Surrendering To Her Sergeant

by Angel Payne

  There was a significant pause from Nichols—but not a dormant one. Ethan felt the furnace of the man’s rage from where he stood, roiling hotter by the second. “So Lor my friend, you despise the excessive ways of our people, yet have used that for every inch of your gain, even now. To paraphrase my teenager, I call bullshit on your hairy, hypocritical ass.”

  A sickening whomp filled the air. Nichols’s stiff groan followed. As disgusted as Ethan was that Lor had pistol-whipped his president, the sound was a goddamn sonata to his ears. For a few precious seconds, that separated the president’s face from the muzzle of that pistol.

  A few seconds was all Franz and the guys needed.

  Sure enough, a throng of heavy ropes were unfurled from the catwalks. As his teammates skimmed down them faster than tree monkeys on crack, Ethan opened the gates on his dammed-up adrenaline, letting it fire both his elbows back. His guards, distracted by the shouts, gunfire, and disorder, were easy to wrench from now. He was able to incapacitate the first with a knee to the gut but as he grabbed for the guy’s rifle, he was beat down with the butt of another gun. As he went down, he was reassured to see Charlie getting away safely. The guy had pulled a slick cold-cock on one of his guards, then paralyzed the second into shock by kissing him.

  Ethan lifted his head far enough off the floor to shake the equilibrium back into it. As long as he could see, he was still good to crawl. A lot of damage could be done on an effective crawl. He already had a direction. Rhett, Tait, and two members of Nichols’s detail were struggling to hold their own against half a dozen of Lor’s burliest men, with a seventh running to join the goons.

  But the seventh soldier had…something of a handicap.

  In the form of an auburn-haired wild woman latched to his back, firing what sounded like gutter-grade Spanish as she tried to scratch his eyes out.

  “Shit!” Screw the equilibrium. He pushed to his feet, ran straight for Ava, and hauled her off the guy’s back—

  In the second before he was thrown to the floor, too. With Ava on his right side, Tait on his left, and the black hole of a rifle muzzle staring at him from straight ahead.

  Just as a savage howl erupted from the president.

  Ethan locked his fingers into Ava’s and squeezed hard as she gasped. The horror in her eruption reflected what everyone felt while watching Lor, assisted by his soldiers, flatten the president’s palm to the handprint recognition pad. After five seconds, the large screen over the console fired to life.

  Loading Target Coordinates — Launch Sequence verification in 00:5:00.

  As Nichols roared again, Lor pushed away with a triumphant smile. “Hope you got all of that, Stock. I don’t think the president wants to reshoot.”

  Stock shrugged. “We can fix what we need to in editing.”

  “Perfect. And thank you, Mr. President, for your cooperation. It was a bit rough in the beginning, but since this is only the phase of redirecting the missiles at new targets, you’ll get a chance to give us your better side in five minutes.”

  Ethan couldn’t see clearly to Nichols due to the guards still hovering over him. The president remained on his knees, probably held there by the bastards. That made everyone’s new directive pretty fucking clear. He eyed Franz, Colton, and the others, confirming his conclusion in each of their faces.

  Get to the president. Get him as far away from that launcher as possible in the time they had left. Four minutes, thirty seconds.

  If lives had to be given in the process, so be it.

  Franzen gave a subtle but affirming nod. Ethan knew what it meant. He’d dip it again three times. On the third, they’d all move as one and pray like fuck for the element of surprise on these dickwads.

  Priceless seconds. God, it wasn’t enough. Not the hours he needed to look at Ava and tell her everything she’d come to mean to him, all the ways she now filled his life, his heart. Not even enough to utter the three words that now resonated in his soul for her. All he had time to do was try and save her from the venom and fire they were about to unleash on this crackpot crew.

  “Listen to me.” He whispered it without moving his lips. “When we move, you move. Far away. Do not disobey me.”

  Franzen nodded another time. Then another.

  Before he got his head down the third time, Nichols bellowed again in fury. “This is sick! You’re sick, Lor! I’ll order my soldiers to kill me first. I won’t participate in this!”

