by Lea Griffith
Anna Beth Caine worked over her, shoving something inside her chest. A gasping cough, and then Ella was breathing again.
“Bullet collapsed the lung,” Anna Beth said, her voice trembling. “I can’t do much more.”
“Just keep her alive,” Jude demanded, uncaring that he was probably making an impossible request. “She dies, you’ve got a problem.” He would never hurt a woman, but he was gone, and though he recognized it, he couldn’t stop it.
He’d watched Ella fall. Dresden had shot her and laughed, and because he’d been using Jude’s woman as a shield, Jude hadn’t shot him first. Hadn’t killed him. Brody had taken the kill shot.
“You guys screw it up for her again?” Lo-Lo Bernstein’s voice sounded from behind them.
“Shut up, Lo-Lo,” Rook hissed.
“Yeah,” came a woman’s voice behind Jude. “Shut up, Loretta.”
Georgia had made an appearance.
Loretta smiled, and it was ugly. “Send a child to do a woman’s job? Poor Gray Broemig. He’s desperate now, eh?”
“I’m not here for your boss,” Georgia said, her voice arctic.
Loretta cocked her head. “Who?”
“The Piper,” Georgia said. “He’s not real happy about you cavorting with Baron in Moscow. Got a lot to answer for, Lo-Lo. Shall we?” she urged, holding out a hand and gesturing for Loretta to follow her.
“She’s tight in the turns, Your Highness. Make sure Knight knows that,” Loretta said softly. And then unbelievably, the former CIA operative followed Georgia, and both women disappeared into the trees.
“Load her,” King said.
Jude picked up his heart and placed her in the chopper. Blood seeped from Ella’s lower chest, though more sluggishly now.
“She’s going to live,” he said.
“She is,” Brody said. “She’s not going to give up.”
“Knight, there’s a Ukrainian air base about thirty minutes away. The on-base physician will look Ella over, make sure she’s as stable as we can get her. From there, you’ll load onto a transport plane and head to Odessa. That’s an hour and a half from your location. I’ll have medical staff meet you at the airfield. I’m downloading coordinates to the copter’s autopilot,” Vivi said over the comm units.
Ella didn’t open her eyes, but she was breathing. It was labored, but she was breathing. Breathing was good at this point.
“Don’t let her bleed out,” Jude demanded.
“She’s not going to bleed out,” Anna Beth snapped. “But you should know, I’m a psychiatrist by training, not a trauma doctor.”
Jude clenched his teeth against his rage. The woman once again on her knees tending Ella wasn’t responsible, but Jude wasn’t logical at the moment.
He’d watched her fall.
His heart had stopped.
And if hers didn’t continue to beat, he might damn well follow her.
“Get her as stable as you can,” Brody told the woman.
Anna Beth nodded and went about cleaning the wound. “I need to pack this wound,” she said.
Jude pulled off his outer shirt and vest, then tugged off his undershirt and handed it to her. “Use this.”
“Can you hold her?” she asked softly.
Jude went to his knees and lifted Ella. She didn’t make a sound. The puddle of blood beneath her scared the hell out of him. He held her though, refusing to stop.
He held her until medical staff boarded the plane in Odessa and pried her from his grasp. Then he followed her as far as he could—until Brody stepped in front of him and Jude had to watch them wheel her away for surgery.
“Live for me,” he whispered.
“That’s all she’s been doing, Jude. That’s all she knows,” Brody said passionately, clapping a hand on Jude’s shoulder.
Then Jude sank into a chair near the OR and waited.
Chapter 24
They worked on Ella for two hours. The bullet had done damage by bouncing off a rib before deflating her lung. They’d transfused a pint of blood. Each member of Endgame had offered up their own for her. She was AB positive, the universal recipient. That was something in their favor when so much had gone wrong today. When the doctor who worked on her came out, he looked haggard, but there was a small smile on his face.
“You guys got lucky,” the man said in perfect English.
“How’s that?” King questioned.
“My specialty is trauma, specifically the lungs, and I just arrived yesterday on loan to this hospital from Johns Hopkins. My military residency requires me to practice here for six months. I got the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs’ call as I landed, was able to bypass customs, and voilà, I’m here,” he told them.
Jude heard it all from a distance. His blood pounded in his ears.
“Ms. Banning suffered some blood loss and a collapsed lung. Her lung has been repaired, and we’ve reinflated it so she’s breathing easier. She’ll be sore for a few weeks due to the gunshot, but she’s in excellent health, so barring anything unforeseen, she should make a full recovery rather quickly. I’d like to keep her a couple of days.” He checked his chart and shook his head. “No way. You can’t take her back tomorrow. She’ll not be ready to fly for another week or so, maybe longer.”
“She goes tomorrow,” Jude said firmly and stepped around the doctor.
“Where are you going?” the young physician asked worriedly.
“To see my woman,” he growled, and he pushed open the doors to the recovery room.
She was the only patient. So tiny against the bed, her skin leached of color. But the monitors she was hooked to showed a steady heart rhythm, and her chest rose and fell evenly.
God, he thought he’d lost her.
