Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Helo blades. Shit. “You had air support all this time, and you held out on us?” Jesse turned his head from where he lay and watched Oliver deal with Thatcher’s chest and shoulder wounds. “And you, old man, you’re too stubborn to die, I see. Should’ve known.”
Thatcher groaned and rolled his head to the side to face Jesse. They were both on the snowy ground outside the castle, flat on their backs.
Oliver had also been a medic, so he’d successfully removed the knife from Jesse’s abdomen and was currently keeping Thatcher from bleeding out.
“I’m for damn sure not gonna let some assassin’s lapdog finish me. Not going out that way,” Thatcher said around a cough, then looked in the direction of the helicopter flying their way. “No thanks for taking a bullet for you, huh?”
Jesse would’ve laughed, but he knew that’d hurt too much. “Yeah, yeah. You caused this disaster, but you taking a bullet for me should absolve you of your sins, huh?”
“A guy can try, right?” Thatcher’s index finger danced in the air, obviously loopy from the shot of morphine Oliver had given him. “And no, the bird isn’t with me.”
Jesse was a little woozy from the stab wound and morphine as well, so maybe he wasn’t actually hearing chopper blades right now?
“I made a call to an Agency guy I still trust who’s stationed in Austria before we infiltrated the castle earlier. He couldn’t get himself involved with the op, but he offered to arrange a medevac if needed.” Carter crouched next to Jesse and looked over at Thatcher. Carter was pretty banged up, but he was tough and clearly doing his best to act unfazed by the damage to his body. “Need to airlift him from here so he doesn’t croak, I suppose.”
“How considerate of you, Dominick. You sure you don’t want me to die?” Thatcher asked, turning his attention to Carter.
“As nice of an idea as that is, I’d say no one on our team dying tonight is a win.” Carter tipped his chin in the direction of the chopper hovering in search of a landing spot, confirming Jesse wasn’t hallucinating. “Sydney and Ella are en route. They’ll be here soon.”
Jesse tried to sit at the news, but Carter palmed his chest, guiding him back down to remain flat. “How about staying still for now? We don’t know if that knife hit anything important.”
“Right,” Jesse grumbled. “Fine.” He let go of a breath, which . . . hurt. The morphine in him wasn’t quite enough to completely eradicate the pain, but as long as Ella was okay, and as Carter had said, no one on their team had died, he could deal with a knife wound. “What do we know so far? You know, about everything.” Am I making sense? Jesse looked to his right to see another needle in his arm. “Did you just jab me with more morphine?” he asked Oliver.
“Got a problem with that?” Oliver lightly laughed before pulling the needle free of his arm and redirecting his attention to his main patient, Thatcher.
“Fine, fine.” Jesse waited for his vision to be a little less blurry as the drugs moved through his system. “So?” he prompted, waiting for Carter. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been passed out before the guys had dragged him from the castle and to the ground outside.
“Sydney handled the bomb, which you already know. And my guys dealt with the men on the mountainside and took care of the C4 in the mine. So, there was no damage to the historical site. We also confirmed Dragan’s dead. There was an underground tunnel that Zoran used to get in and out of his brother’s home without notice,” Carter explained, rising to his full height, and then he made a come-hither motion, and Gray appeared a moment later.
“I’ll have the Agency handle Zoran’s right-hand man, Aleksa, in Albania. Then all loose ends will be tied,” Thatcher spoke up, and Jesse had nearly forgotten about Aleksa. “Hostages okay? The boy?”
Jesse looked at Zoran’s son, Nikola, now standing alongside Gray. He’d had to witness all that violence. He hadn’t even tried to flee the room during the shooting and fighting either. And that reminded him of McKenna and the hell she’d endured back in Bama. The morphine couldn’t erase the pain from guilt, that was for sure.
“I’m okay,” Nikola spoke up in English. “Better now that I’m . . . away from them all.”
Damn. Okay. Well, that was . . . something. Tough kid.
“Hostages are fine. Bravo Team is handling them. We need to exfil before they call the police,” Carter remarked as the helo finally landed in the distance. “Shit. Hold on.”
Jesse forced himself to sit this time to see what had Carter’s attention. He clutched his abdomen, which was bandaged, and ignored Oliver’s scowl at his movement, which he could only make out in the dark because of the flashlights Oliver had positioned on him and Thatcher so he could see his “patients.”
“I know what you’re going to do, and I’m begging you not to.” Carter held on to Zoey’s wrist, but she attempted to pull free. “He lied. Yuri killed Preston. Don’t go chasing ghosts.”
“I have to know for sure,” she shot back. “If someone else killed Preston that day, I need to know.”
“He was trying to throw you off. It was a mind game,” Carter hissed. “Don’t let this fucker win. Don’t throw away your life for revenge. You have it now.” He tossed his free hand toward the castle. “He’s dead. You have your retribution. Let it go.”
Zoey shook her head as two men from the helicopter hustled Jesse’s way with a stretcher for Thatcher. “I have to be sure,” she reiterated.
“No.” Carter let go of her and surrendered his palms between them. “Please. Don’t do this. Go back to London. Patch things up with MI6. Stop this insanity of?—”
“You’re telling me that if you found out someone else murdered your wife, and they were still out there, you wouldn’t do the same?” she challenged, and Carter’s shoulders fell. “I have to know if Yuri was telling the truth. I have to get to the bottom of what really happened the day Preston died.”
“Zoey.” Carter’s voice faltered this time, and he knew there was no point in fighting her. He tore his hands through his hair. “You’re going rogue, aren’t you?”
“I have no choice. And also, you look like shit. See a medic yourself.” And with that, she took off in the direction of the woods, a fearless woman on her hell-bent mission of revenge.
“Fuck,” Carter cursed under his breath before turning back toward everyone who had been watching the scene unfold like a reality show, but before Jesse had a chance to say anything, he heard Ella’s voice, and his heart paused for a beat.
“Jesse?” Ella called out.
“Ella.” Jesse struggled to get to his knees and clutched his chest, worried his heart might actually stop at the sight of her running toward him.
Ella fell to the snowy ground before him, her eyes going to the bandage wrapped around his abdomen before he reached for her, to hell with the wound. “They didn’t tell me you’re hurt. What happened?” Tears ran down her cheeks as a soft sob left her mouth. Relief? Worry? Fear? All of the above choking her up? And hell, him too.
Jesse pulled back and cupped her cheeks, needing to look her in the eyes, to double-check she was alive, breathing, and had no scratches on her. “I’m fine. Just a stab wound.”
“We need to get you on the chopper, sir,” one of the guys from the helo said, gesturing for Jesse to stand.
“I’m going with him,” Ella cried, holding on to his arm to help, and he hid a groan from the uncomfortable hole-in-the-gut feeling as he rose. “I’m never leaving your side. You’ve got me for life, you hear me?” she whispered, and he closed his eyes at her words and nearly fell back to the ground.
“We have your brothers to deal with back home,” he reminded her as she and the medic helped him to the helicopter to join Thatcher for a ride to the hospital, most likely in a larger city like Salzburg. “Your family. Mine.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” she said, her voice barely audible over the helo blades, and then Jesse stopped walking and turned toward everyone from Falcon still there.
“Thank you,” he mouthed to them, so damn grateful to be part of a team again, to not be on a one-man show.
And moving forward, he promised he’d be a better man and teammate. And the man Ella deserved.