“Copy.”
“Theater is under Black Raven control.”
His eyes lingered on Baru. The owner of Imagine Casinos Worldwide was sitting in his seat, his wife at his side, with a vacant, stunned expression on his face. In shock, like many of the others. He talked loud enough for everyone to hear him, his gaze taking in the wet, scared hostages as the sprinkler system finally stopped.
“You’re safe now. We’re private security, hired by the Howard Underwriting Group. We were aboard Imagine in an undercover capacity from disembarkation. Authorities are now on the way. Please stay in your seats. We cannot allow you to leave this room until the entire ship is secure. Which it isn’t. Yet.”
Chapter Eighteen
2:44 a.m.
On Ace’s way to the helipad, he found Leo on the floor in a narrow hallway that led away from the stage, flat on her back. He slid to his knees, eyeing the gash in her shirt. Once he made the decision to linger, he entered a dimension where time’s passage became a reality upon which he was powerless to act.
Helmet off, her hair was wet and slicked to her scalp. With her gaze searching his, her eyes were large pools of color in a face that had gone pale. As the bronze flecks of light in her brown eyes seemed to fade, he started losing all the composure he’d tried so hard to harvest in the years since losing Kat.
“How bad?” he asked.
Her shallow breaths required effort. She’d managed to apply a one-handed tourniquet to her upper right arm. With her left hand, she was pressing clotting gauze to her wound. The gauze, standard issue in every field agent’s first aid kit, wasn’t doing its clotting job. The white mesh was red, saturated and dripping.
“Ribs. Must be broken. Hard to…breathe. Plate mostly did its job. One hit my arm.” Her words were off mic. Normal protocols meant that when an agent was fighting for his or her life, their comms were silenced so job stress wouldn’t agitate them. He guessed that Ragno had realized that Leo’s situation was dire, from the lack of comms from Leo and the ASAP nature of the order he’d given to Marks. Now, Leo’s gaze held his. She gave him a weak smile. “A bit of blood. Go.”
A bit of blood? My ass.
Streams of red fluid oozed between the fingers of her left hand. The floor was carpeted, with a creamy swirl running through a bluish-black background. All around her, the light-colored swirl had turned red.
Fuck. She’s bleeding out.
There was too much blood for a mere nick. Brachial artery? Maybe. He guesstimated what the volume of blood meant for bleed rate and mortal danger. The end result made him want to yell, punch a hole in the wall, and start bargaining with God for a different outcome than the one that looked inevitable.
“I’m sorry. Please don’t be pissed,” she barely whispered the words.
Breathe.
Yet he couldn’t, because his worst nightmare was coming true. The sorry truth was that he was afraid. For her, and for him. Crystal clear clarity, the same sort that had struck him the evening before as he’d been standing next to her at the craps table, the moment when he’d finally realized he was in love with his best friend, hit him.
I won’t survive if I lose her.
As Branch slid into position next to him, Ace tried to fight the slippery slope into hell’s black hole. After a quick assessment, the team medic glanced at Ace. Marks didn’t need to voice his worry. Mortal concern for Leo was immediately obvious, in the grim set of his jaw and the depth of his frown.
Branch opened his backpack and started pulling out hemostatic granules, clotting gauze, syringes, and a field transfusion kit. “Ace. Move over.”
Ace shifted to Leo’s left, realizing that the knees of his pants were now saturated with her blood. She lifted her right arm so that Branch could maneuver the tourniquet. A river of crimson flowed down her arm, through her fingers, and onto Branch’s hands as he adjusted the tourniquet.
“Brachial’s in play?” Leo asked, her voice weak.
Branch’s eyes again searched out Ace’s gaze as he ripped open a packet containing an applicator full of clotting granules. While his grim gaze told Ace ‘definitely,’ the medic answered Leo with, “Maybe.”
If it’s blown, she’d already be gone. If it’s only nicked, she’s got a chance.
“Ragno?” Ace barely managed to speak. “You hearing this?”
