Bourne to Love Emma (RED-Stone Operatives Book 1) (19 page)

            He smiled and whispered back, “And I love you,
Emma Dawn Parsons.  More than you know.”  He kissed me softly at first and then
harder.  As his tongue circled mine and I tightened my arms around his neck, a
wet plop sounded beside us and we pulled apart. 

            Mia smiled as we looked at the cheesy piece of
egg that she had flung off her tray.  Jason laughed and Mia joined in, laughing
because he was laughing.

            “Okay, kiddo.  I guess we better get you cleaned
up and dressed for the day.  Let’s go.”  I lifted her facing away from me and
carried her toward the bathroom.

            “Em.  I’ve got a lot to do in the office but you
are always welcome to interrupt me.  I’m never too busy for you, okay?”

            “Okay.  Thank you for that.  I’ll get her clean
and then I’m going to see how long she can be entertained with her crayons
today.”

            “Sounds good, babe.” 

~Jason~

            I started getting a little edgy around dinner
time.  This will end tonight.  I could feel it in my gut.  My adrenaline has
been pumping most of the afternoon and I hated fucking sitting still.  Emma had
done so great the last few days keeping Mia occupied and entertained.  I knew
it had been hard being stuck inside an apartment all day long.  It’s especially
hard when it isn’t even your own apartment.  So I’m sure it’s even worse when
you have a kid.

            I had been over the camera angles and the
building schematics so many times they’re etched in my brain and I could visualize
them perfectly when I close my eyes.  John and Frank were in the loop about my
plans with instructions not to interfere unless requested so they don’t step
into the middle of a shit storm on the off chance that things don’t go down
like I expect. 

            Fuck fuck fuck.  I pressed the heels of my hands
into my eyes and just sat still for a minute.  Lock it down, man.  Lock that
shit down.  You are a weapon.  You are built to perform.  Let your training
take over and just do your job.

            I took a deep breath and blew it out.  I turned
down dinner and had a protein shake and a bottle of water around 6:30pm.  I kept
moving between the windows and the monitors on my desk. 

            At 6:55pm, there was a knock at the door.  I damn
near ran to answer it because Jax was
finally
here.  Even though he was
actually early, I caught myself glaring at him like he was late.

            “Jax,” I growled.

            “Bourne.  Always nice to find you in such a
pleasant mood.”

            He clapped me on the shoulder, dropping a large
bag just inside the door, and walked past me where he saw Emma standing in the
living room entrance holding Mia. 

            “Hello, Emma.  I’m Jackson Payne – but you can
call me Jax.”  He held out his hand and Emma shook it.  “I’ve heard wonderful
things about you.”

            Emma smiled up at him and I could see her visibly
relax.  Jax is always the calmest fucker in the room and he has that effect on
most people.  Even though he’s taller than I am, he’s leaner and comes across
less threatening to people who don’t know us.  The damn British accent always
seemed to help, too.  Bastard.

            “It’s nice to meet you, Jax.”

            “Em, we’ll be in the office if you need me.” 

            “Okay.  Don’t let him snarl at you too much,
Jax.  He’s just on edge.”

            “Oh, I’ve seen him so much worse than this.  I’ll
be fine.”

            Once Jax closed the door behind them, he narrowed
his eyes on Jason.  “You need to get your shit together or we’re going to fuck
this up before it even starts, Bourne.”

            I blew out a breath and leaned back in the desk
chair, closing my eyes.  “This needs to end tonight.  I need this to be over.”

            “I understand that.  But now it’s time to box up
your feelings and your needs and put them aside.  We’ve got a job to do.  No
more, no less.”

            I took another deep breath and blew it out slowly
and nodded.

            “Okay then.  Show me what we’re looking at and
let’s pin down the details so we can catch this fucker.”

            I smiled.  Hearing Jax swear in his stilted English
accent always makes me laugh.  He is so fucking well-mannered in public and so
well-spoken that it makes hearing him cuss like a sailor pretty fucking hysterical. 

            I pulled up satellite images and the camera feed
from last night and we started putting together our plan.

