Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (47 page)

“Tempting, but no.” Alejandro leaned over her, slipping a strong arm under her neck and another one under her knees. He lifted her up, carrying her out of the gym and into the cool darkness. As he stepped onto the walkway, she heard one of the guards ask if she was alright.

Embarrassed, she made a half-assed attempt to shift out of his grip.

“I can do it by myself,” she mumbled, head lolling.

“I know you can, Wyatt,” he answered, as he crossed the field up to the house. “The point is—you don’t have to.”

*

April—Same Time

Wyatt Ranch, Texas

J A C K

He stood up
from the porch swing as Alejandro approached from the darkness, carrying an exhausted and inert Samantha.

“Is she okay?” Jack asked softly, immediately reaching for her.

“
Mira, cabrón
—have you seen my face?” Alejandro responded, his voice heavy with sarcasm. De Soto had a split lip and bruised cheeks, one eyebrow already swelling. “Wyatt may be injured but she still fights like a fucking badass.”

He handed her over, letting Jack gather her into his arms. He glanced at her face and arms. She had a bump on her cheekbone, near her temple, but that was all he could see. “Why were you fighting?”

“Because she needed to.” Alejandro winced slightly, pressing a hand to his rib cage.

That feeling Jack intrinsically understood. All too well. Sometimes, when it was too much to keep in, you had to claw and fight your way out of it.

“Her back seized again,” he told Jack. “Take care of her, okay? She needs someone she trusts to take care of her right now.”

“She doesn’t trust you?”

“She’ll never admit it, but she does,” Alejo answered as he opened the porch door. “But it’s you she loves, man. Just don’t let her down like the last one did.”

A warmth spread through him as he looked down at her sleeping form. “I won’t,” he promised.

Jack carried Samantha past Alejandro and upstairs to her room. He laid her down on the bed, pulling off her leggings and slipping off her shirt. He loosened the thick braid over her shoulder, letting her hair slide through his fingers as he spread the waves back. Samantha opened her eyes, staring up at him blearily.

“Jack?” she mumbled, still half-asleep.

“You’re okay,
tesoro
,” he whispered back, his fingers trailing down her face. “Are you hurting?”

“I’m tired…” she breathed slowly, eyes fluttering closed. “Stay with me…”

He laid down slowly, stretching out alongside her. “I’m here. Sleep now. I won’t leave you.” He pushed a tendril of her raven hair back, listening as her breath evened out, deepening as his love succumbed to sleep.

*

S A M A N T H A

She rolled, turning
and undulating underwater. She was being dragged, pulled down and deeper.

Samantha opened her eyes.

She was surrounded by a profound, endless blue ocean, dark and silent as she went down, down…

She could see the sunlight filtering from above, glinting and shimmering ahead of her like a mirage. She felt her body’s natural buoyancy as she struggled to rise, even as some unseen force weighed her down.

She looked down, saw the ropes binding her ankles.

No.

She kicked uselessly even as the ropes tightened, dragging her further down into darkness…

Down,

Down…

I’m going to drown here
, she realized. She began to fight in earnest, kicking and struggling, but the harder she struggled, the farther she seemed to get from the surface.

The ropes tightened like vines around her ankles, continually pulling her down.

Desperate, anguished, she looked up.

I want the sun
.
I want the sun
…

Samantha closed her eyes, lifting her face and her arms, willing her body to rise against the restraints.

Up,
she commanded silently, feeling the ropes loosen fractionally.
Take me up
…

Her foot slipped from the first binding. She felt her body pull against the second binding as the surface beckoned.

She opened her eyes, searching again for the sun. She willed herself to rise—
rise
—

She felt the sweet relief of the tether fall away, slipping back down into the darkness beneath her.

Her body floated up, drawn to the surface, higher and higher, until her face broke through the water on a gasp. She took in great, heaping gulps of air, starved for oxygen for too long.

She opened her eyes, and when she looked up, she saw Jack smiling down at her, his arm reaching for her in the water.

“I’ve got you,
tesoro.
Just take my hand,” he told her. “I’ve got you…”

April—Late Night

Port of Ashdod, Tel Aviv, Israel

R O X A N N E

D
eep in the
docklands of the Port of Ashdod, Rox waited in the rafters of a darkened warehouse stacked high with rusty containers. From her perch, she gazed through the night scope of a Tavor rifle at the hyper-vivid image of a small group of men packing weapons into wooden crates. She listened to the click-clack sound of pieces being disassembled, checked, and reassembled before they were carefully nestled within wooden shavings beneath false bottoms, which were then covered by artifacts. It was like a soldier of fortune’s Christmas, Hanukkah, and birthday rolled into one—pristine pine crates filled with Russian-made amphibious assault rifles, Chinese armed drones, and Israeli-made Uzi’s painted matte-black, hidden under replicas of priceless religious antiquities and works of art.

Avi lay in wait somewhere across from her, though she wasn’t entirely sure where he’d hidden among the containers. Talon took the highest perch in one of the warehouse’s corners, tucked in the pitch darkness like a raven, if indeed that raven could operate a Springfield Super Match MIA rifle loaded with custom cartridges that he’d polished himself the night before.

