Edge of Control: An Edge Security Novel (Edge Security Series Book 1) (24 page)

She mumbled something into his chest.

“What’s that?” he asked.

She lifted her head. “I didn’t think you’d come for me.”

He cupped her face in his hands. “I’ll always come for you.”

Her eyes widened and her lips parted. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers. They didn’t have time, but he had to touch her, claim her, if only for a moment. His hands slid down her back, molding her to him. He demanded she melt for him, and she did.

When he lifted his head, her hands clutched his t-shirt and he grinned, the awful feeling of losing her fading with her nearness. He lifted her hands from his shirt and squeezed them. “We’ll finish this when we get out of here.”

Dani’s face turned red and she ducked her head. He let her go. Time to get back in the game. He checked the hallway before dragging Dickhead’s body into the room and shutting the door.

“How’d you get here?” she asked him. “You were tied up. I was coming to rescue you.”

Jake looked beyond her, at Vladimir’s limp form, and scowled. “And I came to rescue
you
.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and grinned. “I can take care of myself.”

Something didn’t ring true with that statement. “Are you okay?” he asked. She seemed to be moving well. “Did he hurt you?”

A shadow crossed her eyes, and he wanted to pound the shit out of the guy, even if he
was
unconscious.

“I’m good,” she said. “Besides, I won.”

The anger in him slowly banked and his lips twitched. “I noticed.”

“Should we tie him up?” Dani asked, pointing at Dickhead.

“He’s not going to wake up for a while,” Jake said, moving to the window to shift aside the curtain slightly. The team should have been here by now. Something must have happened. For now, they were on their own. “Besides, we need to get you out of here.”

She pulled on her pack. “What do you mean, get me out of here?”

“The team isn’t here,” he said. “But if you stay in the shadows and follow the road out, you should run into help eventually.”

“What about you?”

“I still have work to do.”

She straightened and got that stubborn look in her eye. “Like rescue the women in the barn?”

“You’ve seen them?”

She glared at him now. “I am not leaving without them.”

He frowned. How could he make sure she was safe and still complete the mission?

She sighed. “I’m not like your college girlfriend, Jake. You don’t have to protect me.” Dani swept an arm toward the downed men. “I can take care of myself.”

He studied her without speaking. She was right. She was as different from his old girlfriend as he was from the college boy who hadn’t been able to protect her. Dani was brave and could fight, he conceded to himself.

“I have skills that you can use,” she said, as if she’d heard his inner thoughts. “It doesn’t make sense to send me away.”

He stayed silent, assessing her words. She did have skills. He’d seen them.

Her intense blue eyes held him in thrall. “I may not have military training,” she said, “but you know I can do this job.”

She was tough, brave, and smart. She was right. She could do this job, and it was up to him to deal with any distractions she posed for him. Besides, it’d be good to have someone watching his back. The tension left him and he nodded. “Let’s rock and roll.”

Her eyes widened as if she hadn’t expected him to agree. He almost laughed. She argued like a lawyer and then was surprised when she won.

She exhaled slowly. “You won’t regret it.”

“I know,” he said, moving into the hallway, all business again. “Now, let’s move.”

Dani gripped the drainpipe beside the second-floor window and swung out onto it. Jake already crouched on the ground in the shadows, his gun out, scanning the darkness. She could see that he put more weight on his good leg, but she thought that might almost be an unconscious move, habit rather than necessity.

They’d escaped the main house the same way Jake had gotten in. He’d made the descent look easy. It wasn’t. She had to use all her upper body strength as well as her legs, but she was used to climbing the ropes at her gym. This wasn’t too different. Except for the fact that there were no mats to cushion her if she fell.

She shimmied to the ground and hopped off to land soundlessly beside Jake.

She tapped his shoulder, the agreed-upon signal, and he took off to the barn with her running in a crouch behind him. Jake hadn’t offered to help her at all. He’d just assumed she’d scale the pipe. She thought she loved him a little for that.

She stumbled at the unexpected thought.

Jake’s head whipped around. She waved at him that she was okay and they kept going. They made it to the barn and ducked into the deep shadows beside it.

Love?
No, she thought. She couldn’t love him. Not yet.

The thought almost tripped her up again. Was she even ready to love? Could she open her heart and soul to Jake? She watched his tall form move with predatory grace, sliding through the darkness, not missing a detail. He was a warrior first and foremost, but he was also a man. Someone warm, funny, and compassionate.

She bit her lip. Now was not the time to be thinking of this. She had to get her head in the game, as Jake would say, or someone might blow it off. That thought chilled her and she concentrated on not being seen.

They came upon a filthy window. Jake glanced through it while she kept watch.

He swore softly. “They’re in cages.”

“I know,” she said.

He moved away from the window and close to her. “Four men. Lucky for us they’re all sitting together at a table in the middle of the room playing cards.”

They crept to the corner of the barn, then Jake stopped and pulled the gun from his shoulder holster and handed it to her, handle first.

“I’m not good with a gun,” she whispered.