“Yes.” Ragno’s terse answer conveyed bucket loads of worry for her good friend. “I’ve confirmed that emergency medical support is on the way, but Chinese authorities are still not communicating clearly with us. We believe the advance team is in fighter jets, and we estimate they’re twenty-five minutes out. Medics are about twenty minutes behind that. Roger?”
“Copy,” Ace said, glancing at Marks, whose eyes looked even more worried. Forty-five minutes for medics was too long.
“Crap,” Marks muttered. Louder, he asked, “Ragno. Does the medical unit have blood transfusion capability?”
“Determining now,” Ragno answered.
If the answer was no, Leo’s situation was even more grim. There was only so much that Branch could do with an in-field blood transfusion. She’d need lots of blood, fast, and none of it would do the trick if he didn’t manage to stop her bleeding.
“I’m O-negative,” Leo whispered.
“We’re aware,” Branch said.
Branch’s quick glance sent even more concern Ace’s way. Of course she was O-negative. Most people, no matter their blood type, could receive O-negative blood, but people with O-negative could only receive O-negative blood. Which meant that the trauma unit needed to be carrying that type of blood. For Branch to do a field transfusion, someone on board the ship had to be O-negative.
“Ace,” Leo whispered, as Branch inserted clotting granules into her arm. He leaned towards her again. “Go.”
Yeah. Need to get my ass in gear. But I can’t.
Ace’s veins pumped ice-cold dread as he gave himself the luxury of leaning forward on his knees, bending so that he was close to her but not crowding her. Unable to get his mind past the moment, he shut his eyes. Sluicing pain, deep in his chest, overcame him as the glass house his imagination had built for the two of them shattered. Searing hurt travelled through him, as jagged shards of all that beautiful hope pierced his mind and heart. He took a breath, trying to fight the resulting paralysis.
Please, God. Let her live. I’ll do anything. Please. Help her. Help me. Help us.
He swallowed, fighting the throat constriction that came with his baggage of post-traumatic stress. He waited a beat, trying to compose himself while hoping like hell God was listening.
The familiar pulsing of anger started warming his fingers. Hands. Legs. Anger—at Skylar, and whoever else was behind him. At himself, for falling in love with Leo, when, after Kat, he’d sworn repeatedly that he’d never again love anyone who strapped on a weapon for a living. Sparks of fury gave him the strength to open his eyes and gaze into hers.
Anger and fury.
Not quite what he was asking God for, but he wasn’t about to argue.
“Trauma unit has blood transfusion capability.” Relief in Ragno’s tone was palpable. “Again, we’re having some communication difficulties. Not with signal strength, but with Chinese superpower attitude. We believe that O-negative is forty minutes out. Fifty minutes, max.”
“Copy that,” Branch said, throwing the granule applicator down and reaching for more clotting sponges and gauze.
“Tell them to fucking hurry,” Ace muttered as he watched the pink fade from her lips. Her eyelids were heavy, but each time she forced them open she focused on his eyes.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “Whether I live or die. Go.”
Her words hit him with the force of a tsunami. All Black Raven agents in the field had to have that attitude, but it shouldn’t be the attitude of the woman he loved. He didn’t drop his voice, not giving a damn that every agent now working the clusterfuck heard him and could possibly read between the lines. “Well, that isn’t
fine with me. You’re going to live. That’s a goddamn order. You understand that, Leo?”
Gritting her teeth and clenching her jaw, she held his gaze and was silent as Branch worked on her arm. Doubt in her eyes ripped his soul to shreds.
“Kamin,” Branch said.
“Copy.”
“Ask the hostages if anyone has O-negative blood,” Branch said. “Send them here if they do. If I’m able to stop this bleeding, I’ll lay the groundwork for a field transfusion. Just in case something delays the medics.”
“Copy that,” Kamin said. “Stand by.”
When the wave of pain caused by Branch’s maneuvering eased a bit, Leo’s expression had changed to the slightest smirk of a cocky smile. “Can’t wait to meet my Christmas present…hacked your phone…cutest puppy ever.”