            Jax pointed at the building blueprints. 
“Obviously this is our best vantage point.  But being ten floors up makes
getting to street level slower than I’d like.”

            “I agree.”  I changed the blueprint for another
and then pulled the satellite image around on the monitor.  “I thought we might
split up a little more with one here on top of this four-story building – it
should still have a view of the area where we’re expecting him to park but it’s
a lot easier to get down three flights of stairs than nine.  Then,” I gestured
to the blueprints, “I thought the other could use Rio’s apartment.  It’s on the
third floor and has a view of the front of the building.  The windows don’t
open, so it’s not a sniper option, but I figured we wouldn’t be using rifles
tonight anyway.”

            “Ah.  No.  You can’t very well shoot him in the
street, Bourne.  This isn’t Baghdad or Qatar.  Our best option is to take him
down by hand after dark and get him back to the building without causing too
much of a scene.  Otherwise, the local PD will be on you before you can spend
any quality time with him….”

            “Okay.  I can work with that.  So.  Assuming he
shows up where he did last night and we have eyes on him, we converge on the
vehicle from the rear and remove him forcefully.”

            “I imagine he will be easier to handle if he’s
unconscious.  That should be your goal when you extract him.”

            “Oh.  I think I can deal with that.  I’ve wanted
to punch that fucker since he laid hands on Emma at that nightclub.”

            “I imagine so.  But you will need to lay him out
with one shot so we can get him inside immediately.  You can’t lose control
when you get your hands on him or you’ll be handing him over to the police and
probably facing charges of your own.”

            Fuck.  “Okay.  It’s 7:50pm.  Let’s load up and
head out.”

            Ten minutes later, we were both dressed in black
tactical pants, black fitted t-shirts and black ball caps.  Jax had a black
shoulder holster with guns on both sides, but I stuck with my holster in the
small of my back and added a second to my ankle.  We opted against any grease
paint since we were in a populated area where it would attract more attention. 
I tucked my knife into one of my side pockets and grabbed my keys off the
counter.

            While I handed Jax his comm unit, I called out to
Emma.  She carried Mia into the room and watched me adjust my mic and put the
earpiece in place.

            I met her gaze and held it while I pressed the
mic and quietly said, “Test, test. Over.”  Jax clicked his where he was
standing next to the front door.  “Copy that. Over.”  I walked to Emma and
pulled her and Mia into a hug.  I kissed Mia on the head and then kissed Emma
on the lips.

            “Lock yourselves in the bedroom with the gun. 
I’ll call you when I’m coming back so you’ll know it’s me when you hear someone
at the door.  If I don’t call you….  Don’t open the door for anyone but me or
Jax.  Or John.  That’s it.”

            Her lip trembled as I gave her the idea that
there was a chance something could go wrong.  But reality is that shit goes
wrong all the time.  No one expects it to when it does.

            I walked her to the guest room and kissed her
again.  Then one more time.  “Lock up, babe.  I’ll call you as soon as I can. 
I love you, Emma.”

            “I love you, too, Jason.”  As she was closing the
door, she stepped back into the doorway and said loudly, “Jax, you better bring
him back to me in one piece!”

            “I’ll do it, Emma,” he called back.

            She looked up at me, tears in her eyes and said,
“Be careful, Jason.”  I heard her turn the lock on the door and headed back to
the living room.

            Jax and I split up in the stairwell on the third
floor of the building.  He took the building across the street, leaving me
watching from Rio’s apartment.  It was 8:25pm when I clicked my mic.  “All
clear here. Over.”

            Jax came back immediately, “All’s quiet here. 
Over.”

            We sat and waited and watched in silence.  There
was plenty of traffic on the street, but not a lot of movement among the parked
cars.  I kept an eye on foot traffic in front of the building and watched for
hats or hoods.  Frank was on alert tonight, too and had two extra guys in the
building.

            By 9:45pm, I was starting to lose my cool. 
“Jax.  I’ve got nothing.  Over.”

