9. Crossfire #2
There’s a crack, a flash of impact, and then something hot rakes across my right side.
I suck in a breath before I can stop it.
Steve’s head snaps toward me. “Jan.”
“It’s a graze.”
The words come out too fast, too clipped, because if I say them cleanly enough, they’ll be true. My hand presses against my side and comes away wet.
More than a scratch, then.
Damn it.
Steve sees the blood at the same time I do. His face changes, and the man beside me disappears beneath something colder and far more dangerous.
“Jan.”
“I said it’s a graze.”
“You’re bleeding through your shirt.”
“Which is what grazes do when they’re showing off.”
His jaw hardens, but another round tears through the brush behind us before he can answer.
He moves over me immediately, his body covering mine while his rifle swings back toward the storage building.
The shift is fast, protective, and so complete that for two seconds all I can see is the dark fabric of his jacket and the line of his shoulder.
“Steve, I can move.”
“You will when I say.”
A very inconvenient part of me would like to argue with that. The more practical part notices another shot hitting exactly where my arm was a second earlier and decides marital debate can wait.
Steve fires twice in controlled succession. The gunfire from the storage building stops.
“Jax,” he says into comms, voice low enough to frighten anyone with sense. “Shooter at west storage is suppressed. We’re compromised on the hill. Jan’s hit.”
“I’m fine,” I snap.
“She’s bleeding,” Steve corrects.
Jax answers instantly. “Vehicle’s clear if you can reach it. Cole’s moving the women to cover. Go.”
“I can help.”
“You can move,” Steve says, already slinging the rifle and grabbing the camera strap. “That’s what you can do.”
The pain sharpens when I roll onto my side and push up. It isn’t deep. I know that from the angle, the heat, the way my body still obeys. Ricochet wound. Lateral path. Painful, messy, unlikely to have gone anywhere vital.
Steve doesn’t care about my neat little internal assessment.
His hand clamps over mine, pressing my palm harder against the wound. “Hold pressure.”
“I know.”
“I know you know. Do it anyway.”
We scramble backward from the rocks, staying low as more bullets rip across the slope. Steve keeps one hand locked around the camera strap, controlling its swing while gravel slides beneath my boots. I twist too sharply, and pain flares white enough to make the ground tilt.
Steve catches me before I drop.
“Easy.”
“I hate that word.”
He half-guides, half-hauls me down the back side of the hill toward the scrub track where we left the vehicle hidden behind a stand of battered olive trees. Every step pulls at my side. Warm blood spreads beneath my fingers, too much for comfort, not enough for disaster.
Probably.
The SUV comes into view, dark and blessedly close.
A shout rises from the port side of the hill.
Steve turns, puts himself between me and the sound, and fires once toward the ridge line. Whoever thought about following us changes their mind.
We reach the SUV hard. Steve yanks the passenger door open and practically lifts me inside.
“I can climb into a car by myself.”
“Congratulations.”
The door slams before I can tell him what to do with that tone.
He rounds the hood, weapon still in hand, scanning the slope, the road, the port lights glowing beyond. Then he drops into the driver’s seat, places the rifle in the footwell, and starts the engine.
His hands are steady.
His face isn’t.
I press harder against my side, breathing through the sharp burn as the SUV lurches onto the track.
“Steve.”
“Don’t.”
“It’s not a direct hit.”
“I said don’t.”
The vehicle drops hard into a rut, and I bite back a sound badly enough that he hears it anyway.
His knuckles go pale around the steering wheel.
Behind us, gunfire cracks across the port and fades into the night.
Ahead, the dark road opens.
And beside me, my husband drives like the world has narrowed to one thing only.
Getting me out alive.
Mytilene Port, Lesbos, Greece. 2350 hours
Steve doesn’t drive away from the port.
For one hard second, I think he might. I can see the instinct in him, the need to put distance between me and the gunfire, but Cole and Jax are still below us with the women and leaving them isn’t a choice either of us would survive afterward.
“Jax,” Steve says into comms, one hand tight on the wheel. “Status.”
“Three women with us,” Jax answers. “Cole’s got one with an ankle injury. We’re coming through the lower fence.”
“Thirty seconds,” Steve says. “Be there.”
His other hand presses his folded shirt harder against my side. He’d stripped it off somewhere between the hill and the SUV, leaving him bare beneath the open jacket. I barely noticed until the fabric hit the wound.
“I’ve got it,” I say.
“No, you’ve got a hand on it. I’ve got pressure.”
“That’s bossy.”
“That’s marriage.”
His mouth doesn’t move. The SUV drops into a rut, and pain tears sharp enough through my side that I bite down hard to keep quiet. He catches it anyway.
Of course he does.
“There,” I say, nodding toward movement near the fence line.
Jax appears first, guiding a young woman through a gap in the chain-link while keeping himself between her and the port.
Cole follows with another woman tucked against his side, almost carrying her, her bound hands gripping his jacket.
The third stumbles behind them, barefoot, bleeding from one knee but moving.
Steve brakes hard enough to throw dust across the headlights.
“Back seats,” he snaps.
I reach for the door lock, but he’s already hit it.
Jax yanks the rear door open and helps the first woman in.
Cole lifts the injured one after her, then shoves the third in low and fast before climbing in himself.
Jax fires twice toward the port, backing up until he can throw himself into the last open seat.
“Go,” he says.
Steve goes.
The SUV launches down the access road, gravel spitting beneath the tires as the port falls behind us in bursts of light and gunfire.
A round hits the rear quarter panel with a metallic punch, and one of the women cries out.
“Everyone down,” Jax orders.
Cole bends over the women, checking restraints, speaking low enough that I can’t make out the words but calm enough that they listen.
Steve drives with one hand, fast but precise, taking the road away from the port and toward the dark strip of coastline where our secondary route begins. His other hand stays over mine, his shirt warm and wet beneath his palm.
His fingers are shaking. His voice isn’t.
“Stay with me, Jan.”
“It’s a graze, Steve.”
“Stay with me.”
“I am.”
“You keep talking.”
“About what? Your driving?”
“Anything.”
“You’re taking these corners like you’re personally offended by roads.”
Jax makes a rough sound from the back that might be a laugh if any of us were in a better mood.
Steve doesn’t react. His grip tightens, and the pressure steals my next breath.
“Hurts,” I manage.
“Means you’re awake.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
I turn my head enough to see him. The dashboard lights cut across his face, catching the set of his jaw and the fixed focus of his eyes. He’s here. He’s driving. He’s issuing orders. But part of him is still on that hill, watching blood spread beneath his hand.
“Steve.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
“It didn’t go deep.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough.”
“You’re bleeding through my shirt.”
“It’s a very absorbent shirt.”
“Jan.”
This time my name comes out raw enough to shut me up.
Behind us, Cole speaks into comms, updating Liberty and the team, giving numbers, injuries, and route status. Jax watches the rear window. The women stay low, huddled together in the dark, alive because we stopped.
I know the mission is still moving. I know the wound is survivable.
Steve’s hand trembles harder against my side. He doesn’t look away from the road.
“Stay with me, Jan.”
“I’m here.”
“Stay with me.”
The command cracks on the second word, barely, but enough.
My fingers close around his wrist, sticky with my own blood. “I’m here, Steve.”
He nods once, too sharp and too fast.
The SUV tears into the dark, the port shrinking behind us, and I keep my hand locked around his wrist because it’s the only thing I can give him while he drives like he’s trying to outrun the thought neither of us can afford to say.
I’m bleeding.
I say I’m fine.
And Steve Hollands, who has walked into gunfire without blinking, looks terrified of losing me.