Again.
“She’s going to make it,” Brody said from behind him.
Jude nodded but said nothing.
“Anna Beth Caine is heading back with us,” King said as he walked into the room.
“Where’s Chase?” Rook asked as he and Knight entered the room.
“He headed back to get Dr. Moeller settled in a safe house outside DC,” King answered. “We head back tomorrow. Vivi will make sure Ella has what she needs the second we land.”
Jude sat on the metal chair beside Ella’s bed and grabbed her hand. She hadn’t woken from surgery yet, but Jude would be here when she did.
“Knight, you’ll head back to meet up with Chase. Get Dr. Moeller settled, and then come back to Port Royal,” King said as he took the seat on the opposite side of the bed. He stared at Jude. “Dresden knew we were coming.”
Jude didn’t respond. The hows and whys didn’t matter here and now. The only thing that mattered was the elimination of Horace Dresden. He looked at each of his teammates. “Bastard is dead now.”
Brody sighed but stepped forward. “He is, but this shit has gotten deeper.”
King shook his head, and the gesture made him seem weary. “We’ve got to plan. There are still way too many unknowns in this. We will all go home tomorrow. We’ll plan. And then we’ll destroy whatever Dresden was working to build and whoever was pulling his strings.”
Jude stared at his team leader, knowing it was the right tack to take, but his blood pounded through his veins. He didn’t want to wait. He wanted the people responsible for Dresden in his hands. Now.
“He’s right,” Brody said, his broken voice loud in the eerie quietness of the recovery room. “Dresden has been plotting and planning for years. We’ve had to play catch-up. He’s gone now, but this is something we have to figure out before we make another move. Let’s go home, Keeper. We’ll fill you in on everything you missed in the last war room. We’ll plan. And we’ll kill all of them. Dead.”
Jude hung his head, took a deep breath, and pushed the rage down. It seemed his last year had been spent doing that—battl
ing his rage. It all came back to him in a second: watching Ella fall in Beirut, the year spent mourning and searching, and finally finding her. He’d experienced the lowest low when he lost her. Then the highest high when he’d seen her again, very much alive in Beirut.
He’d buried himself in her again. Found every piece that had been missing since she was taken from him, and then he’d almost lost her one more time.
Never again.
He looked at the woman lying so still on the bed in front of him, glanced at her monitors, and felt the rage click into place inside a space that wouldn’t touch Ella.
She had a long road to recovery ahead of her. He had to be right there for her.
“We’ll plan,” he said with a nod. “Then we’ll hunt.”
“Hooah!” each member said softly, but the cheer resounded in the room.
With Endgame behind him, he could do this.
They called him Keeper.
So that’s what he’d concentrate on—keeping Ella safe.
Chapter 25
Ella heard his voice in her sleep. Jude. Her love. Her life.
“Come on, baby, wake up,” he urged softly. His deep voice filtered inside her, warming everything left cold.
She hurt—felt as if an elephant had copped a squat on her chest—but she pushed through the fog and fought to open her eyes. She’d been hurt, that much was obvious. But how? When?
“Come on, baby,” he demanded. “I need you to open your eyes.”
“Trying,” she mumbled. Damn, even her throat hurt.
“God,” he whispered harshly. “Thank you.”
She pried her eyes open and found him above her, black eyes intent and…wet? “Why are you crying?” she asked, wincing as every word felt like a blade on her tender throat.
“I’m the Keeper, baby. I don’t cry,” he said with a smile. His face was haggard, stubble covering his chin, and the look in his eyes was nothing short of desperate. She couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, she’d seen Jude with that look on his face.
She concentrated on raising her hand. It took every effort she could muster, but she placed her hand on his cheek and rubbed the black stubble. “Me likey,” she whispered.
“It itches,” he complained. “But I’ll keep a permanent five-o’clock shadow if you’ll stay awake.” One big hand stroked the hair away from her face, while the other grabbed her hand on his face and brought it to his lips. “Hey, baby.”
She smiled, or thought she did. “Hey, Jude.”
She was missing something. How had she ended up horizontal and in more pain than she’d ever felt, even at the hands of Vasily Savidge? “How?”
“Let me get the doctor in here to check you over. You’ve been in and out for a couple of days,” Jude said as he lowered her hand and moved away from her.
She glanced around, though lifting her head was nearly impossible. Soon a woman in bright-green scrubs hovered over her, poking and prodding around her chest, checking her pupils, and then writing on a chart for a minute or so. She was in a hospital.
But why?
“She’s awake,” the doctor said.
Jude snorted. Ella smiled. He was holding on to his sarcasm, and she wanted to praise him for it.
“Vitals look good. She’s healing well. I’ll need to get some labs and an MRI to check how that lung looks, but if she’s coming along as it appears she is, she should be able to go home today,” the doctor said and left.
“She’s awake,” she heard Jude say. He was on his satellite phone. “Yeah, today.”
She slowly took inventory, moving her hands, her feet, performing a systems check of sorts. Her side hurt like someone had stabbed her with a hot poker, but other than not remembering how that had happened, and some pretty serious weakness, she seemed okay.
