by Lea Hart
“Could you have packed up and left?”
“No, it was the middle of the day, and if we exfilled, we would’ve been picked off within minutes.” He linked another of their fingers together and let out a breath when she didn’t pull away. “After a while, the bustle died down, and people started evaporating from the streets, and that’s when I knew my gut had been right on. An RPG slammed into the wall of the house, near Frank’s position. The intense blast rattled my teeth and was strong enough to ring my bell and throw me off for a second or two. Bullets cracked around me, and all I could hear were the machine-gun rounds as they snapped like a bullwhip repeatedly next to my head. Rounds chewed up the window in front of me, and my heart pounded out of my chest as I tried to determine if I could hold my position or take cover. We were the main attraction that morning. I lurched to the left and pulled out my Mk11, sliding headfirst into the corner and hoping the wall was thick enough to stop 7.62 rounds. Within seconds, a burst of rounds came in and stitched up the chair I’d been sitting in.”
Shivering, she leaned in. “So, if you hadn’t moved, you’d be dead?”
“Yeah, that had been a close one. But we weren’t done yet. Another RPG hit the side of the window and exploded. We were treated to another ear-splitting, heart-shaking blast. Al took the brunt of it, and there was little I could do. I was pinned down as the rounds cracked and splintered the masonry. I couldn’t return fire or get to my buddy. It was the longest ten minutes of my life. Hal and Frank managed to get into position and get after it, and after about another five minutes, it all died down. Lance, our comms guy, stood in the doorway, and just as I was about to ask for a sit rep, he was hit with a bullet directly in the face.”
“Rick…”
“By the time we exfilled and were on the bird, both men had died. We were in that fucking building for too long, and there is only so much you can do when dealing with that amount of blood loss. Bringing home those men was my responsibility, and I failed on that day. I took it as personally as possible and went out the next day on an op and wasn’t as focused as I should’ve been. We were tasked with an objective that was near impossible, and I got blown to kingdom come and shot up. And when I was airlifted out of the battle space, I didn’t think I deserved to survive because I hadn’t protected the men under my command.”
“So you carried that home and have been trying to make peace with it?”
“Yeah, and believe it or not, I was doing pretty good.”
“Until someone started coming after me.”
“I know I’m not reasonable when it comes to you, and I’m sorry.” He stood, hating how desperately he didn’t want to leave her side but knowing it was the right thing to do. He looked down at her, pouring every ounce of sincerity he had into his words. “I’m hoping time is going to be on our side and that someday, you’ll choose to give me a chance to make it up to you. I’ll wait, no matter how long it takes.”
A tear slid down her cheek, and he did the hardest thing he’d ever done.
He walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rick barreled out of the gates of the ranch like the devil was on his tail. Last night had been hard on his heart, but the information he’d just been given threatened to rip the fucker out of his chest completely.
According to his brother, the group Owen Pierce was involved with were part of the Latin Kings. Which meant the situation Em was in just moved to Defcon Three, because the gang was over thirteen hundred members strong.
It was a shit show in the making, and according to Weston, Owen did in fact have a zip drive filled with a list of buyers. He’d copied the information in an attempt to have a piece of insurance and lit the whole situation on fire.
His brother had also informed him that some sort of meet was going to go down in the next day or so, and that meant he needed to secure Em on the ranch ASAP.
The location of the zip drive was unknown, and he had a bad feeling that someone had stashed it at Em’s house. Whether it was by the hand of the Pierce brothers or one of their associates, he didn’t know. But between Nash creeping around her house, the break-in, and the vet truck lock getting jacked, it was clear she and her house were ground zero.
Which was why he was racing toward the blinking red light that represented Em on his phone. The app he damn near deleted when he got back to his house last night out of respect for Emily but was really grateful he’d gotten distracted with a bottle of tequila instead. According to the map, her truck was parked in some industrial building at the edge of town.
A place she had no business being.
A place he very much feared put her in the line of fire.
Focusing on the road ahead of him, he tried Em’s phone again and cursed when the call went directly to voicemail. God willing, she hadn’t answered because she was still pissed and not because she couldn’t. Hearing his phone ring, he all but jumped out of his seat as he hit the answer button. “Em!”
Nothing.
Just a lot of background noise, revving car engines, and loud angry voices that sounded like they were some distance away.
“If you can hear this, know that I’m coming for you and am ten clicks away.”
Still no response.
Smashing his foot on the accelerator, he pushed his truck to its limits and used all the combat driving skills he’d learned in the Navy. He’d done more than a couple dozen vehicle interdictions during his time on the Teams and was now more thankful than ever that he knew a thing or two about getting on the X in a fucking hurry.
The sound of angry car horns filled his ears. He ignored them as he wove through the cars making their way through the crossroad of highways and tuned his ears to what was coming from Em’s phone. Unfortunately, it was just a garble of noise and nothing actionable, but he was grateful for the link nonetheless. “I’m almost there, Em.”
