Chapter 6
Helena’s father delayed their departure for Keeneston, but it at least gave Helena time to give Harsha the gift she’d gotten for him and his wife.
Helena’s father, Rafail, made sure to thoroughly check out Bella’s credentials before threatening to lock Helena up in his penthouse with a horde of private security.
He relented after Bella had a word with him. Whatever she had said, and whatever report he got back on her, sealed the deal and sent them off on a private jet to Lexington.
“I’ll drive,” Bella said as they got off the plane.
“Nope. I know where we are going. We’re meeting Quinn at the Blossom Café. I’ll drive and you look at the pretty rolling hills and the horses. I have a feeling you need a vacation even more than I do.” Helena paused and then laughed. “Oh my gosh, that’s what this is, isn’t it? I’m your vacation!”
Bella had the decency not to deny it. “Some women like spas. I like bullets and warlords. Plus, do you know the most badass soldier alive lives in Keeneston? Ahmed Mueez from Rahmi. I would kill anyone for a chance to sit down and talk with him. His daughter was the first woman CIA SOG operative. She paved the way for me to join the Marshal’s tactical operations team.
Plus, my boss said I have so much vacation time stored up that if I don’t take it, they’ll fire me and still have to pay me for two years. ”
Helena chuckled as she drove them towards Keeneston. “So, about Ahmed.”
“You mean the closest thing to a military action hero the world has ever seen?” Bella corrected.
“Yeah,” Helena said, smiling. “Don’t let his dog freak you out or the fact that he carries her in a baby sling on his chest.”
“Um, okay. Why would he do that and why would a dog freak me out?”
“Because you look at her and you know she’s a dog, but then she stares into your soul and judges you.
Like, not sniff sniff, you smell good. More like she sees everything you’ve ever done in life and judges you harsher than Mean Girls.
I’ve seen her turn her back on someone she found lacking and pretend that the person didn’t even exist.”
Bella turned to her with wide eyes. “Are you telling me, Ahmed taught his dog how to do the famous Ahmed glare?”
“I . . .” Helena paused as she caught a flash of a car in her rearview mirror. “Isn’t that the car from the airport?”
All amusement fell from Bella’s face as she looked in the mirror. “Black, extra-large SUV with tinted windows. Same model. Good catch. They’re hanging back. Is there a road we can pull off onto to see if they follow us?”
“We’re too close to Keeneston. This is the only road for right now unless we pull off into a farm.”
Bella pulled out her service pistol and kept her gaze locked on the mirror. “Speed up. Let’s see if they do too.”
Helena’s heart began to pound, her hands began to sweat, but the feeling wasn’t only fear. It was anger, too. Someone had managed to track her down and now they were trying to scare her, or worse.
“They’re speeding up.” Bella checked her gun and opened the window. “They’re catching up. Don’t drive faster than you safely can. I’ll take care of it.”
“Am I seriously in the middle of a high-speed chase right now?” Helena asked herself out loud as she sped up, but then had to immediately slow down to take a curve. These country roads were not made for high-speed chases.
The road was narrow, lined with trees and fences, and they had an audience of horses and cows. The road curved and followed the rolling hills of the bluegrass. Helena grimaced as she went up a small hill and went airborne for a brief moment before the wheels hit the pavement again.
“Hang on,” Bella told her a moment before she unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned out the window. “They’re gaining.”
Helena looked out at Bella hanging out the window and let off the gas. “What are you doing? Get back in the car!”
Bella’s reply was firing her gun. Helena’s heart crept into her throat. She was used to being chauffeured around big cities, not driving for her life on a country road she’d only driven twice in her life. The back window shattered and Helena screamed and automatically hit the brakes.
Bella slammed against the open window and grunted in pain, but it was too late.
Helena had messed up. She’d braked when she should have stomped on the gas because when she took her hands from where she had automatically covered her head, she saw the SUV barreling straight toward them in her rearview mirror.
“Shit,” Bella cursed, raising her gun and grimacing as she fired off her entire clip, but that didn’t stop the bone-jarring impact, the screech and metal on metal, that the last thing she saw before the airbag slammed into her, was Bella being hurled out through the window.
