Winters moved forward, one cautious step at a time, long gun ready, finger on the trigger. Seeing no traps, he sidestepped around a corner, focusing in the now dark hallway. Sirens still blared.
Winters pushed down a hall, spot-checking each room. Another corner. This place was a maze. A muffled feminine sob stole his breath.
Only one closed door left.
“No!” Exhausted pleas homed him to her. He readied to burst through the door, but instead, tried the handle. It swung open to his real-time nightmare.
Juan Carlos Silva held her by the neck and shook her limp body as he pointed wildly to something outside the window. A number of foreign curse words were tossed at her, and she had the thousand-yard stare of a battle weary soldier. Silva moved her with the ease of a child playing with a doll. Her arms hung flaccid, and her legs wobbled.
Winters’s try-the-handle-first tactic gave him the element of surprise. Silva never even looked his way.
“Get your hands off her neck, Silva.” Winters roared so deep, his voice was unrecognizable.
Silva spun Mia into a choke hold. A knife glinted in the other hand. Mia faced Winters but gave no acknowledgement. Shit.
Hell, she couldn’t even focus in his direction. Her head lobbed forward before Silva shook her back to consciousness. The need to kill burned in Winters’s veins.
“How are you in here?” Silva looked around.
All his guards were busy. Big blasts would do that. Thank you, Brock.
“Pure fucking magic, asshole.”
“Stay where you are.” A nothing-to-lose gleam shined in Silva’s eyes, and his lip curled in contempt.
Winters lowered his weapon.
“I’m surprised. Did you really not expect us? That I’d leave her to a wolf like you?” Winters clucked in mock disappointment.
Silva pressed the knife against her throat. Mia seemed not to notice. “She is yours if you hand me that disk.”
“Nope.” The simple word stoked Winters, made him even more ready to end this with bloodshed.
A blast rocked the floor, followed by the pop of gunfire. Winters smiled. Jared was on the move, clearing their way out.
In more of a show than was necessary, Winters clicked on the live feed of his mic, “Tango located. Second floor. Third room north of center.”
No response in his ear, but he was sure he transmitted. The team was out there. Always watching. Always listening.
“You do not scare me, Winters.” Silva spat his name out.
“Then you’re a moron. You have seconds to make a choice before you die.” Winters backed up to a large wooden hutch, and with an angry shove, he barricaded the door. “Now, you have no way out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A sharp sting tore her neck, dragging her from a dizzying unconsciousness. She was standing, and no longer in that windowless room. Flashes of Alejandro charging her, hand outstretched, made her double-check she was still breathing. A cold sweat shivered across her body. Her arms and legs did nothing she asked of them. What was happening?
The room came into focus. Brighter than her room. Loud clanging reverberated in her head. A massive migraine swirled behind her eyeballs. Tears further blurred her vision, then leaked down her cheeks.
Murmurs. Far away, whispers. She fought to focus. To shake the cotton from her head.
“Mia.”
How familiar the voice sounded. Her name. His voice echoed along with the pounding of her headache.
She closed her eyes tight and tried to swallow against her dry mouth. Instead, she hacked up a cough. Her throat stung again. Burned. Worse this time.
Bitter, ferocious garbles. It wasn’t English.
Silva. Captivity. Oh shit. Everything was so slow, but the mental freeze thawed. Just like after the gas station.
“Mia.”
Colby. His words were far away, in a dream.
She tried to focus again. Colorful blurs lined up. Images sharpened. Sensations collected, aligning themselves in her mind. The room was bright. It smelled like smoke and cologne.
Mia rolled her head to the side. Juan Carlos Silva wrapped his arm tight around her neck. The horrible, familiar feeling of a knife slicing her neck sent flashbacks of The Colonel screeching into her head.
Life has now come full circle.
She pulled away from the recognizable lick of a blade. She heard Colby. She felt Colby. He wouldn’t let Juan Carlos slit her throat. She blinked, and there he was, in all his superhero glory.
He was miles away, yet her arms reached for him. His steely eyes paid her no notice. He looked like a raging bull. Larger than she remembered. Incensed and ferocious.
