45. Rhett
I’ve gone over at least a dozen ways I want to kill Jacob Forthson in the ten minutes he’s flaunted his possession of my girl to this venue packed full of rich shits.
Tearing his hands from his body for touching her would be a start. Stabbing my thumbs into his eyes for looking at her would be justified. Cutting off his worthless dick for thinking of her would be next.
“Should we follow them?” Rix asks, sounding as pissed as I am.
“No. She agreed to this and wants to keep things tame for as long as possible.”
“So by the end of the night she’ll leave with him and we’ll try take him out in the car she’s in?” Adam repeats our reckless plan.
I despise it more than he does, knowing Ana will be caught in the crossfire.
“It’s the only time he’ll be without guys surrounding him,” Rix says. “We have a guy who knows how to stop a car with minimal loss of control—something about the timing and which tire to blow when. We’ll take out the driver, then there’ll likely be other cars of his following, and we’ll be ready for them too. It’s the best way to catch them unawares. If all goes to plan, Ana should be completely unharmed.”
If all goes to plan.
I’m pacing like a wild beast inside myself.
“Then we take that bastard to Lanshall and get Allie back,” Rix says, laying a hand on my shoulder tentatively, as if I’m a bomb that might erupt. It isn’t far from fact.
“You really think he’ll just hand her and Liam over?” Adam asks skeptically, ordering a drink.
I slip my volatile sight to him, which has him shrinking away from me a fraction and leaning on the bar.
“What? We have some time to kill, and I’m jittery with the nerves,” he defends.
“I’ll take what you’re having,” Rix says.
Adam orders another.
I keep track of Ana, and if there’s even the slightest note she wants to back the fuck out of this, I’m not hesitating to kill every man in my path to get to her across the room.
“You’re practically vibrating, man,” Rix comments, taking a drink.
I’m reeling from earlier tonight. Getting blindsided by Lanshall thanks to being double-crossed by Silas. But we never should have given him an ounce of trust. Ana was so certain, and though I never trusted Silas, I trusted her intuition about him. I know she’s hurt by the revelation of his true colors, but that’s the thing about a chameleon like Silas, who can shift his colors to make people see what he wants them to.
He truly lives up to the Balenheizer name.
“C-can I offer you a drink?” a voice says from behind us.
It’s so uncannily familiar, but I hope to be fucking wrong.
“You little shit,” Rix hisses, but his face is awash with relief, and he moves toward his younger brother.
“S-stop,” Jeremy says.
I’ve never seen this look of panic on him. Pale, sweaty terror. He’s seen unimaginable horrors and been on the front lines of some very dangerous shit, but I’ve never seen him like this, and it spears my chest with ice.
He’s trying to keep his composure, dressed in a server’s uniform and carrying a tray of three champagne flutes, which trembles. I scan him once, twice.
“What the fuck are you doing here, man?” Rix rambles on. “I’ve been out my mind worried! How could you do this to me? This is the last time?—”
“Rix,” I say.
He stops talking. I think I might stop breathing.
I reach as if to take a flute, but instead I shift the platter an inch, then I confirm the worst possible fucking thing.
Jeremy’s other thumb is taped over a detonator.
“Oh my god, is that?—?”
I squeeze Adam’s shoulder to cut him off, and he nearly folds under my unavoidably tight pressure.
“Shit,” I mutter. Now I’m sweating. There’s no telling how powerful the bomb strapped around him is, but it would be enough to kill him, and I’ve never experienced this type of all-consuming, frozen fear before.
“How fast can Dean get here?” I ask Rix.
He’s my best explosives specialist.
“He’s on the squad. He should be in the vicinity.”
Thank fuck.
“Get him in here somehow. Now.”
I only took my sight from Ana for a moment, but now she’s gone.
FUCK.
We anticipated Jacob would keep her here for at least a few hours. Yet never could we have predicted this stunt, and now it makes sense he would slip out. It licks a new trail of tension down my spine to wonder if there could be a timer or a second detonator and we’re all minutes or seconds away from being blasted to shit.
“Holy fucking shit. What the fuck are we supposed to do?” Adam rambles. He’s losing himself, and I don’t have a shred of headspace to deal with him.
“Get the fuck out,” I order.
“I’m not leaving you guys.”
“I mean this with all the offense in the fucking world, Sullevan. You’re not useful to me here, and if I tell you to fucking jump?—”
“I jump, yeah, I got that.”
My eyes scrunch, trying to calculate more steps ahead, but it’s pretty damn hard to when there’s an explosive kid right in front of me.
“He took Ana out the back way. If you manage to see them, follow her. The others should still have orders to stop her car when they see her leaving.”
