Fatal Courage: Shadow Force International, Book 3 (Shadow Force International Romantic Suspense Series) (28 page)

As she scrambled for her clothes, she felt happier than she had in months. She and Jax had reconnected in a way that was even more than she could have hoped for. She wasn’t sure at this point what the future held for her job-wise, but she’d figure it out. Troubleshooting was a strong point. She’d free Elliot and figure out where this thing with Jax was going. The future seemed full of possibilities.

She squinted at the clock on the wall across the room. “0100 hours,” she told him.

His morning hard-on was big and she wished they had time for her to help him with that. He made a painful face as he forced it under the waistband of the scrubs, then gave her an evil grin as he saw her watching him. “Later,” he said, as if reading her mind.

Later, right
. They had to get to Elliot while he was awake.

“I’ll hold you to it,” she said, hurriedly yanking up her own scrubs.

The hallway was too bright compared to the room, forcing Ruby to blink a few times for her eyes to adjust. Jax’s long legs ate up the linoleum and she had to double time it to keep up. They turned a corner into a separate wing and found Trace and Beatrice coming from the other end.

They met in front of the door that Elliot was behind. Jax didn’t slow, yanking open the wooden door and holding it for the others. “Let Ruby do the talking,” he told Beatrice, and it sounded like a warning to Ruby’s ears.

A surge of pride went through her system. Silly, but true. She
should
be the one to talk to Elliot—he trusted her and he didn’t know Beatrice or Trace. His feelings for Jax weren’t exactly great, either.

So while it was a solid tactical move on Jax’s part, it felt like something more. Especially as Ruby met his eyes and he gave her a quick nod. A nod and a look that said
you got this
.

She strode into the room feeling ten feet tall.

The nurse, Molly, was checking Elliot’s vitals. He was pale as a hospital sheet. Not the one he lay under—the clinic’s bedding was a soft blue. But if he’d been in a normal hospital, he would have won in the white category.

His eyes were closed, his mouth slack. Molly released his wrist and scurried out as the four of them surrounded the bed.

“El,” Ruby said quietly, reaching down and taking the hand Molly had placed on top of his stomach. “It’s me, Ruby.”

His mouth worked a moment and his eyelids fluttered. “Ru…Ru…”

“Yep, it’s me. You were shot. Jax saved your life and we brought you here to recover. The bullet’s out and you’re going to be fine. Do you remember what happened? Who did this to you?”

His eyelids opened a crack, blinked closed, opened more fully. His pupils were unfocused, though, as he met her gaze. “Ruby?”

She combed back a hunk of bangs from his forehead. “Yes, El. I’m here. You’ve had surgery and are groggy, but you’re going to be okay thanks to Jaxon.”

Elliot swatted at the oxygen tube in his nose. “Jax…?”

She drew his hand away from the tubing. “He saved your life.”

Beatrice shuffled her weight from one foot to another. Ruby understood her impatience but there was no hurrying this process.

“Elliot, you need to rest, but before I leave you, can you answer a couple of questions for me?”

A light squeeze of her hand.

She’d take that as a yes. “Tell me who shot you.”

Elliot shook his head, slowly rolling it from side to side. He seemed to notice the others circling the bed, his gaze landing on Jax and staying there. “I…can’t…”

Ruby felt her confidence draining away. “El, we know about Nightshade, about Commander Pierce. Were you looking for him?”

Elliot’s gaze meandered back to hers. “Pierce?”

“Were you and Keon James searching for him in Marrakech?”

“He’s…a…alive.”

Sounded like a statement. She’d take it as such. “And Al-Safari was helping you find him, wasn’t he?”

At the mention of Al-Safari’s name, Elliot stiffened. “Stay…away.”

“We know about Al-Safari, too,” Ruby said, rubbing his hand to calm him. “The man who died in Morocco wasn’t Abdul Al-Safari, was he? The real Abdul Al-Safari is still alive. Facial recognition confirms he was at the club the other night. Did he kill Keon James?”

