by Maya Banks
Ian and Braden gained more strength as determination fueled their movements. Whatever the reason for Tyana saving them, she had, and they wouldn’t let her go down for that.
They sprinted down the hallways, glancing right and left, looking for any movement, any sign of blood. As they rounded one of the corridors, Ian stopped cold. Braden collided with him, nearly knocking him off balance.
Esteban stood in their path holding an assault rifle trained on Ian. Rage billowed over Ian, lighting fire to every one of his nerve endings. This was the fucker responsible for his and Braden’s condition. The bastard had kept them caged, taunting them endlessly until they’d shifted. There was no telling what he’d done to them while they were in shifted form. It was probably a blessing that they had no memory of being cats.
“You’ll never live,” Ian taunted.
Esteban smiled, an eerie, empty expression that suggested he wasn’t all there. There was a bloody gash on his neck that looked remarkably like it had been inflicted with claws. It wasn’t a new wound. The blood had congealed and dried, dark red, on his skin.
“Which one of us got you, Esteban?” Ian asked. “Looks like you pissed the cat off one too many times.”
“I don’t need you,” Esteban spat. “It’s never been about you. You’re both expendable.” He raised his gun. Braden shouldered his rifle in response and Ian gripped his tighter.
“Which is it going to be?” Ian asked quietly. “You don’t have to die. Put the gun down.”
Esteban laughed. “Nice try. You won’t get any information from me.”
He fired the rifle, and Ian jerked, expecting the pain to lash over him. To his horror, Gabe’s body materialized in front of him, his face a mask of agony. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he stared into Ian’s eyes. Like a puppet being cut free of his strings, Gabe sagged to the floor.
“No!” Esteban screamed. “What have you done? You stupid fool! You were stable.”
Esteban fired his weapon again as he began to run. The shot went wild as Esteban dove into one of the rooms.
Ian didn’t even bother pursuing him. His attention was focused on Gabe’s fallen body. He sank to his knees and pressed his hands over the gaping wound in Gabe’s chest. Braden hit the floor beside him. “Ian. Braden.” It came out as a trickle, as if the names barely managed to escape.
Shit. Shit! They were stuck in here with no means of communication. Panic settled hard into Ian’s stomach as more blood ran through his fingers.
“Don’t talk, man. We’ll get you out of here,” Braden said.
“No. Listen to me. I have to tell you something. I need you to listen closely.”
Gabe’s hands curled into Ian’s shirt, and he pulled him nearer with flagging strength.
“Tyana didn’t betray us. I did.”
“What?” Ian demanded. “Gabe, you’re not making any sense. Shut up and let us get you out.”
Gabe shook his head and moaned. He coughed and more blood spilled over his lips.
“I have a sister. Katie. On my laptop. Information about her. What you’ll need to find her. They threatened her.”
“Sister?” Ian exchanged confused glances with his brother. Gabe didn’t have a sister. None of them had family. It was a prerequisite to join the team when they were still in the military.
“Promise me,” Gabe said, his grip tightening around Ian’s shirt. “I don’t deserve anything from you guys but Katie is innocent. They want her. I’m stable…”
Ian pressed harder on the wound, despair tightening his throat as he realized nothing he was doing was staunching the blood flow. “We’ll find her, Gabe.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Tell Eli…so sorry. They said they’d kill her if I didn’t give you guys up. Realized too late. They wouldn’t kill her…they want her…like me…she’s all I had.”
His eyes seemed to fix on a spot beyond Ian and Braden, and then they slowly closed and his head fell to the side.
“Son of a bitch,” Braden hissed. “Goddamn it, no!”
Ian moved his bloody hands to Gabe’s neck, desperately feeling for a pulse. Grief and anger ricocheted through him when he got no response. No flutter to tell him Gabe was still alive.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jonah and Mad Dog rounded a corridor and immediately fell back as shots were fired in their direction. They flattened themselves against the wall.
“Goddamn it, we don’t have time for this,” Mad Dog snarled.
Jonah stared at him. “Ty needs us. Let’s do this. She doesn’t have much time.”
Mad Dog held up three fingers and did a silent countdown. Jonah ducked low and Mad Dog hurled himself around the corner, rolling and firing.