To his credit, Adam doesn’t hesitate on that command. He heads to the back of the venue, and I return my focus to Jeremy.
“It’s going to be all right, you hear me?” I say to him. The kid is lost to terror.
“Can you tell ... shit, this is really bad ... tell Rix I’m sorry for disobeying this time. That I kinda wish I hadn’t now.”
“I would say this will teach you, but I’m sure that would be a lie.”
Jeremy eases a pained, trembling smile, trying not to laugh even in his delirium. “I know we’re not supposed to say this, but ... but I’m scared, Rhett. You-you always say fear is a choice, but it really fucking feels like it’s choosing me real hard right now.”
“You’re doing great, kid.”
This whole venue of overindulgent assholes is completely oblivious to the fact they could be in pieces in any wrong move or minute. I’ll admit, the darkest part of me is thinking they probably deserve it. But Jeremy most certainly doesn’t.
The relief of Rix returning is only a small reprieve. “There’s no security anymore. Dean got in through the back.”
The fact security have cleared out is bad fucking news. This was Jacob’s plan all along. I don’t know what all the bastards in here have done to deserve his wrath in being invited to this setup, but he expects this bomb to go off.
I take a deep, calming breath to keep a level head. “Okay, Rix. Pick the most deserving guy you can and follow us once we make it through the back. Jer, we’re going to go real slow. Chat to me, do whatever you have to, but keep calm and most of all steady as fuck, for the love of god.”
“I can do that,” he says, pep-talking himself. “Sure I can. It’s just nice, cushiony padding under this suit. Considerate of them to include crash equipment.”
Not quite what I meant, but whatever gets him moving calmly from here to fucking there.
Rix and I exchange a nervous look and start walking. Every step skips my pulse, every sudden laugh, clink of glass, rise of conversation. The hairs over my body are damn pinpricks.
Halfway. I’m resisting the urge to retrieve my pocket square and wipe my brow. It’s suddenly fifty degrees hotter in here.
“Young man, we’ll have two of those.” An older patron stops him.
I take a breath to collect my sanity. I refrain from the violent impulse to take the flute and jam it down his ancient throat.
Jeremy pauses then tries leaning the tray down, but he’s losing the control on his tremor, which starts to shake the liquid too noticeably. If he spills them, we’re all fucked, and we’ll risk their outrage escalating to physical. Wrestling a human bomb would be their last mistake and all of us would pay the price.
I lean in, plucking the stupid flutes and setting them down against all etiquette. It gains the sneering looks I thought it would, but I force a casual smile.
“Kid’s first day on the job, probably his last,” I say.
They chuckle and agree, luckily losing interest quickly.
“I can’t do this, man,” Jeremy says, his resolve crumbling.
“You’re one of the bravest guys I know. Of course you can.”
“I am?”
“Still the stupidest.”
He huffs a barely-there laugh. “I’ll take it.”
We make it out the back exit with our balls on razors.
There are a couple of back rooms, and we head into one. When I close the door and flip on the light, that’s when the lid on Jeremy’s panic flies right off.
“Oh man, I’m a goner! Ground beef. Just leave me, save yourself.” The last champagne flute shatters to the ground when he lets go of the platter.
“Jeremy, listen to me. Get yourself the fuck together.”
“Y-yes, boss.”
Rix comes in with Dean, dragging a patron through with a bunch of red napkins stuffed in his mouth. “Best I could do with limited resources,” Rix pants, struggling with the man. Dean gives one calculated punch to his temple and knocks the guy right out.
“All right, let me see what we’re dealing with,” Dean says, fixing his attention on Jeremy and pulling out a kit.
“Be careful,” Jeremy quivers.
Dean casts him a deadpan look. “We had bets on how you’d get yourself killed. Most said a bullet, some said drowning, Jackson said you’d get yourself blown up.”
“Nice to know you’ve all been thinking of me,” Jeremy says, casting his sight to the sky, but I think God is up there with popcorn, gloating in our hellish situation.
“You two should get out of here. No point in us all going out if this thing blows,” Dean says to Rix and me.
“No fucking way,” Rix says. “My stupid brother, my stupid problem.”
“Love you too, big bro. Hey, how are Frodo and Sam? Do they miss me?”
“I don’t think?—”
“Just say they miss me, man. I need something.”
“They’re absolutely beside themselves, ready to face Mordor again to find you.”
Jeremy chuckles breathily.
Rix turns to me. “You go. Ana needs you, and we all need her.”
Dean has cut away Jeremy’s shirt, and seeing the packages strapped around his lean body hits the severity home tenfold. I almost can’t think straight.
