by Rie Warren
Fucking dickweed.
He spun on his heels when he reached Jade’s side, placing a hand on her shoulder.
I wanted to pounce forward and tear his throat out with my teeth. Rip his hands from his body. But not until I broke each and every one of his fingers. Joint by joint.
“What, my dear? That casino bomber?” He squeezed Jade’s shoulder, and she hissed with a snap of her teeth.
“Don’t you touch her!” Madge was now the protector, the only one who could get us out of here alive.
“Your personal guard. Yes. She had a lot of fight in her.” Slanting his head, Qasim surveyed Jade. “I think we beat it out of her. It did take a couple days, to be certain.”
“Tell. Me. About. The. Bomber,” Madge gnashed out.
“Oh, him. Nobody really. A Hezbollah acolyte. A willing martyr. For my cause.” His eyes narrowed as he grasped Jade’s chin, cinching his fingers tight.
My woman stared up at him with sudden feral intensity.
He released her and wiped his fingers delicately on his trousers.
Beside and behind Madge and me, the security cyborgs formed a wall of weapons. I felt their breath on my neck, the threat in their stances.
They did not know who they’d come against.
I said nothing, sealing it all inside until I could let every raging impulse explode.
“You know too much, Majedah. I suppose that’s my fault.” Qasim spoke in precise cultured tones as if that would make him less of a terrorist. More acceptable.
Approaching, he chucked a knuckle beneath Madge’s chin.
She whipped away from his touch.
“You refused to be the mute puppet. I married you to perform, to shield me. To make the Sunni accept me.
“You have too many causes. Your duty should’ve been to your husband.” Distancing himself, he fiddled with something on Jade’s dripping IV.
I knew without doubt that wasn’t pure saline going into her veins.
Her green eyes glazed. Her head lolled. My throat chugged and I tried—tried so fucking hard—to remain docile, but it was getting goddamn near impossible.
“I ordered the bomber to raid the casino and kill you. And a few hundred Western and traitor casualties.” He shrugged. “Nothing is too high a cost for the cause.
“But you”—turning, a toxic expression slicked over his face like an oil spill—“you would not shut your mouth, Majedah.”
“Your regime is corrupt!”
“Ali ibin abi Talib is good.”
“Fuck you and your platitudes! You don’t care about Lebanon or my people. You crave power, and you are a coward, Qasim Hassan.”
“Your virulent tongue and peacekeeping ways are why I tried to have you publicly killed.” His chest puffed up. “You would have been the martyr for your people. Me the grieving husband. That is how we could have brought the people—your precious people—together. But no. You wouldn’t die so easily. I had to bring in every agency I’ve ever used, bribed, and bought off to make it look like an outside job. Yet here you stand, Roohi. Alive.”
Holy fuck.
Saliva dotted Qasim’s lips. He raked his hands through his hair, leaving it standing on end. Unbuttoning the collar of his shirt, he ran an unsteady finger around the inside.
His earlier boasting turned to blatant threats. “You should’ve died when I said so, Majedah.”
“I will die when I am called to Paradise. And you can go straight to Hell, Qasim.”
His team rode up against my back when I stepped forward.
I froze, stock-still.
Hassan paced in tightening circles, rubbing a finger against his neat mustache. “You were stupid to come back.”
He pointed his finger at Madge like a loaded gun.
Jade’s head lifted, her dimmed green eyes seeking mine. I didn’t know what he’d pumped into her, but her condition was deteriorating.
Hassan was unraveling.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t shoot. Couldn’t knife. And I couldn’t get to Jade.
I hoped like hell Madge kept up her part because I was close to losing it.
“Do you know how many countries are indebted to me? Me?” Hassan pointed at his chest. “Do you know why?” Grabbing Madge’s cheeks in his hands, he crowed, “Because I bring the war. I do their dirty work. I keep their news channels spinning. I demand attention! Not you with your pathetic pacifists tendencies.”
He shoved her away, and her shoulder knocked against mine.
