As the screens turned off, I tried to slink away before Momma could collar me into a conversation about wedding details at three-thirty in the morning. "Jessa, I see you trying to crawl away. I will allow it this time. But once you wake up, I own your time, figlia," she said with a smile. I lifted my hands as if I were praying. "Bless you, Momma. Bless you." I ran away before she could say anything else. Sliding back into my still warm bed, I snuggled down into the covers. Let my mind wander as I tried to push the caffeine aside so I could get some more sleep. Babies needed sleep. New and expectant mommas did, too. **I blinked as the sunlight jabbed at my eyeballs. Wincing, I raised a hand against the invading sun. Who the heck opened the curtains? What kind of monsters were in this house with me?Someone came through the bathroom door. I screamed like a banshee as I flung myself to the other side of the bed, dropped down to the floor between the bed and wall. Getti
The screen went black and I tipped my head back and let out a yell. Those fuckers. I didn't care who it was or why they did it. They threatened my woman. My baby. For much less I would have killed them. Now? Now I would draw out their deaths until the streets ran red. Security guards rushed the room, guns drawn. I'm not sure who dealt with them, but someone talked them down and back out. A hand slapped over my mouth. "Get your shit together," Foster said. I punched him in the belly. "Don't ever tell me what to do. They threatened Jessa. Our baby."Foster bent in half with a hard whoosh of air. "And they stole mine and gang raped her." With a hand on his belly, he straightened back up. "I win that one. Not only that, I'm stuck here trying to clean up an even bigger mess." He didn't throw any physical punches, but the verbal one struck quick and fast. "I'm so fucking pissed." I threaded my hands through my hair, gripped it hard. Threatening to pull it out of my scalp, I tri
I felt like we were in a presidential parade, but we finally all made it to the hospital. Since I couldn't quite catch my breath, I didn't put up a huge fight about going to Good Shepherd. Mags and Pete sat in the front seats while I was sandwiched between Tali and Willow. The rest of the girls were riding with other guards and Momma and Papa. The look on Rafe's face as he saw us all coming down the long drive was pretty comical. But he fell in line and brought up the caboose. As my vision was starting to go a little fuzzy, we pulled up at my hospital. A gurney came out to meet us. Two of my staff helped me onto it. As we made our way inside, I gave them a rundown of my symptoms. "I'm sure it's probably nothing, but I'm not willing to take any chances," I said as I finished up.They started running through the halls. "Good. I should think not," a familiar voice said from a nearby room. I turned to see Dr. Jamie. I smiled, held out a hand. "Dr. Jamie, you're here."He
Our strike team stood around the wall of computers. Attention and focus were at one hundred and ten percent as Striker and Roger walked us all through the plans they had made with Mas. Appears everyone had been busy and just waiting for the green light. "Plan A is to evac to a helo." Striker pointed to a spot on the screen with a green laser. "It will be from here. It's a forty-one-minute trip, assuming no errors or issues. Plan B is a boat extraction. Plan C is a private plane at a local airfield. Plan D is a car and driving up and over. Let's make sure we don't need Plan D."Roger took over the briefing. "We will have three two-man teams for infiltration. We need a zero-notice action, so if you have experience for silent infil, you're on the team. We will have a small team of four for fire coverage on each of the extraction points. All extraction points will be manned from go-time, so no time is lost for changing plans. If your location is abandoned, fall back to your bravo poin
Every inch of the tunnel felt wide and open. None of the low buzzing I associated with active electronic surveillance. It was nothing short of a blessing. Once Drago and I stopped at the mouth of the tunnel, I opened my radio. "Ready.""Ninety-one meters straight ahead," Arkady's voice sounded in my ear. I double clicked my mic. Turned off the radio again as I looked at Drago. He nodded, only his eyes discernable in the dark. He motioned for me to go before him. I took that first step out into the open. Prayed once again that Nik had redirected the Interpol drones off center by a few degrees as we started making our way through the underbrush of the forest. One chance. For my daughter. For Jessa's sister. For our family. I tightened my grip on my gun. Wished I could have left it behind. But without any more practice and no more time, we were out of options. With my free hand, I reached down, patted my knives. Knives were the only way to kill silently from a dista
While I waited for Mas to get his scrawny ass back to the boat, all the phones in the ops center started ringing at the same time. I looked at Penn. Fuck. He grabbed his up and put it to his ear. "This is Penn."I pulled my own from my pocket. "This is Domenico.""Counselor, Amatucci, we have reports that there's been a raid on the compound. Can you confirm or deny this?" Agent Camilla Rosetti spat down the line as soon as the last syllable of my name died away. "Agent Rosetti, we can confirm that there has been action at the compound. One of our techs sounded the alarm. We are watching it as it happens through the satellite feed that was set up.""Do you know who it is? None of our agents can get a good look.""You're more than welcome to view our footage, Agent. I can't say that we are familiar with who they are either. You're saying that these are not your agents or men?""Of course not! We're still trying to get a lock on the captive's signals. We would never put ou
Arkady was finishing up on his headset when the video call from Croatia came in. He took it off, threw it out of the line of sight. Scrambling back to his customary chair, he nodded at Nik. "We're a go."Nik connected the call. "Agent Horvat, hello.""Hello, Ms. Pelaez. Mr. Penn. Counselor Amatucci."We all nodded. Agent Rosetti's alert came through. Nik got her connected as well. After the second round of salutations were completed, Horvat got straight to business. "If we've all seen the same footage, there's no point in trying to determine what variances there might be. We need to determine the signals as quickly as possible. It might be worth our while to attack while the compound is in disarray."Agent Rosetti nodded. "We concur. We'll be behind your teams, Horvat. There's simply no changing that. But we could be there within the hour. Provide aerial back up as needed. We've reached out to the Italian Army. They're willing to supply us with two Blackhawk helicopters with
"Nest to Exfil Two. Nest to Exfil Two," Arkady's voice sounded in my head. "Exfil Two, copy. Go ahead Nest," Striker said. "Targets are at secondary location. Counselor, Fancy Pants, and Rogue are en route."I looked at Striker, gave him a nod. "Exfil Two en route to secondary, Nest.""Copy that, Exfil Two. Nest, out."I couldn't get anyone to hear me over the sound of the waves, so I just held my tongue. If something was happening to the girls, I was definitely going to be there. The fact that Nico and Foster were heading there didn't bode well. Using sign language, I asked Striker, How long?He shot me what looked like a thumbs up. In American Sign Language, it was the number ten. I nodded. I could hold out for ten more minutes. Hopefully. If someone thought to hurt my baby or Jaz, they were going to be in for a very rude awakening.