Chapter Fourteen
“The only reason you’re still alive is because I need to make sure you didn’t share your little theory with anyone else.” Senator Hawkes added some distance between them as his military henchman twisted Maggie’s arm behind her back. Wouldn’t want to get any blood on that suit, after all. “As much as I believe what I’ve done here is perfectly within justification for the greater good, I can’t have anyone else coming out of the woodwork, you see.”
A groan escaped up her throat, but she kept it from leaving past her lips. She wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. Any of them. She tried to wrench her arm out of his hold, but bone-deep pain warned of dislocating her own arm. “Well, let’s see. There’s my editor, who you bullied into firing me. There’s the founder and operatives of Socorro Security. You know, the people who have been making sure I stay alive the past few days. Alpine Valley police, who’ve offered to clean up the mess you left behind on the other side of this complex. Oh, and that little circle of friends I curated at every news outlet in the country.”
The senator lost a bit of that smugness etched into the corners of his eyes. He turned to face her fully, waiting for the punch line to drop. Only she didn’t have one. “You’re bluffing.”
“I’m not.” Maggie savored the victory despite the oncoming suffering. Every cell in her body wanted relief. To be out of this room, to go home, to see Jones walk through that door as he had that first time and take her away from all of this. She tried to breathe through the pain igniting in her shoulder socket. “I’m sure you’ve been monitoring my email accounts. Check my outgoing folder. You’ll see I’m telling the truth.”
“Give me my phone.” Senator Hawkes reached back without taking his eyes off her, and one of the soldiers behind him produced the device. Thumbs touched with a bit of swelling at the knuckles thumped too hard against the delicate screen. Shock swept the arrogance from the senator’s expression. If he hadn’t already been washed in light from the surrounding lanterns, she would’ve sworn he’d lost all the blood in his face. “You bitch.”
“After you had my editor fire me, I started collecting a long list of news outlets I want to pitch stories to in the coming months. Bodhi was scared. I could hear it in his voice, and I didn’t think that was ever possible.” Her chest ached at the intersection of her pinned arm and torso. So much so, her nerve endings started tingling. Just as they had in her leg. Maggie tried to force as much oxygen into the strangled limb as she could, but it was no use. “I figured someone with a lot of authority had threatened him to drop me as one of the magazine’s writers, but the evidence I’d gathered didn’t pose any threat. All I had were pieces of a bigger puzzle that didn’t make sense. No big picture. But whoever was behind this wanted me taken out of that picture so much they sent a highly trained military unit who doesn’t question orders. Just follows them. Turns out, I was onto something. So you can tell me that your constituents and the Pentagon will support you after this all gets out, Senator. But I know the truth. You’re scared of losing everything you’ve worked for. And now you know how it feels.”
The strike came so fast, she didn’t have time to brace herself.
Pain ricocheted through her face and twisted her head to one side. Her vision battled to catch up as lightning struck behind her eyes. Maggie recovered quickly with the telltale salty taste of blood. A small cut stung as she probed her tongue through her mouth, and she spat a mouthful at the senator’s shoes. He wasn’t just going to have to get rid of that suit. “And you hit like a five-year-old.”
Senator Hawkes closed the distance between them. “You think you have any leverage here? I’ve been telling the media what it can and can’t do since I took office. None of this is going to make a difference, Ms. Caddel. People might be upset over the next few days, but they’ll change their minds once they see my results. They’ll beg for me to oversee further action against the cartels. I’m going to be their poster boy. And you... You’ll be nothing but a has-been who never really was. A one-hit wonder. Everyone you love, everyone you care about is going to forget you even existed by the time I’m finished.”
A twinge of fear cut through her as the past week with Jones infiltrated the moment. Was that true? Would he forget her? Would she be the assignment that went wrong but had little effect on Socorro’s overall mission? All she’d ever wanted was to be important to someone. To matter. She hadn’t always gotten the attention she’d wanted from her parents or siblings growing up, but that’d been life. Three kids split by four years each demanded different levels of interest from two working parents trying to cover the monthly bills. She’d had friends, sure, but nothing concrete that lasted past high school. Marrying her high school sweetheart after she graduated college started to fill that hole constantly begging for her attention, but within a year, she’d noticed the signs of isolation. Of snide comments on her appearance or how she talked to his friends. Of his expectations of her growing more disciplined and intense. Of never being good enough for the man she’d married. Even during her tenure for American Military News , she’d been shoved to the back of the queue compared to the more veteran reporters.
