The men remaining in the car popped open all doors and came out shooting, rolling on the ground, each targeting a soldier. Gino was on the man holding the gun to Zara’s head. He’d outpaced him, getting a perfect line to his throat, not willing to take any chances. One tiny knife went straight through the space where the trigger met the weapon, severing the trigger finger. The second knife, thrown a heartbeat after the first, hit the soldier in the throat and buried itself there.
Gino was already running, knowing Damon would turn back toward the car, expecting the drone to fire, to blow it up. He ran between Zara and the possible bomb. He didn’t stop. He trusted Mordichai, but it would be stupid not to take precautions. He moved fast, slamming his body hard into Damon’s, driving him backward. At the same time, he reached for Zara.
She wrapped her arms around his neck without hesitation and he kept going, running for the relative safety of the swamp, aware Damon had a semiautomatic and knew how to use it. Right now, it was pointed between his shoulder blades. He knew, because he had that itch that warned him.
He heard the bullet hit Damon’s head, and Zara cry out almost simultaneously with the sound of Joe’s rifle. Gino kept running. Once in the thick brush, he took to the ground, trying to protect her as they went to earth. Even so, he knew he’d jarred the hell out of her body. Her breath was coming in ragged pants and she bit off a moan of pain.
“Sorry, princess,” he whispered as he set her on the ground. “Lie flat.” He lay over her, his body covering hers, his gun out and ready, although the others had disposed of the soldiers.
More shots rang out. Two. A third. Drone down. Helicopter in air, heading your way, Mordichai reported.
It wasn’t as easy to bring down a helicopter as the movies made it look. They’d done it, more than once, but it wasn’t easy. Mordichai, Malichai and Joe would concentrate on three targets. The pilot. Probably Mordichai, the best of the three. Malichai would go for the tail rotor, and Joe would go for the engine. He was counting on Mordichai. The moment Mordichai killed the pilot, they would load Zara back in the car and get the hell home.
Gino felt her body heave under his. He frowned. “You crying?”
There was a small silence and he imagined she was making up her mind whether to admit it to him or not. His hand found her face, fingers tracing the tears there.
“Trying not to,” she admitted.
A surge of adrenalin hit hard. “Damon? You like the guy?”
“Most of the soldiers aren’t very good to us,” she answered slowly—slowly enough that he knew she was reading his mood. “They know eventually Whitney will insist we go into their breeding program and we’ll have no choice. They’re … vulgar. Not dirty and kind of sexy, if you know what I mean, but just rude and vulgar. They treat us like we’re so much less than they are. Damon was one of the few who wasn’t like that. He treated us with respect.”
Gino took a breath. Let it out. He swept his hand down the back of her head. “I’m sorry, then, that they had to cap him, baby.”
She struggled with tears, managed to press back another sob and nodded. “Damon would have followed orders, Gino. He would have killed me, both of us. Me and himself. He wouldn’t have allowed you to keep us alive.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she echoed.
“Yeah. Why? Bellisia is with us and he hasn’t cared all that much. Cayenne and Pepper are with us too. And the little viper chicklits.”
“Little viper chicklits?” she repeated.
He rubbed his chin on top of her hair. “That’s what some of us call Wyatt’s triplets, just to annoy Pepper. They pack venom in their bites and when they’re teething, the little munchkins like to bite.”
“How extraordinary.”
“Why would Whitney be okay with us keeping the other women and the children, but not you? He promised the major general that if we went to get you, he would leave you alone.”
She turned her head in order to look up at him. Her face, so swollen, was an abomination after seeing the photographs of her flawless, soft skin. He stroked his finger gently over the terrible bruise where Cheng’s gun had struck her. He wanted to go back and kill the bastard.
“Whitney did that? He called a major general about me?”
Gino nodded. “Our boss, Major General Tennessee Milton. Whitney called him and Major General gave the order to Joe, but it was voluntary status only.”
“Why?”
He didn’t hesitate. “It was unsanctioned and considered a suicide mission.”
Her breath caught, and then she asked, “But you volunteered. Why?”
“Everyone did.”
“Why did you?”
Shit. He didn’t want to tell her that. The truth would make him sound like a stalker. “Not sure I want to give you that, princess. You’re still making up your mind about me.”
“I already made up my mind about you,” she whispered. Her gaze slid away from his.
His gut clenched hard. “Baby, you know I’m not leaving it there. Look at me.”
Her fingers dug into the dirt, pulling up a few rotting leaves. “Tell me why you volunteered.”
He sighed. “You look at me and I will, but I’m warning you, I look like some kind of stalker.”
“That’s good.”
The amusement in her voice surprised him. It was shy, but it was there. “Read everything about you I could get my hands on. Got every image the Internet had available. It’s all on my personal laptop. Fell hard. Long fall, Zara, and surprising, but the real thing is far, far better than anything I could have thought I saw on the Internet.”
“I’m not like that.” There was hurt in her voice now, and she closed her eyes and turned her face away from him.
“Like what?” He kept his hand in her hair, fingers working her scalp. He half expected her to be upset that he’d gotten every piece of information available about her onto his computer, but hurt wasn’t the emotion he anticipated at all.
“Like what you see on the Internet. I detest traveling. I know I’m not supposed to waste my brain and all that, I’ve been told enough times how selfish and worthless I am for not being grateful for my opportunities, but I can’t help how I feel. I’m not like that superconfident woman you see on the Internet, Gino. I’m not her.”
“You don’t have to talk in front of everyone in order to not waste your brain, Zara. Trap is the most intelligent man I know. Wyatt runs a close second. They do all kinds of good. They don’t talk about it, or give speeches. Trap would light himself on fire before going public like that.”
She turned her head back toward him. “Really?”
He brushed a kiss along that long, wide bruise. “Absolutely. So, baby, I’ve got to ask you again, why is it that Whitney would rather have you dead than with us?”
“He always plants a virus in us before we leave the compound. That way he ensures we have to return.”
She was telling him the truth, but definitely hedging. “Yeah, we know that. So why send Damon as a safety net? He promised Major General. Going back on his promise to Major General isn’t a smart move or a good political one. Whitney still has friends in the White House. If Major General, a very popular man by the way, goes against him, he might lose those friends. So, again, Zara, why does Whitney want you dead or back with him when he leaves the others alone?” Gino poured icy cold into his voice, wanting her to know he meant business.
She didn’t answer him.
“You know you’re going to have to trust me sometime.”
She still didn’t answer him.
Two boots planted themselves right beside their heads. Gino looked up to see Ezekiel staring down at them. “You two going to play in the dirt all night or come on home?”
Gino was going to choose home for them, but he wasn’t going to drop the subject Zara wanted so desperately to avoid. And he wasn’t going to forget that the soldier had trained a gun to one specific spot on her head.
8
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