Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kenna pushed back the covers and sat up, trying not to think too much in the moments when her brain was sloughing off the fog of sleep.
She used the facilities in the tiny bathroom and secured her hair with a hair tie in a messy bun that flopped on the back of her head.
Water on her face. Teeth brushed for good measure.
She drank a whole cup of water and left it on the sink before getting dressed, even though she’d rather have stayed in sweats all day.
Jax stood at the stove in track pants and a sleeveless athletic shirt. The warmth of his body was more than usual, which told her he’d done pushups and sit-ups on the floor in here, where there was barely room for him to splay his elbows out—but he made it work.
“Let’s run away together.” She slid her arms around his waist.
He chuckled. “Yes, she is.” After a second, he said, “Bye, Maze.” He tapped one earbud and set it on the counter, putting the other beside it.
“Sorry.”
He turned the heat down on what he was making. “Don’t ever apologize for that.” He slid his arms around her and kissed her like he needed to make a statement. She couldn’t begin to understand what the statement was—all she knew was that he made it well.
Kenna took a moment to revel in everything she wanted being right here in her arms. No matter what happened in the outside world she had this, right now.
Everything out there could be burning to the ground for all she cared.
Well, except for her family. But she sort of forgot about them in this moment and wasn’t sure she was prepared to apologize for thinking about her husband only.
In this kiss she forgot about everything but Jax and the baby between them—the child they’d made together. That kind of made the moment sweeter. The evidence of what they meant to each other in the form of a person they would share forever.
Kenna drew back, breathless. “I think you made your point.”
“Good.” Jax didn’t pull away. “The answer is yes, always.”
“I want an update, but Bible first.” A nap had turned into a quiet dinner, and that had turned into a movie and an early bedtime.
When the phone hadn’t rung through any of it, she’d wondered if Jax told the rest of their family to leave the two of them alone but didn’t ask.
Instead, she just decided to enjoy the quiet evening.
Sure, the fate of the world was at stake. But she was pregnant.
Kenna slid into the booth, and Jax set a mug in front of her. “Hot chocolate.”
She tugged it over and sipped, flipped her phone right side up, and opened the app that she used to listen to the Bible. She hit Play on the psalm of the day, chapter 91, and checked the quick view on her notifications just to make sure it was just updates, and nothing crazy had happened.
Then she sat back in the seat and let the words wash over her.
After a few verses, Jax joined in, saying, “A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you.”
Kenna closed her eyes and prayed through the words, asking for that kind of protection. The Lord, her refuge, would be where she lived. Her dwelling place.
Not physically, but spiritually she would be with Him. Secure in a place where she was protected and where this baby was safe, because God had set angels over them.
She’d never heard that before, and even if she understood how it worked or she didn’t, she found comfort in it. It was the reassurance her heart needed to face the day.
Jax set a plate in front of her. Sausage and potato with a fried egg on top, along with plenty of “greens” because he seemed to think they were a necessity.
“My hero.”
He laughed. “You won’t starve.”
Too many memories clouded Kenna’s mind. She closed her eyes as Jax prayed for their food.
He asked for protection and that the whole team would find favor in their work.
When she opened her eyes the memories from that platform didn’t seem as strong.
After she took a bite and swallowed, she said, “Okay, give me the updates.”
“They’re probably all on your phone. In the group chats.
” He smiled, squirting ketchup beside his potatoes.
“So, you can read it all for yourself, but I’ll hit the highlights and catch you up.
” As Jolene hopped up on the seat beside her and curled up to lick her paw, he continued, “Zeyla spent most of the night following that nurse.” His expression betrayed how he felt about one of Kenna’s captors, even if she was lower-level staff on the platform.
“No ghost sightings, and word is, she’s still alive. On the move. Keeping a low profile.”
“Zeyla’s still on her?”
“She’s getting bored, so I doubt it will last long,” Jax said. “Meanwhile, Ramon was here all night, watching the perimeter. He had his computer, so he just monitored things from the car and worked through what Maizie sent him. When I woke up, I relieved him, and he went to get some sleep.”
“Did he find anything?”
“A couple of places near enough they’re worth checking out. He was working on how we can do that when they’re secure facilities.”
Kenna had a few ideas, most of which she didn’t even like, so she knew he wouldn’t either. “The president might be able to get us enough access we can talk the rest of the way in.”
“We as in the team in general, or we as in me and my pregnant wife?”
Kenna scrunched up her nose, because she knew which she preferred. She drank her hot chocolate instead of answering.
Sure, she wanted to be the one to work the case.
She might not usually prefer to be the one who sat in the car, or hung back, but right now she really was fine with it.
Either way, the situation was in God’s hands.
Whether it was her out in front, with her family around her, or if Ramon and Zeyla took the lead and faced the danger head on.