Juan Carlos shook her with powerful pumps. Her arms and legs shimmied like gelatin. He launched her toward Colby, then yanked back. The vicious cycle was on repeat. Their words jumbled. Their disagreements were loud, yet empty and meaningless.
The door behind Colby bucked and bent. Thunder plowed through the room. Vibrations waved one right after the other, catapulting her to full consciousness.
Juan Carlos yelled over her shoulder. “My men will blast through that door. Both of you will die.”
“Take the knife from her neck.” Colby narrowed his bloodthirsty stare to Juan Carlos, morphing into a giant of a man. A killer, perched to attack.
“I will kill her now.” Juan Carlos rocked her limp body again. “You’ll never get out of here alive.”
He brought Mia to the window, and she saw carnage. Smoke drifted from the fence line and a fire was in the gardens. In the distance, gunfire pulsed. Colby had brought an army. Juan Carlos cursed in her ear.
He pulled away from the window, and she caught sight of Colby again. In spite of it all, she smiled. It was too short a moment. Juan Carlos dragged her back to the window again.
The black smoke drifted skyward. She could taste it. Alarms still sounded. The men outside looked like children’s toys. They were so far away. Was this a dream?
The window exploded inward, launching them in a furious surge. Warm, sharp, and red. Juan Carlos released her. Mia was mush. Her legs were like stilts in quicksand. They sank fast into a numb thud. He landed on her. Hot ooze. Sick metallic stank. A faceless man, eyes open, blood macerated, covered in glass, and dead.
Dead.
Colby stormed her. He scooped her into his arms and threw her over his shoulder. It was too fast and jarring. The horizon slipped sideways. Her stomach fell. Her headache felt like it hit her toes. Everything throbbed, but then she caught sight of Juan Carlos Silva, deader than dead on his beautiful carpet. Surrounded by blood and glass.
Relief was missing. Where was it? A feeling. An emotion. Something, anything. But nothing surfaced. Her mind was empty and foggy. A sticky mess coated her hair and face, and a sick stench of blood permeated the air. Her hands clawed at her face. Bile rose in her throat. Revulsion attacked from the inside. This was the blood of a madman.
She was still over his shoulder. Her face was planted firmly against his back. She didn’t need to see the door explode open. She could hear men crawl through, their grunts and threats ending with the pop of Colby’s gun.
He kept her still with a palm on her backside. As he moved to the door, he kicked the dead bodies out of the way and scraped furniture aside.
Each of her muscles flopped against his hard body as he bounded down a set of stairs. She jostled as he took each step. This should hurt more than it does. Something’s wrong.
He stopped and shifted her off his shoulder. Her head swayed in a circle, and she pinched her eyes closed. His hands dug into her armpits, keeping her righted. That she felt. Her weight was too heavy to bear. She was too tired to help. Too exhausted to escape.
“Mia.” Colby reached to her, pushing through the dense fog, calling her to focus.
She’d reach back. Later. When she felt stronger.
“Mia. Come on, doll. Right here. I’m right here.” He was more urgent now. Firmer. A pain in the ass if she really thought about it.
&nb
sp; His hands cupped her chin. The rough pad of his thumb ran across her sticky cheek. She opened her eyes to slits. His handsome face stared hard, worried eyes probing her.
“Colby.” Her faint breath escaped over raw lips. His name revived a miniscule portion of her will. Not much, but enough to focus.
“Hiya, doll. I’m getting you out of here.”
He sounded so calm. Perhaps he needed to sleep, too.
Behind him, bright lights flashed on and off in the dark hallway.
“We gotta roll. Hang tight.”
Angry yells came from somewhere closer than she could establish. He lofted her back over his shoulder. Blood rushed to her head. The smell of his sweat and gunpowder intermixed, and she struggled against unconsciousness.
With a dizzying step and spin, he rounded a corner and pops reverberated from a gun. He moved forward, took a couple of hops, and slid back against the wall. Mia saw the blood on the white carpet. Three bodies, arms and legs splayed, and eyes wide open.
Oh.
She balanced on his shoulder. He reloaded his gun. A boom echoed through the house.
“Got the package,” Winters whispered. “Ready to roll out.”
