Free Fall

Smith came on the line, barking out orders shifting his security around. Stella angled sideways through the crowd, arching up on her toes for a better view. Damn it, she needed a clearer vantage point. Period.

No one questioned how Brown could remember faces from thousands in a registry of suspicious persons. The man had a photographic memory and a careful attention to detail. And the timing lined up for some kind of move to be made. The vice president’s wife was giving her statement about women’s rights in the region. Gifts were being exchanged, including a doll passed from a local official’s daughter. Beads on the doll’s dress gleamed in the morning sun.

Stella grabbed a light pole and stepped up onto the ridged edge, searching the crowd—until, yes, there were two men walking side by side, both wearing hats that matched agent Brown’s description. But where was he? She searched for his dark suit in the splash of color, careful not to linger on the PJs still creating a wall of strength in front of the dais. She found Smith an instant later, just past the stage.

Jones would have been easy to find with his outback hat, but he was at the airport taking Ajaya into protective custody so he could be moved to the States. So why wasn’t there a dark suit on the west side of the park? Only military uniforms converging for protection as ordered.

Hanging onto the lamppost, she angled around, looking off to the east, which didn’t make sense. Mr. Brown was in the back, watching the west. Except he wasn’t. She saw his dark suit and short ginger hair, spiky on top. Okay, so he wasn’t in his assigned position and he’d called in a report that shifted the bulk of security to the other side of the park. Could be explained away by something as simple as him finding a better vantage point as she had.

No big deal. She was just looking for trouble because of hints of a mole. And there were always rumors and fears of a leak in intelligence.

She glanced back at the rear entrance to see who’d taken Brown’s place…

No one. She slid off the lamppost and back to the ground. Her feet carried her toward the east side of the park, where she’d seen Mr. Brown on the edges of the party.

Brown didn’t make mistakes. He was Mr. Logical, like her. Except right now she wasn’t thinking logically. She was thinking that her every instinct screamed something was wrong about Mr. Brown. That he was the kind who could have cracked codes to get his hands on the list of agents. That he was the kind who would have the aptitude to encrypt the information.

Him and hundreds of other people.

Except he was here and she had questions with very little time to waste waiting for answers. She pushed through the crush of bodies, applause and cheers reverberating over something in the speech. Damn it, she needed to move faster. If she voiced her suspicions over the headset to Mr. Smith, she could divert security in the wrong direction—and Mr. Brown would hear her.

This was a no-win.

Finally, the crowd thinned and she spotted Mr. Brown on the sidelines. Approaching him in the darkened corner didn’t feel right. And when the hell had she started going so much on “feelings”?

Since Jose.

She looked closer. Brown’s spiked ginger-colored hair shone… along with the glint of his gun.

Gun?

Why the hell did he have his weapon drawn? She palmed her 9 mm. Damn, damn, damn, a shoot-out here would be a very bad thing. And maybe his intent was benign. Even so, she couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

She brought her sleeve up to her mouth and spoke into the mic. “Carson here, east side of park. Mr. Brown, why do you have your weapon drawn? Over.”

Mr. Smith hissed over the headset. “Draw down. Now. That’s an order.”

Brown pivoted, fast and sharp on his heels, facing her for an instant. His eyes blared the worst message of all. Desperation.

As if in slow motion, she saw his gun arm swing back toward the stage. Toward the vice president’s wife.

“No!” she shouted, whipping her 9 mm from under the folds of her wrap.

Sprinting, she wished like hell she had Jose’s speed. Her heart leaped in her throat. Her ears roared so loudly she couldn’t have heard a gunshot or screams. She caught a flash of red out of the corner of her eyes. Blood? No. Jose’s hat as he vaulted onto the stage to protect his charge. She ran faster, closing the gap. And thank God the few people in her way dropped to the ground, giving her a clear shot at Agent Brown.

A man she’d worked with for the past six months.

She squeezed off two shots without hesitation, catching him in the shoulder. Ten feet away, Brown spun around from the impact. His fist still gripped his gun.

Pain exploded in her leg. In her head. She stumbled forward toward her target.

Then she smelled it. Blood. Her own. Dripping in her eyes and down the sides of her nose. She fell to her knees and shot Brown again, blasting away his kneecap. Howling, he fell to his side. His gun skittered away. And finally, she let herself sag the rest of the way to the ground.

As she lay on her side, she looked into the eyes of a man she’d trusted with her life and asked, “How could you?”

Sweat rolled down his face, his mouth twisted in agony. “Wouldn’t you do anything to protect your family?”

Her family? Images of her brothers, her father, her mother all scrolled through her mind in the fast-track life review. But then the reel slowed and focused on one face, one man.

Jose. Her family. And she’d foolishly pushed him away. Love and loss seeped through her as tangibly as her life’s blood leaving her body.

Chapter 16

Jose was in hell.

Draped over the vice president’s wife, he needed to be with Stella. Each gunshot echoing in his ears ripped a roar of denial from him. He’d done his job, protected the vice president’s wife, but at such a high cost. Stella had been shot. She’d defied the odds to stop an all-out massacre, and he doubted he could have done anything more.

The fact that they’d both been doing their jobs was piss poor comfort. His heart hammered in his ears. Where the hell were his objective instincts from years of training?