His chuckle caught in his throat. He’d bought a new phone just for the month of December, in an effort to keep her from guessing her gift. He’d established what he thought was a secure account. He’d even encrypted his communications with the breeder. “One day I’ll figure out how to keep a secret from you.”
“Name’s now Trick. As in Trick or Treat. I can’t stand Noelle.” A glimmer of light in her eyes conveyed the complexity of emotions that came with their unresolved feelings for each other.
As he struggled with the urge to tell her that he loved her, the world faded away, until all he heard was her effort to breathe. Telling her he loved her wouldn’t be the right move, especially not when he’d wasted the last two years by being her buddy. Like the finest of red wines, the depths of what could ultimately define them as a couple would need to be reached slowly. If we get to couple-dom. A big IF. Because had I realized I was going to fall in love with a field agent, I’d have driven away from Black Raven…and her…on day one.
Yeah—they loved each other as friends. They’d now entered a realm of something very different, and he’d never tell her until she was ready. Plus, her current predicament provided a gut-twisting reality check that made him keenly aware of his own limited capacity for any chance at the ideal version of a happily-ever-after with someone like her. They had a hell of a lot to work through before he could even think of saying that. Right now, it would scare the crap out of her, because it would make her believe she was dying. Plus, he was starting to believe that she’d been right, when she was trying to zip her dress in their suite, almost eight hours earlier.
It’s never going to work.
Which meant he had no business saying I love you. But that didn’t make the suck-ass reality of the here and now any easier. He drew a ragged breath, reminding himself to be the guy he’d been when they’d fallen into bed together. That guy had been sure that things would work. Positive he and Leo would find a way to be together. Confident they could transition to being the greatest of lovers as easily as they’d been the best of friends. He cleared his throat, but couldn’t do a damn thing about his hoarseness as he mustered the courage for what could be his final words to her. “Let’s do the same thing next Halloween. Deal?”
She nodded and tried to speak. Her reply was so faint, he couldn’t hear it. Her lips were turning blue.
Fuck.
He needed to irritate her, to keep her fighting for her life instead of giving in and dying. “Something I’ve never told you before. You know that motorcycle race when we first met?”
She was struggling to keep her eyes, now glassy from pain and weakness, open. Each blink shut seemed slower and longer than the one before. Yet she whispered, “I left you in my dust.”
“I pulled back and let you win. After you almost killed yourself by passing that truck, I figured anyone who needed to win that badly…should.”
At that, Ace thought he saw a faint smile play across her lips. He chalked it up to wishful thinking, until she gave a chuckle that was so weak it sounded like a faint exhale. “I know what you’re doing.”
He leaned closer to her ear, gently moving some hair that had gotten in her eyes. “Now’s the time for you to earn the nickname your father gave you. Win this fight. Stay with us.”
With her left hand she squeezed his with a grip that was so weak it barely caught his attention. “Don’t...let Skylar kill…those hostages. Go!”
Ace stood, watching as Branch worked furiously to stem the blood that was now pulsing through the bandage. It was fucking impossible to suck air into his restricted lungs. All he could do was stand there and watch the dull white of her skin turn gray.
Help her, Goddammit.
“I am helping her,” Branch said, his hands covered with blood as he pulled more bandages out of his backpack.
“Sorry, man. Didn’t realize I said that out loud. I’m—”
Scared.
“Distracting,” Branch finished for him. “Let me do my job. Go do yours.”
Chapter Nineteen
2:45 a.m.
As they jogged along the Terpischore Deck, towards the helipad, he glanced at Skylar, who was half-lifting, half-dragging May Wen. She sporadically put up resistance, kicking, clawing, and screaming. In the distance, the helipad was empty. He slowed to a walk, pausing to catch his breath. “Why the fuck isn’t the chopper waiting on us?”
