be with me. Say it, Bailey.

  She shrugged. “Vacation, I suppose. I need some time to decompress after all of this. You?”

  He stared at her a long moment, then turned back to the baluster. “Now there’s a question.” He watched the slow-blinking light of a plane flying in the distance. “Going back to the bureau doesn’t seem possible. How would I explain everything that happened? For all I know, the net Faegan wrapped around me is still there, ready to pin everything on me if I go back. No, I suppose the safest thing to do is move on. Maybe I’ll go on vacation, too, before making any big decisions.” He looked at her. “We could vacation together, if you want to.”

  He was an idiot. He didn’t want a vacation with her. He wanted forever. Where the hell had that question even come from?

  “You’re . . . not going to be an FBI agent anymore?”

  He grew still, watching the shadows flicker in her gorgeous green eyes—the doubts, the worry. Was that it? Was it that simple? Could his beautiful, smart, confident Bailey be thinking she couldn’t fit into his life and that’s why she’d been so afraid of him proposing?

  He slowly shook his head. “I don’t see the point. I don’t think that men like me, after the things I’ve done, should be the ones upholding the law. It’s time to move on, let someone else take a turn.”

  She swallowed, cleared her throat. “Then . . . you’ll do . . . what? Have you thought about how you’re going to spend the rest of your life? I mean, I thought being a special agent was all you ever wanted. Do you think you could be happy if you aren’t in the bureau anymore?”

  Unable to resist the urge to touch her for even one more second, he gently stroked his thumb across her jaw. He loved the way she shivered every time he touched her.

  “Do you think you could be happy hanging out with a washed-up, former FBI agent?”

  Her smile could have powered all the lights of Boulder, and then some. “As it turns out, I’m looking for a new career, too. Maybe we can both retrain together.” She smoothed her hand up the front of his shirt. “I’ve no doubt that I can figure out something appropriate to your . . . skills.”

  He cocked his head, his heart feeling lighter than it had in days. “Are you flirting with me, Bailey Stark?”

  “If you have to ask, I’m losing my touch.”

  He grinned.

  “Ask me about that vacation thing again,” she said.

  “Would you like to go somewhere on vacation with me? Preferably somewhere hot, where you feel inclined to shed as much clothing as possible.”

  She laughed, and the sound had his soul wanting to shout for joy. Maybe there was hope for them after all.

  She took his hands in hers and kissed his knuckles. “I’d love to go away with you, Kade. I’ve got a bikini I’ve been wanting to try out.”

  He was pretty sure he just swallowed his tongue.

  She clasped her hands around the back of his neck. “I also have this little leather skirt, and a leather top with a zipper I sometimes need help with.”

  He swallowed. Hard. “I’m good with zippers.”

  Her gaze fell to his mouth. “Yes. You most definitely are.”

  He smiled and glanced down the balcony at Mason, then just inside at Jace, and the others. And then, as often happened these days, his t
houghts drifted back to everything they’d all been through. And he wondered.

  “Something’s bothering you, isn’t it?”

  He blew out a long, slow breath. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

  She took a sip of her beer and waited.

  “It’s Faegan,” he finally said.

  She ran her hand up and down his arm as if to comfort him. “Are you having regrets?”

  “No.” His tone was sharp. He grimaced and lowered his voice. “That was the easiest decision I’ve ever made in my life. You’re safe. That’s what matters. It’s just . . .” He shook his head. “I know he was in on everything, and he sure acted like it was all his idea toward the end when cornered. But I just can’t picture him being the ultimate mastermind of all of this.”

  “Because he didn’t seem smart enough?”

  “No, he was smart. Brilliant actually. It’s more that, well, I guess I never thought that he’d be able to pull everything together like he did—the teams, the facilities, the computer resources. He wasn’t high enough in the organization to have the kind of clout I’d have expected to be necessary to get all of that without someone questioning him.”

  “You think, what, that he was working with someone else?”

  “Yes. No. Hell, I don’t know. I just wish I had some hard evidence in front of me.”

  “What about the mercenaries we captured in the caves? Were they interrogated? Did they reveal anything new?”

  He shook his head. “Devlin took charge of all the prisoners, said he had contacts who’d ensure they did some hard time and couldn’t hurt anyone else. But I didn’t even think to ask whether they’d been interviewed.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “Maybe.”

  He sipped his bourbon, then set it back down. The smoky flavor didn’t give him the pleasure that it had earlier. Those little doubts that had started up the moment the fight had ended were getting stronger now. He shook his head. “I just don’t buy it. There’s something more to all of this. There has to be.”

  “Work through it then. You say Faegan wasn’t high enough up in the FBI. Who’s higher than him? Who would have the clout you think was necessary? Ignoring all the agents at the same level as him, just looking at the ones above him, that’s probably a pretty small number, right?”