But with Jones... Everything had been about her. Which sounded so selfish, even in her own mind, that it physically made her cringe. For once, she hadn’t been the one trying to hold everything together. She’d been allowed to eat what, when and however often she pleased without waiting for a nasty comment about her figure. She’d rested without feeling lazy or guilty and put herself and her recovery first for the first time...ever. And he’d let her. Encouraged her. Showed her what real kindness looked like, and that asking for what she needed was the bravest and best thing she’d ever done for herself.
No. He couldn’t forget all that. She wouldn’t let him. Because she was getting out of here. She was going back to Socorro to show Jones how he’d changed her from the inside out. He was going to know how she felt.
A steady pulse pounded through the right side of her face, but Maggie could still make out a bead of sweat at the senator’s temple. Along with the slight deepening of his voice. He was trying to stay in control. And losing the fight. “If you’re so sure my article isn’t going to ruin you, then why are you sweating?”
Senator Hawkes pulled at the lapels of his suit jacket to straighten some invisible wrinkle. “Get her out of my sight. I don’t want to know the details but make it quick. I’ve got a review committee meeting to prepare for and a press release to write.”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier at her back hauled her against his chest.
A rumble rolled through the room and dislodged dust from the crevices along the ceiling.
She felt the vibration from the front of her foot to the back charge up both legs. Silence pressed in through the room as the dust settled against the broken-up floor.
The senator raised both hands out in front of him as though he’d found himself on some kind of balance beam. Or the ground under his feet was about to swallow him whole. “What the hell was that?”
An uneasy feeling swept from one soldier to the next. They widened their stances in preparation, but nobody knew what was coming.
She did. Socorro was coming. Jones was coming. For her. “You’re going to want to start running now, Senator. I’d hate for you to meet my partner face-to-face when he’s in a bad mood.”
The senator didn’t waste a single second. He motioned to the soldiers in his immediate vicinity. “You five, get me the hell out of here. And you—” He nodded to the gunman holding Maggie captive as Hawkes dashed for the door. “Finish this. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier’s grip tightened on her arm, cutting off blood flow. “Move.”
Her left toes caught on a raised section of floor, and she stumbled forward. Shards of damaged cement and gravel bit into her palms. Maggie took a moment to catch her breath.
“Get up.” The soldier kicked at her heels. “Or I’ll make you get up.”
Pressure at finding herself once again at someone else’s mercy built until it cut off her air supply. Jones and his team were still working their way through the building. It’d take them minutes, maybe an hour before they found her, especially if they were forced to stand off with Hawkes’s men. By then, it’d be too late. She had to do this herself. Because no amount of self-worth could really come from the people around her. She had to have it for herself first.
Maggie fisted a handful of the debris detaching from the structure every second. It wasn’t much, but it could make all the difference. She arced her arm over her shoulder and twisted her upper body with everything she had. The debris shot straight into the soldier’s face. His growl echoed through the room a split second before a burst of gunfire exploded from his rifle.
She ducked and covered as she shoved herself to her feet.
Then ran like hell.
She’d never had the chance to map out this section of the compound when under Toledano’s watch. Low punctures of gunshots registered as she turned right. Heading toward the action would give the senator the chance to finish what he’d started.
Staying alive until Socorro found her. That was all that mattered. Maggie headed in the opposite direction, away from the promise of safety, away from Jones. She skimmed her hand along one wall and bolted down the corridor.
Her left leg worked overtime as the steady thump of boots grew louder. She couldn’t outrun the shooter. She couldn’t fight him, but she sure as hell wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of finishing his mission. Maggie ducked into the nearest room as another vibration rolled through the building. Seconds ticked off as she pressed her back to the wall, out of sight of the door into total darkness.
“It’s nothing personal, Maggie,” the soldier said. “We’re all just following orders here.”
Her breathing sounded overly loud. She tried to swallow the too-hard thud of her heartbeat in her throat. In vain. He was going to find her, and she’d have to fight back.
“I know you’re in here.” His voice sounded much closer now. Too close. “You’re all alone. That team you think is going to save you? They ain’t coming in time. I told you. Nothing stops me from following orders.”
Maggie searched for something—anything—to use as a weapon without giving away her position. But this room seemed just as bare as the one she’d been held in.
“She’s not alone.” That familiar voice cut through the corridor and through the fear squeezing around her heart. Jones. Gotham’s growl followed. “And neither am I.”
T HE MASKS HAD come off.
