by Anna Blakely
Oh so carefully, Gabby kept her eyes locked on Zade, groaning as she sat up and slid from the Table of Horrors. Her left hand shot out when her feet hit the floor as a wave of dizziness washed over her.
From adrenaline, fear, or blood loss, she wasn’t sure. Most likely, all three.
“You okay, baby?”
No. “I’m good.” She didn’t dare nod her head. Not with that damn knife still at her throat.
Leaning down to speak directly in her ear, Andino said, “We’re going to go up these steps behind me and back out the way we came in. You’re going to drive us out of here, just like before. No stopping for anyone or anything. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Gabby blinked sending twin tears down over her cheeks.
“Don’t fucking do this, Andino!” Zade kept his gun pointed at Hector.
She felt herself being pulled back toward the steps.
Zade advanced, his strong legs taking one, huge step forward. “Stop. Fucking. Moving!”
But Andino didn’t listen. He kept right on pulling, the knife wobbling a bit as she did her best to move with him.
“Shoot him, Zade,” Gabby told the man she loved. “He’s going to kill me the first chance he gets, anyway.”
“Shut up!” Andino jerked her up the steps.
“Zade, please! Don’t let him get away with what he’s done to those girls. To Sam.” Her voice cracked again. “Shoot him!”
“Easy, baby. I don’t want you getting hurt any more than you already are.”
“I’m already dead, Zade.” Tears fell from her eyes. “Don’t let it be for nothing.”
“No!” He advanced another step. “You are not dying today.”
She saw the slight tremble in his gun and knew. He was terrified of hurting her. Terrified for her.
“I love you,” Gabby blurted. She needed to make sure he knew that. They’d already said the words earlier, but she needed him to know it.
Andino jerked her again. Another nick of her skin, but Gabby ignored it. She was too busy listening to Zade say…
“I love you, too, baby. So much.”
“Good.” She offered him a quivering smile. “That’s all I needed to hear.”
“I said, shut up!”
Andino was losing it. Gabby knew what she’d said was the truth. This man was going to kill her no matter what.
May as well go down fighting.
Staring deep into Zade’s maddeningly intense eyes, she prayed he understood what needed to be done.
Filling her lungs with a steeling breath, she reminded Andino, “And I told you, I’m not very good at taking orders.”
In one crazy, hail-Mary move, Gabby raised her left hand and grabbed the hand that held the knife. At the same time, she turned her head to try to prevent her throat from being cut further. Gabby then pushed her body back against Andino’s, throwing the man off-balance.
“Gabby, get down!”
Zade didn’t need to shout the order. She was already well on her way.
Releasing his wrist, Gabby jumped down, off the few steps they’d managed to climb. As the bullets flew from Zade’s gun, her body landed in a less-than-graceful sprawl in the puddle of blood Agent Drake left behind when he’d stood.
It was over within seconds.
“Gabriella!”
Zade sprinted to her. On his way, he bent over and grabbed the gun that was still lying in the corner. Shoving both weapons in his waistband, he knelt down next to her.
“Baby?”
He was there. His hands were there. They seemed to be everywhere all at once as they checked over her wounds.
“I-I’m okay.”
Maybe okay was a bit of a stretch. Her head was still pounding, her arm hurt like a bitch, and she was pretty sure she’d gotten another cut when she’d pushed Andino’s knife away from her neck.
But she wasn’t dead, so that was a win in her book.
“Fuck, there’s so much blood!” Zade’s voice shook. This strong, handsome, hero of hers was shaking from head to toe.
She looked back toward the stairs, where a very-much-dead Hector Andino lay. Rot in hell, asshole.
Gabby’s gaze slid back to the man of her dreams. “It’s not all mine.”
“What?” He half-listened. His hands were still checking her over.
“Zade, stop!” Gabby grabbed one of those hands and squeezed. “Seriously, I’m all right. Most of this is his.” She tipped her chin toward the man walking toward them.
