Topping the Alpha: Trident Security Series (20 page)

“Come on, Alyssa. Let’s fucking get this over with. I don’t have all day.”

Glancing around, she realized she was screwed. She’d left the backdoor open as an escape route, but she couldn’t get to it from where she was hidden without being seen. Maybe they hadn’t spotted her vehicle around the side of the building. If they didn’t, they might think she had changed her mind about coming here.

“Alyssa,” her father growled. “There’s no point hiding. I saw the truck outside, so I know you’re here.”

So much for that little prayer. Sounds of feet shuffling reached her ears, but she couldn’t pinpoint where they were coming from—the acoustics in the building amplified and distorted everything. She shifted her squatting stance and searched for a way out. Maybe if she stayed low, she could get behind the trailer about ten feet away. From there she might be able to work her way around to the backdoor.

Holding her breath, Alyssa was ready to make the quick dash, but a hand came around her mouth and another around the gun, twisting it out of her grasp. “Gotcha.”

Her scream was muffled as she tried to squirm out of the man’s grip, but her fight was useless as he dragged her out into the open and shoved her down at her father’s feet. When his bald henchman handed him her gun, Oliver Wagner sneered at his daughter. “What’s this? Thought you would shoot me? You wouldn’t have the guts.”

Pushing herself to her feet, she held out her hand. “Give it back to me and I’ll prove you wrong.” She wished she sounded stronger. Even she didn’t believe her words, but she couldn’t keep the tremors from her voice.

In the blink of an eye, her father backhanded her across the face and she fell to the ground again. Pain exploded through her cheek as she tasted blood in her mouth. The bastard glared at her. “You little cunt. Too bad you’re too grown up for my liking anymore, but I’m sure the boys here will glad to teach you a lesson in respect.”

Oh God, no.
The fear she felt before was nothing compared to what ran through her veins at this very moment. While the bald guy licked his lips in anticipation of a little fun, the blond guy just stared at her with an expression she could only call cold and calculating. He scared her more than the other two men put together—and knowing her father, that said a lot. Crab walking backward, she tried to scramble away, but Baldy reached down and grabbed her ankle, dragging her forward again.

“No!” she screamed, kicking her other foot at him, trying to dislodge his tight grip.

“Let her go!” Jake’s voice filled the building and everyone froze. Well, everyone except Alyssa—she thrust her free foot upward, catching Baldy in the crotch. The man bellowed in pain and released her leg, but when she got her feet under her and stood, her father grabbed her around the neck and held the gun to her head. The other two men had pulled out their weapons and were pointing them at a trailer near the front entrance. She couldn’t see Jake, but apparently the men had zeroed in on his location.

Holding her in front of him, her father yelled, “Get out here or I’ll kill her right now.”

Terrified for Jake, she struggled against the hard grip, but it was useless. She prayed he hadn’t come alone. If anything happened to him, she would never forgive herself.

“Why don’t you let her go, jackass, and we’ll forget the whole thing.”

“Fuck you!” Oliver bellowed then lowered his voice and growled at his men. “Get the fucking bastard and kill him.”

* * *

Nick rounded the back of the building and was relieved to see the rear door was ajar, making it easy for him to sneak in without the rusty hinges announcing his presence. He stopped a few inches away from the doorjamb and took a quick peek in, only exposing his head for the briefest moment. He was in luck. There was plenty of landscaping equipment and trailers for him to use as cover. Unfortunately, that same stuff was preventing him from seeing who was in there and where they were located.

Under the cloak of silence, with his gun held close to his chest and the muzzle pointing forward, he cleared the corner. Extending his arms in front of him, he let his weapon lead the way.

“No!”

He halted at the sound of Alyssa yelling, followed by Jake’s voice. “Let her go!”

Heading in the direction of the teenager’s cry, Nick’s presence stayed masked by a tractor. As Wagner and Jake continued to shout orders and insults at each other, he peered around the side of the big piece of machinery. Three men with guns and one terrified female hostage—
great, just fucking great.

Since everyone’s attention was focused on the trailer Jake was hiding behind, Nick inched further around the green John Deere, just in time to hear Wagner tell his men, “Get the fucking bastard and kill him.”

Not on his watch!

The two goons stepped toward the trailer and Nick aimed his gun at the bald guy. “Take one more step and…” He never had time to inform him that he’d be a dead man because the asshole spun around in the direction of Nick’s voice, the gun coming around to fire. But Nick beat him to it, firing twice in rapid succession. Both bullets hit their mark, dead center in the man’s chest. Before the body hit the ground, Nick was already pivoting and searching out his next target.

The other goon had disappeared behind a pickup truck and was exchanging gunfire with Jake. Confident he wasn’t needed there at the moment, Nick tried to locate Wagner and Alyssa, who had disappeared from view. Through the echoing reports of bullets being discharged, he was able to hear the teenage cry out in pain from behind some other equipment. Making sure he wasn’t in the other asshole’s line of fire, he hurried over and cocked his head around a huge, diesel engine.