  Lor rocked back on his heels and rolled his eyes. “I really loathe the word won’t.”

  “Really? And I really loathe guys who drink like fish at my bar, gawk at my tits for hours, then only tip me a buck.”

  The terse silence that followed was broken by two words. They came from Tait and they were thick with fear. “Fuck. No.”

  Lor’s face contorted with confusion. He almost laughed as he took a few steps toward the darkness between the set flats. “Laudia?”

  He reappeared a second later, blown back by six feet with a rifle hole in his chest.

  The woman who followed him reloaded the weapon in don’t-fuck-with-me determination. “The name’s Luna, you crazy anus, and that’ll teach you to mess with the FBI.” She rotated her bright purple gaze around to the rest of Lor’s guys, including Stock. “Anyone else want a sample of my specialty cocktail for the day?”

  In seconds, the assholes scattered. Franzen motioned everyone on the team to stay put just as the foam-covered walls let in a faint peal of sirens from outside. “They’re not going to get far. LAPD’s already on alert.”

  Even if that wasn’t the case, chasing minions wasn’t their immediate priority. Getting the president out of here and averting nuclear disaster across six states? That was the clear top on everyone’s to-do List right now.

  “Bogeys have officially bugged,” Franzen announced.

  Colton threw a fast grin at Luna. “Excellent work, Agent Lawrence.”

  “Right,” Tait added with a snort, “Though it earned your ass a few kisses from my palm once we’re out of here.”

  Franzen’s forehead tightened. He looked over to the launch console, where Nichols was now surrounded by three of his own men. “Hey, guys,” he called to the agents, “Coast is clear. We’re good to go.”

  The riposte to that came from Nichols himself. “No, we’re not.”

  The president’s men stepped back to reveal Nichols hadn’t moved from his knees. More troubling was the position of his hand, still flattened to the electronic recognition pad—because it had been tightly cuffed into place there.

  “Fuck.” Ethan led the stampede over to the console. Rhett was his wingman, though Ava formed a reassuring presence on his other side.

  “Oh, my God,” she blurted. “There’s four minutes left.” Like he needed a reminder.

  “What the hell?” Rebel queried.

  “Everyone hold your panties,” Franzen ordered. “It’s an altered smart pad, right? We saw Stock click it in there, so just pull it back out.”

  “No!”

  The protest came in tandem from Rhett and one of the Secret Service guys.

  “It was our first thought, too,” the agent explained, “but the second we started to budge the brick, their failsafe lit up the whole damn screen.”

  “Yeah,” Rhett muttered. “Why the fuck do bad guys have to be so brilliant, too?”

  Ethan moved another step closer. His chance to observe Craig Nichols in a huge variety of situations today, including the rare pistol-jammed-at-the-skull conundrum, had knocked his protectiveness about the guy into something more than just duty. Now, Rhett’s stress officially prodded his. “What the hell kind of failsafe?”

  Rhett grimaced. “If the unit gets pulled, it’ll blow up inside ninety seconds.”

  “Sons of smack house bitches.” Franzen’s lips took on a malicious curl. Several of the guys chimed in with their creative titles on the situation.

  “Three minutes,” Ava said on a sob.

  Ethan wasn’t surprised when the
most composed voice in the crowd came from the kneeling man in front of them. “Well, we have a couple of options.” Nichols raised his steady gray gaze. “I stay locked to this thing, which launches the missiles and kills millions across six states.”

  Colton crouched in front of the president. “With all due respect, sir, removing the football isn’t an option, either. If you’re blown up at the hands of maniacal terrorists, Lor still gets his way. Fear and insecurity will balloon into distrust and paranoia. The country will still implode from the inside out.”

  Nichols scowled but nodded. “I reluctantly agree.” He dragged in a long breath to precede his next assertion. “So we can do this another way.”

  Colton tilted his head. “Sir?”

  Nichols firmed his jaw. As soon as he did, the answer nearly wrote itself for Ethan across the rest of the man’s face. The stony set of his mouth, the harsh hollows of his cheeks, the resigned terror in his eyes…

  “Awwww, shit.” Ethan muttered. When Nichols looked up to him, the color draining from his face in confirmation, the oath spilled out again.