“My favorite,” he’d told her with a grin. “For short-range shots like this.”

“What’s short range?” she’d asked as she loaded her own weapon at the kitchen table beside him.

“Anything less than 250 yards,” Talon replied, examining the reticle of his Nightforce NXS rifle scope.

That’s two football fields,
she’d marveled, shaking her head. Cocky shit.

They’d leapt up through the roof of the warehouse like ninjas, moving swiftly and silently in the night. Henri had gotten them into Dichter’s warehouse quickly, the sound of the compact plasma laser slicing through the steel rooftop concealed by the sounds of the industrial fans whirling like contained tornadoes. She’d watched, astonished as he squeezed through first, his lean, long frame visible one moment, then vanished the next, as if witnessing a magician’s sleight of hand. Anand went next, his compact body disappearing down the rabbit hole. Talon followed. He had to wiggle and shimmy with his rifle since he was taller and more muscular than the other two, but he eventually slipped through.

“You guys keep the high ground and provide coverage,” Avi had reminded her. “Henri and I will infiltrate from the sides. Anand will secure the back of the warehouse.”

“Got it, handsome,” she replied with a levity she didn’t entirely feel.

Avi looked at her, his hazel eyes barely visible in the night under his camouflage. He surprised her by running his fingertips along her cheekbone.

“You know what my unit’s motto was?” he whispered.

“Too fast for love?”

“Pretty sure that’s Mötley Crüe,
neshama
.” His teeth glinted in the dim phosphorous light of the docks—the flash of a smile. “It was ‘Who dares, wins.’”

“Yes—that’s
much
better.”

“Dare, but don’t be too daring, okay?” he said to her in a quiet voice.

She looked at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means I know the look of someone who’s looked death in the eye and is unafraid of it,” was all he said before pressing a brief, hard kiss to her mouth.

It was over before Rox fully grasped what was happening. He disappeared down the makeshift hatch, the feel of him tingling on her lips like a secret. She’d touched her mouth in surprise before she snapped out of it, gripping a rappelling cable as she wedged herself into the opening and dropped down into the darkness, sliding fast down the line until her feet touched the rafters.

Rox maneuvered as quickly and quietly as she could across the rafters while workers packed weapons below, guarded by large, uncompromising-looking men carrying bullpup rifles. She watched the dark silhouettes of her crew melt away as they scurried into their positions. Henri and Avi on the ground. Her and Talon in the rafters providing eyesight and coverage.

Through the crosshairs of the reticle, she tracked six guards who were making concentric circles around the perimeter of the darkened warehouse, near the doors, each alert and methodical, exuding the kind of confidence and energy that came from the military.

Uzi Dichter stood below, impeccably dressed in a suit, spot-checking other customers’ shipments before they were loaded into the containers. In exchange for confirmation that his daughter was alive, he’d guaranteed Lightner’s time table, showing Rox the encrypted correspondence confirming his arrival at 10:30 pm that evening, but she hadn’t bothered with more than that. He was slippery and desperate. If he knew anything about their whereabouts or plans to strike, he could have tried something stupid like two-timing them. Desperate times, desperate measures. So she’d said nothing when he begged her for information, offering anything in exchange for his beloved daughter.

“Got a visual,” Simon’s voice came through the piece. “Three vehicles approaching, south entrance.” Rox checked her watch. She felt a current of excitement shoot down her spine.
Go time.

“Confirm target,” she murmured.

“Negative. Only driver and guard are visible in the front of all three—none of them Lightner,” Simon answered. “Infrared shows two people in first truck, but I can’t see through the armor into the back. Four people in second sedan and two more in the last truck. Standard formation.”

Rox redirected the night scope to see two of Dichter’s guards sliding back reinforced metal doors, allowing the vehicles to pull into unoccupied space. Doors opened and guards stepped out of the vehicles in a synchronized sequence. She held her breath as the driver of the sedan opened the back door of the sleek Mercedes.

A long leg extended, and a tall, attractive woman rose up out of the car wearing a pencil skirt and a long black coat.

“Who the fuck is that?” she whispered, her heart beating faster as the driver shut the door. A bodyguard in the front passenger seat got out as well, but no Lightner.

“Can anyone confirm target in the vehicle?” she whispered urgently into her hidden throat mic.

“Fourth heat signature visible in the car,” Henri whispered, his voice almost ghostly through the mic. “There’s definitely someone in there.”

She didn’t know whether to be relieved or frustrated. “Stay on target.”

“Roger.”

Uzi Dichter strode forward to greet the woman. Rox knew he had to be sweating bullets, knowing what was about to go down in a warehouse full of weapons and explosives. Avi had the audio equipment, since he wasn’t sure which language Dichter would be using—English or Hebrew, so he was planning on the possibility of translating. To get a decent reception, he’d climbed the top of one the containers, laying flat and low as he held up the handheld boom mic that Israeli soldiers used on surveillance missions.