The pressure on her hand increased. “Can’t…go there.”

“We’re nowhere near the club, El. Do you remember going to the police station and posing as a Homeland agent to get Little Gus out of questioning after the shooting at the club? You drove him out of Chicago to a small town called Pottersville. To an abandoned feed mill. We found him there, dead, along with the go-bag I gave you. Did you kill him or did someone else?”

A bob of his head that might have been a nod yes. But yes to which part of her question?

Elliot worked his mouth again, his tongue snaking out to wet his lips. “Tried…to save…him.”

“Here,” Jax handed Ruby a cup of water from a nearby cart.

Of course, the man’s mouth was dry, making his attempts to communicate harder than they had to be. Duh, why hadn’t she thought of that?

So much for my interrogation technique
. Ruby held the cup, complete with a straw, so Elliot could drink. A long sip later, he laid his head back and licked his lips once more. “Better,” he whispered.

“Who did you try to save? Little Gus?”

She handed the drink back to Jax and started to launch in again, but Elliot held up a shaky finger and closed his eyes.

Damn, was he going to fall back asleep already? She hadn’t gotten anything substantial from him.

She was about to shake him when he started talking. “The Moroccan 5…had Nightshade. Needed to find him. Caught the 5, but they had turned Pierce over to Iz…Iz…”

“Izala,” Ruby finished for him. “Al-Safari knew where Pierce was, didn’t he? He offered to get the location in exchange for his freedom.”

Another bob of Elliot’s head. “Izala kept moving him…or so we thought.”

“Al-Safari was dicking you around, wasn’t he?” Jax interjected. “He’d ask for military intel to feed to a source who claimed to have a lead on Pierce, then the lead would turn out to be nothing. So you kept feeding him intel, and he kept you chasing your tails.”

“Brought him in, faked the capture by Moroc…Moroccan intelligence.”

“But it wasn’t him,” Ruby said. “He knew you were onto him. Knew he was going to end up in prison or worse, so he sent a double to take his place. You were instructed to kill him and make it look like a suicide. Is that it?”

Elliot’s eyes cracked open. He stared at his hand where Ruby’s was interlinked with it. “I thought it was him, but…”

“It wasn’t.”

“No.” He motioned for another drink. Jax gave it to him this time.

After another long sip, Elliot released the straw and offered up a long-winded sigh. “After you,” he said, looking directly at Ruby.

Her confidence was back, but a cold drop of fear fell into the pit of her stomach. “After me? You mean, Al-Safari was after me? Why?”

“Izala wants you.”

The drop of fear morphed into a snowball. “Why would Mohammed Izala want me?”

Elliot dropped his gaze to the blue sheet and their hands, his lips drawing tight.

Zeb made an entrance, interrupting them, and all eyes, with the exception of Elliot’s, turned to him.

“We have company,” the old guy said, fiddling with his cell phone. For the first time since Ruby had met him, Zeb seemed nervous. He gave Beatrice a pointed look. “I think you’re going to want to take this one personally, B.”

J
AX
W
AS
T
ORN.
He needed to stay with Ruby and find out more about the bombshell Hayden had just laid on them, but he also needed to see who the “company” was that Beatrice was heading out of the room to deal with.

As if reading his mind, Ruby touched the top of his hand and cocked her chin at the backs of Hunter and Beatrice, filing out the door. “Go. I’ll stay here with El.”

And see what else I can find out
…the words hung unsaid in the air between them.

He gripped her hand, and thought of the weird triangle the three of them—her, Elliot, and him—were still forming all these months after Marrakech. “You sure?”

She nodded. “I’m sure, now go.”

His gut cramped but he let go of her and headed out the door.

He jogged to catch up to the others, Beatrice’s belly not slowing her down much. If he had to guess, the mystery guest wasn’t the enemy or they’d be knee-deep in gunfire already, trying to protect the doctor and staff as well as Hayden.

No, if he were a betting man, he’d say their mystery guest was a noncombatant, but one who could turn pretty downright violent if he wanted to.