“Christ, I’m glad that’s over.”
The man whose name Gabby was almost certain was Sawyer sauntered over to them. He was bleeding like a stuck pig, but there was a kindness in his eyes she hadn’t seen before, and nothing about the way he moved was threatening in the least.
Still, she had to ask, “Are you really with the DEA?”
Her question had Zade shifting his body to put himself between her and the other man.
Always trying to protect me.
Her heart flipped inside her chest. It seemed to do that a lot when he was around.
“I swear on my mother’s grave.” He started to hold up a bloody hand but decided against it. “I’m sorry about your head. I didn’t want to hurt you, but he gave the order. Had to make it look real. If I hadn’t, either my cover would’ve been blown, or you would’ve gotten caught in an up-close and personal battle.” The guy shrugged his good shoulder. “I figured if you were unconscious, it would buy me some time to—”
He didn’t get to finish because Zade had shot up to his feet, his large hand choking off the rest of whatever Agent Drake was trying to say.
“You hit her?”
“T-to protect h-her.”
“Zade.” Gabby stood and put a hand on his back. “It’s okay.”
He didn’t look at her as he spoke through a set of clenched teeth. “He hurt you, baby. That shit sure as fuck is not okay.”
Maybe not, but… “I’m all right, now. Besides, you can’t very well kill a DEA agent.”
“Give me one good reason why not.”
“You’ll go to prison, for starters.”
All three heads turned toward the stairs. The door at the top was open and Matt, Fletch, and Hollywood were all staring down at the gruesome scene.
Gabby expected Zade to let go of the other man immediately. He didn’t.
“You ever lay a hand on her again, I will kill you.”
“Understood.” Agent Drake’s response was barely over a whisper.
“And don’t even think about trying to leave until I can verify you are who you say you are.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
With a final glare, Zade finally let him go. He turned back toward the men on the stairs. “Seriously? You couldn’t have shown up five minutes earlier?”
“What?” Matt looked down at Andino and over to the man Zade had been choking out. “Looks to me like you had things under control.”
Zade opened his mouth to let his teammate know what he thought of that particular assessment when all of the sudden, his expression changed. “Kole?” He nearly shouted the other man’s name.
Gabby’s heart was in her throat as she waited to hear. Thankfully they didn’t have to wait long.
“Kole’s fine,” Matt assured him. “Truck just checked in with us. Kole was coming to when they got to him. He’s bruised as hell and beyond pissed, but he’s good.”
“Told you,” Sawyer muttered.
Zade swung a fierce gaze around and started to say something when they all heard a woman’s excited voice.
“Gabby!”
Her focus shot to the door Zade had busted in earlier. Like when he’d first appeared, she could hardly believe her eyes.
“Sam?”
The two women ran to each other, nearly knocking one another down with their joint embrace.
“Oh, my God! You’re okay!” Gabby pulled away. Much like Zade had done to her, she started running her hands along her sister’s body. “Are yo
u hurt?” Her eyes landed on Sam’s bruised face.
Gabby swung her head around and glared at Sawyer. “Did you do this to her? So help me…” She started for him, ready to put her own hands around the lying bastard’s neck, but Sam grabbed her wrist to stop her.
“No, Gabby! It wasn’t him.” All eyes in the room focused on Sam. “It was one of the other men. Eduardo was sort of…nice to me.” Sam’s eyes moved from Gabby’s to Sawyer’s and back. “H-he stepped in a few times when Hector tried to…oh, my God!” ‘Eduardo’ was momentarily forgotten when she spotted Andino’s body. “Is he dead?”
Rather than expect Gabby to answer, Sam looked to Zade for confirmation.
Zade nodded. “He’ll never hurt anyone else, ever again.”
Everyone in the room watched silently as Sam walked over to the steps. She stared down at Andino for a few long seconds before spitting on the asshole’s corpse. Without a word, she came back over to where Gabby and Zade were standing.
