Chapter 4
The blades of the chopper roared mightily, their vibration seeming to beat in time to the rhythm of Jax’s heart. It was three in the morning and they were hugging the landscape, quickly approaching their target.
He closed his eyes, mentally preparing for the extraction. He visualized the layout of the house, the terrain he anticipated from their landing site to the backyard and French doors, where they’d be entering the home. It wasn’t a big house, but it was big enough to hold a hostage.
The husband’s voice played in Jax’s head.
You have to get her back. I don’t know who I am without her.
The poor guy was clearly still in shock, though the sentiment resonated with Jax like some kind of spiritual truth.
He’d been a goddamn mess since he slept with Jessa, worse even than during his divorce.
It was as if with one night together, his entire idea of who he was as a person had been bent over backwards and folded in on itself.
He was a man who liked to be alone.
He reveled in it, for God’s sake.
People were a business he didn’t invest in.
These guys here — Red, Cowboy, Logan, and Hawk — were closer to him than anyone else on the planet.
Hell, even when he was married to Linda he was closer to HERO Force than he was to his own damn wife, and that was just fine with him.
It was natural. He was a rough, cold bastard. Calculating.
What did he have in common with a woman?
But for a moment in time, Jessa had changed all that. From the second she walked into the bar to the instant she walked out of his room, he was with her. Really with her. Like he was one of two, instead of his own person barely tethered to the human race.
He knew he was a considerate lover, always making sure he did what was necessary to give his partner pleasure, but this time he did those things because he wanted to kiss every part of her flesh and taste every hidden fold of her body, wanted to heighten her experience because his own was innately intertwined with hers.
And it had shaken him to the core.
That kind of connection didn’t just walk into a bar and ask you to sleep with it. That kind of connection was something you held on to tightly and defended at all costs.
The chopper dipped and dove. They were getting close now.
You have to get her back. I don’t know who I am without her.
He could see the path through the woods to the door in his mind’s eye, knew how this would go down up until the moment they actually entered the house. Then it was anybody’s guess. Was there one person guarding the wife, or two, or more? Did they have weapons in hand? A clear route of escape?
The wife had been taken from her kitchen two days earlier, a cutting board with half-sliced bread left staling on the counter and a toddler left watching TV. Her husband was a big-time CEO of some Fortune 500 company, and he’d made one too many enemies with his recent revitalization plan.
Her captors had requested a ransom of five point six million dollars. Instead they were going to get their own private war.
The chopper landed and Jax filed out between Hawk and Cowboy, night-vision goggles in place and an AK-47 in each of their hands. They were on a mission to retrieve Mrs. Baldwin, but it was Jessa’s face Jax imagined as they made their way to those French doors and silently slipped inside.
The faint beeping of an alarm system keypad could be heard in the distance, and Red went in search of the sound. If they could destroy the keypad before the thirty-second window passed, the alarm system probably wouldn’t go off.
The crunch of plastic and metal could be heard coming from the kitchen, followed by a piercing alarm that screeched through the house, assaulting Jax’s ears.
So much for the silent approach.
He took the stairs two at a time, Hawk and Cowboy right behind him. Shots rang out from the top of the stairway and Jax returned fire, the shadow of a man half-hidden in a doorway.
Jax wore Kevlar.
Clearly, the other guy did not. Blood splattered the wall behind his falling body.
Jax went quickly around him, knowing one of his men would disarm the tango and be sure he posed no threat. He held his weapon at the ready and cleared the first hallway in search of Mrs. Baldwin.
The incessant wail of the security alarm continued in the background as Jax cleared the first bedroom and moved on to the second.
This time, Hawk went first. He rounded the corner with his gun at the ready. A man stepped out from behind the bedroom door with a pistol, and Jax let off three rounds right into the man’s skull.
Hawk nodded and Jax turned back down the hallway toward the master suite, the only bedroom remaining. He knew Red was behind him, his weapon trained behind them in case more tangos emerged.
Jax inched toward the room and lightly pushed in the door.
Their hostage was tied to the bed, fully dressed, and Jax felt a moment’s relief that it appeared she hadn’t been sexually assaulted. A look of utter panic was on Mrs. Baldwin’s face as her gaze shifted from Jax to a corner of the room he couldn’t see from the doorway.
A string of shots was fired in the room, one after the other, splintering the wood door between Jax and his attacker. He stepped back so he could see through the crack at the door’s hinges and returned fire, landing a shot clear into the tango’s head.
The man fell to the ground.
Cowboy ran into the room and untied Mrs. Baldwin, who was screaming. Jax could hear him trying to calm her down as he and Hawk cleared the closets and bathroom off the master bedroom.
She continued to scream.
“I’ll take her. You go with Hawk and clear the house,” said Jax.
Cowboy nodded.
Jax sat on the bed next to Mrs. Baldwin and saw blood seeping out of the man he’d shot, the spreading stain like red paint spilling onto a carpet. He stood and covered the man with a towel, then came back to Mrs. Baldwin, whose screams had transformed into sobs.
Safe now.
Rescue.
Husband waiting.
“All clear,” said Cowboy in Jax’s earpiece.
When Mrs. Baldwin was quiet, Jax held out his hand for her to stand up, but she didn’t move, so he picked her up and carried her out of the house.
They made their way back to the chopper, closed the door, and were back in the sky in twenty-two and a half minutes.
The woman cuddled in Jax’s lap, clinging to him like a koala bear. But it was Jessa he imagined as he stroked her back, Jessa he saw as they flew back to reality.
Hours later when he fell into bed, Jax would remember the Baldwins reunited, clutching each other as love and horror spilled out onto the floor around them like the kidnapper’s blood onto the carpet.
That was the part Jax would never have.
The reunion.
He cursed violently, punched his pillow, and rolled over.