Dangerously Hot (A Hostile Operations Team Novel)(#4) Page 23

  Her head snapped up as she heard someone coming down the hallway toward her room. And then the door swung inward and her heart pounded with fear and adrenaline. It was now or never.

  She jerked the slat from under the pillow and lunged.

  The man coming through the door didn’t know what hit him as she jammed the broken slat into his throat. A look of utter surprise crossed his face and she couldn’t help but mutter an apology. Taking a life wasn’t an easy thing to do, even when it was your only choice.

  But it wasn’t Al Ahmad she’d stabbed through the throat. It was the same man who’d shoved her up the stairs and into this room earlier. He clutched the slat, making gurgling noises as he stumbled into the room. She jammed the wood harder, and then she grabbed the other broken end from under the pillow when he toppled forward.

  Lucky groped around his still-twitching body, searching for a weapon. There wasn’t one. If he had a gun, it was in the front. She thought about rolling him over, but what if he wasn’t dead? What if he grabbed her?

  She didn’t look back as she jumped over his body and ran out the door. She remembered the way they’d brought her in because they hadn’t thought they needed to blindfold her this time. She slipped down the stairs, her brain whirling. If she could find another weapon, find a phone, something. Maybe she could get out of this alive. Maybe she could go home and see her mom and stepdad and the triplets again. She missed them, even if she felt like an alien in their presence.

  They were the only home she had left. Despair threatened to choke her as she thought about a life without Kev in it. She pushed those thoughts away and tried to listen past the pounding of blood in her ears. The compound was strangely silent…

  And then it wasn’t. There was an explosion somewhere and gunfire, and Lucky’s heart rocketed into overdrive. Maybe the king’s forces had come for him, or maybe HOT had come for her.

  She didn’t care which, but for the first time all evening, she could taste freedom again.

  She crept down the hall a bit slower now, listening hard for movement. The truth was she didn’t know who was out there or which way they were coming from, and she needed to be smart and careful. She stopped at a door and listened. There was no movement inside, so she turned the knob carefully and stepped inside.

  It was an office and there was a phone on the desk. She ran over and snatched it off the cradle.

  But there was no dial tone. She set it down with a sob and clutched the broken slat against her chest.

  “Going somewhere, Lucky Reid?”

  She spun to find Al Ahmad standing in another entryway, a gun pointed at her. He’d removed his keffiyeh, and she was struck by the beauty of his face once more. He was a classically handsome man, dark and chiseled. But he was also evil, and it was his evil that made her stomach churn.

  “You aren’t going to win this time.” The gunfire continued somewhere in the distance. “They’re coming for you.”

  He strolled into the room, lowering the gun to his side as he did so. She calculated whether or not she could rush him and jab the jagged slat into his throat before he could shoot her.

  The odds were not in her favor, so she stood and held her weapon close, waiting.

  His dark glittering eyes traveled down her form, fixing on the slat. Then he met her eyes again. “I could shoot you right now,” he said softly. “In a place that won’t kill you right away. That weapon will do nothing to save you.”

  The wood bit into her fingers as she squeezed. “Maybe not, but I’m not letting it go. Shoot me if you want, but if there’s any strength left in my body when you approach me, I will stab you.”

  Because there was no doubt he would approach her. Killing her quickly or easily was not his style. Torturing her was. It was what he wanted, what he needed.

  And they both knew it.

  “You have grown tougher since the last time we met.” He grinned and lifted the gun. “This only makes it more fun, you realize.”

  “Go ahead,” she shot back. “But what will you use for leverage once they break in here? I’m your bargaining chip.”

  “What makes you think they will succeed? This compound is well defended.” He snorted. “You and your pitiful military. Never able to see the bigger picture. A country like yours should rule the world, and yet you do not. You are weak, unable to do what needs to be done.”

  “And that’s a good thing for you, isn’t it? Because if we believed in indiscriminate killing, we would have eradicated the Freedom Force a long time ago—along with a lot of innocent people who would have been nothing more than collateral damage. But we aren’t like you. We don’t believe in killing innocent people to achieve our goals.”