Wagner still had his daughter by the neck, choking and dragging her toward the rear entrance Nick had used. Alyssa was struggling, but she was no match for the larger man. “Let go of me!”

Aiming his gun at the bastard’s head, Nick stepped out into the open. “Freeze, asshole!”

Wagner whirled around, placing Alyssa between them and held the muzzle of the gun at her head. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Your worst nightmare. Let her go.”

The man seemed to be weighing his options as Nick took a few more steps forward, trying to ignore the look of terror on the teenager’s face. “You hurt one hair on her head and it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“I don’t think so.”

The man’s eyes flashed to something behind Nick at the same time Alyssa screamed, “Look out!”

Wagner shoved the girl toward Nick, blocking any shot, but he was already spinning around to find the other threat. Two shots were fired almost simultaneously and neither had been from Nick’s gun. Excruciating, hot pain tore through his chest and a vaguely familiar voice stopped him from firing his weapon at the man who’d appeared behind him. “ATF! Don’t shoot!”

Allman.

Nick’s legs began to give out as he looked back at Wagner to see the man was dead on the floor with a bullet hole to his forehead. Alyssa was also on the ground, crying but alive. His knees hit the cement flooring and he heard her scream his name as a black shroud descended over him and he collapsed into the darkness.

Trying to keep his mind on the guy shooting at him, and not the sounds of Nick engaging the other two men and Alyssa’s cries and screams, Jake crouched down behind a trailer. From what he could tell, Nick had taken care of one of the goons, but Wagner was still out there.

Something behind him clattered, but a shuffled foot seconds before had come from the other direction. The guy was trying to make him chase a red herring.
Not happening, asshole
. Turning the tables, Jake picked a rock out of the tread of a huge tire he was squatting next to and threw it to his left. Just as he’d hoped, a shadow appeared to his right. The guy rounded the trailer looking toward where the rock had landed and by the time he noticed Jake to his left, it was too late—he was in the former SEAL’s gun sites. But the asshole wasn’t going down easy. He swung his gun hand around, however, Jake was ready for it and fired his weapon, hitting the goon in the face. In a reflexive reaction, the man’s finger squeezed the trigger, but the shot went off harmlessly several feet to Jake’s left. The body was dead before it hit the floor.

Just to be safe, Jake stood and stepped forward, before kicking the man’s gun to the side. Pivoting, he tried to zero in on where Nick and Wagner were, but Alyssa screaming “look out”, followed by two gunshots, had his blood running cold.

“ATF! Don’t shoot!”

A split second of relief was shattered at the teenager’s next words. “Nick! Nooooo!”

Shit!

Circumventing the trailer, Jake spotted Allman disappearing around the far side of a platform holding two large, diesel engines. Running like his life depended on it, he wasn’t prepared for what he found. Wagner was dead. Alyssa was on her knees crying and Nick…
oh,
God, Nick
…

Jake’s heart and gut felt shredded in that moment, and a fear, unlike anything he’d ever known, gripped him in its talons.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

Allman was on his knees, ripping open the kid’s shirt and glanced up when he heard Jake approach. “He’s alive, but it got him in the chest. Call 911.”

Unable to look away from the blood seeping out of Nick’s upper torso, Jake fumbled in his pocket for his phone. He quickly pushed the digits.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

* * *

Sitting on a chair, bent at the waist, Jake held his head in his hands. Thick, heavy tension hung in the air of the surgical waiting room. In his mind, he replayed everything that’d happened for what felt like the thousandth time since the ambulance carrying Nick pulled away from the scene. After watching it speed down the road with lights flashing and sirens blaring, Allman had filled Jake, Devon, and the rest of them, in on what’d happened.

The fed had gotten a text from Wagner telling him to meet the others at the storage garage without further explanation. Traffic had been heavy and he’d pulled up just as the gunfire started. Upon entering the building, Alyssa’s screams had him dashing in her direction. Unfortunately, his arrival had inadvertently set things in motion for Nick to be shot. Allman had been able to make the shot that killed Wagner a split second after the man had fired at Nick.

The rest of the team had shown up about three minutes later. Devon had been as white as a ghost when he ran into the building, his gaze searching for his injured brother. Jake had almost forgotten they’d all heard everything go down. Apparently they’d muted their mics, so as not to distract Jake and Nick with unnecessary chatter.

When the second rig of paramedics was ready to transport Alyssa to the hospital, Jake had hopped in with them. Even though she was basically unharmed, sans a few scratches and bruises, they still wanted her to be looked at by a physician and the teenager had refused to go without him. Allman had handled the local police and feds who’d shown up, but Jake was going to have to give his formal statements to the ATF, FBI, and local P.D. as soon as Nick got out of surgery.