  Franzen sprang toward Ava. “Bolt cutters. Sheez, why didn’t I think—” He clutched Ava by the shoulders. “They have bolt cutters for all kinds of stuff here, right hon? Where can we find them?”

  “Engineering,” she answered. “They’re next to the Wardrobe department.”

  Franzen looked to Rebel. “Moonstormer, you’re our fastest runner. Go now!”

  “Strike that,” Nichols countermanded. “There’s not enough time.”

  Ethan pivoted toward his captain, starting to unbutton his jacket with its fresh sergeant stripe now added. His every movement was defined by the eerie calm he now felt. The surety of knowing his choice was completely right, and that his commander-in-chief had his six on it. “He’s shooting true on this one, Franz.” He looked from his leader to his battalion mates. “Somebody’s packing a Bowie knife, right?”

  As if choreographed, they all dropped their jaws and narrowed their eyes. “Runway, what the fuck are you—”

  “He’s going to take the goddamn hand.” Nichols channeled the God boom better than Colton. “Now one of you highly trained warriors has to grow a pair fast and give him the damn knife. We have a minute and a half!”

  Kellan, who’d come downstairs after Luna took out Lor, stepped forward and unsheathed his knife. He quietly locked his stare to Ethan’s as he pushed the weapon into his grip. “Don’t hesitate once you know it’s right. And follow through to the end.”

  Ethan gave him a brief nod. As he did, Ava and Luna hurried forward. “We’re going to be your OR nurses.” Ava didn’t phrase it as a question. “Luna’s the best thing we have for medical staff right now because she studied anatomy in her art classes.”

  He arched a questioning brow at her. “And you…?”

  “Refuse to let you go through this alone.”

  He let the brow fall. Stared at her with intensity. “In my mind, I’m ramming my tongue down your throat right now.”

  Ava’s gaze, strong and bold and beautiful as the woman behind it, glistened for just a moment. “I love you, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was worse than she’d thought it would be. Much worse.

  By the time the three of them rushed over to President Nichols, only forty-five seconds remained on the launch clock. It was barely enough time for Ethan to mumble an apology, try to angle the man’s hand for a clean cut, then let out a battle cry to power him through the massive slice.

  Until the day Ava died, she’d never forget the sound of Craig Nichols’ agonized scream.

  Until hell froze over, she wouldn’t feel this sick again. Probably not even then.

  “Ava. Ava!”

  Luna’s command drilled into her brain, jarring her back. She gawked at the woman’s blood-spattered face. How the hell did Luna keep her shit together like this? And was she willing to share the training video?

  “Wh-what’s up?” she managed.

  Luna shoved something into her hands. It was warm, wet, and wrapped in a big cloth. “Take this over there and give it to Franzen. Walk carefully. The cops are here and he had them call for an ambulance. Tell him that Ethan’s working on stabilizing the president as best as he can and—”

  “Ay dios mio!”

  Luna had given her the president’s hand. It looked powerful, stately. A circle of patterned gold was still lodged on the ring finger.

  She made sure to follow the woman’s order to the letter. “Walk carefully,” she muttered. “Walk carefully. Walk carefully.”

  Seeing Franzen stomp back in was almost as good as the moment Luna had cleared the bees from her side. “Ava,” he boomed, “the paramedics and ambulance are here.”

  “As Ethan would say,” she said on a dark laugh, “thank fuck.”

  After gratefully letting the paramedics take possession of President Nichols’s hand, she followed Franzen back toward the set. Along the way, they ran into Tait and Ethan. She rushed to her sergeant, needing to feel him against her like the magnet who matched her poles. His arms engulfed her, one hand clamped to the back of her head, his face pressed into her neck. “Is the president going to be okay?”

  “I’d lay a certain bet on it.” His baritone, filled with the same steady strength as his massive arms, made her feel even more locked into him. More completed by him.

  She tugged away so she could take in his incredible cobalt eyes. They were surrounded by blood smears, sweat streaks, and grooves of exhaustion, but they’d never been more stunning to her. Or more brilliant with the soul she wanted to take care of for the rest of their lives.