  She felt the shot before she heard it. A sharp stinging pain radiated down her arm, up into her shoulder and collarbone. Her fingers opened of their own accord and the slat fell to the floor. Instinctively, she clutched her arm with her other hand and tried not to pass out from the pain.

  Al Ahmad was still grinning like the madman he was. “A flesh wound, nothing more. But oh so painful, I’m afraid.”

  He closed the distance between them and punched her in the gut before she could react. And then he slapped her across the face. Her ears rang, and the metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. Lucky tried to stay upright, but she fell to her knees, her head aching and her arm throbbing. Tears sprang to her eyes and made everything blurry. She let them fall because blinking them back only made it worse.

  She groped on the floor for the slat, but he sent it flying with a kick. And then he grabbed her hair and yanked her head back, baring her throat. She felt the bite of his knife in her skin before she saw the glint of the blade.

  “Just a little more pressure and your throat will open like a dam,” he whispered in her ear. “What then, Lucky Reid? No one can save you when it happens. Your precious Americans will go home and forget you.”

  Lucky swallowed and the blade cut into her a little bit more. Fear swirled in her belly until she wanted to vomit. But there was something else too.

  Anger. Pure, blazing anger.

  She was not going to die without inflicting some kind of pain on him.

  He was kneeling beside her now, his mouth at her ear, his knife wedged against her throat, biting into her. She flexed the fingers of her wounded arm. It hurt like a bitch, but they still worked. If she was fast enough, she could grab his balls and squeeze them tight.

  He would cut her throat, of course, and that would be the end of that.

  But it would be worth it, by God. And she would die much sooner than he planned.

  He dragged the knife down a bit, slicing a vertical line in her skin, alongside her artery.

  “Ah, but that would be too easy for you,” he whispered. “Much too easy…”

  He laughed and Lucky drew herself up tight, preparing to strike. A second later, as if in answer to her prayers, the lights went out. Al Ahmad stiffened, his knife slipping away from her skin for the barest of moments.

  It was just the opportunity she needed.

  ***

  His side hurt like a sonofabitch, but Kev pushed past the pain and kept going. They’d HALOed in and then started humping for the compound. The place was defended, but those defenses weren’t much against a team like his. The tangos were no match, though of course there was always the danger one of them would get a lucky shot.

  Hawk took out the rooftop defenders, then Knight Rider and Brandy set a charge and they all burst into the compound. They were met with gunfire, but they fought their way inward, taking out as many men as they could along the way. Iceman and Flash found the generator and the lights blinked out, leaving the team in the dark.

  Just the way they liked it.

  They systematically worked their way from room to room, shooting whoever got in the way and searching for signs of Lucky. Kev focused on the mission, but that didn’t stop his heart from thumping extra hard, his side from aching, or pain from radiating throughout his body.

/>   He gritted his teeth and kept on going. He wasn’t stopping until he found her.

  God, please let her still be alive.

  Because he knew it was perfectly possible Al Ahmad had already killed her. He could have thrown her from the helicopter just for the fun of it, or he might have killed her and left her body behind in Baq. There was no telling, but this had been their best option for finding her.

  “Anything?” Iceman’s voice on the headset.

  “Nothing.” That was Knight Rider.

  “Keep going, ladies.” Matt ranged along beside Kev while the other guys swept the compound in pairs, searching every corner and closet. “We aren’t leaving here without Lucky.”

  Kev swallowed against the lump in his throat. The guys knew as well as he did that she could already be dead, but none of them acted like it. And they wouldn’t until they knew it for a fact. He was more grateful for that than he could say.

  They turned and started down a hallway, helmet lights sweeping the area for signs of life. They hadn’t run into a tango in minutes now and Kev was beginning to get worried. What if they weren’t here? What if it was all a ruse?

  Yeah, the helicopter was on the pad—disabled now that they’d arrived—but that didn’t mean Al Ahmad had even been onboard when it left Baq.

