She jumps to her feet, wincing and holding her ribs as she does. “If I’m as bad as you think, then do it,” she shouts. “Sink your bullet in my head, just get it over with. At least I won’t have to… to… smell you anymore.”
Smell me?
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
She plops back down on the floor, her now red face planted back into her hands. I take the opportunity to do a pit sniff. Nothing but deodorant. I lift the neck of my shirt up to my nose. Fabric softener.
I shake my head, pissed at myself for getting distracted.
She growls and pulls her hands down from her face, and looks up at me with those big gray eyes. “I know you want those… whatever they are… just as much as I do,” she mutters. “I know you think my mom was a bad woman. I’m not stupid.” I look away as her chin quivers. “But she wasn’t bad to me. She was wonderful. I just…” She sniffs and I turn to walk back to the window.
Damn it. I can see the headlines now: CIA Agent Suckered By A Pretty Face.
“Fine,” I snap. “Read them quietly to yourself first, then pass them to me. I will read them next, you hear me?”
She gives me a watery smile and my gaze falls to her lips. I curse and walk to the door. I need to resign this job tomorrow and rescue strays for a living.
I hear her take out the envelope and turn, on guard to make sure she doesn’t attempt to destroy it. She shoots me a warning look as she pulls out the folded piece of paper. I simply stand there, watching, my arms folded over my chest.
With one last scowl, she drops her eyes to the letter and I watch her face morph through a number of emotions. Love. Confusion. Fear. Finally, she sits back and leans her head against the wall, thumping it a couple times, then wincing.
“Well?”
She exhales. “She wants me to take the contents to a man named Sergei Aslanov in Saint Petersburg.” She sticks the letter out and I scan it quickly.
“My darling Mia. I’m so sorry for placing this burden on your shoulders. I had hoped you’d always only think of me as your loving mother. I never wanted you to know of the monster I once was. Forgive me, my love. Please forgive me my sins. And for the safety of the world, take this to my dear friend Sergei Aslanov in Saint Petersburg. I love you, my sweet Mia. Forever.”
Below is what I assume to be Aslanov’s address.
“Mom was born in Russia,” Mia says in a very small voice.
I stare at her, rage darkening the corner of my vision. “And you only thought to tell me this now?”
“I thought… I.” She pushes her hair back again. “I thought it would make her look guilty.”
“Well, no shit,” I growl at her. I want to shake her. Kiss her. Make love to her over and over. Instead, I shout, “Your mother was probably some sort of double agent, Mia! And you know what?” I tower over her. “You’re probably one too.”
She blinks at me.
“Yeah,” I continue. “I wasn’t sure before, but now I am. This whole innocent act you’ve been feeding me. You really expect me to believe you never made the connection between your mother’s place of birth and the fact that she supposedly worked for the US military at some point? And that she retired, what, nearly twenty-five years ago, but still moved around every year or two for fourteen or fifteen years? Come on. Nobody’s that blind!”
“I’m not blind!” she shouts, her voice echoing through the empty space. “I knew there was something funny, okay? I thought my mother was losing it. Or had dementia. Something wrong up here.” She strikes herself in the head. “But, to tell you the truth, I didn’t really want to think about it much. She was still my mother.” Tears stream down her face and she pushes herself to her feet. “I knew there was something she didn’t want to tell me but… come on! Who draws that conclusion? Never in a million years would I have guessed something like this!”
I scoff. “Give me a break. I should have let that bald asshole take you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
That shut me up. Why didn’t I? Because my instinct told me he wasn’t a Fed, at least not on my side of the law. A Fed doesn’t jump people like that. They ask questions. Show their badges. Or a warrant. The guy who jumped us did nothing on protocol.
Neither are you.
That stops me. I’m not following protocol either right now. I’m aiding a who knows what… a spy, an innocent woman? I haven’t called my office to share this new development and receive new orders.