Checking the map on his dash, he determined that the next exit would his best bet, cut across two lanes, slid off the highway, and whipped his truck around so he could approach from the rear. His big-ass black truck was just like the thousands of others on the highway, and he didn’t think it stuck out but didn’t want to give anyone more warning than he had to.
Taking a less obvious approach, he drove steadily in the direction of the warehouse and spotted Em’s big red vet truck parked near the industrial building. “Bingo.”
There was also a half-dozen other vehicles, and he knew it wasn’t because there was a sale on Girl Scout cookies. How in the hell had she ended up there? Had to be due to some sort of threat because there was no way she’d put herself in the middle of a gang war. His woman was as smart as anyone he’d ever met, and that meant at some point she likely had a gun pointed to her head to land where she was.
His first instinct was to approach the situation with speed, surprise, and violence of action. It was a SEAL’s favorite, and there was no way to discount the advantage of gaining and maintaining physical and psychological momentum.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have a fire team on his six, and the chances of Jack arriving in the helo in time were minimal, since he’d been near Corpus Christi when they’d made contact. And given the players’ penchant to shoot and ask question later, he decided stealth was his only option.
His goal was to get Em as far away from the situation as possible and deal with the men from the gang once she was in lockdown and safe from danger. He pulled into the driveway of a building half a block away and threw his truck into park. Shoving his phone into his pocket, he climbed out of his truck, slid his gun out of his boot, and hauled ass in the direction of the woman who owned his heart.
Keeping himself close to the buildings, he thought about the moment he’d set eyes on her back in grade school and let his favorite slideshow play across his mind. The thousands of hours they’d spent with one another over the years looking for trouble and avoiding it. Arguing
, scheming, plotting, and getting on each other’s last nerve. And during every single second of those hours, he’d loved her. In his seven-year-old heart, his seventeen-year-old heart, and now completely, fully, and without reservation in his thirty-two-year-old heart.
It was going to take a lot more than a fucking gang cartel to take that away from him.
Sliding along the building that sat next to the warehouse, he checked his phone again. The call had ended. Not knowing if that was a good sign or not, he moved quickly and got his first glimpse of Emily.
And felt his heart stop.
Pulse thundering, he clamped down on his control and knew that blowing the head off the man who was waving a gun in her face was not his best option.
At least not yet.
Had to be one of the head honchos from the cartel. The aggressive body language and threatening facial expressions let Rick know someone thought she had something of value.
Assessing the situation, he took a quick headcount and guessed there were at least two dozen men milling about. He catalogued the weapons, not really caring who was on what side, and decided to make his entrance casual.
Just another fucking day in the neighborhood, him showing up and making sure her day was going well. Nash stood off to the side and was in some kind of heated conversation with two men he couldn’t place. He walked closer, as though his presence was expected, and waved to Em when she turned. “Hi, darlin’.”
Relief flooded her face, and then an emotion he swore looked a lot like fear and regret mixed together filled her pretty eyes. “I’ve got you,” he mouthed. Nodding, she took a step in his direction…
…just as the warehouse exploded.
Oh, shit. The familiar sharp sound of metal scraping against concrete filled his ears as he moved without thought toward Emily.
Keeping his eyes trained on her and not the fireball that belched toward the sky or the heat rolling into him like a wave, he tracked her body as it flew into the air.
The ground shook beneath his feet, and splinters of wood and debris filled the sky, and he threw his body in the direction of where he hoped she’d land.
Arms outstretched, he told God to cash in all the favors he’d accumulated and save Em. Ignoring the roaring sound of the explosion, he stretched every muscle in his body and braced himself as her body descended from the air.
He caught her with his hands and pulled her into his arms as a second explosion went off and blew them both away from the building. They landed together with a sickening thud, and the world blurred.
The past thundered into the present as the smell of spent shells and blood filled his nose. Clutching Emily’s soft body, he attempted to ground himself in the present. The loud voices shouting were not that of his teammates. The cries of pain didn’t belong to any of the men on his team. He lifted his head and clung to the present with every bit of strength he had.
Looking up, he blinked the sky back into its proper shape and then focused on Emily.
“Back,” he murmured to himself. “Time to handle the situation.” He checked her vitals, detected a thready pulse, and knew the sooner he could get her to the hospital, the better.
The only problem being they seemed to be in the middle of a fucking firefight. All that stood between them and what he guessed were two dozen men was a dumpster that reeked with garbage.
He’d spent a decade engaging the enemy and delivering the proper amount of force to disable them. All it required was violence of action and the will not to stop until things had been solved to his satisfaction.
He was ready to do just fucking that.
He crouched low and moved to where he could take in the scene, letting his eyes scan over the chaos. Unfortunately, he couldn’t immediately determine who was after who. Which made him wish he’d had his M4 kitted up with a two-inch barrel and six-inch suppressor handy and not just his SIG and its fifteen-round mag.
Not that there was any point wishin’ and hoping.