“I told you,” Skylar, also slowing, glanced at him, his dark eyes bright with worry, which he wasn’t wearing well. As he fought to control May Wen, sweat glistened on the man’s brow. Even in the fresh, nighttime air, he could smell the stink of fear on the man, whose confidence had disappeared with the debacle in the theater. “Comms are down.”
“They don’t even know that we lost the theater?”
“Correct.” Skylar tightened his chokehold on May Wen, who stopped wriggling and was finally quiet. He gestured to one of his men and directed him to go forward and turn on the helipad’s landing lights. “Comms have now been off for eight minutes. They’ll be coming at ten.”
He fought past the lump of balled up anxiety in the back of his throat, which had formed with the explosions in the theater and was now threatening to choke him. He remembered their contingency plan. Ten minutes without comms from Skylar—at any point in the operation—meant a chopper from their escape route would come to investigate.
Knowing how much he and Skylar had planned their own operation, he wondered how the team that had burst into the theater had managed to stay under their radar. Their operation hadn’t been performed by one or two wayward guests. The takeover had been orchestrated, from multiple points in the theater, and it had occurred in a matter of seconds, with precision. “How, in the name of hell, did this happen?”
By the stunned look in Skylar’s eyes, he could tell that the man was wondering the same thing. After a long pause, Skylar shook his head. “I don’t know. But they’re good.”
“Yes,” he said, with a grudging nod. “They are.”
As he watched a bead of sweat drip from Skylar’s brow, and May Wen let loose a fresh scream, he fought to stay calm while absorbing the reality of just how much their plan had unraveled. “We’ve got her, though. With what we’ve already accumulated, she’s enough. Now let’s get the fuck off this ship and blow it to goddamn hell.”
Chapter Twenty
2:47 a.m.
His heart lay on the floor bleeding out, but that didn’t mean the goddamn job was over. With great effort, Ace started moving down the hallway. As he ejected the magazine from his rifle and inserted a new one, he couldn’t help remembering another time…in an arid desert…when the medics themselves were attacked, so there had been no help…
The walls of the narrow backstage hallway seemed to undulate, closing in ahead of him and creating the illusion that his only option was to return to Leo. The creamy swirls in the blue-carpeted floor wriggled and rippled into cords that crawled up his ankles and calves and pulled him back.
Despite the PTSD-driven hallucination, enough synapses in his gray matter fired sufficiently to tell him that if he turned around, he wouldn’t be able to leave her side. If he failed under these circumstances, h
e’d never function properly again. To battle the pull of his past, he gritted his teeth and clenched his jaw, fighting the flashback’s paralyzing effect. Bending forward, he put his hands on his knees, lowered his head, and sucked in air.
Please, God. Help. Leo needs it. I need it.
Straightening, he resumed walking. With each step, his mind started clicking. Now that Leo was down, Ragno had control of her communications. For Leo, silence was the wrong move. Without hearing the chatter of her fellow agents, she’d feel isolated. Not a good thing. No matter what happened between them, he never wanted her to feel that way again. “Ragno. Activate Leo’s comm.”
“Agree. Might keep her…with us.” Emotion choked her for a second. “I’m turning her comm back on. Leo. Stay with us.”
Hearing Leo’s close friend, who was normally unflappable, pause to choke back a sob somehow helped him find strength to reassure her. “Don’t worry. Our girl’s too damn tough to leave us. Plus, she knows we damn well need her brain on this one.”
The effort that it took to say that dose of bullshit with bravado was huge, and he almost walked out the nearest door before catching his mistake. At the last second, he yanked his hand from the door handle that he’d been pushing on.
Fuck!
He needed to get his goddamn act together. Stepping out of that door would have put him on the starboard side of the ship. If he walked out there, he’d be exposed to Follower. By now, the occupants of it had to be on the lookout for anyone who wasn’t identifiable as a Quan operative. His near mistake could have been fatal for him and could have jeopardized the job. The potential severity of his error jolted him into focusing on the variables of what he had to do to save Imagine and its occupants. He turned from the doorway.
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