He wasn’t talking to her. His team was here. Somewhere.
“Repeat. Ready for cover. Over.”
He let loose a quiet string of expletives and pulled across his chest. A snap sounded from his mouth. Winters lofted a throw and hustled them back around the corner. A boom followed.
Oh, a grenade. But where is the bamboo bazooka?
They moved fast again, and she was just along for the ride. If she had anything to vomit, it would have happened. The spins and turns, the hasty pace and quick moves made her queasy. Sick, however, was preferable to dead.
A loud explosion ripped up the hall. Smoke and dust engulfed them. Her eyes burned like they’d been peppered. Coughing required energy. It was much easier to fade away.
But her body jarred, forcing her eyes open. He bounded toward the smoke. Each step dug her ribs into his shoulder. Fire lit the doorway, and, with a swift kick, the remnants of the smoldering door fell as they pushed through.
Fresher air. Fresh with a hint of burning building. She breathed deep but was unfulfilled. The humidity didn’t help. Her diaphragm couldn’t expand over his shoulder. Her lungs couldn’t quite fill. But still, the air was clean. They were closer to making it out alive.
Gunfire popped. Colby dove. He landed hard, unable to break her impact. Mia flopped on her back. Her head knocked on the ground, and she felt it bounce. Her lungs were forced empty, unable to breathe in. Terror tortured her. Her heart thumped. She heard it. Felt it. But nothing kick-started.
Finally, she gasped. Her body allowed a pant. Her lungs tried for their cadence. She wasn’t dying, at least not at that moment.
Cool grass cupped the back of her head and caressed her arms and legs, reviving her.
“You all right?” He perched on the balls of his feet, peeking over a small stone wall on a patio. Statues stood yards away in the garden, and the distinct sound of a water fountain splashing played throughout the gunfire.
“Your guys can’t hear you?” Her throat burned. The words croaked. She was more and more conscious. Keenly aware of her surroundings, none of which she liked. Whatever had knocked her out was fading fast from her system.
“Don’t worry. We plan everything for a reason.” He gave her a wink and a half-cocked smile. Just another day in the life of Colby Winters. He wasn’t flustered or scared. Bullets whizzing was business as usual.
He checked his clips on his belt and reloaded his gun. A quick look up, then he grabbed a knife strapped to his leg and let it fly. A short scream of pain followed.
“Asshole,” he grumbled and finished loading his clip. “Mia, we’re going to have to make a run for it. Soon as we get around that bend, we’ll have sniper cover. But we’ll be easy targets for a minute. Can you run? I’ll be able to shoot with both hands if I don’t have to carry you.”
Mia nodded. Adrenaline revved her blood. She had more of a fight in her than to lie in the grass and count smoky clouds.
“That’s my strong girl. Tell me when you’re ready.”
“Now. I’m ready now. Get me the hell out of here.” She gathered her feet beneath her and steadied. As she balanced on her toes and fingertips, she nodded again.
Winters stood, guns in both hands. “Go.”
He moved fast, arms outstretched before him, and she trailed him, trying like hell to keep speed. The corner of the mansion was near. That was her goal.
Gunfire surrounded her. Coming for them, shooting away from them. They fired. He fired back. The burnt gunpowder floated behind him, blazing into her nose and eyes. Still, she pushed, moving as he moved, tracing his cross-hatched steps, ducking when he ducked. A shadow behind the man.
She heard a thump. He growled and missed a step but didn’t stop moving. Brilliant red blood sprayed onto her. He didn’t slow. Her legs burned keeping the pace.
They rounded the corner, and he pressed her against the stucco wall. His blood stained her. It painted the wall and covered his hands. Vehicles came their way. Armed men poured from a hole in the perimeter fence like ants from an anthill. Fireballs from the jungle hit the vehicles. Violent explosions sent deadly fireworks into the sky. Rubber and diesel burned hot. Black smoke billowed around the armed men running toward them.
The heat, humidity, and smoke would have slowed a lesser man. So would a gunshot wound. He scanned the vast lawn.
