by Misty Evans
CB’s gaze dropped to the floor.
The floor. Charlotte tapped the board under her foot. Heard the hollow sound.
There was an escape hatch under her. Another tunnel. They’d interrupted him putting the bombs on all the walls and he hadn’t been able to get back to the torture chamber and the one exit he needed before Charlotte had arrived with Miles and Jax.
CB’s only way out.
“You’re in a pickle then,” she said, a bit of smugness entering her own voice. She’d have to make sure Madeena didn’t get hurt, but Charlotte couldn’t help it. She gave the man who’d ruined her life a big smile. “Because I’m not moving.”
“You will once I move your lifeless body out of the way. I planned to shoot you all along anyway. If nothing else, just to pay you back for flipping my damn Jeep. I loved that Jeep.”
God, he was so full of himself. She didn’t doubt for a moment he was about to fire that gun at her chest.
So she did the only thing she could do. She pulled Zeb’s ridiculously too-heavy H&K out of her waistband and pointed it at Norris’ head.
“Ah, shit,” she heard Zeb say in her ear. “Miles, we have a problem.”
But there really wasn’t one. Tired of the small talk, Charlotte slapped her other hand up to steady the gun and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twenty-two
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BOOM!
The sound was muffled, echoing up from the tunnel as Miles took the stairs to the ground level three at a time. A return popping noise, like fireworks followed. “Shit, are those gunshots?”
Zeb had told them to get back to Charlotte, that Norris was with her in the chamber. How had that happened? He hadn’t heard anything over his comm.
Never should have left her.
His wet boots slipped on the stones. Hunter, right behind him, grabbed him by the coat and kept him from ending up on his ass.
“Situation update,” he yelled into his comm as he squeezed into the tunnel he’d come out of earlier, drawing his gun. “Control, do you read?”
Static came back in his ear over the shuffle and stomping of boots behind him. He, Trace, and Jax moved through the tunnel as quickly as possible, Henley still topside to continue working on dismantling the bombs.
His shoulders bumped into the narrower parts of the tunnel and sent him bouncing off the sides. Hunter grunted, experiencing the same thing.
More gunshots echoed through the tunnel, this time louder. Booming and fireworks.
Charlotte and Norris.
There was nowhere in the chamber to take cover. Charlotte was already injured and would be protecting Madeena.
Get to her, now!
He couldn’t lose another person in his life. Couldn’t lose her.
Zeb’s voice broke through the static. “…proceed with caution…shots fired…”
No shit.
They hit the bottom floor. Miles held up a hand to stop his SEAL train and listened. The shooting had stopped. No voices, no nothing. The door to the chamber was open.
Was Charlotte dead? Had Norris shot her and escaped?
A clamp squeezed down on his chest. His mind blanked for a second due to a surge of rage, a flash of past memories that threatened to immobilize him.
His training took over, thank God, and he signaled Hunter to move to the other side of the door. Jax slipped in behind Miles to cover him.
Miles edged forward enough to see part of the room. The chair Madeena had been siting in was tipped over, blood smeared across the floor where her body had been dragged. The table was on its side, the gleaming instruments that had once sat on it scattered on the floor. Bullet holes pitted the metal, the tip of a single dirty, naked foot peeked out from one end.
Madeena.
“Did your boyfriend tell you why he was in those mountains not far from your cabin that day?”
The voice startled him. A man.
Close.
Behind the door?
He hadn’t ever heard Norris’ voice, but it had to be him.
Miles met Hunter’s eyes. Hunter motioned at the door’s hinges.
Yep, Norris had taken cover behind the door. He had to be talking to Charlotte.
She’s alive.
Relief ricocheted inside him, ping, ping, ping. She had to be behind the table with Madeena.
Norris’ voice came again from the other side of the door. “He was looking for you. That team of his was working with SIS on a so-called training mission, but I’d already given you up to Vauxhall. Told them all about the fact you’d passed on tons of info to Nicolae. They were gunning for you, Carstons. Your SEAL knew from the first time he saw you who you were. That you were a traitor. When I’m done here with you, I’ll make sure he’s branded a traitor, too, for helping you. Of course, I’m going to kill him first.”
