Chapter 16
Jagger was dreaming. He knew this, and yet, he couldn’t bring himself to wake up. He wanted to stay right where he was, consumed in the magical world his subconscious had created. One where he sat on the beach watching Talia splash in the water with a little girl who looked just like her.
They laughed and giggled, filling his every cell with more love and joy than Jagger had ever known. He stood from the sand, the tiny granules falling effortlessly from his skin as his bare feet left footprints in his path on the way to his family.
My family.
Yep. This was definitely a dream. A perfect, beautiful, wonderful dream he wanted to lose himself in forever.
A clap of thunder interrupted from somewhere off in the distance. Jagger frowned because the disruptive sound shouldn’t have no place in a scene as serene as this.
He looked up at the sky, finding it the perfect shade of blue. There wasn’t a single cloud for as far as the eye could see, but still something in his gut felt off.
In the dream, Jagger glanced back at Talia and the smiling child just as another loud boom sounded from above. The earth beneath them shook, and a massive, endless chasm began to form in the space between them.
No!
He started to run for his dream-self’s wife and daughter. Jagger sprinted forward, fear for his loved ones coursing through his veins.
Literal tons of sand poured over the newly formed cliff’s jagged edge. In a rush, he quickly calculated his speed with the distance it would take to leap across the dark and deadly cavern. All he knew was that he needed to hurry.
If he didn’t get to them in time, Jagger knew to the depths of his soul he’d never see them again. And that damn hole in the ground was growing bigger and bigger with the sky’s rapidly increasing, thunderous bellows.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
There it was again.
Talia’s golden gaze sought his from a growing distance. The features of her beautiful face—and those of the adorable little girl’s—began to fade.
Talia!
His dream self yelled for her, but she didn’t seem to hear. Seconds later, a final hard, loud bang sounded from somewhere behind. Immediately after, he heard a man’s deep voice hollering out his name.
Jagger!
He spun around in the sand to see Jason Ryker walking on the beach toward him. The man’s dark gray suit and black tie seemed noticeably out of place.
Ryker?
“Jagger!”
The alarm in the man’s voice sounded a lot closer than it should.
What the—
“Damn it, Brooks, wake the hell up!”
The room was doused in a sudden flash of light, and it took Jagger a beat to finally peel his eyes open.
“About time your ass woke up.”
Jagger rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Ryker?” His vision focused enough to see the other man standing at the foot of the bed. “What are you—”
“Where’s Talia?”
“What do you mean?” He blinked, glancing at the place on the mattress where she’d fallen asleep. “She’s not here?”
“Do you think I’d be standing here if she was?” Ryker looked as serious as Jagger had ever seen him. “Ah, hell, Jagger. Talia’s missing.”
Talia’s missing?
The man’s words were like a bucket of ice-cold water being poured over Jagger’s head. When his brain finally caught up to the seriousness of the situation, he threw off the covers and shot up from the bed, not caring that he was still buck-ass naked.
“The fuck do you mean, Talia’s missing?” he growled. “She was just here!” His gaze flew to the bedside clock.
Four hours. That was how much time had passed since they’d fallen asleep together.
Where was she? And why the hell didn’t I wake up whenever she left?
A rush of emotion threatened to overwhelm him as he rushed around the room like a madman. In record time, Jagger redressed in the same clothes he’d taken off before he and Talia had last made love mere hours before.
Now she was gone, and Ryker was here, and the man was claiming she was missing, and—
“Wait.” He stopped in the center of the room. Facing the other man, he began tucking the hem of his shirt into the waist of his jeans. “Back up,” Jagger ordered. “Start at the beginning. Tell me everything you know.”
Help me understand what the actual hell is going on!
The worry he found in Ryker’s typically stoic eyes sent a rush of alarming nerves racing through Jagger’s veins.
“I called Talia over two hours ago to let her know Lopez reached out with claims of having additional important intel on Arlo Sanchez,” Ryker began. “We went back and forth about having you drive her into D.C., but she insisted she was fine coming in by herself.”
Ah, hell.
Ryker continued explaining, “I tried calling her after forty-five minutes passed by without her showing. Every time I tried, it just rang several times before going to her voicemail. Talia never texted or called me back. I even tried calling you, too. But those calls didn’t so much as ring. Just kept going straight to voicemail.”
Jagger frowned but then remembered he’d left his phone in his pocket when he got distracted making love to Talia. He reached into his back pocket and pulled it free, his gut tightening with dread when he realized the battery was dead.