I’m absolutely torn. These two idiots are my brothers as well. Dean is like family too. But Ana is my life. Nothing means anything without her anymore.
“What’s it looking like, Dean?” I ask.
“It’s advanced. Can’t be certain this is the only trigger.” He reaches for his kit, plucking out a small screwdriver and working meticulously on taking off the control plate.
“My thumb is seriously cramping,” Jeremy says.
“Rix, there’s a blue disk in the kit. I need you to work on getting his thumb off that thing.”
Rix swears, scrambling to find it.
I’m impressed by Dean’s calm demeanor. He’s even helping me feel like he has this thing under control.
He says when Rix finds the disk, “Good. The tape and scissors too. You’re going to have to very, very carefully cut one side of the tape securing his thumb, slide the disk under, and wait for my instruction, but don’t fucking let go.”
“Shit. Fuck. Shit. Balls,” Rix rambles, but he’s quick to act.
I take off my jacket and roll up my black shirtsleeves. I’ve never felt tension like this before, and I’ve been in some huge raids against the city’s most cunning and evil crime lords.
“Go, Rhett. We’ve got this,” Rix coaxes.
I despise having to choose. But there’s nothing more I can assist with here.
“You three get blasted to shit, I’m coming back to fit you together and kill you myself,” I say sharply.
Rix smiles, but it’s heavy, and I fight against every fiber of my being straining to stay. Even though I can’t help, we’re in this mess together no matter what.
All I can repeat in my thoughts as I race to the car is that Rix is right: we do need Ana. I don’t think she realizes just how important she is—not just to me, but to all of them and all of this. She’s brought a new light and joy to us all and has been so strong, smart, and so fucking resilient I ache with awe and pride for her every day.
I’m on autopilot as I drive and fit my earpiece in. I flip through channels until I’m listening in to the communication of the team set up to stop Jacob. At the same time, I tap through my phone until I have Ana’s tracker on my car display screen.
“I’m coming, baby,” I mutter, gripping the wheel tighter with my rage to ruin the city for her.
I don’t like where her location is taking me. My blood boils as I press harder on the accelerator. The white gown gave me a riddling bad feeling from the start. He plans to try to marry my wife.I feel it in my gut with the way he took possession of her tonight.
I haven’t had the chance to give her the ring, wanting it to be perfect, and though she’s agreed to be mine until our bones are dust, I want to keep it as our prize of salvation at the end of all of this.
Getting to the location, I take my gun and an extra loaded magazine before I storm out. Several members of Xoid are nearby, and two of my guys are quick to come out of hiding to flank me.
We bust in there, ready to shoot anything that breathes.
“Whoa, whoa, don’t fucking shoot!”
Adam Sullevan.
“Where the fuck is she?”
It’s just him and a ghostly-pale old priest who holds up his book as if that will stop a bullet passing right through it and into his skull.
“I think we just missed her,” Adam informs me.
Marching down the aisle, I lose my shit, finding Ana’s purse with her phone inside it on the damn seat.
“You might want to see this,” Adam says.
I don’t think I do as I’ll risk detonating. When I glimpse what I expect it to be, my rage is gripped by a moment of confusion when I catch the date on the marriage license. It has to be fake. Forged. Ana would have told me if she’d been forced to make this commitment for whatever reason.
She would have told me, wouldn’t she?
My doubt is cold and cruel. Maybe she thought I would hate her for it. Oh, little bird, a piece of fucking paper means nothing to me.
My foot flies into the desk and it folds. I grip the first chair, slamming it into the wreckage, then the next, until that paper is buried in the fractures of wood. Someone hands me a lighter and a flame catches on the tablecloth, licking along the wood and beginning to devour it. I can’t erase their names side by side on the marriage license from my mind even as I stare at it going up in flames.
“The priest said they only left a few minutes ago,” Adam says.
I say to one of my guys, “The plan is active. Get our guys to stop their car.”
“On it,” Vixon says.
“I’m coming with you,” Adam calls, jogging up to me as I’m already back outside.
“You’re just another body to worry about,” I snap.
“You got another one of those?” he asks, tipping his chin to my gun.
I pause and raise a brow. “Can you shoot?”
He shrugs. “I’ve been to shooting ranges a few times.”
I resist the urge to groan, because that’s hardly adequate experience for this, but I don’t have time to consider. I pass him my handgun and head around to the trunk, pulling out a case of two pistols. I fit one in my waistband and carry the other.
“This is insane,” Adam mutters as we take off in the car. “Did they get the bomb off Jer?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The silence is filled with the accelerating buzz of the engine.
“Listen, I know I said I won’t apologize for anything, but we might very well die tonight, and I guess I feel like I should say you’re good for her. As backward as that feels to say given the shit you’ve dragged her into ... she’s better with you.”