The sound of Charlotte laughing rang out, echoing in the chamber. Not a carefree, happy laugh, but one of a woman who’d survived the worst life could throw at her and didn’t give a fuck about threats from a piece of shit like Norris.
“You go ahead and try that,” she said. “But let’s get one thing straight. The only way you’re leaving here, you wanker, is in a body bag or handcuffs. If I have my way about it, I’m voting for the body bag.”
Miles smiled at her sheer tenacity. He’d always been a tough SOB, but Charlotte’s bulldog attitude and determination put him to shame.
With three fingers raised, he started the countdown for his men. One…
“And just so you know…” she added.
Two…
“…you’re about to meet my boyfriend face to face.”
Three—Miles swung through the opening, firing at the thick wooden door, Hunter and Jax on his heels.
THE SHOTS WERE deafening in the chamber on top of the sound of splintering wood and shouting. Ears already hissing from the previous hail of bullets between her and Norris, Charlotte clamped her hands over them as Miles and the other men invaded the underground room.
Madeena was a limp biscuit, a dead weight, draped across Charlotte’s ankles and feet. Sweat trickled down Charlotte’s skull, into the wrapping Jax had secured there. Her heart jackhammered in her chest as she tried to stay lucid. The hand with Zeb’s gun flopped to the floor, her arm too weak to hold it up any longer.
Stand up, she commanded, but her body wouldn’t obey. Warm, sticky fluid ran from her leg, covering the floor where Madeena’s blood had already stained it. Her eyelids fluttered closed and she forced them open. She had to stay awake.
The echoes of the gunshots faded off, commotion on the other side of the room suggesting Miles and the others were hauling Norris out from behind the door. Gritting her teeth against the searing pain in her leg that put the ache in her ribs to shame, Charlotte propped herself up on one elbow and peered through a small hole in the table she’d used as a shield.
Between two pairs of men’s legs, she saw Norris lying on the floor, still half behind the door. His eyes were closed, his black knit cap askew on his head.
“Get your girl,” Trace said. He grabbed Norris under the armpits and pulled him out from behind the door.
The hissing was mostly gone from her ears and Moe’s voice startled her when he spoke. “Uh, guys? Hate to interrupt your little tete-a-tete down there, but if anyone can lend a hand, we have a situation.”
Miles hustled to Charlotte’s side. “Norris is down,” he said as he knelt next to her. He brushed hair from her face and kissed her forehead. “You’re going to be okay,” he whispered to her, then said to Moe, “What do you need?”
“Yeah, sorta figured Norris was out of commission, but when he went down, he left us a little gift.”
Jax had come around the other end of the table and was shifting Madeena off of Charlotte’s lower legs. His fingers felt for a pulse at her neck and Charlotte held her breath, waiting to see if the young girl had made it. He glanced up a
t her and nodded.
Sweet Jesus. Madeena was alive.
“What kind of a gift?” Zeb barked in their comms.
Miles shed his coat. He stripped off his shirt, wrapping it around Charlotte’s upper thigh and cinching it down. She cried out in pain but knew it was probably her only hope.
“The bombs,” Moe answered. “They’ve been activated.”
Miles and Jax exchanged a look. “Can you walk?” Miles asked, helping Charlotte sit up.
Her heart did a rapid-fire thudthudthud and her head felt like a balloon, so light it would float away. “Of course,” she lied.
“The good thing is,” Moe went on, “There are only two left since we disarmed the others. But even if these two blow, it could cause a ripple effect in the castle’s foundation. Everything could cave in.”
Miles handed his coat to Hunter, his voice sounding far away, even though he was right next to her. “Wrap the girl in my coat and carry her out. Jax, get up there and help Henley. I’ve got Charlotte.”
“You sure?” Jax said, frowning at Charlotte’s leg. “I don’t think she’s going to stay conscious long.”
Charlotte laughed. She no longer felt her leg, her hip, her ribs. Nothing. The rest of her body was floating like her head. “I’m fine,” she insisted. Her words sounded muffled to her ears. “Let’s go.”