I was going to gut him and bleed him like fresh kill from the slaughter.
“HEZBOLLAH WILL REIGN!” Hassan shouted, gesturing wildly.
A complete one-eighty from his earlier etiquette.
Which made me wonder just how many bruises on Jade’s body had been caused by him, and how much verbal abuse Madge had lived through.
No more.
Hassan took a deep breath.
He rolled his neck.
Smoothed his lapels.
Took a comb from his pocket and rearranged his hair.
Then, a facsimile of a human being, he turned with a smile. “The old adage is true. If you want a job done right the first time you have to do it yourself.”
He is going to kill Madge.
Her head held high, Madge said, “I thought we were marrying to bring peace to Lebanon. You only married me to use me. You want to rip this country apart.”
“Yes, and now it appears you’ve outlived your usefulness.” The snide motherfucker actually smiled.
“You getting all this,” I mumbled very low under my breath while Qasim continued to rant.
Never once taking my eyes off Jade I waited for Justice’s affirmative, which he whispered quickly over my hidden wireless earpiece.
“You’re going to kill me.” Madge’s voice came out flat.
“You didn’t think I’d inveigled you back for a happy reunion, did you?”
“Of course not.”
I shuffled forward, cutting into this most unhappy family reunion. “Hey. So, I delivered the goods. Think you could hand over the captive like we agreed on? Don’t mean to rush out of here because your hospitality has been epic”—I grinned, emphasizing my swelling cheek—“but we have plane reservations.”
I needed to wrap this shit up in a big, wet, gory bow. Maybe with Hassan’s entrails even. Jade was looking more and more comatose. And I still didn’t know what the fuck was slowly dripping into her veins, but it sure as hell wasn’t a vitamin pack.
“Two people who managed to go underground and evade the efforts of the world’s most elite agencies are a high commodity.” Hassan ruffed through his oiled hair then patted it back down. “Perhaps you’d like to join my team. You and Miss Huntington?” He rocked back with a laugh. A loud laugh. “Perhaps not Jade. I think she might be beyond repair after what we did to her.”
I swallowed down another dose of black rage and pretended to play nicey-nice like I had no stake in either Jade or Madge’s welfare.
“Would, but I kind of cut a deal with the Special War Ministry for Jade’s return. Could do with the extra bucks. Uncle Scam—I mean Uncle Sam—is a cheap bastard when it comes to wages.”
“Why do I have the feeling there’s something more between the two of you?” He slinked closer to Jade then yanked up her head. “What if I cut this skin?” His pinky nail, filed to an eerie point, drew a white line across her neck. “She was so pretty when they brought her to me. Not so much now. Wouldn’t you agree?”
With his hand in reach, Jade bit down on his wrist, baring her teeth.
Hassan backhanded her until her head reeled back.
“I don’t hold with spirited women. They think they can run countries.” He sneered, rubbing the deep bite wound on his hand. “Only thing they’re good for is running households. Majedah never learned that lesson either.”
Terror grabbed hold of me. I knew Jade would go down fighting, but I needed her to stay alive. To think about herself for once. Not Madge. Not me.
Retrieving a wicked-looking, curved, Damascus steel dagger from the closest blond meathead, Hassan again strolled to Jade. “You did not answer my question. What if I cut her?”
“What do I care? She’s not my people.” I shrugged. Outwardly unaffected. Inwardly a caged beast ready to spring into action.
“Hmm.” He smiled at me, drawing the sharpened edge across the bottom of her neck.
Blood immediately welled, creating a massacre-like necklace.
My breaths came faster. My fingers cut into my own skin.
“Blood. Such a messy substance.” He leisurely swiped the blade clean on Jade’s shirt, treating her like garbage.
My face remained immobile, not even a blip showed.
The wound isn’t deep. The wound isn’t deep.
Jade had barely hissed.
Fuck. They had her doped to her eyeballs.
I kept my respiration normal through sheer force of will. Inside I was an absolute ball of fury.