The team would get a result regardless—especially if they all worked together.
“What about the name of the person behind this?” Kenna asked. “Do we know that?”
Jax shook his head. “It still keeps coming back as Schnell.”
“He’s dead. Ramon was there.” Kenna set down her mug. “Sorry to state the obvious.”
“You’re right.” Jax shrugged. “I made some calls this morning and found out that the major general was at an extended retreat for a few weeks, on personal leave. Most people think he was in rehab, which is interesting enough for a high-level military figure that sincere effort was made to keep it quiet.”
“Is there rehab for if you’re dead?” Kenna knew it was ridiculous, but what about an evil secret society wasn’t?
“No, but if you’ve got a genetic match or someone willing to undergo plastic surgery to look like you, why not get a replacement when one of the versions is eliminated?”
She tapped her fork against the table, but Jolene didn’t like being disturbed, so she quit. “More like you send the disposable double out to do your dirty work, let him be the one who gets killed, and when you return to work later, it’s the real you. But why the weeks of rehab?”
“He got hurt?” Jax shrugged. “Or the double is the replacement, and he needed training.”
“What does Ramon think?”
Jax laid his fork down and took a sip of coffee. “He’s not happy to know the general is still out there. What he ran into was some pretty sick stuff.”
Kenna had visited Ramon in the hospital right after it happened, but wasn’t even sure that she’d believed then what she told him. Now she did, because she’d righted her faith on the foundation it had slipped from.
Jax continued, “Ramon wants a face off. He wants to find the evidence and confront the guy about his connection to Dominatus.”
“Is the general—the real one or the replacement—the one trying to take out Petyr and the other contenders for Imperatoris?” She didn’t like the idea of confronting anyone, and she didn’t want her family in danger.
Her version of “nesting” was wanting everyone to get into a bunker and shut the door so they could all be safe.
Nope. That wasn’t how this day was going to go. Her fears weren’t going to dictate what happened today.
She said, “I vote we ask Petyr to confirm if the general might be the one trying to kill him. Find out what he has to say.”
Jax’s brow rose. “You have his number?”
“Can’t be that hard to get it.” She wanted to shrug off his question, but the guy was a political leader who believed he was her father. Kenna sighed. “Why can’t Stairns turn out to be secretly my biological dad? I’d even take Bruce right now.”
Jax’s expression softened. “Maybe all three men should submit to a DNA test. While we’re getting a sample from Petyr, we can ask about Major General Schnell.”
“It’s expedient. It’s pretty safe. I like it.” She shoved a bite of potato into her mouth, enjoying the flavors—and the fact her pregnancy nausea was a thing of the past.
But that just reminded her of what Jax had missed. The experiences they could’ve shared, good and bad, because Jax was the father of her child. And she would always know who her dad was.
He smiled. “I’ll run the plan by Ramon. See what he says.”
“Did he take a look at the guy currently pretending to be the general?”
“I’ll find that out as well. He’s been steering clear of that side of things, focusing on what Maizie sent over. Looking at structural plans for military bases and satellite images she’s managed to get.” Jax winced. “I don’t want to know how.”
Kenna’s mind seemed to have spiraled several steps ahead, to secret military bases and clandestine operations. “Maybe Bruce or Stairns could pretend to be a couple of those retired guys that were experimented on.”
Jax shook his head, processing it all. “I still don’t understand how they were old and didn’t look it, or what they could do. It’s unreal to think those people are walking around in the world.”
“Good thing the government isn’t interested in breeding super soldiers, or we’d be in trouble.”
Jax stared at her.
“Nah, nah. Don’t even think it. I don’t want to know.” Kenna clapped her hands over her ears. “Our baby isn’t one of them. They just wanted to know what she could do. They didn’t do anything to her, because I stabbed one of them when they tried, and Buzard told them to back off.”
Jax didn’t blink.
She lowered her hands. “What?”
“You protected our baby in the middle of that?”
“Wouldn’t you have? I wasn’t going to let them touch her!
” She could have told him the rest of what Dominatus had wanted to do to her baby.
The fact one of the medical personnel had been working on an incubator so that they could surgically remove her baby from her—womb intact—and keep her alive, experimenting on her until she was ready to be “born.” Nope.
She wasn’t going to tell him that, or the other terrible things that ran through her nightmares like a horror movie she couldn’t forget.
Jax smiled. “I think you’re amazing.”
“Don’t make me cry. We have butts to kick.” Kenna felt the moisture gather anyway. She sniffed. “It’s over. They don’t get what they want, because this is our life.”
“Let’s make sure we ruin all their plans, not just that one.”
“I like the way you think, Mr. Jaxton.” She grabbed her bowl and shifted the cat out of the way so she could put it in the sink. “Let’s get to work.”