  A scream shattered the night, stopping them in their tracks. Kev’s blood ran cold as he bolted forward. A woman’s voice screamed Arabic words that pelted the air with their vehemence. Kev identified the room the sound came from and surged toward the door. Matt was on his six as the two of them burst through, assault rifles notched into their shoulders and ready to fire.

  Two bodies tangled on the ground, writhing and twisting in a heap of fabric. Long tawny hair glinted in the light from his helmet. A knife flashed upward and then disappeared and Kev’s heart leapt into his throat.

  He wanted to shoot, but it was impossible to separate the two people twisting together on the floor.

  “Jesus,” Matt said. “I can’t get a target.”

  Kev lurched forward just as the two bodies on the floor separated. Lucky sat up then and did something that made the man beneath her scream like a little girl.

  “Goddamn,” Matt breathed. And then he gave an order to the rest of the team while Kev went over and shoved the barrel of his rifle in Al Ahmad’s open mouth.

  Lucky blinked then, as if she’d just realized she was no longer alone with a terrorist shitbag.

  “Get up, Lucky,” Kev ordered. “It’s over.”

  “Kev?” Her voice broke. And then she was clambering to her feet and backing away from the monster on the floor. He groaned as best he could with a rifle in his mouth. He brought his knees up slowly and tears flowed down his cheeks.

  Kev wanted to take Lucky in his arms, but he couldn’t turn his attention from their target.

  “You were shot,” she said. “I saw you fall.”

  “Down but not out,” he told her, his voice gruff.

  Two of his teammates came into the room then. While Matt fed orders to Billy Blake through the comm feed, Hawk and Iceman came over and jerked Al Ahmad from the floor. He didn’t seem to be able to stand, but that didn’t stop them from trussing him up like a goose and putting a sack over his head.

  Kev turned and stared at Lucky. She blinked back at him, her arms wrapped around her body. He told himself he should grab her and hug her tight, but he was frozen in place. He’d let Al Ahmad take her when he’d sworn he wouldn’t. She’d been in danger because he’d failed to protect her. He’d broken his promise to her and he didn’t know how to say he was sorry for that.

  His gaze swept over her torn abaya and back up to her wide-eyed face. That’s when he realized that a small river of blood seeped from a wound in her throat. Worse, blood dripped down her arm and puddled on the floor. He hadn’t seen that at first. Now that he had, his rage went nuclear.

  It was the only explanation for what happened inside him then. Rage and fear and adrenaline coalesced into a tight ball in his gut until he thought he would explode with it.

  “Gonna fucking kill him,” he growled, turning toward the huddled and sobbing form of the world’s most wanted terrorist.

  “Kev, no, please.” Lucky grabbed him then, her arms wrapping around him from behind. He winced as she put pressure on his side, but the rage didn’t clear. He brought the rifle up and jammed it against Al Ahmad’s head while Iceman and Hawk jumped back.

  “Stand down,” Matt ordered sharply. “Don’t fucking make me shoot you.”

  “He needs to die,” Kev snarled without taking his gaze off the man kneeling on the floor. “If he doesn’t die, she’ll never be safe.”

  “Kev, please.” Lucky said. She didn’t let go, didn’t back away. “Please. I thought I lost you tonight, but you’re here. After everything, you’re here.” She drew in a breath that sounded like a sob. “If you do this, I’ll lose you again. Please, please don’t.”

  There was a buzzing in his ears. “He will never stop hunting you. He’ll do it from behind bars. You won’t be safe.”

  She sucked in another breath. “This isn’t what we do to people. It’s what he does. And Mendez is going to bury him behind walls so thick he’ll never get out. He won’t piss without permission, and he damn sure won’t talk to anyone. I’m not scared, Kev. I’m not scared.”

  Her hand moved to his arm, slid down the length of it until she could grasp the barrel of his rifle. Slowly, she pushed it down, away from Al Ahmad’s head.

