Hot Shot (A Hostile Operations Team Novel)(#5) (20 page)

“Y…yes,” she said. “I d…do.”

Her heart cried out in agony when she said the words. She’d never been married before, and she didn’t want to marry Stavros. She wanted it to be Jack standing beside her. Jack who she promised to love, honor, and cherish.
 

But it was Stavros, and her belly churned. She could get through this if she had to, but please God, please don’t make her have to have a wedding night with him. She’d thought she could do it if she had to, but after the things she’d experienced with Jack, she would rather die than give herself to this man.

The priest turned to Stavros and started to ask him the questions that would bind them together. But there was a shout outside and then another. The sound of gunfire shattered the air and Stavros whirled. But then he grabbed her and Eli and dragged them toward the door where one of his personal bodyguards stood with drawn weapon and dead eyes.

She turned to look over her shoulder at Jack. He was looking right at her, his eyes sharp and hot and filled with fury. Her heart skipped a beat at the look on his face. His eyes slid to the guard, then back to her—and then he was in motion, rushing toward her, tumbling onto the floor in front of her. A second later, his hand was on her thigh—and the gun came free from the holster.

He aimed between her legs and the gun exploded twice in succession. Gina couldn’t even scream it was so sudden. Eli did, however, and she hugged him tight and tried to reassure him.

“Get down, Gina,” Jack ordered, and she dropped to the floor as he fired again and again.

Her gaze met the priest’s across the room. His eyes were wide as he made the sign of the cross. His acolytes were huddled together on the floor, praying.

Outside, the gunfire was rapid and strong, and Gina prayed that Jack’s team were the ones winning. If they weren’t, then she didn’t think that she and Jack and Eli would be trekking across the island or holing up in a cave. If Jack’s team wasn’t winning, they were all dead.

Something exploded nearby, and Gina gasped. A huge fireball roared upward into the blue sky, and men screamed and shouted.

Jack got to his feet and went over to the door. There were four men lying on the floor and Gina’s gaze darted between them as she prayed Stavros was one of them.

He wasn’t, and her heart sank like a stone.

“Come on,” Jack said from the door, and Gina got up and followed him. He handed her a gun he’d taken from one of the dead men, and she realized he had the rest of them on his body.

“I don’t know how to use this,” she confessed as Eli wrapped his arms around her neck and held on tight. He’d stopped crying and she thought maybe he was fascinated by all the noise and commotion rather than scared now.

Jack gave her a look. “Seriously, babe?”

“I’m a pacifist.”

He snorted a laugh. “Jesus. Don’t point it at anything you don’t mean to kill, all right? When you’re ready, flip that button on the side near the trigger—and squeeze.”

She nodded.

“Now follow me, okay? We’re getting out of here. Just don’t shoot me.”

“That’s the last thing I want to do.” She’d rather kiss him. And if they got out of here alive, she would do a whole hell of a lot of kissing him. And other things. They started down the hallway. “Where’s Stavros?”

He didn’t look at her. “He got out. But we’ll get him.”

They didn’t encounter anyone as they moved through the house. The staff was hiding. Jack had taken out four of Stavros’s hired men. If there’d been any others still in the house, they’d probably gone outside to defend the compound.

When they reached an exterior door, Jack stood there for a long moment and listened. Gina’s heart pounded hard as she waited. She didn’t know what he was about to do, but then the door burst inward and Gina screamed. Jack had two guns in his hands when someone in a black suit and helmet came through the other side. She thought Jack would start shooting, but instead he lowered the weapons.

So did the man in the suit. It took Gina a second to recognize Iceman, but when she did, her knees went wobbly. She dropped the gun Jack had given her and sagged into the wall, holding her baby close and trying to keep it together.

“Metaxas?” Jack asked.

Iceman shook his head. “Not sure. But we got to get moving, dude. Big Mac, Lucky, and Brandy are holding them off out there at the yacht, but if Metaxas has reinforcements coming, we’re in big trouble.”

