Chapter Ten
Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. ~Sun Tzu
He woke to silence. Lance knew if he moved it would hurt like hell.
The past few things he could remember streamed through his mind far too fast for him to make sense of what had happened for him to feel like such a pile of shit.
Breathing hurt. Even thinking about moving hurt.
Still, he opened his eyes for a moment and recognized his room in his apartment. In his bed.
He tried thoughts again and failed. Again. Taking slow breaths, not showing he was awake, he thought about what he could recall.
Jasmine.
Painful or not, his cock responded to simply thinking of her. Where was she? Was she okay? He needed to know he could move when the time came. Lance had to protect her. Other things may not make sense right now, but that, that was paramount.
Why the fuck am I in so much pain?
The sound of glass crunching filtered back from the front of his apartment. He flexed his hand and froze when the grooved rubber of a sidearm was beneath his fingertips. A familiar scent pushed through his worry and settled him. He knew that smell. It belonged to one woman.
Jasmine.
She was here. Together, they would figure it all out.
And survive.
That was non-negotiable because he wasn’t anywhere close to being done with this woman yet.
Hushed whispers came in Croatian and he curled his fingers around the gun’s grip best he could. A shadow filled the doorway before moving forward. The lead person of the ones there halted as the silence was split by a single growled word.
“Stati.”
The men listened and he opened his eyes to find Jasmine slowly coming closer from where she’d been hidden in the corner, not one but two pistols leveled. One at each man.
“Dusan wanted us to make sure he was okay.” Leader Man held his empty hands out to his sides.
Lance struggled to a seated position. One glance to the woman he was fast falling for and he knew this was seconds away from going sideways. Pure fury flickered in her expressive eyes. To him. He doubted they knew their lives were forfeit.
“So that means you break into an apartment without announcing yourself?” She gestured with the gun. “Back up. I want you out of this room. Don’t piss me off between here and the living room and I may think harder about killing both of you.”
The men complied and Lance swung his legs over the side of the bed.
“You stay put,” she growled without taking her attention off the other two.
“No can do, baby. I don’t like men near you.”
One shifted slightly to the left and Jasmine fired a round right into his kneecap. He went down with a howl.
“That was the one warning shot. Neither of you get another.”
“Bitch. You shot me.”
Lance reached for her shirt but only grasped air as she slid right up to the man and put the muzzle to his forehead. He whimpered and Lance swallowed. He didn’t want to clean up more blood. Hell, he’d lost enough himself that would have to be cleaned.
A coldness emanated from Jasmine, one he’d seen when they had been in Atlanta and she had been the heartless, drug-dealing crazy woman who’d made him want to punch something.
More pieces clicked into place when it came to the mystery of Jasmine.
Lance began to understand how truly good she was at blending in and not being seen, even while she stood out in such outrageous fashion.
She dipped her head closer to the man, the weapon trained on the other goon never once wavering, and murmured something to him. Lance couldn’t hear well enough to make it out but he was fairly certain whatever she whispered to him was in Croatian.
The other man tossed his sidearm away and held out his hands before slowly approaching the one she’d shot. He wouldn’t meet her gaze as he hefted up his partner and helped him back out of the bedroom.
No sounds came from Jasmine as she followed them. Lance heard more crunching of glass on the floor but nothing from her. Not a single step. By the time he struggled out to the living room, it was empty. Shards of broken glass littered a few places in his apartment—the hallway, under the window.
He smirked. She was damn good. His amusement fell away as he didn’t like her being away from him. Especially with me feeling like shit.
A sound from his kitchen and he turned to see Dusan there. Fear sliced through him and he lifted his Glock. But the man didn’t move from the chair. In fact, he seemed a bit ashen.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for your psycho woman to get back and disarm the fucking bomb on my chair.”
Lance’s phone rang and he picked it up from the shelf he was beside. At the table, Dusan stiffened and watched him with wide eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Get some clothing on and leave. Tell that fucker that once you’re in the clear, I’ll disarm it.
Not until then. Get down here and find a white Honda Pilot.
Passenger side rear. Let the man take you to a safe house.