Tears welled in Sam’s blue eyes as she looked up at Zade. “Thank you for keeping your promise.” Wiping at her damp face, she slid a glance to Gabby and smirked. “You’d better hang on to this guy. If not, I might have to steal him.”
Gabby laughed even as tears streamed down her own cheeks. She hugged her sister as if she never wanted to let her go.
“Not a chance, Sam,” Gabby whispered. “That one’s mine.”
Chapter 20
“You sure you don’t want to stay another night, just to be safe?” Zade brushed some hair from Gabby’s forehead and tucked it behind her ear.
Jesus, he’d come so damn close to losing her. To losing everything.
“It’s a few cuts and scrapes, Zade.” Gabby shifted on the noisy hospital mattress. “I don’t need to stay two nights for that.”
He stared down into her emerald eyes. God, she was beautiful. “You were drugged.” With what they now knew to be Ketamine, thanks to the traces found by the docs here. “After that, you were knocked unconscious. You could have a concussion.”
Thanks to that bastard, Drake.
That shit still made his blood boil.
The first thing Zade had done after his team arrived and Gabby and Sam had their sweet, but brief, reunion, was to have Matt check out Gabby’s wounds. The second he confirmed she was, in fact, going to be okay, Matt did a field examination on Sam.
Gabby stayed with Sam, and though he hated to leave Gabby’s side for even a second, Zade had but only to check out Drake’s story. As it turned out, the bastard was telling the truth.
Sawyer Drake had been a DEA agent for six years. He’d been working the Andino cartel angle for the past eleven months, finally breaking through and joining Hector’s crew six months ago.
Exactly as he’d claimed.
According to Drake, he’d been trying to get his boss to use what he’d already gotten on Andino to put the asshole away. Drake’s boss, the greedy bastard, had wanted this one last auction as the final nail in Andino’s coffin. So Drake had been forced to continue with his cover.
The son of a bitch was damn lucky Zade had been aiming for the shoulder in order to get him to drop the gun.
Much to Zade’s dismay, they’d been ordered to give the agent a ride back to Texas, since his cover was no longer needed. Zade couldn’t believe the guy’s nerve when he found him hovering in the hallway outside Sam’s hospital room after he’d been treated for the through-and-through Zade had gladly given him.
Drake claimed he wanted to check on Sam. Make sure she was okay. Zade had promptly threatened to call security and have them toss the ballsy agent out on his ass.
Sawyer Drake made his first good decision of the day and left of his own accord.
“I’ve been checked out by Matt, Truck, and the doctor here. I don’t have a concussion.”
Gabby’s sweet voice tore him away from his angry thoughts.
No, she wasn’t concussed, thank fuck. But she did have one hell of a bump on her head. That and a row of stitches down her upper arm, not to mention a bandage over the cuts Andino’s blade had left on her neck.
Zade had no idea what he was going to see when he first kicked that door in. But if there were any doubts to how the scenario would end, they had vanished the second he saw that knife at his woman’s throat.
It had been his job to protect her. To keep her safe. Instead, he’d sent her out that damn window and right into the hands of a fucking monster.
“Stop.”
The whispered word had his eyes meeting hers. “What?”
“I know what you’re doing, and you need to stop. This wasn’t your fault.”
“The hell it wasn’t. I sent you away. If you’d stayed with me, you could’ve come with me downstairs. We could’ve gotten Sam out and gone back out the way we came. Andino never would’ve gotten his hands on you. Kole’s chest wouldn’t be covered in bruises, and you wouldn’t have twenty-four stitches in your arm.”
Kole had fallen all over himself apologizing for ‘letting’ Andino take Gabby from the SUV. Zade had promptly told him to get his head out of his ass and remember the little speech he’d given Zade at the bar.
Tossing Kole’s own words back to him struck a chord somewhere deep inside Zade. For the first time since he’d been shot, Zade began to accept that he had no control over the events of that day. He knew he’d probably still have nightmares about that and what had happened to Gabby and her sister. But the healing process had finally begun.