“I wouldn’t want Jade if she was the last female on earth.” The words worked through my tight lips as I watched the crimson drops of blood mar her already mottled skin.
My throat worked hard.
“Then why were you working together?”
I looked at the curtains behind Jade instead of her face. The gauzy drapes wafted in and out, like deep breaths pulled in and out of a chest.
“Just part of the job.”
Hassan swung on Jade, the knife brandished again. “And you?”
“You know what they say. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” She spoke sluggishly through split and swollen lips. “It was about the job. Only ever about the job.”
What if she was telling the truth now?
What if we meant nothing?
I couldn’t dwell on it. Too much at stake and much too fucking late to go head-tripping.
“We can always give you sodium pentothal to make you talk.”
Another hulking, stupid-faced doofus hung a bag on the IV stand.
Ever the fucking martyr, Jade reached out and rattled the pole.
“Do it. You’ve already shot me so full of shite my entire nervous system’s about to shut down.” She wiped away some of the seeping blood on her neck, jerking her chin up.
A heavy blow landed across her face from the merc asshole. “Fucking British bitch.”
“That’s fucking British-Japanese bitch to you.” Jade glared, her lips curled back.
“Enough!” Hassan called a halt when Hammerhead pulled back to knock the last of Jade’s bravado clean off her face. “It is not a question of when but who to kill first. Majedah or Jade?”
Fuck me.
My timing was off. This was not going according to plan.
Hassan nodded to the Dolph-wannabe who pulled a syringe from inside his jacket. “Start the final injection on Miss Huntington.”
I snarled, ranging forward.
I made it two steps before I was slammed to the floor and flattened with a heavy boot clamping down on my neck.
“JADE!” I crawled forward, but every inch I gained I was shuttled back two feet while the goon above me laughed like an automaton.
Madge was laid out beside me. Her eyes showed no fear or terror, but sureness.
Stretching my neck, I watched Jade fight, kick, swear. Sweat dripped down her brow. Her arms were rigid lines, her throat tight. She fought to the last instant. She fought and screamed and scratched and railed until the needle jabbed into her skin.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Fight
“TAKE THIS,” MADGE HISSED. “Take this, Walker!” She shoved something into my hand.
Cool metal met my palm, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Jade. Her head dropped to her chest. Her breathing became even more labored and wheezy. All the lifeforce seemed to drain out of her.
Everyone watched Jade, waiting for her to die.
“I can’t reach the . . .” I choked on my breaths, smothering inside.
“The knife. In your hands. Walker. Do it. Get free. Save her.” Madge wriggled closer, her hands on my wrist. “Goddamn do it! I know you have a failsafe detonator, and I am going to be so peezed off if you don’t—”
“You talk too much.” I gritted my teeth and grabbed the stiletto blade Madge had hidden in her hair jewelry.
I sliced through my bonds as quietly as I could.
Madge was next. We had limited time—possibly no time—if I had any chance of saving Jade’s life.
As soon as Madge was free, I flipped my switch.
No. I mean I seriously flipped my switch.
That little failsafe in my watch—all it took was a nudge.
I’d packed the nearest wing of the hotel with so much motherfucking C-4 the sky suddenly burst into bright billowing light and the structure beneath us bent and waved.
Chaos ensued as the thunderous rumble rocked the hotel.
Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Storm speaking over the earpiece: “See? That right there is exactly why we can’t have nice things.”
“Make sure Walker and my wife don’t get away!” Hassan shouted.
I grunted when one of Hassan’s security team charged toward me through the incoming, suffocating smoke. Rolling to my back, I planted my boot in the middle of his chest. He went sailing backward, and I flipped up to my feet. Dashing forward, I swiped his semi-auto, spun down just as he back-planted against a wall, and shot him in the t-zone.
He thumped sideways to the floor with a thud.
For every hired thug or Hezbollah radical who came at me I unloaded the hurt and the heat.
Through the killing storm I unleashed I heard Hassan’s nasally voice, whining and terrified, no longer the pompous dictator.