Damn. I walk back to the window and survey the grounds, stare at a car driving through the lot. It turns left and I lose sight of it after a few moments.
I need to call the office. Determine the new procedures; get that damn box to D.C.
Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I turn back to Mia and freeze.
She’s gone.
Chapter 10 – Mia
Slipping off my shoes, I stand as quietly as I can, then bend and heave the heavy box up from the floor. Carefully, so very carefully, I pick up my bag and inch toward the door. He’s watching something through the window, totally focused on what’s outside. When he straightens, I bolt and am on the walkway, running on the balls of my feet like Mom taught me when I was little.
Silent as a mouse.
Although I don’t know where I should go, I run, turning the first corner just as he calls my name. My heart is bursting in my chest, my ribs screaming at me to stop. I don’t. I fly down the stairs, taking them two at a time and am at the bottom just as I hear his shoes slapping the floor above me.
“Stop!”
No way in hell will I do that. Not after what he’d just said.
I so want to trust him. I want to hand it all over to him and let him take care of… of whatever this is. I still don’t know. Don’t know what to believe. My mother was a spy? My mother. Mom. How can that even be possible?
And me. He thinks I’m a spy too?
A hysterical laugh bubbles up my throat as I run, heading for the door at the other side of the building. It’s too far. I should have run the other way. I’m not going to make it. I scream as something whizzes past me, punching a small hole into a window fifteen feet ahead.
He’s shooting at me! Mr. Gorgeous is trying to kill me. He’s been playing me all along. I’m so stupid and naïve. Trust no one, Mia. I run harder for the door.
“Get down!” Jax yells, his arm going around my waist. I scream as we both begin to fall. The box goes flying as I lose my grip, skittering several yards away. I brace for a hard landing as the concrete rushes up to greet me. Instead, I land on his chest. He’d rolled, cushioning my body with his.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Even as I roll off him and onto my knees, he’s shooting back with one hand and shoving me behind a concrete wall with the other. I stumble and fall, my elbows and knees taking the brunt, striking the floor as I roll out of the way.
“Come on,” Jax whispers fiercely, helping me to my feet. Two more shots explode from his gun as bullets punch the wall behind him. “Hurry! Grab the box. We’ve got to find another way out of here.”
But my legs are heavy, like they’re rooted to the floor, every movement is like pushing myself through sand. My hands are numb and refuse to do what I need. I try to pick up the box, drop it and pick it up again. I nearly drop it once more when it’s yanked from my hands.
“Give it back!” I pant, reaching for it, but jerk my hands back to hold my ribs. The pain sends bolts of fire up and down my spine. I’ve never experienced pain this intense.
“Come and get it!” he says and grabs my hand, pulling me farther down the hall. I don’t have time to argue, or the breath to argue with. It takes everything inside me just to keep up.
More gunshots explode in the air and Jax ducks behind a large concrete pillar, pulling me close to him while bullets whizz past. He sneaks a glance around the pillar. “The shots are coming through a broken window, but they’ll be inside soon. We need to be out of here before they are.”
I press my ba
ck to the cool concrete and glance around. Dark and cavernous, most of it lay deep in shadow. Even the light coming through the large windows is filtered through the layers of dirt and grime until it becomes as weak as twilight. Through the dimness, I see a rectangular outline, far across the wide open floor. “Is that a door?” I ask, pointing.
He pulls a new clip out of his pocket and shoves it into the gun. “Could be. You run for it. I’ll cover you, on my mark.” He looks around the pillar again, pulling back quickly as a shot echoes through the warehouse.
“What about you?” I ask. “Give me the other gun, I’ll cover you once I get there.”
He stares at me, like he’s trying to read my mind.
“I can shoot,” I insist, holding out my hand.
I see the moment he makes the decision. Really, he has no other choice if he wants a chance in hell of making it across the open space. Pulling the gun from his waistband, he flicks it off safety and thrusts it into my hands.