Trace appeared above her, looking over the edge of the table. “Ah, shit,” he said, when his keen eyes sized her up. He had Norris’ gun. He slid it into the back of his waistband. “Megadeth, you take the girl. I’ll help Poison with our MI6 agent.”
Megadeth, Poison…such silly names. Charlotte grinned at Miles, realized his hands were holding her up in the sitting position. Zeb’s gun, on the ground next to her, was fuzzy around the edges. At one point, it morphed into three guns instead of one.
Definite concussion.
She remembered this feeling from her childhood. This lightheaded, room-spinning, I-can’t-feel-anything sensation she hated with a passion. All those days, all those nights at the hospital, strapped to a bed and going out of her mind with hallucinations, only to have the nurses replace those with the god-awful feeling that she might float so high, she’d float away. No one would ever find her. No one would even miss her.
Had Miles drugged her? A spurt of panic erupted in her chest. She grabbed his arm to steady herself, blinked hard.
Not drugs. No one had given her any drugs.
Charlotte looked from Miles’ naked chest down to her lap, to the tourniquet he’d tied around her leg. Jax lifted Madeena carefully, laid her over his shoulder, gave Charlotte a thumbs-up, and left her view. Trace took his place at her feet.
There was still so much blood. Rivers of it, snaking out from her body, coating Miles’ hands, the treads on Trace’s boots. More blood than they’d found Madeena sitting in.
No, it wasn’t drugs giving her this high.
I’m dying.
The past few minutes played out in her head in a tornado. She’d fired on Norris, knocked Madeena to the floor. Felt the ripping sting of the bullet eating through her flesh. “Norris…shot…me,” she managed to gasp. Indignation flooded her chest. Her voice came out stronger. “That bastard shot me!”
Miles and Trace helped her to her feet. With a last burst of strength, she grabbed Zeb’s gun, using both hands to bring it up.
The men didn’t see him, but she did. As all three of them stood up from behind the table, CB was conscious and holding a gun on them. A small pistol.
She’d thought he was dead, but there he was, lying half on his right side, his breathing labored as he raised that tiny pistol and aimed it.
Not at her.
At Miles.
Miles saw it then. “Look out!”
His arm went around her belly to take her back to the floor, but Charlotte aimed and fired. Once, twice, three times.
Her body slammed down to the floor.
Miles was heavy on top of her. She heard shuffling, then Trace said, “He’s dead.”
She stretched out her neck, peeking her eyes past the edge of the table.
CB Norris lay staring blankly at her, a hole in the center of his forehead.
Kill shot.
More in his chest.
Charlotte sighed, Miles’ yells faint and far away as he lifted her from the ground. She closed her eyes and curled into him, letting the darkness—the relief—take her away.
Chapter Twenty-three
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AN EXPLOSION ERUPTED behind them, the van rocking as its wheels skidded in the snow. Miles grabbed onto Charlotte, lying on the floor, and held on tight.
The blizzard had let up but the roads were shit. Zeb had put Hunter in charge of getting them out of the compound and away from the grounds. With Hunter’s enhanced skills and reaction times, he was the best man for the job. They’d barely made it out when the one bomb they couldn’t disarm went off.
A fireball rose behind them. The van righted and everyone took a deep breath. The vehicle was equipped for surveillance, not triage, but tackling Charlotte and Madeena’s injuries by degree of severity had to be done.
Miles felt like his world was being torn in two. The woman he loved was near death. She’d killed Norris to protect him, to protect Madeena, and here he was helpless to save her.
“She needs blood,” Jax yelled, checking Charlotte’s pulse. “Where’s that report from Beatrice?”
Parker had Charlotte’s head in her lap. Moe sat in the corner, laptop in hand. “Coming in right now,” he said. “Looks like Charlie’s AB neg.”
“Anyone AB neg?” Zeb said, handing Miles his coat as he checked on Madeena’s wrists. The girl was half awake, her head rolling as the van skidded back and forth again. “We’ll be at the clinic in minutes. Dr. Lascar will be waiting for us, but I doubt he’s got any AB neg on hand.”
AB-. Of course, Charlotte would carry one of the rarest blood types in the world.