            “Nothing has changed here.  Over.”  A moment
later, he came back, “Bourne.  Check your headspace.  Nothing exists but the
air you’re breathing and what you see through your scope.  That’s it.”

            “Copy that.  Over.”  Fuck fuck fuck.  I am not
going to crack up over here.  I start counting cars, people moving in front of
the building, keeping a list in my head.  I start cramming intel into my brain,
keeping it too busy to think about anything else.

            It was 10:21pm when I heard from Jax again. 
“Bourne.  I’ve got a vehicle parked on the South side of the building that
looks like it might be our guy.  Over.”

            “Fuck.  I don’t have a view of that side of the
building.  Hold your position and let me get down there and get eyes on it. 
Over.”

            “Bourne….  Don’t move on that vehicle without
me.  Over.”

            “Copy that.  Over.”  I was already running down
the last flight of stairs and toward the entrance at the back of the building. 
There is an emergency exit on the south side, but it’s alarmed.  Even though Frank
could disarm it for me, I didn’t want to attract attention coming out a door
just feet from where this guy was parked.

            When I hit the exit door, I already had my 9mm
out and against my thigh.  I turned toward the south side of the building and
nearly collided with him.  It took a split second for my brain to register
whose face was in front of me.  That same split second had him trying to pull
something out of the pocket of his jacket.

            I leapt on him, taking him to the ground with my
hand wrapped around his throat.  When he pulled a gun from his jacket, I slammed
my own weapon against his wrist, knocking the gun out of his hand.  I shoved my
gun into its holster and threw a punch as hard as I could right into this
fucker’s face.  When I hit his nose and cheekbone, the crunch of bone sounded
right before the sickening thud of his head hitting pavement.

            Lights out, motherfucker.

            I clicked my mic while I stood up over him. 
“Jax.  I’ve got him.  I need some help at the back of the building.  Over.”        

            “Goddammit, Bourne.  What the fuck?  I’ll be
right there.  Over.”  Yeah.  Jax was pissed off. 

            Shit never goes down the way you expect.  Which
is why you always need a Plan B.  This wasn’t our backup plan, though.  This
was ‘fly by the seat of your pants and thank God that you were faster than the
other asshole.’

            The good news was that this side of the building
had basically no foot traffic to worry about since you can’t park on this
street and the trees lining the median blocked the view of the doorway from
most of the building on the other side.  The bad news was that there wasn’t an
easy way to get him down to the basement without being seen by someone in the
building.

            I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket and dialed
Frank.  While it rang, I pulled Dan’s jacket off and used it to wrap up the gun
lying on the ground.

            “Frank.  I need to get…something… to the basement
from the back entrance to the building.  I’d like to do that without running
into anyone from the building.  Any ideas on how that could happen?”

            As I finished, I saw Jax come jogging up the side
of the building.  I could tell just from the way he was holding himself, he was
fucking furious.

            “Let me send Gene that way.  He’s, uh, picking up
the trash from the restrooms on the first floor….”

            “Thanks, Frank.”  I slid my phone back into my
pocket and turned to face Jax.

            “Hey.  I didn’t have a choice.  I came out the
damn door and fucking walked right into him.  Fucker had a gun, too!”

            “No shit?  Huh.  Everything you told me about
this guy made that seem…unlikely.”

            “You’re telling me.  If Uncle Sam hadn’t spent so
much fucking time and money making sure my ass knew how to throw down without
having to think about it first, I might’ve gotten fucking shot by an asshole
who probably doesn’t even know how to clean that damn gun.”

            “You might want to leave that part out when you
tell Emma what happened tonight.”

            “You aren’t fucking kidding.”

            The door opened and Gene, the morning security
guard, came out pushing a cleaning cart.  A cleaning cart big enough to hold a
grown man.  Frank was a genius.

            Jax and I picked Dan up and dropped him into the
cart before Gene starts pushing it back into the building.  I stopped Jax with
a hand on his arm when he started to follow Gene inside.

            “Gene – take him down to the holding cell in the
basement security office and cuff him, wouldja?  We need to take a look at a
few things before we talk to him.”