  Kev blinked. And then he took a step back and sucked in a sharp breath. The buzzing in his ears intensified. His head was light, his vision spotty. The edges were black, the tunnel closing in. Relief, he told himself. Relief that she was alive. He turned to finally take her in his arms the way he should have.

  But the blackness rushed over him and everything faded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “She had him by the fucking balls!” Iceman howled with laughter. The other guys snorted and giggled. A couple of them clutched their crotches and winced.

  Lucky couldn’t help but laugh too. Here were these badass military men, tall and muscled and dangerous as hell, and they were snorting and giggling like a group of high school girls over the fact Lucky had taken down the world’s most wanted man by the balls.

  Another HOT unit ranged around the ready room, listening to the tale. One of them shook his head as his gaze drifted over to where she sat. He looked a little surprised and a little in awe all at once.

  Lucky dropped her head and studied her lap. It had been a long couple of days. After HOT broke in and captured Al Ahmad, they’d bugged out pretty quick. They’d had to carry Kev to the extraction point, but they’d made it. The C-130 had set down in the desert and was waiting for them to arrive. Soon as they were onboard, it took off in utter darkness and climbed into the sky.

  Iceman and Flash had started tending to Kev the minute they were onboard. He wasn’t bleeding, thank God, but his body had been through a lot and he’d been pushing it hard. Iceman had given him painkillers and something to keep him asleep during the ride. Then they’d turned their attention to her.

  The cut on her neck wasn’t deep, but they’d cleaned it and bandaged it. She’d probably have a scar, but what was new about that? As for the flesh wound he’d given her in the arm, she’d have another beauty of a scar. These weren’t the first scars Al Ahmad had given her, but they were certainly the last.

  He’d been chained up at the rear of the plane under heavy guard, and it had taken everything she had not to go over and kick the hell out of him. Instead, after she was patched up, she’d sat at Kev’s side for the rest of the flight, her fingers threaded through his. Matt had come over to tell her that the mine was safe and the Freedom Force had been rolled up with the Opposition. They were all going to prison for a long time. She’d thanked him and then laid her head on Kev’s gurney to rest.

  A few hours later, they’d set down at an undisclosed air base and transferred to a C-5 t
hat had been fitted with a personal jail cell just for Al Ahmad. Hours of flying later, they’d arrived back in DC. Al Ahmad was currently being held somewhere so secret that she wasn’t even sure Mendez knew the location.

  Then again, knowing Mendez, he wasn’t out of the loop on something like that. Hell, the president of the United States would be out of the loop before Mendez would.

  Hawk came and sat down beside her. “You okay, babe?”

  She ran her hands up and down her arms and nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

  And it was true. She’d been so terrified when Al Ahmad—Abdul Halim al-Faizan—had a knife at her throat, but the second the lights went out, she’d reacted without thinking. She’d grabbed his wrist and wrested control of the knife away. They’d fallen to the floor together, a tangle of arms and legs and lethal determination.

  And then she’d gotten her hand on his balls. Since she wasn’t an idiot, she’d twisted for all she was worth. She’d continued twisting until someone jammed a gun in Al Ahmad’s mouth.

  When she’d realized it was Kev, her heart had nearly burst.

  But then everything had gotten weird. It was as if someone had put up a barrier between them that neither could cross. In the instant when they should have been wrapping their arms around each other, they’d simply stared.

  Then all hell broke loose, and she’d not had a moment alone with Kev since. When they’d gotten back to DC, they’d been hustled to HOT HQ and put up in the dorms until they could be debriefed. There’d never been a moment to talk to Kev alone. She’d seen him in a group setting, and she’d watched him carefully.

  He did not look at her, and her heart slowly cracked open as she realized he wasn’t going to. Something had changed for him out there. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew it affected his feelings for her.

  All she wanted now was to escape, but escape wasn’t happening quickly enough.

  The door opened and Mendez came in, followed by Matt and Kev. The guys quieted. Lucky tried to keep her attention on Mendez, but her gaze kept straying to Kev. He looked like a block of stone standing there. No emotion crossed his face whatsoever and her heart cracked a little more.