A sneer on my face, I stalked through the blinding, curling smoke and located him in time to see his back disappear through the hidden door through which he’d entered earlier.
Fuck that slimy shit. We had him nailed to the wall. I had a bigger priority now.
The walls all around me were splattered with crimson drops like red bloody rain. Madge kneeled beside Jade, her fingers working at the bindings that lashed her to the chair.
My heart climbed into my throat when I saw Jade lapsing into unconsciousness all the while weakly urging Madge to leave her.
No fucking way.
Slinging the gun to my back, I quickly sliced through the rest of Jade’s restraints.
She was still hooked to the IVs. I shut them off and slipped the needles from her arms. Handing the fluid-filled bags to Madge who smartly stowed them in her jacket, I lifted Jade into my arms.
Another well-timed blast went off—rattling the floor beneath our feet.
The last time I’d held Jade like this . . . fighting, fucking . . .
She’d taken me down. Patched me up.
I had nothing to patch her up with.
Not this time.
“Walker?” she slurred.
“Got you, Jade. Got you forever.” I gripped her tighter. “You hold onto me. That’s all you need to do.”
“I’m so tired, Walker.”
A wild gunshot blasted into the plaster beside my head.
“You are never tired.” I crouched down to avoid another headshot. “You like to talk all night long. And fuck all night long.”
Her head lolled against my shoulder and I got no response.
I drew up my semi-auto and aimed. Was the fucker hiding behind door number one, two, or three?
Three.
I pumped a loud volley at the chosen door. Seconds later, a blood flood seeped through the crevice at the bottom of the door, staining the plush white carpet with dark crimson.
Jade barely reacted to the shots fired.
“So you are gonna stay fucking awake and alive, hear me?” I jostled her lightly in my arms.
Madge squatted across from me.
“Grab a gun, Madge.” I nodded at the pile of weapons they’d taken off me earlier.
&nbs
p; As soon as she was armed, I grabbed my lost dynamite pack, slipping the charges into my pocket. I took point, leading the way into the hotel corridor.
My heart was bursting through the wall of my chest with fear for Jade, but I held it all in check.
“We’re going street level now,” I spoke into my coms.
“Copy,” Storm answered.
“Roger that,” Bane called in.
“Evac on the way.” Justice confirmed.
Taking the emergency stairs as far as we could, we ducked and dodged pot shots taken from above as boots clanged down the steps after us. I opened the door to the second floor and motioned Madge inside. After shutting the door with a silent whoosh, I quickly packed it with plastics connected to a handheld device.
Loping across the construction zone, in and out of the thick sheets of opaque plastic, I kept talking to Jade. I tried to make sure she stayed conscious.
Every so often she lifted her head or mumbled a couple words.
Bobbing behind a stack of steel girders, I gently lowered her to the floor.
The door at the far end began to open.
“Blow those fuckers apart.” I tossed the detonator to Madge, hoping to give her some sense of resolution.
Staring at her friend, her protector, the woman who’d given her life for her, Madge hit the button.
In the aftermath of the explosion, I popped my head up to watch. A blast of flames created a mini inferno that lit the surrounding area. Immolating bodies stumbled through the door—screams cut off as flames consumed their windpipes. The flames grew, stretching fiery fingers to canvas, fabric, paint cans . . .
“Not much longer, Jade.” I lifted her in my arms again.
We had to get off this floor before the hazardous fumes and billowing smoke choked us to death.
Pointing to the elevators opposite us, I hurried Madge along.
We stopped just before falling into the wide-open maw of the empty shaft.
“Fuck!” I spun around, searching for another exit through the escalating searing blaze.
Jade suddenly slumped against me. Lifeless.
“She’s crashing.” I looked wildly for an escape route. “I think she’s crashing!”
Another round of bullets sprayed at us, adding to the pandemonium. Hassan’s detail was after us while the fire spread inward, crawling along the walls toward the ceiling.