Chapter 24 #2
Adena’s already one step ahead. She smashes the butt of the gun into the back of Marquez’s head, then leaps onto the Harley.
She swings a leg around, turning to face me, chest to chest, and hooks her legs tight around my waist. Her arms brace against my shoulders and chest, keeping herself steady as she aims at the danger behind us.
"Go!" she shouts.
I twist the throttle, and we lurch forward.
The chapel doors burst open behind us. More of Marquez's crew flooding out—four, five, maybe more. Muzzle flashes light up the darkness.
Bullets ping off metal. One shatters a car window to our left.
I lean into a turn, taking us out of the parking lot and onto Las Vegas Boulevard. The Strip blazes with lights—casinos, hotels, tourists everywhere.
"Two cars behind us!" Adena yells in my ear.
I check the mirror. Black SUVs, weaving through traffic, closing fast.
I open the throttle. The Harley responds, engine screaming as we rocket between lanes. A cab honks. A limo swerves. I don't slow down.
I cut right, taking us down a side street away from the main drag. Darker here. Fewer witnesses, which also means fewer people to get caught in crossfire.
The bikes follow, so do the SUVs.
Adena fires again. Again. Her magazine has to be running low.
One of the bikes pulls up on our left. The rider has a gun.
"Left!" I yell.
Adena swings her aim, fires. The rider jerks, bike wobbling. He overcorrects and goes down, sliding across pavement in a shower of sparks.
She keeps firing as the cartel bodyguards give chase. A bullet clips my wing mirror. I lean harder into the next turn.
The SUVs gain ground. They're heavier but faster on straightaways. I can't outrun them forever.
"How close?" I yell.
"Fifty feet! They're trying to pull alongside!" Adena fires again, her body twisted at an angle that has to scream at her muscles.
I take a hard right into an alley. The Harley shrieks. Adena grips tighter with her legs, adjusting her angle so she doesn't lose her shot.
Behind us, the lead SUV follows. The second one doesn't make the turn—slams into a parked car.
One left.
Adena fires. The SUV's windshield cracks, but it keeps coming.
"Still there!" she yells.
We burst out of the alley back onto Boulevard. I weave between traffic, using cars as shields. The SUV does the same, just meters behind us now.
I lean hard, cutting between a sedan and a cab. The SUV tries to follow, but there's no room. It brakes, swerves.
For a second, I think we've lost them.
Then they swing into the opposite lane, coming up on us fast.
"Left side!" Adena yells. She swings her aim and fires. The SUV's side window explodes.
I floor it. The Harley screams. A gap opens between two taxis, and I shoot through it. Behind us, the SUV doesn't make it—horns blare, metal crunches. The SUV collides hard with a delivery truck.
For half a heartbeat, the road is ours.
Then blue lights bloom ahead.
Sirens cut through the noise, sharp and unavoidable. Police cruisers angle across the street, blocking lanes, forcing traffic to choke and scatter.
A roadblock.
I ease off the throttle. There’s nowhere left to run.
The Harley rolls to a stop twenty feet short of the line. Doors swing open. Officers drop behind them, weapons already up, faces tight with adrenaline and expectation.
“Hands where we can see them!” someone shouts.
I kill the engine, raise one hand as high as I can while keeping the bike upright.
Adena doesn't lower her gun right away. She's still facing backward, still in fighter mode.
"Adena," I say quietly. "Drop it."
She hesitates for a heartbeat, then her arm falls. The gun clatters to the pavement.
An officer steps forward, weapon still drawn. "Off the bike. Now."
I swing my leg over. The moment my feet hit the ground, I reach back to help Adena dismount—
The shot cracks through the night like a whip.
Fire tears through my upper thigh, hot and blinding. My leg buckles, and the asphalt comes up fast.
My vision blurs. Red and blue lights strobe across my line of sight.
Adena's screaming something, but I can't hear over the ringing in my ears.
She's on her knees beside me. Her hands are pressing down where the bullet went through.
"He's DEA!" she yells. "He's undercover DEA!"
An officer steps toward her, weapon still raised. "Ma'am, step away from—"
"Call the DEA field office in New Orleans. Tell them you just shot Agent Rourke!"
Last thing I can make out is Adena’s lips moving, saying something that sounded way too much like her threatening one of the officers with grievous bodily harm.
I choke out a laugh before black presses in, and I slide into oblivion.
Adena
I sit hunched forward, elbows on my knees, twisting the wedding band round and round my finger, lips moving in silent prayer. I don’t even know what I’m praying for anymore—strength, clarity, protection, maybe just the sound of God’s voice cutting through this fluorescent-lit purgatory.