I’ll meet you there.” She delivered the words, brisk and emotionless. Jasmine clicked off.
Lance longed to argue but his body was fading and he recognized he didn’t have a lot of time before he went down like that man she’d shot in the kneecap.
“Guess I’m leaving. She did say she would be up to disarm it once I was out of here.”
“You made an enemy today.” The man narrowed his gaze.
“I’m not the one who tried to have me killed today.”
“That wasn’t me!” Dusan slammed a meaty hand on the table, only to freeze when beeping filled the air. “I trusted…trust you, Lance.”
“Didn’t seem that way when your own son tried to rape and kill me.”
“My son.” He shook his head. “Is not right, up there. I have given him too much leniency. This will change.”
Lance watched the sweat bead and roll down his temple.
Without a word, he hobbled back to his bedroom and dressed in gray sweats, tugging on an oversized hoodie.
Pulling his go bag from the closet, he left the apartment.
He had no clue where he was going but as much as he didn’t trust Dusan, he fully trusted Jasmine.
He walked out on the man bellowing his name. No sign of Jasmine out here but he immediately spotted the white Pilot and slowly got in the back. The Black man at the wheel didn’t say a word, just flicked dark eyes to him in the rearview before putting the vehicle in gear and driving off.
Ten minutes in and he grimaced as he shifted toward the door and flexed the hand on his weapon. “Where are you taking me?’
Emotionless eyes met his for maybe half a second before returning to the road. No answer forthcoming.
They drove down into a parking garage and Lance’s eyes struggled to stay open. Yeah, he hadn’t healed up enough. The vehicle stopped and the door opposite him opened and he lifted his hand in time to see another man sliding a body that looked eerily similar to himself into the seat.
His side opened and he nearly fell. “What the fuck is happening?”
A woman stood there, tall and built like she should be a starter in the NFL. She was stunning, however, and she canted her head to the left. “Walking on your own, handsome, or do I have to put hands on you?”
Lance skimmed his gaze over her, taking in the orange-red hair drawn back in a ponytail. Metal studs lined her face and she cocked an eyebrow. “Looks like I’m carrying you.”
Damn if she didn’t simply scoop him out of the seat and walk the ten paces to where another SUV sat idling, back door open. She put him on the seat and followed him in, drawing the door shut after her.
“Move.”
As she spoke, she reached down to a bag at her feet and pulled out a syringe. Lance wasn’t mobile enough to deflect the poke and as his eyes grew heavy, well, heavier, he glanced to the front and found the man he would have sworn had been driving the Pilot.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“My girl put in a rescue for you. Settle back, man. We got this. You’re safe.”
Head lolling back, he struggled valiantly to stay awake. “Jasmine?”
“The beauty will be along in due time.” A dry chuckle. “Don’ worry your pretty head over her.”
He could no longer fight the results of the beating combined with whatever he’d been given with the syringe. Eyes closing, he swallowed.
“She’s mine. You…you don’t get her.”
That same low laugh, oddly comforting and disturbing at the same time. “You can’t hold onto smoke, it always slips through your fingers.”
Didn’t he know it. “Mine.”
He hoped to God he’d wake up again and she would be there.
* * * *
Jasmine sat at a picnic table and took photos with her phone of two men meeting and doing their best to look as if they were doing anything but.
She didn’t know either of them personally but knew enough to comprehend that one worked for the government and the other had his toes dipped well into the underground world.
They shouldn’t be meeting.
Especially not in such a manner.
Children ran around, mothers sat and gossiped with friends, nannies too, watching over their charges. Dogs barked, some kids cried and more laughed. On the surface, it was the picture of idealistic life.
Not anything I would have assumed ever having for myself.
At least not until she’d gotten to know her twin sister, Caroline.
Her heart twisted at the thought of not being able to see her nephew again, or her sister.
No, things weren’t great between them, but it was hard to get close to your only sibling when you couldn’t risk talking to her or she would be in danger.
She shook her head. Thoughts for another time.
When the meeting broke up for those two men, she waited another twenty minutes and continued acting as if she were taking selfies still before she got up and blended into the crowd moving along the street by the park.