“Give me your bag,” he says, and I hand it over. He dumps the metal box inside, then hooks it over his shoulder. I want to argue, but know this makes better sense. I’m struggling as it is, without its extra weight. I have to trust him this much. I’m helpless without him.
“Ready?”
I’m not, but I nod anyway.
“Go!”
Gunfire explodes, and I take off, running as hard as I can. Concrete shatters just inches in front of me. I zig left, then right, another trick Mom taught me. Had she known, even from the time I was little that I would one day be running for my life?
Diving behind the concrete column closest to the door, I’m stunned to still be alive. I take a deep breath and turn, catching Jax’s eyes. “Go!” I yell and come around the column, shooting one bullet after another, not stopping even when the concrete explodes, and a piece of it lodges in my cheek.
In seconds, Jax is beside me, pulling a new magazine from another pocket. He hands it to me and then jams one into his own gun.
“Cover me,” he shouts. “That door is bolted. I’ll need a few seconds to get it open.”
Nodding, I look around the column, my heart hammering so hard in my chest I can feel it in my ears. Every breath is a knife in my lungs, but my hands are amazingly steady. More than I ever imagined them to be.
“Go!”
At his order, I come around the column, firing as fast as my finger will pull. Three, no four men in black suits scatter. They’re inside now. I watch one of them pull what looks like a grenade from his pocket.
“Jax!”
Shots boom behind me just as sunlight slices a path into the room. “Go, go, go!” he screams at me, and I don’t hesitate, just turn and run toward the light.
“Grenade!” I yell and see his eyes grow wide.
He turns, and with a hand at my back, pushes me out of the door, then shoves me to the right. “Get down!” he shouts, and I hit the ground, just as the windows above me explode.
“Go, go!”
I’m struggling to my feet even as he’s saying the words, I take a step and go down as a large shard of glass cuts through my bare foot. He’s immediately down on one knee yanking the glass out, then he hauls me up, his arm around my waist.
“Can you run?”
I don’t have the breath to speak, so I take off, the limp not as bad as I thought it’d be. He lets go of my waist and grabs my hand, pulling me behind him. I look back when metal slams on metal and to my horror, see a red trail behind me. I don’t care so much about the blood as I care that I’m leading these people right to us.
“This way,” Jax says and pulls me into a dark, narrow alley, filled with garbage and a smell I’d rather not know the source of. Rot and filth and probably the waste of countless indigents who had called this home at one point or another.
“I’m leaving a trail, Jax.”
He looks behind me and sees it too. He curses, steps out of one of his shoes, and takes off a sock. He slides the shoe back on and lifts my foot to his thigh. Instead of slipping it on like I thought he would, he ties it around the cut, creating a makeshift bandage.
“Now what?” I ask, breathless, having to force every word out. “Where do we go?”
“We?” he asks, sarcasm dripping from his mouth. “I thought you were trying to run away from me.” His eyes narrow even more, and he yanks the gun from my hand, stuffing it in the waistband of his pants again.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I spit out, anger rearing its head as I shake the numbness from my fingers. “Thanks for the reminder.” I reach for the bag, dragging it from his shoulder and spend a good five seconds playing tug of war with him before he yanks it out of my grasp.
“Stop it. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Not giving me time to protest, he pulls me behind him to the end of the alley, looking left and right. “There’s a building under construction,” he says. “We need to cross the distance to it as quickly as we can. I know it hurts, but you have to run. Hard.”
I nod, and he takes off, and I’m once again dashing behind him. I stay on my toes, grateful that the cut is on my heel. I look behind me. No blood. I’m grateful for that too.
Up ahead is a five-story building that has to be our target. There’re dozens of cars parked out front, and a delivery driver having a cigarette at the back entrance. As we approach a door, I expect us to go inside, but he pulls me past it and around the building.
“Where are we going?”