“Doesn’t have to be AB negative,” Parker said. Closest to Zeb, she took Miles’ coat and pillowed it under Charlotte’s head. Charlotte’s skin was white as the fur on the coat’s hood. Her lips were blue. “A neg or B neg will also work.”
Miles looked up. “Seriously? I’m B negative.”
“That’ll do,” Jax said. He pulled tubing and a field-issued blood transfusion pack from his backpack. Ripping the top off a package of alcohol wipes, he handed one to Miles. “Find a vein.”
As Jax rigged his system to collect Miles’ blood, Zeb grabbed Charlotte’s hand. “Hang in there, Agent Carstons. No one’s clocking out today.”
The backwoods clinic had seen better days, but the nurse and doctor that met them at the door seemed battlefield tested when they arrived a few minutes later. There was no time to get to a major hospital in Bucharest, not with the roads as bad as they were. Beatrice had sent directions to this clinic, told them they could trust Lascar.
They had no choice. If they didn’t, Charlotte would die.
She might die anyway.
Before Miles knew it, Charlotte was on a gurney heading for a backroom draped in plastic. Miles, holding a bandage over the vein Jax had abused to draw blood, started to follow.
The doctor, a short man with gray hair and bushy gray eyebrows stopped him. His voice was heavily accented, but not with Romanian. “We have to find the bullet and stop the blood loss. That’s our job, son.” If Miles had to guess, he’d say the good doctor was from Louisiana. New Orleans, possibly. “Your job is to stay here and pray.”
Zeb grabbed Miles’ arm. Hunter took his other. “Come on, man.” Hunter urged him back to the front room. “Let the doctor work.”
“I can assist,” Jax told Lascar, handing him the bag of blood he’d taken from Miles. “Never finished my residency, but handled plenty in the field.”
Lascar motioned with his head for Jax to follow him.
Over his shoulder, Miles watch
ed the nurse prepping Charlotte for the surgery. The woman’s dark eyes came up to meet his over the edge of her face mask. She nodded at him, offering the only reassurance she could. Jax donned a gown and face mask and closed the door to the surgical room.
Miles paced the small waiting room. Parker found a kitchen down a long hallway and brought back juice for Madeena. A lost and found box near the entrance provided snow pants, a sweatshirt with Madonna’s face plastered on the front, and a hat. Parker removed her boots and socks, pulling the woolen socks over Madeena’s feet. Soon the girl was looking warmer and had perked up enough to ask for food. Parker and Moe walked her back to the kitchen and emerged a few minutes later with candy bars for all of them.
Miles shook his head when Madeena offered him one. He tossed the bandage from his inner elbow into the garbage and rubbed his forehead. Norris had died instantly from Charlotte’s shot, and was probably buried under a ton of ancient stones and rocks. But a part of him wanted to go dig the bastard up and kill him all over again.
Minutes dragged into an hour, then another. He wandered the clinic, making laps through each of the sad, little rooms. The place looked like an ordinary backwoods family clinic. But as Miles started randomly looking through drawers and cabinets, he came across high tech equipment. An extensive drug supply cabinet hidden behind a wall in the doctor’s office. Weapons beneath a loose floorboard in a storage closet.
The doctor wasn’t just a doctor. Who he worked for was up for grabs. CIA? NSA? DIA? The Queen?
Beatrice had a lot of contacts from her time in the NSA. Lascar had to be one of them. Taped under the doctor’s pencil drawer, Miles found a loaded Sig Sauer. Behind the office door sat a loaded rifle with a military-issue night scope.
Hopefully Lascar knew his way around surgery the way he knew his guns.
No longer able to contain his anxiety, Miles left the clinic and walked out into the night. Sunrise was only minutes away, he realized, seeing the horizon had gone from deepest black to a muddy blue. Would Charlotte live to see another day?
Cold seeped into his bones. Bone-chilling cold. Exhaustion made him woozy, white spots specked his vision. He leaned back against the clinic’s bricks and watched his breath fog the air. Every cell in his body demanded he go back in there and save her, but there was nothing else he could do. His blood was all he could give her.