Fatal Courage: Shadow Force International, Book 3 (Shadow Force International Romantic Suspense Series) (25 page)

Bullets pinged off the back window, Jax sending up a silent thank you to the heavens—as well as Emit—for the custom-designed tank of an SUV they were in that included bulletproof glass.

The road they were on was narrow and rocky. As Hunter kicked the vehicle into high gear, he nearly ran into Rolands’ squad car ahead of them. Since the SFI Escalade was equipped with a push bar, Rolands might find himself going for a joy ride any minute.

“Holy fucking spitballs,” Jax swore out loud as Ruby clung to him with one hand and pulled out a Glock from her waistband with the other. “Where the hell did you get that?”

“I took the backup from your medical bag,” she said. “You already have one and mine was lost in the tornado.”

He’d been so focused on Hayden, he hadn’t seen her steal his weapon. She was good at that—stealing things. Her slight of hand was better than anyone he’d ever seen.

Might be why she’d stolen his heart somewhere along the line when he wasn’t paying attention.

Hunter killed the running lights and they nearly missed a Y intersection in the road. Rolands went right, his taillights a red bulls-eye. Hunter veered left.

Either Ruby’s intuition about Zeb’s half-brother had been accurate, or Hunter’s superhuman Spidey senses had told him something.

The sun was long gone, a sliver of moonlight rising through the trees here and there. Ruby’s phone had slid into a crevice near Jax’s foot. He grabbed for it, shut down the flashlight.
Time to become one with the night.

Disappearing in these woods under normal circumstances would be a piece of cake for him and Hunter, both trained in the art of evasion. For the others, not so much. They had to stay in the SUV, complete with a wounded man and a very pregnant woman. Vehicles were much easier to track, especially when the truck hunting them had spotlights on the top that made the lights at a football stadium look like miniature flashlights. Even through the tinted windows of the Escalade, those lights about blinded him.

Perfect. Just fucking perfect
.

He’d had about all he could take in one day. Pushing Ruby farther down, Jax called to Beatrice. “Return fire?” he half-asked, half-insisted.

Hunter had killed the dashboard lights along with the rest of them. Even so, Jax could see the pale glow of Beatrice’s white-blond hair. “Negative. Hold your fire.”

Dammit. Jax clenched his jaw and ground his teeth. He couldn’t properly take care of his patient, protect Ruby, or keep the bad guys at bay hunkered down like this. He badly wanted to jump out and take each and every one of the sleezeballs in the truck behind them out, one by one. Punch their lights out and break their necks.

That was the rage inside you talking, buddy
. That rage that had brewed ever since his friend had come back disabled. Ever since his parents had kicked him out.

It was always there, burning, needy, addicting. He’d tried counseling, tried a hundred different tools to manage it. Like dried out tinder, all it needed was a single spark to ignite, erupting into a fire of epic proportions that devastated everything and everyone in its path.

Including him.

Which had made him an effective soldier. He’d learned to channel his hurt and anger into something positive the only way he knew how.

He wasn’t that warrior anymore. He needed to get back out into the field where he could do battle and let the rage demon have its head.

If only Beatrice wasn’t determined to make him bring that demon to heel first. She insisted he had to manage his anger before she would allow him to manage a team of SFI operatives.

A light touch on his arm brought him back from the edge. Ruby raised up, putting her face close to his. “I’m sorry,” she murmured in his ear. “This is all my fault.”

He touched her head, letting his fingers slide over her soft hair until he could cup the back of her skull. The fire inside him cooled, still there, but morphing into the desire to keep her safe, keep Beatrice safe.

Save the fucking day.

The Escalade swerved, Hunter going off-road. The vehicle bounced, crashing through brush and small trees, limbs whacking against the sides and windows as the push bar did its job, mowing down a path.

Without warning, Jax’s stomach dropped.

And ah, shit. He knew that feeling.

He almost let out a whoop, the sensation one he adored.