He lets go of my hand and runs to an old truck parked nearby. He lifts the handle and curses before trying the truck next to it. Two cars and a truck later, a door opens. “Come on,” he yells. It’s unnecessary, because I’m already heading to the other side.
He flips down the visor and lifts the floor mat. He flashes me a smile when he produces a set of keys and tosses the bag into the back seat. “Get in.”
I open the door and freeze. He’s there, rounding the building. The bald man in black. Even as terror shoots another dose of adrenaline through me, he lifts a gun, pointing it straight at me. I dive into the passenger’s seat.
“Go, go!”
Jax doesn’t even question me, just jams the keys into the ignition, cranks the engine and throws the truck into reverse. The side mirror explodes, and two quarter sized holes appear in the windshield as we bump over the sidewalk, still going backwards out of the lot.
He whips the wheel and we donut around, the “oh shit” handle becoming my best friend. He throws it into drive, and we fishtail, tires squealing, smoke pouring out behind us.
“I said get down!” he shouts and pushes my head down as another bullet punches through the glass, the rear window this time.
Sneaking a peak out of the back, the bald man is still shooting but is now thankfully out of range.
“I think we lost him,” I pant and turn around in my seat.
“Fuck!”
I look up and scream. A large black SUV is heading straight for us.
Chapter 11 – Jax
Two black SUVs come roaring at us, one straight ahead, the other coming down a side street on our right. I calculate distance and speed, remembering I’m in an old beat up tank of a truck. I accelerate and our leap of speed is pathetic at best.
No way can I out run them in this thing, but I’m betting we can take a hit much better than them. Trucks like this are made the old way, the best way. Steel.
“Buckle up,” I shout to Mia. When she hesitates, I shout again. “Now!”
She let’s go of the handle over her head and pulls the strap over her chest. A second later, the confirming click is my cue to begin.
The SUV to the right will intersect me first, sacrificing a t-bone. The one straight ahead will attempt to circle around and pin me from the back. At least that’s what I would do, so I think my way through an opposing strategy.
Stomping on the gas, Mia yelps when the truck backfires and we lurch forward. Her hand is back on the handle, the other braced on the dash. “Jaaaaax … caaaars.”
The hand leaves the dash to hit me in the arm, as if I don’t see the two behemoths coming at us.
“See them. Listen to me. When I say ‘now,’ go completely relaxed,” I shout at her.
“What? Are you crazy?”
“Yes and yes. Five seconds, Mia. Completely limp. Wait for it…”
Three. Mia squeals, a sound that starts low and ends up close to a howl.
Two. I jump the curb, heading toward their back quarters.
“Now!”
From the corner of my eye, I see her flop down into the seat like a rag doll, her eyes tightly shut.
One. I see the driver react, yanking the steering wheel a hard right.
It’s too late, the collision is brutal and Mia is back up, screaming again, but I’d timed it exactly right and caught them at their back bumper, causing them to spin into the path of the oncoming SUV.
Even as the two vehicles are still slowing to a stop, I hit the gas, accessing the damage to the front. Crumpled, but not nearly as bad as I’d feared. Engine doesn’t seem impaired any more than it originally was, maybe a little louder when I punch the pedal.
The biggest problem I see, or hear rather, is the screech of the bumper being dragged underneath, sparks flying out behind us.
“Hold on!”
I smile as she goes all rag doll on me again. Not exactly what I was requesting, but it will work. I jump a curb and feel the bumper break loose. A quick look in the rearview confirms that I lost it.
“All clear,” I say and she raises up, looking around.
“Did we lose them?” she asks.
“For the moment, but we’ve got to hide. They’ll be after us again. We only have a few seconds head start.”
“What are we going to do?” Her voice is shaky, but she’s holding it together pretty well. Damn. I still don’t know if she’s playing me. Is she truly an innocent woman trying to be brave? Or a well-trained spy acting being scared? It pisses me off that I can’t be certain.
Badass: Deadly Target (Complete): Military Romantic Suspense Page 7