Knox had called Nolan and had asked him to come over to help him with an outdoor project.
Knox might be a professional quarterback, but he’d updated his home mostly on his own as a way to unwind.
Nolan turned off Main Street and headed toward Lexington on the small country road that Knox lived on.
He was as close to Lexington as he could get while still being in Keeneston.
He said it made it easy to get to the stadium and still be close to all his friends and family.
Nolan heard the accident before he saw it.
There were popping noises, tires squealing, and then the unmistakable sound of metal crashing into metal.
Nolan finally saw what he’d heard when he crested the hill.
The car in front was sandwiched between a fence pole and the SUV behind it, whose tires were still spinning in the grass with the engine revving.
Nolan grabbed his phone and called it into emergency services.
He reached behind him and dug around for his first aid kit before leaping from his pickup truck.
First, he had to turn off the SUV. Then he could assess the situation and begin triage.
Only, when he approached the SUV, he saw blood on the window.
The door was locked, so he used his spring-loaded window punch tool to break the glass.
He reached in and unlocked the door before yanking it open.
That’s when he knew nothing was normal about this accident.
Because when he pushed back the airbag and got a look at the driver, it wasn’t blood from the airbag being deployed that was on the window.
It was from three bullet wounds on his body.
Two in the head and one in the shoulder.
Nolan turned off the SUV and raced around to look at the passenger.
Dead. A single gunshot to the head, but then Nolan found a gun on the floorboard. What the hell was going on?
Nolan felt for a pulse, but knew there wasn’t one.
However, he had to make sure before racing to the car that had run into the fence.
The back window was shattered and Nolan raced up to the passenger door, shooing away a cow, and found the window open.
He reached in and unlocked the door. He slid into the seat taking in the details of the driver.
It was a woman. The driver’s dark brown hair was splayed out against the airbag where her face was hidden from view.
Her hands were hanging loose at her side.
Nolan reached for one to get a pulse. “Ma’am, you’ve been in an accident,” Nolan said as his fingers closed around her wrist. Nolan let out a relieved breath when he felt a pulse.
“Bella,” the woman muttered in a barely audible whisper before she groaned louder this time.
Nolan grabbed the airbag and ripped it free with one yank. The seatbelt kept the woman from falling forward as Nolan gently took her shoulders and helped her lean back in the seat.
“Ma’am. I’m a firefighter. I’m here to help you. I’m going to put a neck brace on you and take your blood pressure.” Nolan reached into his bag and began to work on pulling the neck brace out of the plastic packaging.
“Nolan. He’s a firefighter. I want Nolan,” the woman groaned.
Wait. She knew him?
“I am Nolan, ma’am.”
“I’m too young to be called ma’am. Want Nolan. Help Bella.”
Nolan chuckled, but then froze as he recognized the voice. It couldn’t be. Helena was in Europe. Nolan gently reached forward and brushed back the curtain of her hair. “Helena!”
Sirens sounded in the distance as Helena groaned again in pain. “I prayed for you to find me and you did. But you need to help Bella.”
“I’m here, sweet one. I’ll take care of you. Who is Bella?” Nolan asked, fitting the neck brace gently around her neck.
“U.S. Marshal Bellona Gilmore. She was hanging out the window shooting the men after me. Nolan, they’re dangerous!”
“Shh. They’re dead. I’m guessing it was Bella’s doing since they were both shot.”
Nolan was gentle as he put the blood pressure cuff on, but Helena was getting anxious. “No, you need to find her. She was flung from the car.”
“Sweet one,” Nolan said calmly. He’d learned a long time ago that if he stayed calm, most people around him did too. It worked well with scared people and animals alike.
“No one has ever called me sweet.”
“Then they don’t see what I see.” Nolan gave her a small smile. “Your blood pressure is up. Take some deep breaths. Here’s my crew now. I’ll go look for Bella, but only since Flint will be here to take care of you. Okay?”
