by Kira Blakely
I’m on the elevator when the lights stutter, winking and provoking a deep fear in me. Last thing I need is to be stuck on an elevator. Fucking shit luck.
I frown, staring at the blinking numbers. Only another five more floors. Come on. Come on! I’m too busy begging the elevator to make its slow crawl up to the twelfth floor when it stops and the doors swing open on the eleventh floor.
They rush the elevator, most of their assault rifles aimed at my chest and a barrel butting my left temple. I’m completely surrounded. The men are dressed in head-to-toe black, their faces masked. I do pick out one female, and she seems to be leading them.
“Cuff him,” she says, tossing the manacles to one of the stooges holding me at gunpoint. He has the others roughly spin me, my face pushed against the mirrored wall of the interior of the elevator as my arms are forced behind my back. The cuffs are slapped on and I’m rendered helpless.
They turn me around. The woman has joined us and the doors whoosh closed before the elevator inches up to the next floor, my floor. “Out,” she orders, stepping ahead of us. I’m shoved out, and that’s when all goes to hell in a fucking handbasket.
Guns fire, someone throws off a smoke bomb, and I hear alarmed cries ringing up and down the carpeted corridor over the din of shots. It’s the sort of cacophony that would drive any soldier straight back into countless nights and days of vigil on enemy territory. Luckily I passed my psych evals. Instead of freezing up, adrenaline roars through me, a raging fire storm of energy propelling me into survival mode.
Jade’s on my mind. I need to get to her.
I just need her.
In the thicket of the smoke cover, I work speedily, bringing my arms around, thankful to be double-jointed. I’ll need my hands up front for what I have planned next. As soon as I see the others are firing down the hall at what appears to be Nolan’s security team, I surge forward for the nearest guy.
I could kiss Lady Luck, happy that they’ve forgotten me in lieu of the more ready danger down the hall.
Grabbing this big guy, I choke him with my cuffs from behind. His grip on his semi-automatic rifle loosens and it thuds to the ground. That turns his friends around on me. They fire aimlessly when someone sets off another smoke bomb, and the plumes of the light gray gas trails me to my suite.
My enemy’s body bears the brunt of the bullets aimed at me. I drag his now lifeless, bullet-riddled frame down the hall to my door. I manage to get the suite key out of my suit jacket’s pocket. Tapping the card over the reader, I nearly sag in relief when the door’s automated lock whirrs open and the light blinks green.
Shouts swell from the end of the hall, and I barely make it inside, dropping my impromptu shield for his friends to discover. I have no clear plan yet. All that matters is that I’m safe so that I can protect Jade.
Jade.
“Jade!” I call for her, starting forward into the darkened suite. I don’t need to look far. Jade is there…and she’s not alone.
She raises a hand for me, her face set in pure terror. I thought I’d seen her scared before. I thought I’d lived through all the fears with her. Now I realize we had only scratched the surface.
Black rage clashes with my explosive concern.
“I don’t need to hurt her, so long as you do as I say…Sarge.”
That voice slithers through the suffocating fog of fury and worry. It plucks memories up to the fore. Clouds of inky smoke, a blazing fire singeing my lashes and brows and beard, and a night breeze picking it up, sweeping my way the horrors of the stench of untimely death in a foreign land.
“Jacques,” I spit his name.
“I decided to take you up on your offer.” He presses the blade to Jade’s throat, and her whimpering carries to my ears. The darkness cloaks him, dressing him up as my girl’s executioner. I resist the urge to snap on the lights in the open kitchen and living area. A part of me can’t trust my ears alone.
Jacques wouldn’t do this. This is the same man who saved me, risked his own life, and that of the rest of his team, to trust me with the delivery of important, game-changing intel. I’m having trouble reconciling his image with his actions now.
“Why?” I can’t grasp his reasoning, so I ask as a desperate, cornered man. “Why are you doing this?”
Jacques barks a short, sharp laugh. “Why not?” he hisses. “I’ve got a bum leg. My dad has wiped me out of his will. I’m a black sheep in my family, in fucking society—no one wants a broken veteran.”