The staccato of gunshots filled the hallway as he and Jonah laid down fire. Bullets tore into the wall above Jonah’s head. The two men in the front went down. Three behind began a hasty retreat and ran right into three members of the Falcon secondary.
“You’re with me,” Jonah barked to his men as he bolted up and raced down the corridor to the heart of the complex.
A few seconds later, they swarmed into an inner room. Small, circular in shape. It housed a glass tube that looked like an elevator shaft. Bingo. Their way down.
He and his men fell back as a low whir sounded, indicating the elevator was in use. Jonah pointed to two of his men to position themselves to the right and motioned to Mad Dog and the remaining man to go left. Jonah took position in front and waited.
When the glass pane slid upward, the door of the elevator revolved sideways and Eli stumbled out carrying Ty. Jonah froze for an infinitesimal moment. He saw the blood dripping from Ty’s leg and arm, saw how still she lay in Eli’s arms. Fear whispered through his veins.
“I want a perimeter around her.” Mad Dog intervened when Jonah remained silent for that one moment. “We move out, now. D, we’re coming out. Make damn sure there’s a chopper waiting in the vicinity. I don’t care how you make it happen.”
“ETA is two minutes,” Damiano returned.
Jonah recovered and rushed toward Eli. He moved to take Ty from Eli’s arms, but Eli fixed him with a cold stare. It was the stare of a man who feared losing everything. Of a man who wasn’t going to let anyone take her from him.
“I’ll take your front,” Jonah said.
Eli nodded, tightened his grip around Ty’s limp body and fell in behind Jonah.
Mad Dog and the three secondaries closed ranks around Eli, and they rushed toward the exit.
“Perimeter and facility is secure,” Damiano reported. “Falcon secondary awaits your next orders.”
“Tell them to maintain their position. I want a complete sweep of the facility,” Jonah said even as he charged forward. “I want computers, disks, surveillance. I want every piece of information they can find. Nothing gets left behind.”
Eli held his precious burden closer as he followed behind Jonah. His chest was tight with emotion, with fear. Paralyzing, agonizing fear. He couldn’t breathe. Through the panic, he remembered his own men.
“Damiano, do you have a location on Ian and Braden? Has anyone reported seeing Gabe?” He couldn’t damn well leave them behind, but he wouldn’t leave Tyana either.
“Negative. They aren’t wired. Wait a minute. I’m getting a report from Falcon secondary. They’re removing Gabe’s body. Ian and Braden are with them.” There was a long pause. “I’m sorry, Eli.”
Eli stumbled for a moment, recovered his footing and pressed on, his chest encased in ice. Gabe was gone. Tyana was dying in his arms. He’d been helpless to stop any of it.
They burst out of the west entrance, and Jonah held up a hand. “Everyone back and take cover. I’m going to blow the wall.”
Beat the hell out of going over.
Eli backed into the building with the three Falcon secondaries hovering protectively around him. He turned, shielding Tyana’s body with his.
She was so deathly pale. The dark red blood contrasted starkly ag
ainst the white of her skin. He kissed her forehead.
“Don’t die, sugar,” he whispered. “You and I have way too much to work out.”
The explosion rocked the entire building. Plaster and light fixtures rained down from the ceiling. Eli closed more tightly around Tyana as one of the florescent tubes bounced off his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” Jonah ordered from the entrance.
Eli hurried out to see a gaping hole in the stone wall. They ran through it and up the rocky terrain surrounding the complex.
“Chopper is landing a quarter mile away,” Jonah said close to Eli’s ear. “We’ve got to move.”
Gathering strength he didn’t have, mustering the energy from reserves he hadn’t drawn on since his escape from Adharji, Eli broke into a run.
As they topped the next hill, they saw a chopper touch down in the small valley and a medic hop out with a backboard.
Jonah didn’t waste any time climbing into the helicopter as Eli gently laid her down on the backboard.
“Load and go,” the medic said, and Eli recognized his accent as American. Was he military?
They hustled Tyana into the helicopter, and Eli didn’t ask. He piled in behind them, leaving Mad Dog with the Falcon secondary.
Eli and Jonah exchanged a long look before Jonah finally nodded his acceptance.
The helicopter rose as the two medics worked in unison, one intubating her while the other started dual IVs.