He controlled the anger seething in his gut over having Emily anywhere near this shit, fought the elevated pulse in his temple, and prepared for battle. He’d been through thousands, and this one wasn’t the worse he’d seen. All he needed was a bit of luck and Jack arriving in the helo to get them out before things got serious.
Smoke and the crack of gunfire surrounded them, and he quartered the area, scanning for incoming. When a man bolted from behind a truck with his gun pointed in Rick’s direction, he tracked him with his own, squeezing the slack out of the trigger a second before the man discharged his weapon. He exhaled on his respiratory pause and watched the man fall backward into heap as his gun hit the dirt. “Fucker,” he mumbled, hearing the lullaby of rotors approaching from the south.
Adjusting his position, he continued to watch for incoming hostiles and tracked his gun across from left to right. The scene was chaos, and he focused on his own breath along with the hammer of his heart rushing blood to his brain to stay focused.
He’d always known that evil existed in the world, and one of the things he’d loved most about being a SEAL was that wearing the trident had given him the opportunity to meet it on a semi-regular basis. He just never expected to be doing it so close to home, with the love of his life unconscious at his side.
Another man appeared to their right, and Rick made lemonade out of lemons and again, squeezing the slack out of his trigger while juking left and avoiding the bullet headed his direction. The man crumpled. Meting out death wasn’t something Rick enjoyed, but it wasn’t something he avoided, either. He never relished taking another human’s life but had long ago made peace with his choice of being in the business of doing bad things to bad people.
And the folks firing shots at one another were just that.
Feeling a low rumble roll across the ground, he knew another building was about to blow. Moving closer to Em, he covered her with his body and prepped himself for the impending explosion. He counted backward from ten, and when he hit five, the structure blew, filling the air around them with more debris and flames.
“Anytime, Jack,” he said quietly as he lifted his head. The sound of car engines approaching caught his attention, and he watched five cars roar into the parking area in front of the building. Men in DEA vests emerged from the first two cars, and men with Ranger vests poured out of the remaining three.
“The fucking cavalry, thank God.”
The DEA and Rangers approached the scene with their guns raised, and he’d never been happier to see a raid force in his life. As men emerged from the smoke that billowed around the second building and fired wild shots, they were picked off with a field of fire put down by the agents.
The sound of the helo grew closer, and he tucked Emily next to his body, keeping his gun raised as he scanned the sky, waiting to see the helicopter come into view. Hearing his name shouted through the chaos, he glanced over his shoulder and saw his brother. “Couldn’t stand missing the party?” he called out.
Weston crouched by his side and looked Emily over. “You know I like to be in the middle of shit. Was she hit?”
“No GSW, but we were thrown when the first two buildings blew.”
“Helo sounds close. Let’s see what we can do about getting the two of you out of here.”
“Sounds good to me, man.”
His brother signaled to the woman standing to his left. The Rangers took up position to lay down cover fire, if Rick needed it.
The ranch helo approached, and the rotor wash blew dust across the dirt, filling the air with rocks and debris. He knelt and lifted Em into his arms and stood ready to traverse the fifty yards to the bird. Nodding to his brother, he moved toward the hovering helicopter.
Jack set the helo down, and the moment the skids hit the ground, Rick was there. He yanked open the door and pushed Em inside. Adrenaline had fine-tuned his senses to every aspect of his surroundings
, and he sensed the bullet cutting across the air before it skidded into his shoulder. Throwing himself on top of Em, he lifted his hand and made a circle. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Happy to,” Jack said as he piloted the helo to left and cut low across the highway, heading back into town. “Preference on a hospital?”
“Closest will do,” he gritted out as he checked Em’s vitals and did his best to ignore the pain radiating down the right side of his body. “Thanks for showing up, man.”
“Always.”
Pressing his head to Em’s chest, he let out a long breath and told himself to be grateful they’d made it out in one piece and survived.
Because in the end, that’s all that mattered.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Emily smoothed out the blankets on her hospital bed and hoped her doctor was going to approve her discharge. She’d been examined from head to toe and knew she didn’t need to be in the hospital to recover.
Amazingly enough, she’d only sustained a couple of bruised ribs, a slight concussion, and a handful of gashes along her arms. Not bad considering three buildings exploded.
The good Lord had certainly been looking out for her, and she wasn’t quite sure how she’d won his favor considering she hadn’t managed many good deeds over the years. Hearing the door creak open, she looked up and smiled. “Hey, girl.”
Vanessa strode over to the bed and moved Em’s hair away from her shoulder. “You look better today.”
“No way to look worse.”
Clucking her tongue, Nessa set down a tote and then sat in a chair. “You gave us all a good scare.”
“If I could’ve figured out a way to avoid ending up in the middle of a gang fight, believe you me, I would have.”
“Were you really surrounded by four cars?”
“Yes! They caught up with me just outside of town and boxed me in. I had two guns pointed in my direction and couldn’t figure out a way to break through.”