Her Rogue Alpha (X-Ops Book 5)

by Paige Tyler

  Jayson rolled over the other way and emptied the entire contents of his magazine at the man, sending him backward into the glass enclosure of the fireplace. He didn’t have time to verify if the man was completely out of the fight, though. No doubt Powell was lining up for the kill shot at that very moment.

  Jayson dropped his empty assault rifle and rolled to the left, toward Powell, flinching as bullets sliced through the air mere inches above him. By moving closer to Powell, he’d temporarily screwed up the man’s aim and kept the son of a bitch from getting a clean shot. But that trick wouldn’t save him for long. Powell was probably already moving to put himself in a better position to put an ass load of bullets in him.

  Jayson reached behind his back and pulled his 9mm, putting three rounds over the top of the couch in the general area he’d last seen Powell. If nothing else, he had a good chance of making the asshole duck at the very least. Then, before he had time to wonder whether it was a good idea or not, he climbed to his feet and leaped back over the same sectional. He could have tried to play hide-and-seek behind the couch, but with ten feet between them, at some point, even a shitty shot like Powell would get off a lucky pop. Jayson would rather take chance out of the equation and get in close to the other man to see if he had the stomach to stand and fight toe-to-toe. Jayson was willing to bet he didn’t.

  Powell was just coming up out of his defensive crouch when Jayson slammed into him, taking them both to the floor. In this kind of fight, the pistol Jayson had was better than the submachine gun Powell carried, and he was forced to drop his weapon and focus all his attention on keeping the barrel of Jayson’s gun away from his body.

  They struggled there in the middle of the floor, trading punches, head butts, and elbow strikes, both of them grunting and swearing as they tried to kill each other. Even with a weapon in his hand, Jayson couldn’t gain the advantage, but fortunately, neither could Powell.

  “Must be nice having your girlfriend out on a mission with you,” Powell sneered. “Getting to bang her whenever you want. So, is Layla a hot lay or what?”

  Jayson knew the other man was just talking shit to distract him. That didn’t keep it from working. Cursing, Jayson tried to go for a punch to the throat. The next thing he knew, Powell caught his right arm in an arm bar and got a grip on the pistol at the same time.

  “I guess that means she’s not, since you’re getting all sensitive and shit,” Powell mocked. “You ever think that maybe it’s because you’re a cripple? I bet she’d warm up a little more with a real man. What do you think about me banging your kitty?”

  Jayson drove his knee into Powell’s gut, but only because he couldn’t reach his balls. It didn’t do much good. Finally, he had to give up his hold on the pistol or let Powell break his wrist. The weapon fell between them and Powell immediately lunged for it.

  That was the mistake Jayson had been waiting for. He ignored the weapon and jumped on top of Powell just as the man rolled over, straddling his stomach and getting one hand locked in the man’s hair, jerking his head back. Powell struggled, flailing his fists in an effort to hit him, but Jayson was too close for him to land any real punches. Gaze locked with Powell’s, Jayson slipped his free hand down and got it under the man’s chin.

  Powell’s eyes widened in fear. He brought one of his knees up sharply, trying to ram it into Jayson’s back. The position was all wrong, and Powell couldn’t get a clean shot at him. But even getting a knee slammed into his hip was enough to send immediate and intense pain flooding through him. A wave of darkness threatened to envelope him. But Jayson had become so familiar with pain and the shadow of unconsciousness that followed it like an old friend that he was able to fight it down, push it back, and hold it at bay like he had for most of the past year.

  He leaned forward until his mouth was only an inch from Powell’s ear. “Fuck you,” he whispered, then yanked with one hand and shoved with the other, snapping the other man’s neck.

  The wave of darkness he’d been holding off started to crest over his head then, and he realized he probably wasn’t going to be able to breathe through the pain this time. Powell had damaged something with those jabs to the back. The ache was continuing to grow, not ebb as it usually did.

  A single shot sounded from just outside the french doors a few feet away from him. There had been plenty of shooting going on out there but this single shot was more resounding, more menacing than all the previous automatic weapons fire combined.