A hand clamped him on the shoulder. He jerked, looking to find Bubbles crouched beside him. “I’ve got things here. The Saint too. Go treat Stella. Go.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Jose launched off the stage into the mayhem below. Jose pushed past a couple shoving back against him, desperate to get away. His eyes stayed locked on Stella, the world around him a peripheral blur.

Security had their hands full restoring order. Fang loped up alongside him, medical rucksack in hand that carried enough supplies to treat up to three patients. How f**king ironic that Stella and Brown would be sharing lifesaving gear. Fang kept pace as they dodged musicians huddled by a bandstand. There was no discussing who would treat Brown and who would take Stella.

She was his, damn it.

Fang could care for the traitorous bastard.

A trio knelt around Stella, and he could only see her feet and a trailing edge of the kanga he’d given her. If she was dead… Even thinking it threatened to knock the ground out from under him. He could rub that sobriety coin all damn day and nothing, nothing would get him through if he lost the most important person in his life.

“Move,” he shouted, to hell with control and calm, “medic coming through.”

The wall of people parted and… Oh God. The streetlamp bathed her in stark light that revealed everything, too much. Stella lay stone still, her eyes half-open and glazed with pain. A wad of bloodied handkerchiefs lay beside her head, no doubt someone’s attempt to help.

Blood streamed from a scrape along her temple. Most would have gone for that first, but he evaluated fast and ranked it as the least of their worries.

Her thigh wound pumped blood from the femoral artery. She could bleed out in about five minutes.

“Hang on, Stella.” Dropping to the ground, he slapped a hand to her leg and pushed hard while tearing into the medic pack with the other.

He had gear for a splint, tracheotomy, intubation, and countless other lifesaving measures he prayed he wouldn’t need. Finally, thank God, finally his body went into autopilot. A tourniquet for her leg. Bandages. IV antibiotics.

Beside him, Fang treated Agent Brown who kept groaning, “Let me die, let me die.”

Fang muttered, “Not a chance. You’ll face your firing squad.”

How f**king ironic—and unfair—that Stella had aimed to maim when her enemy had shot to kill.

Her fingers clamped his arm weakly. He looked into her eyes again. Bad, bad idea. Professional distance crumbled.

Her lips moved but nothing came out other than a faint whisper he couldn’t understand.

“Shhh,” he soothed, checking her vitals, willing his hand not to shake as he counted her pulse, simultaneously monitoring the drip on the IV. “You’re going to be fine, Stella. I’m that damn good at my job.”

She blinked up at him. Alive. Awake. For how long?

He shouted over his shoulder, rage and desperation chewing through his gut. “We need medical transport. Stat!” He looked back at her, adjusting her elevated feet. “Stella, stay with us. You’re going to be fine. A transfusion or two and you’ll be kicking ass again. I promise.”

As he checked her pupils he realized… she was blinking in a pattern.

“Morse code?” he asked, focusing on her while listening for updates in his earpiece. Where the hell was the ambulance? “Are you trying to tell me something?”

Yes, she blinked. Agent Brown.

“Agent Brown. We know. We’ve got him. You got him, wounded but not dead. You kept him alive for interrogation.” A siren wailed in the distance. “You did great, Stella. Help’s coming.”

She squeezed his arm again. Love. You.

“Love you too.” And he meant it, with every cell in his body that screamed for her to hold on. Not to give up.

Come hell or high water, if she lived, he would do anything to make sure he didn’t lose her again. He’d thought he was protecting her by staying away, but she was right. He’d only been shielding his heart from the possibility of losing another family. Yes, he carried a genetic flaw and he couldn’t forget that, but he’d made different choices for his life than his sister and mother. He sure as hell refused to be like his dad, enabling, avoiding.

Jose monitored her thready heartbeat and willed her to stay with him. He and Stella deserved a life together.

Without her, he had no future. “God, Stella, you can’t die, damn it. I want to spend my life with you.”

But he’d waited a second too long to tell her. Her eyes stayed closed, no more blinking messages.

She’d passed out cold.

***

Pain hovered just below the surface under a blanket of drugs.

Part of Stella wanted to stay under the numbing fog, and another part of her insisted she needed to wake up, even if that meant facing the agony of… gunshot wounds.

The hellish scenario flashed through her mind in fragments. Brown’s betrayal. Shooting him. Him shooting her.

Jose’s shout of horror piercing her headset.

Her memory filled with the sight of him leaning over her, treating her, pleading with her to hang on. The fear in his eyes had let her know just how bad her injuries were. By that time, she’d been floating in a cottony cloud of shock.

Was she alive now? Or hovering in a limbo state?

She drew in air and could swear she was actually breathing, except there was no antiseptic scent of a hospital. Her body felt so heavy, anchored by the crisp weight of a thin blanket.

A sheet? She forced her hand to grip the sheet, then move to her face where tubes pumped oxygen to her nose. No wonder she hadn’t detected the standard hospital smell.

At least she was alive. Knowing that, she fought through the hazy pain, fought her way back so she could see Jose and tell him how much she loved him. She wasn’t missing out on that chance again.

Her eyes opened and a chair screeched back against the floor. She turned her head on the pillow and found… her mother.