He shakes his head, his eyes narrowing over Jade’s fearful wide gaze. “Aren’t you going to ask what happened in Kandahar after you left with the intel? Well let me fill you in: the bomb went off; I barely took shelter behind the truck; I couldn’t get the others out; my leg was mangled, and I couldn’t move. I was a sitting fucking duck out there in the dark, surrounded by the bastards.
“Nearly died too, until an airstrike spooked them. I belly-crawled all the way to the next convoy. Saved myself in the end.”
I’m disgusted, of course. Self-loathing curls through me, a strong need to seek Jacques’s forgiveness overwhelming me. It all disappears when Jacques tugs Jade back, the blade skimming over her clavicle. Her teddy is translucent and her nipples and thong are visible.
I’ve never wanted to hurt another soul more than that moment. I just thought I hated Wagner.
“Let her go.” My voice is strained, bordering on begging. No. I am begging. My legs threaten to fall out from under me. I lean on the counter, hoping I don’t appear as fragile as I feel. Jacques hasn’t laid a finger on me, but he might as well be clutching my heart in his traitorous hands. “Let her go,” I repeat more firmly.
“Not while you’re looking like that, like you’re ready to kill me.” Jacques’s deep chuckle is mirthless. It’s carved from ice. “I’m not here for your girl. I’m here for you.”
“Me?” I nod sharply then. “Fine. You have me.” I hold up my cuffed hands, tossing my suite key on the counter. “Just you and me.”
“You and me,” he agrees, but still he doesn’t release Jade.
“What the fuck happened to you?” I bark, my anger slipping its leash. So much for restraint. I’m wild though when it comes to Jade.
Tilting his head, Jacques scoffs, “I thought I told you. It was a long story, so let me paraphrase: I’m saving myself again, Cas.”
“Jacques—”
“Stay back,” Jacques orders. He hauls Jade with him. I hadn’t realized I had taken a couple of steps forward. Now I want to dash and close the distance to Jade when she yelps, one loud sob slipping free, breaching the short gap between us.
“Jade,” I say. “You’re going to be fine.” I lie for the both of us. I’m not sure I have the strength to make that promise anymore. Jacques robbed me of any assurance I had, any confidence that I alone could care for Jade.
My legs do give out now.
Jade’s scream tears the fog clouding my mind.
I blink heavily, puzzled as to why I’m sluggish.
Dark shadows hover over me. Jade calls my name from somewhere afar, her voice drifting to me in my tunneling vision and ringing ears. Jacques’s gruffer words slip around her loud sobbing. “Bleeding…too much…no time…let’s go.”
I reach out for Jade blindly, grasping air and the lingering scent of her signature citrusy jasmine as I recognize the click of the front door. They’re gone. I’m hunched forward then, hopelessness bearing down on me, the kitchen counter at my back, a darkening world in front of me.
Right before it claims me, I call for her one last time.
“Jade…”
Darkness answers me.
***
I’m not dead when I wake up next.
Dr. Martin enters the room with a tray, her usually sour expression brightening when she sees me upright and alert. “No,” she says, the meal tray set aside at the foot of the bed. She pushes me back into bed.
“Jade,” I gasp. I startled from a dream where I’d lost her to Jacqu
es.
No, it wasn’t a dream. It’s my reality.
My left side is bandaged.
“Bullet wound,” Dr. Martin says, seeing where my hand tracks over my fresh bandages.
I get flashes from my life-and-death encounter in the hallway.
“Where is she?” I ask, frantic, more panicked than I’d ever been in my life. Almost as much as when my mother went into surgery, and my father had me to lean on. She’d come through, but it had been a tough road to recovery, physically and emotionally.
Now I’m back through the ringer. Only this time, Jade’s in the care of a madman I used to consider my military superior, my teammate, and my friend.
Dr. Martin calls Isaiah and Nolan in, leaving me to ramble on about Jade and Jacques.
“You’re in no shape to go after them yet. You lost a lot of blood.” Nolan holds me to the bed. I’m almost glad when a wave of dizziness assails me.