As if to punctuate that point, the soft thumping of a helicopter in the distance began to grow louder. “Is that us?” Jack asked.

“No.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JACK KEPT GINA AND Eli between him and the wall as they made their way across the compound. There were trees on fire, and black oily smoke rose into the air. It stank, but it also provided cover as they ran. Iceman led the way, and they soon met up with Knight Rider and Billy the Kid, who flanked them and kept them protected as they ran down the dock toward the yacht. Gunfire erupted from the trees and Jack felt a stinging hot sensation pierce his thigh. He knew he’d been hit, but he had enough adrenaline and fury to propel him down the dock and onto the yacht. Iceman and Knight Rider slashed at the ropes with their knives while Big Mac gave the engine juice. As soon as they were untethered, the yacht shot backward as Big Mac worked the thrusters.

Brandy and Flash set up covering fire as they kicked up to higher speed and blasted toward the open channel. Over the mountain, two helicopters appeared as they came closer to the compound. The place had been shot to hell, and the diesel tanks that stored fuel for the generators were on fire, lighting the sky and crawling tree by tree toward the house. It would reach the house in a few more minutes, and then the roof would burn.

Jack stayed outside to help with the covering fire, grabbing a rifle and aiming toward the trees. When the next shot flared bright, he targeted the light and fired. He did it again and again—and then the compound simply exploded, a giant fireball whooshing into the sky. The shockwave rolled over the yacht, but they were far enough away it didn’t affect them.

Jack stared at the fire raging out of control and knew Metaxas couldn’t have survived that. And yet he’d wanted to shoot the bastard personally, goddammit. He’d taken their son, and he’d tried to force Gina to be his wife. When Jack thought about that slimy bastard touching her…

Someone put a hand on his arm and he jerked. Matt was staring at him with lowered brows. “You’re hit.”

Jack glanced down at his leg, at the hole in his jeans and the blood welling through the tear and seeping into the fabric. “Yeah, so?”

“So? Get inside and get that taken care of. I think we got it out here.”

And they did, because the yacht was traveling fast and the water cleaved before the hull like butter under a hot knife. The shore was receding quickly and the bullets had stopped coming. The men who’d been on the perimeter of the compound would probably still be alive, but they damn sure wouldn’t care about an escaping yacht with the whole place burning around them.

Jack tried to see the helicopters, but they weren’t visible through the smoke. He didn’t hear them either, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. “They can still come after us by air.”

Matt shook his head. “Get inside, Hawk. If they come after us, I’ll let you take them down. Between you and Brandy, I think you could shoot the fucking Air Force out of the sky. I’m not worried.”

But he didn’t want to go inside the yacht’s cool interior. Because it meant he’d be facing Gina—and the kid he’d fathered. He thought he’d wrapped his head around that, but seeing the boy—hearing him cry for his mother—had gotten inside Jack’s heart and twisted it up tight. He didn’t know what to do, what to say. He had no frame of reference for this. When he’d had a job to do—save Gina and Eli—he hadn’t had time to think about it.

But now?

There was a child inside who belonged to him. What the hell was he supposed to do about that? In the abstract, it had been easy to tell Gina she wasn’t keeping him out of Eli’s life. But in reality, what the hell could he give this kid that she couldn’t? Maybe she’d tell him he could be a father, but he didn’t see where having one of those had mattered much in his life. And since he hadn’t had the best example, how would he know what to do?

He set the rifle down and rubbed his hands over his face. Then he turned and hobbled down the side of the deck toward the interior door. As the adrenaline from their flight faded, the wound would hurt more and more. He knew that, and he didn’t look forward to it.

The yacht was big and luxurious—albeit a little worse for wear now that it’d been in a pitched battle—because the team had wanted to look like the kind of people who could sail the Caribbean without a care. He knew it had bedrooms in the interior, and he hoped like hell that Gina had retreated to one of them. Then he could get this wound doctored and deal with her later.