Across from me, a woman in a metallic minidress and six-inch heels watches me with mild amusement. “Rough honeymoon?” she asks, smacking bubblegum.
I don’t answer. My pulse is a drumbeat in my ears. No one has told me where Jagger is. No one will tell me anything.
I close my eyes and press my thumb hard against the ring, grounding myself in its weight, its wrongness, the promise I made for reasons God knows and I’m still trying to understand.
Please, I pray—not eloquent now, just desperate. Don’t let me be wrong about him.
Footsteps echo. A guard appears at the bars. “Adena Rourke.”
My head snaps up, and I vault to the bars. Rourke already. Not Graceson anymore. My stomach drops. “Your people are here.”
My people turn out to be Verity and Silas. Verity looks somewhat distressed when she sees me in the now wrecked and bloodied wedding dress. Silas, however, looks downright… disappointed.
“You couldn’t have found an exit that didn’t involve committing five felonies in the space of thirty minutes?” he says.
I grip the bars as the guard slips the key into the lock. “Where have they taken Jagger? Is he okay?”
Verity answers. “High thigh gunshot. No arterial hit. Significant blood loss, surgical repair to the muscle. He’s stable and waking up. Nolan’s already at the hospital.”
Relief makes my tears fill. I duck my head, and blink them away before anyone sees.
The guard leads us down a short corridor. My bare feet slap on concrete. Verity walks beside me, casting despairing looks down at me. Silas strides ahead, jaw tight, probably already calculating damage control.
He’s going to blame himself for this. I know he will.
They stop at a small interview room. No windows. A metal table. A stack of paper cups in the corner, like that somehow makes this place humane.
Silas shuts the door. “Sit.”
I lower myself carefully into the chair. The dress sticks to my skin, the blood long dried. My head is pounding.
“Ben’s locking Hightower down,” Silas says, leaning against the table. “The DA’s irritated, but once they realized Jagger was DEA and the officer fired without identifying his target, they didn’t want it in their lap. No civilians were hit. They’re calling it no charges for now.”
Verity blows out a breath. “That’s a relief.”
Silas lifts a hand. “It doesn’t mean it’s over. They’re deciding whether to cut you loose tonight or hold you briefly while the feds sort jurisdiction.”
I rub my palms on the ruined fabric of my skirt. “And after? What happens after that?”
“You leave Vegas,” Silas says, “stay low, and you do not get into any trouble.”
I look up sharply. “Where am I going?”
He doesn’t answer right away. “Somewhere safe. The cartel isn’t done, and you’re too exposed now.”
Verity places a hand on the table, palm up—a quiet offering. “We’re all praying. For you, and for Jagger.”
I squeeze her fingers, grateful for the contact and the reassurance.
“Ben’s coordinating with federal counsel,” Silas says. “He’ll lay out the conditions before they let you walk.”
A guard knocks, opens the door. “Time.”
Silas squeezes my shoulder once, tells me he’s praying hard, Verity hugs me, tells me to lean on Christ, and then I’m alone again.
The door closes behind them. The guard appears and gestures for me to stand.
I’m walked back down the corridor, bare feet frozen, the smell of disinfectant and old sweat closing in around me again.
The cell door shuts. The lock slides home with a dull, final sound.
I don’t know where Jagger is. I don’t know where I’m going.
I don’t know what this marriage is going to cost us yet.
So I bow my head and wait.
Not for answers.
Just for God to stay near us both in the dark.
Jagger
I come to slowly, the world sharpening one muted sound at a time—the steady beep of a monitor, the soft hiss of oxygen, the antiseptic sting in the air. My right wrist is the first thing that truly registers: a metal cuff, short chain, no give. Hospital bed or not, it’s still a restraint.
I blink hard, vision adjusting to the too-bright lights.
Nolan is sitting in the corner, legs crossed, reading a newspaper. He doesn’t look surprised to see me awake. Doesn’t even look up right away.
“Before you ask… one month,” he says, turning the page. “Thirty days. That’s it.”
His way of greeting me, I guess.
My voice comes out rough. “For what?”
Nolan folds the paper, finally giving me his full attention. “Till you get full clearance the moment your ‘married-asset’ status is marked secure.”
“Right.” The word grates in my throat. “So why the chains?”
He reads the doubt straight off my face. “You know how it goes. You played the part so long, even the good guys have doubts.”
I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still feels like a nail driven in my coffin.
“You’re not a burned asset, Jagger. You’re temporarily sidelined while we sort this out. Huge difference.”
“Feels the same from this bed. So does the cuff.”