Dammit! What if Talia tried calling me, too? What if she tried calling for me help?
It was a dark, dark path, and one Jagger couldn’t allow himself to follow. Not now. Not when Talia needed him to be at the very top of his mental game.
“You put a trace on her location?” He forced himself to think like an operator instead of a man in love.
Ryker shook his head. “We tried, but…” His voice trailed, and it was clear there was more the Homeland agent didn’t want to say.
Jagger froze, the blood in his veins turning to ice from the uncharacteristic avoidance of the other man’s gaze.
“But what?” His throat began to tighten, and it was getting harder and harder to swallow with every second that passed.
“Dammit, Jason, you said you tried pinging Talia’s location, but what? What is it you’re not telling me?”
“We found her car under a bridge along the George Washington Memorial Parkway.” Ryker’s dark brown eyes finally returned to his.
“The doors were locked, and her purse was in the passenger seat. When we got it open, we found her wallet and both phones inside. Credit cards, a little cash, her driver’s license…
it was all there. The only thing that appears to have been taken is—”
“Talia.” Jagger barely managed to choke out her name.
Oh, God.
The air in his lungs ceased to exist, and his legs began to quiver. The shadowed walls around him spun like a top, and it was all he could do not to fall to his knees in utter despair.
How the fuck did this happen? Two hours before, Talia had been sound asleep in his arms. And now…
A thought struck that had Jagger immediately regaining his control before storming out of the room with Ryker hot on his heels.
“Where are you going?” the other man asked as he worked to keep up with Jagger’s broad, swift steps.
“I need to check on something outside,” he explained.
It was all he said as he threw open the door, and the two men exited the apartment.
“You wanna fill me in, or am I just supposed to start guessing?” Ryker’s frustration was impossible to miss.
They walked side-by-side along the sidewalk to the parking lot adjacent to the building. As they moved, Jagger scanned the area with his head on a constant swivel.
“Someone from Echo Team was supposed to be here.” He purposely increased his pace. “They’ve been rotating shifts, staking out the place in case our bomber somehow figured out we were here.”
“I’m assuming Talia didn’t know you were having the place watched?”
“Not at first.” Jagger gave a quick shake of his head. “I knew she’d say no, but I did it anyway.”
To protect her, because I needed to know I’d done everything in my power to keep her safe.
But his efforts had apparently all been for not because Talia had vanished right out from under his nose. And that damn well should not have happened. Not unless…
Son of a—
“Let me see your phone!” he demanded of the other man.
Ryker didn’t hesitate to offer up his cell.
Dialing a number he was damn glad he’d memorized, Jagger put the phone to his ear and waited. It took four full rings, but Emmett Shaw finally picked up.
“Yeah?” The man’s deep voice sounded rough and gravelly from sleep.
“This is Brooks. I need to know who was supposed to be watching the safe house tonight?”
Emmett didn’t so much as pause before responding with a confident, “It’s Baxter. He showed up at ten, and Blake and I headed out a few minutes later. Why?”
“What kind of car does Jimmy drive?” Jagger didn’t bother getting into all the details right then.
“Uh…a blue Corvette. Again, why?” There was rustling of sheets. “What the hell’s going on, Brooks? Is Baxter in some kind of trouble?”
“I’ll call you back in a second and let you know.” He ended the call.
Jagger spotted the blue sports car almost immediately and headed that way. His heart raced, hoping they weren’t about to find the man shot in the head or stabbed in the heart. Or worse.
But as they approached the vehicle, both he and Ryker pulling their weapons as an offensive move to ward off possible threats, the worry Jagger had felt seconds earlier for a man he barely knew turned into white-hot rage that left his blood boiling with fury.
I’ll fucking kill him.
Jimmy Baxter, the man slated to be Echo Team’s lead sniper, was slumped behind the wheel of his car. Not because he was injured or dead—though that was going to change in about three-point-two seconds.
No, good ole Jimmy was hunched over with his head leaning up against his window because the worthless motherfucker was sound fucking asleep.
“Ah, shit.”
Jagger didn’t bother rapping his knuckles against the window or opening the door. Instead, he spun his pistol around in his hand, fisted the barrel, and slammed the edge of the weapon’s hard, metal butt against the glass.
Hundreds of shards exploded from the window’s rubber-sealed frame on impact.