  Layla.

  Jayson grunted, shoving the pain and darkness away. Grabbing the pistol he’d dropped earlier, he ran out the doors toward the pool area just as a second shot echoed in the night, followed by a third. He was halfway there when he caught sight of a scene that froze his heart in his chest and knocked the air from his lungs.

  Layla was locked in a hand-to-hand struggle with Zolnerov, much like he’d been with Powell, except the Russian colonel was the one holding a weapon, and Layla was the one fighting to keep the barrel from pointing her way.

  She was fast, way faster than Jayson could ever hope to be. She drove a straight punch into the man’s chest, knocking him back a step or two but at the same time giving him the space he needed to get his weapon up and pointed at her.

  Shit. Zolnerov was going to take the shot.

  Jayson lifted his weapon and aimed for the man trying to kill the love of his life, but even as he started to pull the trigger, he knew Layla was too close to the target. One wrong move on her part and his bullet would go through her instead of Zolnerov.

  “Get down!” he shouted, praying Layla would hear him.

  But Layla didn’t take cover like he hoped. Instead, she launched herself through the air as the Russian fired multiple rounds at her. She was so close that there was absolutely no way Zolnerov could miss her, but then she twisted in the air like the big cat she shared her DNA with and, however impossible it seemed, she didn’t get hit.

  Jayson’s heart was in his throat as she landed in front of Zolnerov and dropped into a crouch. She lashed out with her hand at the same time Jayson pulled the trigger of his 9mm, her claws slashing Zolnerov across the inner thigh even as the bullet pierced his chest. The Russian stared in shock, his weapon slipping from his nerveless fingers.

  Jayson was sprinting toward Layla before Zolnerov hit the ground. Although his back hurt like a son of a bitch, he covered the distance between them faster than he ever thought he could.. Then Layla was in his arms, and he was kissing her even while trying to check her for injuries at the same time. He still couldn’t believe Zolnerov hadn’t hit her, but he was grateful as hell. She was just as interested in checking him out too, fussing over all the cuts and scrapes he’d gotten in the fight with Powell. As a result, the kiss ended up being something a little less than romantic, but Jayson wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

  “You really think it’s the best time to be doing that?” a gruff voice said from behind them.

  Jayson reluctantly broke the kiss to see Clayne standing there with an impatient look on his face. The wolf shifter’s shirt was shredded to ribbons, and his chest, abs, arms, and shoulders were scratched up all to hell. It looked like he’d wrestled with a cheese grater.

  “Damn, Clayne, I hope the other guy looks worse,” he muttered.

  Clayne chuckled. “Oh, hell yeah. When Kojot and I ran out of ammo, he thought he could take me down hand to hand. Last mistake that stupid fucker ever made.”

  Layla just shook her head, then hurried over to check on Mikhail. The dark-haired girl with him was already tearing strips off the bottom of Mikhail’s T-shirt so she could bind his wounds. Both kids regarded Layla with eyes as round as saucers. Jayson couldn’t blame them. He’d been like that the first time he’d seen Layla shift in front of him, too. And Layla hadn’t just shifted—she’d gone completely ThunderCat in front of them. Jayson only hoped they could trust Mikhail and the girl to keep what t
hey’d seen to themselves.

  He turned back to Clayne to find him standing there grinning. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the wolf shifter had arranged events so the fight with Kojot would come down to hand-to-hand combat. He couldn’t imagine Danica had been too thrilled with that.

  Jayson frowned. Where was Danica? He liked to think Clayne wouldn’t be standing there with a satisfied smile on his face if his fiancée was in danger, but maybe he should check anyway.

  “Is Danica okay?” he asked Clayne.

  The wolf shifter nodded. “She’s fine. We intercepted Dylan and the rest of the kids as we were finishing up with Kojot. She got them off the estate while I came to help you and Layla. Not that you needed it.” Clayne frowned as he looked at Mikhail. “Except for him. How the hell did he end up shot?”