“Okay, hurry back,” Helena said. Nolan’s team swarmed the scene along with Sheriff Matt Walz and Luke Tanner, one of the deputies.
Nolan slid from the car and rattled off the facts of the accident, Helena’s name and her blood pressure, and that he’d put a neck brace on her. Everyone gasped at her name, but it only lasted a second. They were professionals, after all.
“She said she was with a U.S. Marshal who fired the shots and was ejected from the vehicle. I’m going to look for her.”
“I’ll take good care of her, Nolan,” Flint swore before opening the driver’s door. “You know how to make an entrance, don’t you, Helena?”
Helena chuckled and then groaned. “Where’s Nolan?”
Nolan wanted to go to her, but he’d promised to look for Bella. “He’s looking for your passenger.” Flint told her, reminding her again. It was clear that the adrenaline was making it hard for her to process information right now.
Nolan didn’t like leaving her, but he needed to find the passenger. “Nolan!” Luke yelled from a good two hundred yards behind the SUV. “Found her!”
Nolan sprinted with his medical bag to where Luke was kneeling by a woman.
She wasn’t moving. Nolan dropped to his knees and pressed his fingers to her neck.
“She’s alive.” However, he could tell two things.
The first was that her lower leg was at a very bad angle, meaning it was broken.
And two, there was blood on the back of her head.
She had a head injury. Nolan took her blood pressure and frowned.
It was low. She needed to get to the hospital right that instant.
“Get the oxygen out of the ambulance and tell Flint to get the board here, ASAP, as long as Helena doesn’t need it. ”
Luke stood up and sprinted away as Nolan got to work starting an IV. Flint appeared minutes later with a stretcher. “Where’s Helena?”
“In the back of the ambulance on the seat. She said she could sit up.”
Flint took one look at the situation and put a neck brace on Bella while Nolan felt her various pulses. “Pulses in her feet are good.” That was a relief. It wasn’t a compound fracture cutting off blood flow.
“Good. We’ll splint it and then get her on the board.” They worked in tandem to secure the leg and then to get her onto the board. “On three.”
On three, Flint and Nolan lifted the board. Nolan saw Helena clamber down from the ambulance. “How is she?” she called out.
Conley was already moving to help with the gurney. “She’s injured, but alive,” Nolan told her. “A broken leg and a head injury.”
“Take her in the ambulance. Nolan, take care of her.” Helena grabbed his arm, begging him to do what she said.
“We’re taking both of you. Get up front. I’ll drive. We want Flint in the back with her.”
“Take cover!” Colton yelled as he and Jack moved away from the SUV. Nolan sniffed the air and cursed. Gas.
Matt and Luke dove for cover behind their police cruisers. Flint and Conley practically dogpiled on Bella to cover her from head to toe. Nolan grabbed Helena to his chest and dropped to the ground right as the SUV exploded.
He heard her scream and he felt the heat from the explosion scorch his back as he pressed Helena into the ground. He’d made sure he’d covered her head and had wrapped his body completely around hers to protect her from the explosion and any debris. Debris that thudded to the ground all around them.
“Nolan! Nolan!” Helena’s voice was distraught as she was curled up into him.
“Yes, sweet one?” he whispered down to her since her face was currently pressed against his broad chest.
“Are you hurt? It was so hot!”
Nolan looked up and saw that Flint and Conley had lifted Bella into the ambulance.
Then he saw Colton staring down at him. “Hope these weren’t your favorite pair of sneakers.
The soles are a little melty from taking the brunt of the explosion.
But your leather jacket looks to have protected you pretty well.
Get the back of your neck checked out. You might need some ointment for the small part of the skin that wasn’t covered by your jacket or your knit cap and your hands. ”
“You’re hurt!” Helena was frantically touching his chest. He wasn’t hurt there, but Nolan figured if it made her feel better to touch him, he wasn’t going to complain.
“I’m fine, sweet one. I promise. But let’s get you to the hospital, okay?”
“I’m not sweet,” Helena said, suddenly choking up. “I killed people, Nolan. No one will want me now.”
Then she broke down into tears.