“We’ll find her,” Isaiah promises, his jaw clenched. He looks to be having trouble digesting the news about Jacques’s miraculous return from the dead. “As for Jacques…”
“We’ll get him too,” Nolan says, nodding. His grim determination hardens his voice. Being the most easygoing guy I know, the situation has to be seriously bad for Nolan to be looking like Death on his pale horse. “Wagner as well,” he adds.
There’s not much I can say after that.
It takes half my energy to nod, the other half to say, “Forget them. Just find her. Find Jade. Bring her back to me.”
I don’t hear how they respond; my eyes close and I drift into the dreamless dark.
***
“Why am I still in here?” I’m out of bed finally, and I’m raging that Jade isn’t with me—that my so-called friends haven’t done what they swore to do for me.
My side throbs and I clench my teeth, slowing my fast pace. The bullet wound did a number on me. I’m determined not to be bedridden though, at least not as long as Jade’s still out there with Jacques.
“It’s for your safety,” Nolan tells me. He quirks an eyebrow. “You nearly died of blood loss, bro. We’re not going to send you out there after Jacques, Tyler Wagner, and their armed goons.”
We hit the thirty-six-hour mark having gone nowhere far in the search for Jade.
Eveningstar Resort Hotel and Casino is only lucky I’m not blowing the place up. Nolan is on babysitting duty, keeping me in the cage of my office. I pace like a convict on death row, glaring at the door to my office, wondering how many of Nolan’s trained security guards—mostly ex-military themselves—I can take out before Nolan takes me down.
I wince, halting and holding my hands up to ward off the next flash.
Nolan beams around his smartphone. “Isaiah didn’t believe I still had you in here.”
I narrow my eyes, stepping in his direction, my fists quivering. Nolan pays me no heed. The annoyance for him has me scoffing, “Shouldn’t be asking after me when he can’t seem to do the job on his own.”
“Nah,” Nolan drawls, grinning. “I told him I had you handled.”
My fist comes down on my desk, upsetting some of the papers and folders I had strewn over it. Nolan lifts a sheaf from the floor along with a pricey fountain pen. He whistles, shaking his head, his face tensing.
“I know it’s hard—”
“Like hell you do.” I settle down into my office chair, my wounded side flaring up. I stick to the less strenuous activity of glowering at him. “You have no fucking clue.”
“You’re right. I don’t. No clue at all.” He sighs then. “Frankly, I don’t want to know what hell you’re living right now.” Nolan lowers the placating gesture of his upturned palms. The Taser sits in his lap though, taunting me. He’s been given orders to keep me out of the way.
I’m outnumbered, so here I am, stuck in my office while Jacques has Jade out there…doing God-knows-what to her. I close my eyes, tilting my head back, trying to block the worst of my imaginings out.
Jade is not dead. She’s not fucking dead. Over and over I turn over that mantra, and it takes a life of its own. She’ll come back to me. I’ll fucking for real put a ring on her. She’ll be mine. I smile at that thought, my heart throbbing painfully, and I know it’s crying for my loss. We’ll be happy. Forever. And she can’t be dead for that.
Isaiah makes a lot of noise when he enters my office. My eyes flash open, my head lowering from staring at my office ceiling. I find his hard stare and I drill him with the same loathing glare I’ve had reserved for Nolan.
“We’re cool,” he says to Nolan’s offer to stick around.
Nolan looks between us. “You say that, but if I hear anything I don’t like, I’m Tasing you both.”
As soon as Nolan is gone, Isaiah nods at the door. “I’ve sent him off on an errand. We have to get out of here before he returns.”
“You’re helping me bust out?”
Isaiah frowns. “I’m helping you find her, Cas. She’s your girl.” His throat convulses, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “If it had been my wife… Let’s just get Jade back for you, before Nolan zaps and knocks us out.”
I nod, smiling. “He’ll do it too.”
“Yeah.” Isaiah cracks a grin. “And he’ll thoroughly enjoy himself while he’s at it.” He’s solemn again when we step out of the office together. “Ready to save her?”