Samantha Shoemaker was in the room right next door. She was checked out properly and had given her statement to the authorities. Other than some dehydration and bruising, the lucky woman was fine.
The doctor had even confirmed she hadn’t been sexually assaulted. Another miracle, given who’d taken her.
“I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”
“No you wouldn’t.” He shook his head. “Drake would’ve killed Andino if I hadn’t come into that room.”
He could tell she was considering his valid point. “I’d still have twenty-four stitches in my arm,” she pointed out.
Also a valid point. Still…
Zade reached over to where her hands were resting in her lap and took one in his. Caressing her soft skin with his thumb, he let go of everything he was feeling.
“The other night we talked about what happened to me a couple of months ago. Do you remember that whole story?”
Gabby nodded. “A man named Adrian Walker shot you and kidnapped Matt’s wife.
“That’s right.” He swallowed a giant lump filling his throat. “When I saw that gun pointed at me, I was certain I was going to die. I’d never been more terrified.”
She squeezed his hand. “But thank God, you didn’t die that day.”
His lips curved upward, forming a slight smile. “No. I didn’t. But you almost died last night.”
He’d thanked God more times than he could count that she hadn’t.
As soon as they had cleared the scene at Andino’s place, Bravo had boarded R.I.S.C.’s private jet and got the hell out of Mexico and back to Dallas. After landing at Homeland’s private airstrip, conveniently located next to the agency’s medical facility, Zade and the others had insisted both Gabby and Sam be checked out more thoroughly.
Zade may have also talked Ryker, their Homeland handler, into ensuring the two women were admitted for observation for a minimum of one night.
Friends in high places came in handy.
“Zade, I’m fine. Really.”
“I know you are.” Keeping her hand in his, he rested a hip on the bed next to her covered legs. “But you need to know when I kicked that door down and saw you lying there, strapped to that fucking table…” His voice turned thick, and Zade had to clear the emotional ball away before continuing on. “When I saw Andino’s knife and realized you were the one bleeding, and when it looked like Drake was going to shoot you, I…”
That time his voice cracked, and his nose began to burn. He looked down at their
joined hands, the image blurring behind tears he had no hope of stopping.
Zade closed his eyes, sending those tears down his face and onto the stark, white sheet below.
“Zade,” Gabby whispered his name again.
He looked up at her. She was lying in a hospital bed, her deep, red hair flowing around her shoulders. She had stitches in her arm and that damn bandage on her neck, and fuck if she wasn’t the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
“I love you, Gabby. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone. I know we’ve already said it, and I know it’s crazy given the short amount of time we’ve known each other, but I don’t care. When I came into that room and thought I was going to lose you…baby, that scared me more than when I thought I was going to lose my own life that day in the car.”
Because he loved her more than life itself.
Silver streaks ran the length of her cheeks. “I love you, too, Zade. The amount of time spent together, that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is this.” She held up their joined hands. “And what I feel here.” She used her free hand to pat her chest, right above her heart. “What I feel for you…that’s the only thing that matters to me.”
Zade stood and leaned over her. He pressed his lips to hers and whispered, “What we feel for each other.”
Gabby smiled. “That’s right.”
Someone behind him cleared their throat. Zade turned to see Jake McQueen, owner of R.I.S.C. and his boss, standing in the doorway.
“Sorry to interrupt. I wanted to come by and check on things.” The former Delta operative walked into the room.
“Hey, Jake.” Zade attempted to discreetly wipe his face dry before offering his hand to the other man.
His boss shook his hand in return. “King. And you must be the infamous Gabriella I’ve heard so much about.”
“Hi.” She smiled and held out her hand. “Please, call me Gabby.”
“Gabby.” His boss smirked. “Quite a grip you have there.”
“Thanks.”
“You doing okay? You need anything?”
“No, thank you.” She glanced up at Zade. “I have everything I need.”
Jake’s gaze slid between the two. “I can see that.”