“We have to make it past that hole in the fence. There’s a vehicle waiting for us. We’ve got a sniper in the trees, and two more men on the ground. When you see someone dressed like me, you run like hell toward him. Got it?”
“You’re hurt.” She wanted to run her hands across his skin and stop the bleeding.
He ignored her. “Say it, Mia. Can you do this?”
“I can.” She gave him a strong nod, exacerbating her headache. She didn’t care. Colby was here, and she’d do whatever he needed her to do.
“You got this. Let’s go.”
He gave her a small push in the right direction. Bullets sounded around her. Men ran toward them, guns pointed their way. The shots hit the grass, spitting up dirt, and slapping her face. She tasted blood and grit, and felt the filth in her mouth, which caked her lips and teeth.
White-hot pain rocketed through her. A dizzying flash made her stumble. He grabbed her upright.
“Flesh wound. Keep going,” he shouted above the noise. His teeth were gritted together. He huddled beside her, pulling her. “There’s Jared. Run!”
Another thump. He was hit again, as he shielded her from the rain of artillery. One by one, men advanced toward them and were dropped by a sniper. But as one went down, another appeared.
She heard another bullet hit. Winters dropped to his knee, pulled Mia under him, and cursed violent threats. His sweat and blood coated her. She felt it through the layers of clothing and vests. He scooped her with one arm and crawled behind a statue.
“How bad are you hurt, Colby?”
“Doesn’t matter.” His labored breaths worsened with each passing moment.
“How bad, damn it?”
Winters stopped laboring and laughed. “You’re unreal, you know that?”
Mia glared at him.
“Bad. But I think Kevlar got most of it. Everything heals. I’m not worried. Jared’s twenty yards ahead, picking them off. We have to go for it right now. Or we don’t have a chance. You got it, babe?”
“I can do this.”
“I know you can. Run, baby, run.” He took off at a limped sprint, acting as a barrier from the fire again.
His leg went out from under him. The whiz of bullets went to slow motion, the sound ceased. Mia dropped on bent knees, watching him on the ground.
“Run, goddamn it,” he shouted. His veins popped out of his neck as he fired into the distance.
The world came back, loud and furious. Her legs mo
ved, even though her mind was numb. Jared appeared out of nowhere. He jumped from his perch and snared her with an arm, dragging her into the vehicle.
“Wait. Colby.”
Jared threw the vehicle into gear and spun tires as he tore down the makeshift road. Branches and jungle leaves scratched at the windshield.
Mia launched at Jared, hitting his shoulder.
“Colby’s hurt.” Tears and terror filled her throat. The very depths of her soul ached. Her screech turned to a pleading whisper. “Please. Help him.”
“They were right on your tail. They’ve got him by now.”
Dread ricocheted through her head. All the pain and loss pressed onto her. Suffocating despair ripped her apart. Tears streamed down. Rapid breaths came fast. Too fast. She tried to cut them off but failed. All went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Winters used his last bullet with perfect accuracy. It hit his target, dead center. But his one bullet to their many men was more vengeance and habit than any intelligent course of action.
He pulled himself to cover. Nothing left to fire. Not even his knife to throw. And he bled from three of his four limbs. They had him. He knew it. They’d know it soon as they listened. None of the gunfire was his. Until then, he had a few minutes.
While he was sheltered by an obscene amount of marble statues, each one a naked Greek goddess reaching for the sky, he ripped off his shirt. His chest was now only covered by the Kevlar vest. With quick rips between his teeth, he made three tourniquets. He had to tie off his bicep, thigh, and calf until he could assess his wounds.
Juan Carlos Silva was dead. He owed Cash for that shot. Sniper fire will get you every time.
Silva’s number two, a man they called Alejandro, was nowhere to be found. Winters didn’t see him when they breached the house. Didn’t see him on the way out the door. Didn’t see anyone resembling a leader in this firefight.
Did the cartel soldiers know they lacked a commander?
Diversionary tactics may have worked to enter the house undetected, but surely, they had a succession plan. Alejandro must know by now he was no longer second in command. No, he was now El Jefe. And pesos to popcorn, they still wanted that NOC list.
The Titan Series: Military Romance Boxed Set Page 18