“I was made to save her,” I say, my heart thumping harder for that truth.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jade
Jacques throws me down on the ground, barking orders at the darkly-clad men in the abandoned triple decker. We’re on the top floor of the derelict building. The blindfold he’s torn off rests around my neck like a noose, while the ball gag is still in its place in my mouth, along with the cuffs on my wrists.
Jacques Laverne is no Marine veteran. He’s a criminal. He abducted me and he left Cas for dead—Cas!
My frantic thoughts screech to a halt at his name, and the memory of how I left him, bleeding and barely conscious in our suite. How Jacques left him. He left his friend to die. I’m quick to make the correction, turning my baleful glare up at the guilty party.
He has the balls to smile at me. Crouching to my level, he cups my chin, his grip growing painful when I try to rip free and rid myself of his slimy touch. “Don’t, Jade. I have no desire to harm you. I was speaking the truth when I said as much to Cas.”
I glower at him, hating how Cas’s name lingers on his tongue. He had no right to talk about Cas, the friend he’d left behind.
As if he read my thoughts, Jacques clucks his tongue. “He was my friend.”
I’m aware of how he uses the past tense, and what he means.
“I’m sure he’d want me to take good care of you, and I’m keeping that promise…for his sake.”
I make an angry, short noise around the ball gag.
He cocks his head, and then he reaches forward, ignoring how I flinch from his big, calloused palms. He frees the gag from my dry, stretched lips, my tongue stroking over their abused surface.
“Better?” he asks.
“Don’t fucking touch me.” I attempt to scoot from him, but Jacques takes a punishing grasp of my upper arms.
“I need to know I have your cooperation, Jade. Only then will I let you leave here alive. Perhaps even in time for Cas’s funeral.”
I shake my head, horrified. “No,” I whisper, the first of my hot tears trailing my cheeks. “No!” I cry, sobbing once and then folding in on myself when Jacques releases me and stands swiftly. He’s answering someone, a sharp feminine voice.
“You found him then? Good. Everything’s going according to plan,” he’s saying. “We’ll be all the richer for it, Steph.”
My legs are drawn to my aching chest, my head resting on my knees. I turn up my face, taking in the tall, curvy woman in Jacques’s embrace. They’re kissing openly, their lips smashed together, their eyes closed to the world around them, the audience witnessing their affectionate gesture.
; “Later,” Jacques whispers an oath then, his hand adjusting the front of his pants.
This Steph woman laughs huskily, her long, dark purple nails lightly scraping over his visible tent, and a second later, his erection in her palm through the material of his dark slacks. She snaps her head to me, her seductive smile spreading. “Want me to claw your eyes out, stupid girl?”
Jacques glances my way. “Leave her.” His tone is noncommittal. It makes me wonder if he truly means to free me if I cooperate as his captive. “She’s my problem, babe.”
She flashes me straight, white teeth, her threat still hanging in the air. “Whatever you say, gimpy lover of mine.”
Jacques grunts when she gives his groin a squeeze and she leaves, her boots thudding out of earshot.
“So,” Jacques cocks his head at me, “how long have you known Cas? Were you fucking him and limp-dick Wagner at the same time…?”
I duck my head and close my eyes at his cruel laughter. I don’t lift it again until I’m opening my sleep-grainy eyes. Jacques’s voice drifts to me. He’s in the room, and I’m no longer on the floor. Someone moved me to a springy mattress. I must have fallen asleep.
Starting up, I find resistance. My right wrist is cuffed to the bed as I can make out from the red evening light pouring in through the bay window behind the bed. What time is it? I couldn’t tell under the blindfold when Jacques transported me here from the hotel. Has a whole day gone by? A week? Or has it only been hours of this captive torture?
Jacques’s voice breaches my questions.
It grows closer meaning he’s approaching this room. “She’s fine.” He sees me awake as he fills the threshold, and he enters the room from the dark hall. “I’m looking at her right now, Iz.”
Isaiah’s on the phone!
I maneuver myself off the bed and onto the floor, my right arm awkwardly hanging up where I’m connected to the iron headboard.
Jacques holds out the phone, and Isaiah’s voice fills the room. “How do I know you haven’t killed her?”
“Still don’t believe me?” Jacques walks over to me. “Say ‘hello,’ Jade.”