Fuck!
What could he have done differently? There had to have been an alternate scenario which didn’t result in Nick fighting for his life. If he died…no! Jake refused to let that thought be completed. The kid couldn’t die.
God, please. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve asked you for anything, but please let him live.

He glanced around the room. Three quarters of the occupants were here awaiting word on Nick. Rick and Eileen Michaelson, Boomer’s parents, and Jenn were sitting with Alyssa, trying to reassure her that everything would be all right and it wasn’t her fault. The ER doctors had checked her over and released her into his care after he explained the recent deaths of both her parents and claimed she was his niece. Devon and Kristen, Angie, Marco, Brody, Boomer and Kat, Mitch, Kayla, Tiny, and Henderson were scattered around the room, some standing, others sitting. Mitch’s parents were on vacation and he was holding off on calling them, while his brother was waiting in Atlanta for word on whether or not he needed to make the trip for their cousin. Kayla’s wife, Dr. Roxanne London, had been with the solemn group earlier, but was now checking on one of her pediatric patients who’d been brought into the emergency room. Trident’s secretary, Colleen, was holding down the fort at the compound with the help of Foster and McCabe.

Jake’s brother, Mike, had driven their mom to the hospital after she insisted on seeing for herself that Jake was okay. They didn’t want to be in the way, so they hadn’t stayed long, but promised to check in with him later. The two were still in the dark about his relationship with Nick and it hadn’t seemed like the appropriate time for him to tell them.

Sitting next to him, Angie reached over and rubbed his shoulder in silent support. She’d been on an early morning flight returning from New York when everything had gone down and Tiny had driven to the airport to pick her up and bring her to the hospital. Although he’d grown to love all the women of Trident like the sisters he’d never had, Angie was the one he was closest to. While he’d been helping Ian protect her months ago, the two of them had just clicked.

He looked up when Angie gasped, stood, and ran into Ian’s arms as he walked into the room two seconds before his parents did. When Devon had called his oldest brother, Ian had abruptly ended his meeting at the Pentagon and rushed back to Tampa. CC had flown him up to D.C. and had been waiting for him at the airport for an evening flight anyway. The extremely wealthy Chuck and Marie Sawyer had taken their own private jet as well. Thankfully, they’d been at home in Charlotte when Devon called them, instead of halfway around the world on one of their charity trips. The Sawyer matriarch was a plastic surgeon who spent a good portion of her time helping the organization Operation Smile perform facial reconstructive surgery on children in third world countries.

Jake, Devon, and the others all stood to greet the newcomers. Chuck hugged his second born son. “Any word?”

Devon shook his head. “Not yet, Dad. He’s been in there for over two hours. The good news is the bullet went straight through. Less damage that way…we hope.”

Making her way through the group of family and friends, Marie kissed and hugged everyone. When she reached Jake, he let her pull him into an embrace, but couldn’t look her in the eye. It was his fault the Sawyers might have to bury another son.

Jake shook hands with Chuck, again avoiding eye contact, and then sat back in his seat to wait for the surgeon to come let them know Nick’s condition. It was another forty minutes before a tired-looking man in his fifties, wearing scrubs, entered the room. “Nick Sawyer’s family.”

The doctor’s eyes widened when the group of eighteen all stood and hurried toward him. He held up his hands in reassurance. “It looks like he’s going to be fine. Sore, but fine. Once we got the bleeding stopped and gave him a transfusion for the volume he lost, it was just a matter of repairing the damage to his muscles and the subclavian vein that the bullet nicked. He’s a lucky guy. The angle of the bullet’s entry helped it stay away from the spine. And if he hadn’t been in such good shape, things may have been different. Now, only two people can go see him in recovery and a nurse will let you know when they can go in. I’m sending him to the surgical intensive care unit until I reevaluate him tomorrow, just as a precaution.”

While everyone else sighed with relief and hugged each other, Marie identified herself as a physician to the surgeon and stepped outside the room with him to get a more technical report on Nick’s condition. The relief which coursed through Jake wouldn’t replace the guilt he felt. Even though the circumstances were completely different, he blamed himself now as much as he had when Max had ended up in the hospital with devastating injuries so many years ago.

Feeling himself closing in on an emotional breakdown, he knew he had to get out of there. Turning to Ian and Devon, he said, “I’ve got to go give my statement to the feds. Alyssa’s been cleared to give hers tomorrow. I’m not allowed to be in with her when she gives it, so I contacted Reggie to be her lawyer. He’ll get her through it.” His gaze met Devon’s. “Thanks for letting her stay with you tonight. I think she’ll do better with the rest of the girls around. I’ll check in with you later.”

The brothers exchanged a look he couldn’t decipher, then Ian eyed him with concern. “Okay. You all right?”

Taking two steps closer to the door, he swallowed hard then nodded. “Yeah. Glad the kid is okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

Feeling like a coward, unworthy of his team’s brotherhood, Jake fled with tears in his eyes.