Eli paced the confines of the waiting room of the private hospital. He’d refused treatment himself, and one of the medics who’d brought Tyana in slapped a bandage on the bloody crease on his arm, but Eli didn’t give it a second glance.
He wanted answers. A lot of them. Gabe was dead. Ian and Braden were being examined by the Falcon doctor, Marcus, so he couldn’t even ask them what went down with Gabe.
And Tyana. He closed his eyes. She was still in surgery. Her prognosis had been grim with the amount of blood loss. Jonah and Mad Dog stood at the far window, their faces locked in stone. Damiano sat with his face in his hands, alone, away from the others.
Several hours into their vigil, Ian and Braden walked into the waiting room accompanied by Marcus. Faint hope glimmered in their eyes. He wanted to ask about Gabe but forced himself to first ask what Marcus had been able to determine.
“He thinks daily injections will work for a while and the inhibitor will work for sudden and uncontrolled shifts,” Ian said as they gathered close to Eli.
“But as I told your men, it could only be temporary. If they become acclimated to the drug, the effectiveness is lost. It could very well be that what has happened with Damiano will happen to them,” Marcus added.
Eli nodded grimly.
“Jonah is in the process of getting me all the data and computer files from the research facility. If there is a way I can find the original chemical composition used in the attack in Adharji, then maybe I can offer a more suitable alternative. Until then, as clichéd as it may sound, you can only take it one day at a time.”
Marcus turned and walked over to sit by Damiano. Eli could hear him ask if Damiano was okay and if he needed another injection. Eli turned his focus on the two brothers.
“What happened to Gabe?”
A mixture of anger and sorrow crossed their features.
“Tyana didn’t betray us, Eli,” Ian said. “Gabe did.”
Eli’s brow twisted, and he leaned in closer. “What?”
“He admitted it right before he died,” Braden said. “We got to him too late to get him out. He has a sister. A sister for God’s sake. He said that Esteban was threatening her, using her to make him sell us out.”
Eli dragged a hand through his hair, caught the strands in a bunch and clenched his fist. “I don’t understand.”
“He pleaded with us to save her,” Ian said quietly. “He said Esteban wants her. Rambled on about how he was stable. It didn’t make a lot of sense. Told us there was information in his laptop on how to find his sister. Said she was all he had.”
Eli swore. Then he closed his eyes. Gabe had betrayed them? It certainly made more sense now. How else would Esteban have known they were in Argentina?
“Why have Tyana go after us, then? It makes no sense.”
Braden shrugged. “Maybe she was insurance in case Gabe flaked. He had to know she had some serious motivation to want to bring us in if it meant helping Damiano.”
“I hate to break up the reunion, but you and I need to talk,” Jonah broke in. His eyes glittered, and behind him, Mad Dog stood, arms crossed, obviously planning to be a party to whatever conversation ensued.
Eli turned to Ian. “Find Gabe’s laptop. Figure out what the hell this stuff is about his sister. We’ll figure out what to do about it later.”
He stepped away from the brothers and eyed Jonah and Mad Dog cautiously.
“Sorry about your man,” Mad Dog said gruffly.
Eli nodded and wondered if they’d overheard Ian’s statement that Gabe had been the one who betrayed them.
“I’m in a huge quandary about what to do about you,” Jonah said. “I should take you out.”
Eli stared levelly at him. “You can try.”
“I’d love to be able to blame you. Place all the blame on you,” Jonah continued, ignoring Eli’s challenge. “But I’m afraid Ty shoulders most of the blame for the situation she got herself into. Personally, I think you’re bad news. If I had my way, you wouldn’t be within a country of Ty.”
“Let’s skip the chitchat, okay?” Eli snapped. “If you want to take this outside, let’s go. But to be perfectly honest, when Tyana wakes up, I don’t want to have to explain to her that I killed her freaking team.”
“You seem awfully confident that she’s going to wake up. She took two bullets for you, Chance.”
“She’ll live,” Eli gritted out. He wouldn’t entertain any alternative. She had to live.
“You better hope she does because if she dies, your life isn’t going to be worth a damn thing.”
“You’re right about that,” Eli said quietly. “If she dies, my life won’t be worth a damn thing.”
Mad Dog’s eyes flickered, and his expression eased slightly.
“Why did you come for us?” Eli asked. “Why bother? It’s obvious you’d prefer I wasn’t breathing.”