  Jayson was about to say he didn’t have a clue, but the wolf shifter cut him off.

  “You can fill me in later.” He glanced at his watch. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “What’s the rush?” Jayson asked. The shooting had all stopped, so that meant everything was over. “If any of Zolnerov’s men survived, they’re long gone.”

  “I’m not worried about Zolnerov’s men.” Clayne walked over to Mikhail and bent to pick him up. The Russian teen tried to act like he didn’t need the help, but the wolf shifter ignored him and headed toward the french doors, giving Jayson, Layla, and the young Russian girl no choice but to follow. “It’s the explosives I’m more concerned with. I rigged Zolnerov’s entire munitions storage area to blow.”

  “What about the chemical weapons that Kojot brought?” Layla asked. “Won’t explosives spread the chemical agent all over the place?”

  “That’s not going to be a problem,” Clayne said. “Zolnerov looked like he was preparing for a really long war. Those buildings out there on the east side of the estate are all stuffed to the gills with high-explosive artillery shells, long-range rockets, hand grenades, and bulk explosives. The crates of chemical rockets Kojot was trying to sell him are sitting right in the middle of all that stuff. When those buildings go up, there won’t be anything left but a big, smoking crater. The chemicals will be incinerated in the fireball, along with most of this estate.”

  “How much time do we have?” Jayson asked.

  Clayne shifted Mikhail a little in his arms and looked at his watch again. “Five minutes. That’s plenty of time.”

  Five minutes didn’t seem like a lot of time to Jayson. Layla and the Russian girl must have agreed because they picked up their pace as they moved through Zolnerov’s former mansion.

  Clayne stopped when he saw Powell lying on the floor. “I thought you said Powell was dead already. What’s he doing here?”

  Jayson really didn’t feel like talking about it now, but it was obvious Clayne wasn’t going anywhere until he heard the story, even with the clock ticking on a building full of explosives. “He survived and sold us out to Zolnerov for a chance to get another shot at killing me.”

  “Huh,” Clayne said.

  They found Danica and the kids waiting for them outside the demolished main gate, along with a handful of pickup trucks and Range Rovers parked out on the street with armed men standing all around. That explained where all the gunfire he’d heard earlier had come from. Some of the vehicles had been shot up pretty good and so had some of their occupants, but none of the guys looked like they were seriously wounded. Standing at the head of their group was Victor Garin.

  At the sight of them, the old cop ran forward and pulled the dark-haired girl beside Layla into his arms. It wasn’t until Victor said her name that Jayson finally recognized her. She was Victor’s granddaughter, Larissa. When he pulled away, there were tears in his eyes.

  “Thank you,” he said to Jayson.

  Jayson gave him a nod. “We need to get out of here. Zolnerov’s ammo stores have been rigged to blow and we don’t have a lot of time to get outside the frag distance.”

  Victor nodded and started shouting orders in Russian. The men he’d brought with him immediately began getting everyone loaded into the vehicles. Victor started to lead his granddaughter to the truck he was obviously leaving in, but Larissa refused to leave Mikhail’s side. Instead, she helped get the injured teen into the back of the pickup truck first, then climbed in with him.

  When Victor gave him and Layla a questioning look, all Jayson could do was shrug. Larissa had obviously developed a strong bond with Mikhail. Having someone risk his life for you could do that.

  He and Layla climbed in the back of the truck with the two teens. Moments later, they squealed away along with everyone else. They hadn’t gone more than half a mile when the entire estate went up in a huge fireball that sent a shock wave through the ground that shook the vehicle. Clayne hadn’t been lying when he’d said the explosion would incinerate anything and everything in the blast zone, chemical or otherwise.

  Jayson leaned against the cab of the truck, easing the pressure on his aching back and pulling Layla close. She buried her face against his chest and hugged the hell out of him. He knew exactly how she felt. Rescuing those girls had almost killed both of them, but they’d done it. They still had to get Dylan, Olek, and Anya back across the border into Ukrainian-held territory, not to mention get Mikhail medical attention, but after everything else they’d been through, dealing with that didn’t seem all that difficult. It was only after they got back to the States that things would get complicated.