But that wasn’t the way it was going to be. She was sitting in the main living area when he walked in. The cabin was furnished with gleaming cherrywood finishes and cream leather couches. A dining table sat at one end, its polished surface reflecting the chandelier that hung overhead. It was the kind of yacht she could afford. The kind of life she could give Eli. What did he have that compared to any of this?

Her head snapped up at his entrance, her eyes boring into him. She had Eli on her lap, and he was crying and saying things Jack didn’t understand while Gina tried to soothe him.

“I know, sweetie. I know. Mommy’s here now.” She rocked him back and forth, but he still cried. Jack’s gut twisted. She was trying to make him stop crying, but her voice sounded as if she might cry any minute herself. Jack’s heart pounded so fast he thought it might burst from his chest. He felt too many things standing here, watching Gina and his son, and he didn’t know how to make sense of the tight ball of emotion in his gut.

Gina gasped, and he knew she’d seen the blood soaking his jeans. It was almost a relief, because it gave him something new to focus on.
 

“Jack, you’re hurt!”

“It’s not bad,” he told her, though he really knew nothing of the sort. Thigh wounds could be dangerous if they hit a major artery, but since he was still breathing and not losing consciousness, he figured he was okay.

Iceman grabbed his bag and started pulling out the medical gear. “Take ’em off or I’m cutting them off,” he said as he pointed at one of the couches.

Jack hesitated. “Maybe you should take Eli back to one of the rooms,” he said to Gina. “This might be a bit much for you.”

She was still rocking Eli and her hand came up to shield his face, though he was actually looking the other direction. “We’re staying.”

“Hey, Eli, look at this,” Lucky said, holding up a stuffed animal. Where in the hell had she gotten that?
 

Eli’s crying turned into a hiccup. He reached for the animal and Gina let him go so he could crawl onto the cushion beside Lucky, who kept saying things to him, and he smiled as if he hadn’t just been crying a moment before.

“Who’s a good boy?” Lucky said, and Eli banged the toy on the couch as Lucky looked up at Gina. “Go sit with Jack if you want. I’ll play with Eli.”

Gina frowned as she looked at her son and then back at him. “Just for a minute,” she finally said, and then she stood came over to his side.

“You don’t have to do this,” he told her, his voice low and rough. “Take the kid and go.”

“You didn’t leave me. I’m not leaving you.”

Goddamn, she was stubborn. He unbuttoned his jeans and dropped them to the floor. Might as well get this over with then.

“Oh, Jack,” she said, her voice soft and sweet. Her eyes filled with tears and he glanced down, wondering if maybe he was dying or something and he just didn’t know it yet.

But, no, he was only bleeding.

“Nothing I haven’t been through before.”

He sat back on the couch and Iceman started cleaning the wound. He gave Jack a shot for pain, but Jack still had to clench his fists around the edge of the couch as the other man probed the wound for bullet fragments.

Gina sat beside him and he turned to look at her. “You can hold my hand,” she said softly.

“That’s not a good idea.” Because he didn’t want to squeeze her hand off when the pain was too much.

She put her hand on top of his fist. “Okay, then I’ll just do this.”

“Gina, go take care of Eli. You don’t want to be a part of this.”

“Actually, I do.” She looked over at Iceman. Something unspoken passed between them, and he went back to probing the wound.

“Jesus, Ice,” Jack hissed after a few seconds. “Can you do that any faster?”

“Almost done.”

Just when Jack was ready to yell something seriously foul, Ice straightened. “You’re clear. The bullet went clean through.”
 

His gloved fingers were covered in blood as he reached for a syringe, and Gina looked a little pale.

“Who’s helping who here?” Jack teased, and her gaze crashed into his.

She took a breath. “I’m helping you, you big sissy.”

“Right.”

Now that Ice was done probing, Jack unwrapped his fist and let her slip her fingers into his. His heart thumped in response to her soft skin against his hand. He shouldn’t let himself get used to this, and yet he liked it when she touched him.