Any other time I might feel something at his words, but truthfully, I wouldn’t care if he told me I’m the worst thing for her. Then I consider what Ana would want. She tagged Adam as a close friend despite everything. I love her fucking heart. And I guess for her, I might try to tolerate Adam being in her life.
“Your speech at the graduation ... she means a lot to you,” I say.
“Yeah, she does. Ana understands me in a way no one has, and I was jealous of you two. I wish we could have worked, but we never would have done.”
I don’t question his sexuality. I’m certain his feelings for Ana were genuine, but not enough for either of them. Now there’s something going on between him and Rix that isn’t my business, but it sure will become it if Adam hurts him.
“Thinking you were gone really broke her. So you stay the fuck alive, all right?”
That manages to pull a single huffed laugh from me. “I plan to.”
“Oh shit,” Adam mutters as I slam the car to a stop.
My world tilts as I stare at the wreckage of cars. Don’t be Ana. Don’t be Ana.
I get out, and when I see the heap crawling across the ground, I know nothing but rage and vengeance. My shoes crunch over car debris, and one car tipped on its side is blazing at the hood. We need to get the fuck out of here before it blows, but I can’t tear my target from Jacob Forthson.
“Where is my fucking wife?” I snarl, kicking his stomach, which throws him onto his back.
“You-you were too late. She’s mine,” he says, smiling with blood-soaked teeth.
I see white. Though I have bullets, I kneel over him, and my fists slam into his face over and over. Gunshots ring out, but I’m lost to violence.
“Rhett!” Adam shouts. I would ignore him, but then he adds, “It’s Ana!”
Her name is the only thing that rears back the monster unleashed within me. I breathe heavily, staring down the bloodied mess of Jacob, who coughs and heaves beneath me.
Snapping my gaze, I find Adam crouched behind the toppled car, gun poised. I’m in the line of fire of my guys against Forthson’s. Two guys come running at me, and I pick up my gun. My surge of instinct is halted when I see the serpent tattoo on one’s forearm.
“What do you need, boss?” one asks. I don’t know the names of everyone in Xoid. The network is expansive, and only a fraction of the members frequent the Den.
“Take him. Tie him up, gag him, do whatever the fuck you want, but don’t kill him yet,” I order.
They nod, covering me as I race across to the car wreck.
Peering down through the shattered car window, my heart tumbles out my fucking ass. “Ana,” I say urgently.
To my immense relief, she’s conscious. A little whimper escapes her as she drops her arms covering her head and peers up.
“Rhett,” she croaks.
“I’m right here, baby. Can you feel if anything is broken?”
“I-I don’t think so,” she says, clearly in shock. She uncurls from herself slowly. My adrenaline races dangerously with the gunshots and the hyperawareness she’s lying in an impending blast zone.
“I need you to get up so I can reach you, baby. Just enough for me to pull you out. Can you do that for me?”
“I think so.”
Every small cry as she slices herself on the pool of glass bleeds through me.
“Good girl, that’s it. Slowly.”
When she’s standing I manage to hook my arms under hers and lift. I know she’s suppressing her sounds of how much she’s hurting.
There’s a moment of reprieve in all this chaos once she’s cradled in my arms, and I duck with Adam behind the car.
“I can’t tell if we’re winning,” Adam says, scanning the area.
It might be hard to check for the serpent identifier our guys have from here. If I were out on the field, I’d know regardless.
“We just have to get Ana back to the car,” I say.
Sirens wail in the distance, and now we really need to get the fuck out of here. Ana needs medical care, but they’d take her from me, and I can’t bear that right now.
“Drive,” I tell Adam, who catches the keys I throw.
I get into the back with Ana, and though it goes against so much of my instinct to leave the field with my guys still on it, I’m America’s most-wanted right now with the president’s daughter in my possession. Xoid will know to clear out now, and I pray we didn’t lose people in this.
“I didn’t want to,” Ana whispers, tucked up on my lap.
“I know, baby,” I say, smoothing her hair.
“I didn’t know about the marriage. He-he made me sign something, and it was reckless of me to do it, but he had your location, and I-I didn’t know. I should have known?—”
“Shh,” I say. “You’re mine, little bird. Nothing can change that.”
She sniffs, giving a weak nod.
“You’re safe now. We need to get you checked out. We’ll go to the Den.”
“No. Please. I’m fine, just cut up and my head aches. I want to go home.”
“Are you tired?”
“Not because I’m too concussed.”
“How would you know?”
“Please, Rhett.”
“Okay, baby.” I kiss her head. “We’ll go home.”