And he might just want to, considering his pregnant wife was in the field being shot at by an unknown source.

Jax just prayed their visitor didn’t decide to take out his frustration and anger on him.

Turning the corner, he pulled up short, because,
yesiree
, there was one angry former SEAL with his feet planted and his arms crossed looking like six kinds of angry.

But, hoo-wee, that look morphed into relief and unconditional love the moment Callan Reese saw his wife.

Without a word, Beatrice went to him, and he opened his arms and took her into an embrace. She murmured something soft and low in his ear and Reese closed his eyes and hugged her tight, nearly lifting her and the child still in her stomach off the floor.

It sounded like he said, “Why do you do this to me?” against Beatrice’s hair, and she chuckled.

And then over her head, Reese shot Hunter a look that said the man’s time on this earth might be about to come to an end. “You were supposed to keep her off her feet and relaxed.”

Jax had to give Hunter credit. He didn’t flinch at the menacing glare on Reese’s face, nor did he argue with the man about the stubbornness of his charge. “She’s in good hands at this moment with Sloan and Dr. Oswalo. They’ve kept a close eye on her.”

Jax had checked on Beatrice before midnight, slipping out from a sleeping Ruby to make sure his boss’s blood pressure and other vitals were normal. They had been, and Beatrice had assured him she was eating fine and felt good. Dr. Oswalo and Hunter had seconded the fact that for a pregnant woman several days past her due date, Beatrice was the epitome of health.

A petite woman with dark hair and numerous wrinkles stepped out from the shadows. “That will be for me to decide.”

Reese had brought the midwife. Smart dude.

“You’re fired,” Callan said to Hunter, and Beatrice smacked his arm.

“He is not,” she countered and then spoke to Jax. “Get back to Ruby and Elliot. We need to know as much as possible about who’s hunting Agent Hayden. Our lead suspect at this point is Abdel Al-Safari. Do you agree?”

Jax could only nod. He did agree, but the possibilities were endless with Homeland and the CIA involved. They still didn’t have the full story, and even though his gut said Hayden was nothing more than a pawn in that story, Jax wasn’t about to let down his guard with the man. Hayden was a skilled operative who’d apparently lied to and fooled Ruby and a whole lot of other people. “I’ll find out everything I can, but I want outside verification of anything Hayden tells us.”

Beatrice nodded. “Agreed. Anything that comes out of his mouth is circumspect, but at this point, we don’t have enough information to confirm or deny what he’s told us so far.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Hunter asked. “I know a few interrogation techniques that might come in handy.”

Techniques
. A nice word for torture. “Let’s give him a chance to fess up,” Jax said. “And a few more hours to stabilize from the surgery. If we haven’t got anything worth its salt by then, he’s all yours.”

The two of them shared a fist bump and Jax left Beatrice and the others to deal with Cal and the midwife.

Izala wants you
. Hayden’s words to Ruby rang in Jax’s head as he made his way back to the recovery room. Was Hayden telling the truth or making shit up again? If it was true, how had Izala found out about Ruby? Had he learned that she was hunting him for the CIA?

Worse, what had he intended to do with her if he caught her?

Uncomfortable images swam through Jax’s mind, nauseating him. What did any psychopath want with a beautiful woman?

What had the man in the woods said? Him and his buddies were after the spook.

Not Elliot Hayden.

Ruby
.

Al-Safari was in Chicago. He’d been looking for Ruby. The torn up apartment, the mercenaries.

All after her.

Jax picked up his pace, needing to put eyes on the woman who’d upended his world. No one was laying a hand on her, and by God, if Al-Safari came after her, Jax would kill him without a second’s hesitation.

The door loomed on his left and he was mere steps from it when it flung open and Ruby came barreling out. She turned to her left, not seeing him, her feet breaking into a run as she headed for the far end of the hallway.

Her hands were up, palms on her cheeks, and Jax had the faint inclination she was hyperventilating as she hustled away, heading toward a door with a standard Exit sign above it.