Airborne
. The fucking truck had left the ground and was sailing through the air.

Ruby let out a quiet yelp and clutched his arm tighter, not seeming to enjoy the drop of her stomach as much as he did. Jax clasped the back of her head tighter and drew her to him. He felt the SUV stall out under him, felt the pull of gravity bringing them back down.

They dropped like a ton of bricks, the Escalade’s suspension taking them on a whiplash of a ride and knocking Jax’s head into the roof. Outside the bulletproof doors, Jax heard the splash of water.

The creek. They were driving down the creek bed.

Good thing the Escalade was kitted out with off-road tires as well as everything else.

“Sorry, boss,” Hunter said to Beatrice.

“I’m fine. Keep going,” she replied.

Unbelievably, Zeb was humming under his breath somewhere off to Jax’s left. Jax couldn’t see the man, but he sounded every bit as unconcerned about their circumstances as Beatrice.

What is wrong with these people?

The thought, combined with the adrenaline in his system, made Jax laugh.

What about Elliot?

He couldn’t see his patient, but the man was no longer making grunts or speaking in whispers. Jax felt for his pulse and found it. Light and thready, but there.

Alive.

Goddamn bastard
. If nothing else, Jax wanted to save him so he could strangle him.

Nightshade. What did that mean?

The Escalade went down an incline, pulled a tight left, and suddenly, Hunter cut the engine.

“Positions?” Jax called to Beatrice, releasing his grip on Ruby.

“Yes,” she said, as clear and concise as always.

He yanked out his weapon, spun away from Ruby and Elliot and scooted his ass over to peer out the back window. Ruby took up a position near the side window opposite Zeb. As Hunter climbed out of the truck, Jax saw the glint of moonlight on an M6 in the man’s hands.

The
thudthudthud
of Hunter’s boots on the top of the truck echoed in the silence as their super soldier went into action. Hunter had extrasensory skills that came in handy in these kinds of situations. No night vision goggles needed; he could see just fine in the dark, like some bloody nocturnal animal.

Made Jax a little jealous.

It also made him itch to join his friend and fellow SFI operative. “I’m going out,” he told Beatrice. “Ruby, take the wheel. Anything happens to me or Hunter, drive like hell and get everyone out of here.”

Ruby touched his shoulder. “Are you sure you should—?”

Beatrice interrupted her. “That isn’t necessary, Jaxon.”

“The hell it isn’t,” he growled. “I love you, boss, but this is
my
area of expertise, so stay in the car and stay quiet. Hunter and I will take care of these guys.”

“Don’t kill them,” Ruby called softly. “I want to interrogate them. We need to know who they’re working for.”

Don’t kill them. Right. “No guarantees, babe. They’re out for blood. So am I.”

Without another word, he slipped out into the night.

The sounds of insects met his ears. He sensed Hunter’s presence on the roof, knew the man was watching for the men hunting them.

“Anything?” he murmured.

“Maybe,” Hunter murmured back.

Well, wasn’t that informative.

Jax listened, straining to hear the sounds of an approaching vehicle. In the distance, he thought he heard a siren. Rolands?

Maybe the chief had pulled a U-ey and was headed their way. He wouldn’t go off-roading in the cop car though.

If he caught up to and tried to apprehend the men in the truck, he was dead.

Shit. They might have unintentionally lured Rolands into a fight he couldn’t win.

But there was nothing he could do about it now.

“Three o’clock, a hundred yards,” Hunter said. “Vehicle stopped.”

Their pursuers weren’t interested in diving off into the creek.

Taking this direction had been a good call on Hunter’s part. “They coming on foot?”

“Two confirmed. The others are staying with the vehicle.”

Interesting. “You want the bipeds or the sissies in the truck?”

Hunter jumped off the roof of the SUV, landing next to Jax’s feet. “Tough choice.”

“I’m feeling the urge to go fisticuffs myself.”