  “Ethan,” she whispered, “I love you so much.”

  He kissed her tenderly. “As I’ve loved you since the second I laid eyes on you.”

  “Egghhh.” Tait’s open sarcasm was delivered with a smirk. “You two want to wait until everyone here can eat at that table?” He peered around. “Where the hell is Luna, anyhow?”

  As if cued to be the answer to his question, all hell broke loose.

  Ava joined her gasp to Ethan’s bite on the F-word as the paramedics bolted from the set as fast as they’d stormed toward it. This time they had the president on a rolling stretcher—and raw panic in their eyes.

  “Everybody clear out!” they yelled. “Clear out; clear out!”

  “What the hell?” Tait snapped before jogging toward the set. Though the paramedics’ reaction made her blood pulse with fear, Ava let Ethan tug her along as he followed his friend.

  They skidded to a stop when they saw Luna again. Though her back was to them, everything seemed completely normal. She seemed completely normal. But that was the problem. Luna and “normal” were a kinkster and a minister. A match meant for fiasco.

  Tait had obviously gotten that memo, too. He walked toward her, reaching for her. “Luna? Hey, Flower? What’s going—”

  She cut him off by finally turning around.

  With the missile launch unit in her hand.

  “I had to.” Her voice shook as she stared at Tait, who’d instinctively backed up at seeing what was now a live bomb in her grip. “I’m sorry, Weasley. I had to.”

  “What?” Tait almost snarled it. Ava shook and squeezed her hand harder to Ethan’s, unable to blame the guy for his horrified shock. “Why? Why the fuck, Luna?”

  “A-after Ethan got Nichols d-disconnected…nobody watched the hand pad anymore. We all figured it was over, right?” The woman’s classic features crumpled in grief. She shook her head “It wasn’t. The—the pad—”

  Ethan prompted her, “What about the pad?”

  “It—it must’ve been because Nichols’s hand was on it for so long. It k-kept a heat signature.”

  “Oh, God!” Ava cried. “It kept the launch timer going.”

  The tension drained from Tait’s jaw. He looked back to Luna with his chest pumping hard, reading her intent a full two seconds before Ava and Ethan did. “Give it to me, Luna.”


  The woman backed away, every move replete with feline grace though she visibly trembled. “No.”

  “Luna!” Tait matched her every step. “I’m not going to let you do this!”

  “Yes you are.” As she nodded, the set lights played along the salty tracks that poured from her eyes. “You’re going to let me because you’re a good man, Tait Bommer. You fly into danger every day to protect your country. You take care of the bad guys, and you teach the good ones how to make their countries better. You do good things. And I’m—I’m—”

  “Luna! Stop!”

  “I’m just…crazy Luna. Lost, crazy Luna.” She finished it with a tight sob. When she turned her gaze back up, her eyes were rimmed in the red of her sorrow and the mushy kohl of her makeup. “But for a while, you made me believe I could be good, too. And now, I’m going to live up to that. For you. And for me, too. I’m going to do good, Tait. I want to do good.”

  “No! No!”

  “I love you, Weasley.”

  Tait tore after her as she turned and ran into the shadows. Ethan caught his friend in half of a desperate chokehold. “T-Bomb, what the fuck are you—”

  “Let me go. I swear to God, Archer, I’ll shoot your arm off if you don’t!”

  “Tait? Shit!”

  “Go. Get out of here. Get the hell off of me, take Ava and go, damn you!”

  With a vicious roar, Ethan granted his teammate’s wish. Ava struggled to swipe the tears off her face in order to watch where she ran as Ethan snatched her by the hand and tugged her the other way.

  He heaved the door open and dragged her out into the controlled pandemonium that now reigned over the back lot. It was a sea of emergency vehicles, Secret Service personnel, and studio security. Before Ava joined him in waving everyone back from the building, she swore she heard a bellow that filled every corner of the soundstage with its horror and anguish.

  “Luna!”

  Seconds later, a deafening boom rocked the air—and all she heard for a long while was the stunned ringing of her ears.