Jonah stared coldly at him. “Because Ty would have come after you by herself. She was willing to quit Falcon for you. Tell me, Chance, are you worth it? Did she choose wrong?”
Eli let out a long, pent-up breath. Tyana had been willing to give up her team for him? He shook his head to clear the cobwebs.
Then he stared back at Jonah and hardened his gaze. “If you think I’m going to spill my guts to you, fuck off.”
Jonah pressed in close, their noses just an inch apart. “If you think I’m going to hand over my sister to you, you fuck off. She stays with Falcon. With her family. If you want any part of her then you’ll have to come on her terms.”
Eli didn’t back down. “What the fuck is this, a job offer?”
Jonah relaxed the tiniest bit. “Falcon could use you. Your men need Marcus. We aren’t going to let Ty go. So you figure it out.”
“Your human relations skills suck ass.”
Mad Dog broke into laughter again. “Yeah, well get used to it. It doesn’t improve. Trust me.”
Eli slid his gaze over to Mad Dog.
“She was ours first,” Mad Dog said softly. “We look out for her. Always. If you have an interest in being part of her life you need to know that. It’s a package deal. We aren’t going away.”
“Jesus Christ,” Eli muttered. “Do we at least get our own bedroom?”
Jonah scowled again. “It wouldn’t be a good time to remind me of just how close you got to Ty. Now do we have an understanding?”
Eli nodded. And hell, what else could he do? His team had gone to shit. Gabe was dead and now they had his sister to contend with. He needed Falcon, as much as it pissed him off to a
dmit. But more than that, he needed Tyana. If having her with him meant putting up with her surly-ass legion of brothers, then oh well.
Chapter Thirty
Tyana opened her eyes and stared up at a pristine white ceiling. Her entire body felt stiff, and she quickly discovered that moving wasn’t much of an option. Panic set in. The last thing she remembered was being hauled down to a lower level by Esteban’s henchmen. Had she survived only to be held prisoner?
“Hey, there she is.”
Relief, sweet and cooling, washed over her as she heard Mad Dog’s voice. His face came into view along with Jonah’s. A warm hand closed over hers, and she slowly managed to move her head enough so that she could see Damiano sitting next to her.
She was in a hospital. Alive. And there was a reason moving was so difficult. She glanced down to see her left arm and shoulder swathed in bandages and her left leg encased in stiff plaster.
“What the hell did they do to me?” she grumbled.
Relief sparked in Jonah’s dark eyes. Amusement lit Mad Dog’s. Then she saw him. Eli. Standing in the background.
Their gazes locked as she looked hungrily at him. He was alive. He was safe. She went weak with the knowledge.
Mad Dog bent over, temporarily obscuring her view of Eli. He kissed her forehead. “You scared the shit out of us, baby girl.”
“The only reason I’m not kicking your ass is because it wouldn’t be a fair fight,” Jonah growled. “You look pitiful in all those bandages.”
She laughed and promptly regretted it as pain wracked through her chest. Mother of God, she hurt. D squeezed her hand, and she turned her gaze to him. “You okay?” she asked softly.
His eyes looked suspiciously wet. Then he shook his head. “Only you would wake up after three days in the hospital and ask if I’m okay.”
Her eyes widened. “Three days? Was it that bad?”
Jonah nodded, his expression grim. “We thought we were going to lose you, Ty.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Too much fun being a pain in your ass.”
He finally cracked a smile. And then he bent and touched her cheek in a gentle gesture. “I love you too, little sister.”
He stood and glanced back at Eli who was still in the background, standing there, hands shoved into his jeans pockets. Jonah directed a quick glance at Mad Dog and Damiano, and they started for the door.
“We’ll be back later to check on you,” Damiano said.
A few seconds later, she and Eli were alone. He walked slowly to the side of her bed and sat down in the chair vacated by D. He reached tentatively over and curled his hand around hers. His fingers trembled against her palm.
“Ian and Braden?” she asked fearfully.
“They’re fine,” he said.
“Gabe?”
Eli looked down and shook his head. “He didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes flashed back up to hers. “Don’t be sorry. Gabe was the one who betrayed us. I let you walk into a trap. I let my men walk into a trap. You should have left us, Tyana. You never should have come back for us.”
He broke off and looked to be struggling to compose himself.