“I’ll be bringing her home, but yeah, send Brody,” Jude said. “Got it, Your Highness.”
Then he was in front of her again. A nurse came in and asked Ella how she felt.
“Like I’ve been shot,” Ella replied.
“Sounds about right,” the nurse said and then asked if Ella wanted anything to drink.
She did, but the nurse only gave her ice chips. She wanted answers, but Jude stood there watching the nurse fuss over her, arms crossed over that delicious chest, staring at her like she was his entire world and he’d die if he couldn’t see her face.
She decided she really liked it when he looked at her like that.
“I’ve got to take her down for some tests,” the nurse told Jude.
“I’ll go with you,” he said implacably.
She started to argue, he shot her a look, and she sighed. Then the nurse was wheeling Ella’s bed out of the room and down the hall. After the MRI, the nurse wheeled Ella back to her room and asked if she wanted the head of her bed raised.
Ella nodded, but as the bed lifted, she winced when her wound pulled.
“Stop,” Jude said harshly.
The nurse stopped.
“Leave it there,” Ella encouraged the nurse. She was nowhere near vertical, but it was an improvement over being flat. The nurse left, and Ella gazed at Jude.
“Baby,” he whispered reverently.
“He shot me,” Ella said as images from the last time she’d seen Dresden flashed through her mind.
Jude nodded as he sat on the bed beside her, raising her hand to his lips again and kissing her fingers slowly, one at a time.
“How bad?”
“Bullet hit a rib and punctured your lung,” Jude told her, his voice tortured as if the memory was too bad to be borne.
“I heard you,” Ella whispered, breathing through the pain and her own memories. “I saw him smile, and then he fired and I heard you calling me.”
Long moments of silence passed between them.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she said, squeezing his hand and bringing it to her lips. “I thought I’d lost us.”
“You fought, lady. Like a beast, you fought to stay with me,” Jude responded.
Her heart thumped in her chest. “I love you, Jude Dagan. I don’t ever want to leave you again.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed. “You won’t.”
“Did you get Dresden?” she asked tentatively.
He nodded.
A tear fell down her cheek. It broke his heart.
“Look, he has no place here, even dead. I need you to rest so I can take you back to Port Royal and get you completely healed. We’ve got a rough couple of days coming up. There’s so much to bring you up to speed on.”
“Nina?”
He nodded. “She’s alive.”
“She’s scared,” Ella said firmly. “She wouldn’t run and hide if she wasn’t scared.”
“We’ve got to find her. If she’s scared, she knows something, and for her sake, we need to find her,” Jude stated. “But first, we get you out of here.”
Twelve hours later, her MRI showed no concerns and that she was healing nicely. Jude had brought her up to speed on her injury and how she’d come to be at Walter Reed. He’d told her everything, leaving nothing out, and by the time he had finished, Ella had been crying but so had Jude.
Once her tests returned clear, she was ready for discharge. Jude listened intently to the doctor and took notes on her upcoming care. She was scheduled to follow up with a doctor in two weeks. She could be cleared as early as then.
It was a two-hour drive to Port Royal, and they made it in the middle of the night. Brody brought the vehicle to the hospital door, and Jude carried her down to the SUV, placed her in the backseat, and moved in beside her while Brody drove.
She slept most of the ride, having no energy to do much but lie on Jude. He seemed fine with that, his hands never far from her, his voice in her ear telling her what she meant to him, how he was never going to l
et her go.
Brody said two words, “Goddamn, Ella-Bella,” but he smiled to alleviate the reprimand. He’d always said she got into more trouble than she was worth, yet he’d always been there with her in the midst of it. Now was no different. She guessed they’d kinda saved each other in that cell of Dresden’s.
She didn’t remember falling asleep or being carried up to her room. She remembered waking up cold and needing to pee, so she tried to get up on her own.
Jude was there that fast. “Ella, let me know you need to get up, okay?” he admonished.
She threw him a nasty look and then let him lift her.
“I really can walk, Jude,” she informed him, tempering the frustration in her tone.
“Just let me do this for a little while longer,” he said, holding her against his chest and then setting her on her feet.
She used the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and washed her face. He stood right there, just in case she was too weak to handle the mundane tasks, but she felt remarkably well considering two, almost three days ago she’d been shot in the side at nearly point-blank range.
“I don’t want to lie down,” she warned him.
He held up his hands in surrender but stayed close as she walked to an enormous chair that looked brand new. It was butter-soft cream leather, and she sank into it gratefully, leaning back. “This getting shot shit sucks,” she told him softly.
“Yeah,” he said, a grin curving his lips. “You hungry?”
“I’d kill for some chili,” she whispered.
He raised his eyebrow and smiled. “You can’t handle my chili right now, lady.”
“I can try?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, and she licked her lips. He laughed. “We talking chili or fucking?”
“Yes,” she said with a laugh.
“None of that for a while, baby. Heal, then we’ll burrow like rabbits to make up for lost time.”
She pouted, and he kissed her lips, very slowly and very thoroughly. “I need a little more of that,” she urged.