But that went both ways, didn’t it?
The soldier responsible for making sure Maggie disappeared turned that rifle onto Jones. Lieutenant Jason Snow, six tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, two medals of valor, on the hook with the senator who’d sent him to take the fall.
Jones could practically feel the laser sight moving from his belly to his chest. It was okay. He had one on him, too. Gotham shook waiting for permission to lunge, despite not training for combat purposes. Turned out, the dog had gotten fond of having Maggie around this past week. They were in this together. Determined to get her out alive. And they weren’t leaving without her. “My team already has Senator Hawkes in custody, lieutenant. The only way you get out of this unscathed is if you let her go.”
“And break orders?” The voice wasn’t as high and tight as it had been at the bonfire. More strangled and smoky. As though the son of a bitch had swallowed a lungful of mold and was choking on it granule by granule. Good. He deserved to suffer for what he’d put Maggie through. “Must come so easy for you at this point, Driscoll. What is this, the second—or third—time? Any good soldier knows his own hubris can get the people he cares about killed.”
“The army only minded the one time. Lucky for me, I have a new unit now. One that would do the same thing for me. So I’ll do what I have to today to ensure every single one of us makes it out of here alive.” And he should’ve done it sooner. Maybe if he’d taken a stand with Ivy before Maggie had left headquarters, they wouldn’t be here. Then again, it was because of her they now knew who’d signed Maggie’s death warrant in the first place.
“No. You won’t.” The statement was punctuated by a pull of the trigger.
“No!” Maggie shot from the darkness, hiking the barrel of the soldier’s rifle upward. Strobes of light lit up the corridor in millisecond increments and revealed her fight to get control of the weapon.
He couldn’t take a shot. Not without putting her in his own cross hairs. “Stay,” he commanded Gotham.
The gun ripped free of her hand. “You know. I said this wasn’t personal, but now it is.” Snow rocketed a fist into Maggie’s face. She twisted and slammed into the wall behind her before slumping to the ground. Unconscious.
Jones launched forward, weapon up. One squeeze of the trigger bolted Snow’s shoulder back. The groan of pain lasted a split second as Jones descended to get control of the rifle. A spray of gunfire exploded in a long line, missing Maggie by mere inches. “You’re going to pay for that.”
Jones slammed the end of the rifle into the wall where Maggie had made contact. An arm navigated around his neck and shoved him sideways. They struggled—bare strength versus strength. Jones ducked to relieve the pressure on his neck and maneuvered out of the hold. Only to put his back to his opponent. Rookie mistake.
Strong arms secured around his neck and squeezed.
Latching onto Snow’s wrist, he tried wriggling free. To no avail.
Snow growled in his ear, out of breath and wheezing. “Accept it, Driscoll. You’ve gone soft since your discharge. All this—everyone you love, everything you care about, that team of yours—soldiers like me are the ones who made it possible. You never deserved any of it in the first place.”
Leveraging his foot against the opposite wall, Jones launched them backward. He slammed Snow into the cinder block behind him, but it didn’t have any effect on the bastard’s hold. He fell to one side in an attempt to dislodge the stranglehold around his neck as pinpricks of white moved into his vision.
Only, a section of the floor fell away.
Gravity knotted in his gut a split second before pain exploded. They hit the level beneath as one. His entire body felt as though it was about to snap in half but somehow held together. Gotham’s bark echoed down through the opening they’d created overhead. Jones could just make out the husky’s outline through the floating debris.
Snow took the brunt of the impact but didn’t seem to miss a beat as he locked his ankles around Jones’s front and squeezed to push the air from Jones’s chest. “Maggie’s taken one too many hits to the head, Driscoll. What do you think the chances of her waking up after what I just did to her are?” The son of a bitch pressed his mouth to Jones’s ear. “Mission complete, traitor.”
No. She was alive. She had to be. Because if she wasn’t... He’d never forgive himself. He’d have to live with another life ruined because of his unwillingness to move when certain situations asked him to bend, and he couldn’t take that weight anymore. In the end, Kincaide had been a ghost of the brother who’d stood up for him that day after school. Maggie deserved better than that. She deserved everything he had to give and more. To be happy. He could make her happy. Dust created a veil of thickness around them, almost sparkling in the beam of their dueling flashlights. She was right there. Within reach. He just had to get to her.