  He wasn’t going to think about that. Right then, he was simply going to hold on to Layla and enjoy being with the woman he loved while doing the job he loved.

  * * *

  “You ready to do this?” Landon asked Ivy as he pulled the SUV up in front of Thorn’s mansion.

  It was late at night—or early in the morning, depending on your definition of that kind of thing—but she had no doubt Thorn would still be awake since they’d called him about an hour ago and said they’d be dropping by with his stolen property.

  Frasier opened the door before they could ring the bell. Thorn was waiting in the foyer, a frown on his face. He barely glanced at the diamond when she handed it over. Mostly because he was too busy glaring at them.

  “Why the hell didn’t you call when you figured out who stole it?” he demanded. “I thought I was quite clear that I wanted Frasier to handle the actual recovery?”

  “You were,” Landon said. “But to be truthful, we didn’t know for sure the guy we were going to see tonight was the thief.”

  “We knew we were never going to find out who stole your diamond working with Hayes, and since the bodies of known thieves kept turning up, we did our own digging,” Ivy added, elaborating on the story that she, Landon, and John had come up with. “We looked for other people who had the requisite skills but who’d been excluded from the detective’s suspect pool for some reason.”

  “We came up with a couple people and went to talk to one of them—Daniel Abbott—down at his warehousing business near the Navy Yard tonight,” Landon said. “Twenty years ago, Abbott was picked up and questioned in connection with nearly a dozen jewelry heists, but nothing ever stuck to him, even though the detective on the case back then was sure he was the guy.”

  “Wait a minute,” Thorn said, holding up his hand. “Are you trying to tell me that it was some washed-up thief who broke into my home and stole my property? What, did he just decide to come out of retirement because his mutual funds had taken a beating in the market?”

  When he put it that way, it did sound a little crazy. Ivy prayed that Kendra and Evan had done a flawless job on Abbott’s fake background because she had no doubt Thorn was going to dig into the poor guy’s former life with a microscope. In reality, Daniel Abbott was a marine salvage dealer who’d been unfortunate enough to pass away the previous night from a heart attack in his shop down near Washington Navy Yard. Other than the fact that the man
had absolutely no family and very few friends, there was nothing remarkable about him. Which is why Kendra had selected him as their thief.

  Ivy hated the idea of messing with a dead man’s life by giving him a police record, making it look like he’d been involved with a string of unsolved burglaries in DC nearly twenty years ago, and creating a fake history that was going to live on forever. But it was either destroy one man’s past or accept that Dreya Clark probably wouldn’t have a future. It simply had to be done.

  “We knew it was a long shot, which is why we didn’t bother to call you or Frasier,” Ivy admitted. “It wasn’t until we got to the warehouse that we figured out Abbott was the guy. We caught him right in the middle of getting ready to leave the country with your diamond.”

  “Where the hell is he?” Frasier growled. “You better not have turned him over to the cops before Mr. Thorn gets to speak to him.”

  “It never got that far,” Landon said. “We found out the hard way that Abbott had been planning to blow up the warehouse so it would look like he was dead. After we cornered the man, he tried to use the bomb he’d rigged to get away from us and ended up collapsing half the building on his own head.”

  Thorn’s eyes widened. “Are you talking about the building that burned to the ground down by the Anacostia River earlier?”

  Ivy nodded.

  “How’d you get the diamond back?” Thorn asked.

  “That was all Ivy,” Landon said. “She ran into the building while it was still falling down and got Abbott’s backpack before the fire took it. If it weren’t for her, you never would have gotten your diamond back.”

  Thorn regarded her thoughtfully, as if wondering whether this was all too good to be true.

  “We barely got out before the cops and firefighters showed up,” Ivy added, trying to make it seem as if running into a burning building to retrieve a diamond had been no big deal.