“I could blow up the truck,” Hunter mused.

“Ruby wants one of them alive to interrogate.”

“They won’t let us take them alive. Deadly force will be necessary.”

“Gee, that’s too bad. How do you know, man?”

“It’s a mercenary squad. I’ve dealt with this type of problem before.”

Jax didn’t question him further. “I’ll wait for my guys at the bottom of the steep hill we just sailed over, take them out one at a time.”

“We have a plan.”

The rising moon peeked through the trees, giving him a modest amount of shadowy light. He saw Hunter raise a fist and Jax bumped it with his own. “We have a plan, my brother.”

“Take this,” Hunter said.

A small set of night vision goggles. So maybe the super soldier still needed some help with his long-distance vision at night. Jax accepted them and started forward into the dense woods.

He hated to leave his patient and Ruby, not to mention Beatrice, but if he and Hunter didn’t get rid of their trackers, no one was getting out of this alive.

I’m sorry.
Ruby’s words echoed in his skull. Somewhere ahead of him, Hunter was already climbing the embankment, avoiding the two men on foot. Jax heard the sounds of footsteps in the leaves, the snapping of twigs. Not Hunter’s, oh no. The mercenary squad needed to brush up on their stealth skills.

Shaking Ruby’s voice out of his mind, he centered himself and went into predator mode near the far edge of the creek.

Come to Jaxon, boys.

Waiting was the most challenging of all survival skills. Patience was not his forte. Endless training had honed his abilities, though, so as long as he didn’t let his brain take over, he could stay unmoving for hours.

Tonight, he wouldn’t need to. Off to his right, he heard his first victim. The second wasn’t far behind. A two-for-one.

My favorite
.

The goggles pinpointed the movements of his prey. He might not be as quiet as Hunter, but he was still a SEAL in his blood, in the very marrow of his bones.

As Bad Guy One moved into position, Jax let the rage burning inside him have its head.

The short, beefy fellow didn’t know what hit him as Jax reached out from behind a tree and hooked the guy’s neck with his arm. A sharp snap to the left and the guy went down without so much as a squeak. Neck broken.

Sorry, Ruby
.

The second man provided more of a fight. Dark-skinned like his partner and wearing dark fatigues, he blended into the night. He was Jax’s size and almost as tough, but he wasn’t carrying a gun.

He had a knife, and the bastard apparently knew how to use it.

Back and forth the blade cut through the air, making little noises with the speed at which the man sliced it. At one point, as Jax danced away, it ripped through his already destroyed shirt. Jax considered shooting him but what fun would that be?

A chance trip on a tree root sent the man off balance and gave Jax the opportunity to grab his knife-wielding wrist. A hard slam of the man’s hand into the massive tree trunk, and the knife fell to the ground.

Jax’s rage was hot and powerful. As he gave into it, it cleared the constant nagging voice in his head. Cleared the endless chatter. Giving into his rage was the only way he’d ever found to access that kind of peace. It blotted out his emotions. Blotted out the endless loop of negative messages his subconscious fed him day and night.

Before he knew it, he’d taken Bad Guy Two to the ground. They wrestled for several long minutes, but only because Jax toyed with him. If he was going to interrogate the man, he had to hurt him first to soften him up.

Jax finally broke one of the man’s arms and pinned him to the ground. The guy didn’t cry out, only half-chuckled.

“Who are you?” Jax asked. “Who are you working for?”

“Fuck you and your mother too,” Bad Guy Two spit.

“Dude, you’re gonna wish you hadn’t said that.” He tweaked the guy’s broken arm, shoving his face into the mud, suffocating him. The big guy flailed around, and after a good goddamn minute, Jax allowed the man to come up for air. “Start talking, asshat. Who sent you after us? What do you want?”

“The spook, who else? We’re going to kill the rest of you.”

The man laughed as if this were a fun little game. The image of Ruby dying sent Jax’s rage demon howling.