He tried for his sidearm. Only he couldn’t pull it free with Snow’s leg pinning the weapon to his thigh. Jones locked his hand around his attacker’s wrist and put everything he had into getting free. The soldier’s arm broke its deadly grip. He rolled out of Snow’s reach then launched himself onto the son of a bitch’s back. Both arms cut off Snow’s oxygen. Just as the lieutenant had done to him. He struggled to stay in place as Snow bucked underneath him, wild as a bull pissed as all hell about the cowboy trying to get him under control. Strangling sounds bounced off the walls around them, but Jones wouldn’t let up. Not yet.
Snow kicked at the floor and managed to bring his upper body high enough to twist Jones back against the wall. The lieutenant clawed at his hands. His groans were getting weaker as oxygen burned in his lungs.
A few more seconds. That was all Jones needed.
The soldier’s boots scuffed against the floor, carving out valleys in the piled layers of dust created over the past few minutes. It wouldn’t do any good. It was Jones’s turn to put his mouth to Snow’s ear. “Some things in this world are more important than orders, Snow. One day you’re going to figure that out. But if you come after us again, I’ll kill you. I give you my word.”
Snow didn’t get a chance to answer as he went limp.
Shoving the soldier’s body off of him, he checked the lieutenant’s pulse. Weakened, but steady. The bastard would live. Though what kind of life waited for him up top, Jones couldn’t say. He had a feeling Senator Hawkes wasn’t going to go down alone. He’d drag everyone with him to take some of the heat off, including the very men and women he’d used to start a war.
Gotham’s bark intensified as the husky pawed at the edges of the hole raining down dust on Jones. Agitated at being separated from his handler. Hell. The fight was over, but time was still running out. Jones jumped as high as his body weight would allow, but his fingers only brushed the edge of the cavity. He wasn’t going to make it on his own. He swiped at the dust accumulating in the air. This room seemed to be separated from the entire compound. No way in or out. And Maggie needed him out. “Get Scarlett, Gotham. Go get Scarlett. Bring her here.”
The dog disappeared from the opening, his collar echoing down the hall.
“Maggie!” There wasn’t any answer, and Jones’s entire body was all too aware of the fact Snow might be right. That she’d taken one too many hits and wouldn’t have the capability of getting back up this time. And it’d be his fault. Jones dropped his chin to his chest as the heaviness of that possibility stabbed through him. “Maggie, if you can hear me. I’m sorry. I gave you my word that I would protect you until the end of this, and I failed. I backed out on you when you needed me the most. But the truth is, I was scared. Breaking orders is what got my brother captured in the first place, and I didn’t want you to end up like him. Because I love you, Mags. I’ve been in love with you since the moment I pulled you out of this hellhole that first time, and I saw what you’d survived. You’re strong. A hell of a lot stronger than me. I don’t know how you do it, to be honest, but I want to be strong for you. Just give me another chance.”
“Oh, that’s sweet, Driscoll.” Snow struggled to get one knee under him as he grappled with the rifle strapped around his chest. “Please, don’t let the fact I’m about to kill you get in the way of telling her how you really feel.”
Jones unholstered his Taser, took aim and fired it into Snow’s inner thigh. The lieutenant fell back harder than expected, his entire body at the mercy of forty-thousand volts. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
A whimper escaped up Snow’s throat, and Jones took pressure off the Taser’s trigger.
“Please, Mags. Say something. Tell me you’re okay. That after everything we’ve been through, I’m not the one who got you killed.” He studied the opening in the ceiling. Only silence answered back. Then scraping. Something hesitant and steady. A hand clutched onto the crumbling shards of cement and rebar and pulled Maggie into sight.
Blood matted her blond hair and spread down one side of her face. But, hell, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She dropped her hand, reaching for him. She wasn’t strong enough to lift him out on her own, but that didn’t stop him from locking his hand in hers. Her smile made him believe everything would be okay. That they could move past this, and he hadn’t screwed everything up. That they could build a life—“I love you, too, Jones. And thank you. For everything. For saving me in more ways than I can count. I owe you my life. But you did break your word, so I’ll see you back at Socorro headquarters.”
She slipped free of his hold and got to her feet, still unstable. He was prepared to catch her if she fell through, if needed. But Maggie simply backed away on her own strength.
“Wait. Are you joking?” He waited for an answer. However distant. For something to tell him she wasn’t going to leave him down here as some kind of punishment until the team could get him and Snow out of this hole. “Maggie?”
“She ain’t joking, man.” Snow shook his head.
Jones pulled the Taser’s trigger a second time and let the electric nodes do their job. “Still wasn’t talking to you.”