“Safety’s off. Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you mean to shoot. Use two hands,” he said, demonstrating. “One to hold and one to steady. Aim for the chest. Pull the trigger. Simple.”

She swallowed. The women inside the barn needed her help and so did Jake, whether he knew it or not. She took the gun and nodded. “Got it. Point and shoot.”

He winked. “You’ll be fine. Leave the shooting to me. Only fire if fired upon.”

He crept to the corner of the barn and peeked around. He motioned her forward. “I’m going in first. I’ll clear the guards. Give me thirty seconds and then come in.”

She nodded and gripped the gun in two hands. Jake took her hands and pulled her index finger off the trigger and laid it alongside the barrel of the gun. Then he leaned in and gave her a short, hard kiss before dashing around the corner, leaving her breathless.

While she counted she heard the crack of two gunshots, some shouting, and a few more shots. It was noisier than she’d expected. At thirty, she went around the corner to the door. No one approached from the outside and she opened the door and leapt inside, gun up.

Jake stood by himself in the middle of the room. “It’s good, Dani,” he said, walking past the bodies of the four guards. “Gun down.”

She panted a little, but nodded and lowered her weapon. About ten women waited, tense and frozen in the cage on the right. A large padlock held the door closed. “Pick the lock or hotwire the car?” she asked.

“Lady’s choice,” he said with a grin.

“The guards probably have a key.” She looked again at the bodies of the men, blood spreading in pools around them. She had no desire to search them. “I’ll hotwire.” She jogged over to the panel van parked beside the moving truck.

Jake searched the bodies for a key while she clambered into the van, setting her gun down on the seat beside her. Thankfully, it was an older model from the nineties. She pulled her pack off and dug into it until she found her makeup case and her nail clippers.

She pried the plastic cover off the steering column to find the bundle of wires for the battery, ignition, and starter. The battery wires were red and easy to separate from the others. She used her clippers to strip off a bit of the insulating rubber from each one, as well as from the brown ignition wire. Then she wove them together.

The van’s dash lights and radio came on. She clicked off the music and listened. She thought she heard a shout, but didn’t hear anything more. Probably one of the women Jake was freeing. She continued with her work and pulled out the yellow starter wire and stripped it. All she had to do now was spark it against the woven battery and ignition wires and the truck should start. She left it hanging, careful that it didn’t touch any metal, but ready to use.

She sat back up to check Jake’s progress. A gasp left her when Ivan stepped up to the open truck door, holding a gun aimed at her head. “Stupid
blya
. Mr. Rusakov is pissed.” He waved at her to get out. “You and your boyfriend will pay.”

Jake shouted something on the other side of the barn.

She lifted her hands as she stepped out of the truck. “Take it easy, Ivan.”

“Move it,” he said. “The boss wants you.”

Gunshots rang out and Ivan turned his head to the back of the barn. Dani ducked and punched him hard in the groin. He bent over, growling and swinging the gun toward her. She swept his gun arm aside with her forearm. It fired twice into the truck behind her, while she used a palm strike against his nose, following up with a vicious hit to his throat, before grabbing his hair and slamming his face against her knee.

Ivan thudded to the ground, no longer a problem. She grabbed his gun and hers before running toward the back of the barn.

With a gun in each hand, she probably looked like some kind of video-game heroine, albeit a small-chested one. She snorted. She was definitely losing it.

Jake and the women were crouched behind the moving crates stacked on the other side of the barn, while Vladimir’s men arranged themselves near the backdoor. She ducked behind a crate herself and assessed the situation.

“I just want Danika,” Vladimir yelled from near the door. “I don’t care about your boy toy,
Kotyonok
. He’s free to go if you give yourself up to me.”

She met Jake’s eyes from across the barn. He shook his head at her in between firing. He must have taken the guards’ guns, because he had spares beside him on the ground.

She showed him the two guns she had. “Trust me,” she mouthed at him. His lips compressed and he fired once more. One of Vladimir’s thugs screamed and fell. Jake looked at her a long moment and then nodded. He grabbed his spare guns and started to hustle the women to the van.

She peeked over the crate she hid behind. Two of Vladimir’s men crept toward her. She set one gun aside and used two hands to steady the other. She aimed, and wondered if she should try to warn the men off before firing.

Then she remembered the branding.

She pulled the trigger.

Jake kept up a steady stream of curses in his head as he led the terrified women back to the panel van. He threw open the back doors and gestured for the women to get in. They only looked at him with frightened eyes, unable to understand his English.

“Get in,” he said again. He waved his arm and looked back to the firefight he’d left Dani in. More curses boiled on his tongue, but he compressed his lips. Using Russian and a calm voice, he said, “
Spaseeba
. Please, get in. I’ll take you to safety.”

An older woman, maybe late thirties, nodded at him and started speaking what he thought was Ukrainian to the other women. They leapt into the van after that. Jake slammed the doors and ran to the driver’s side. A fierce pride surged through him when he saw the unconscious thug and the hanging starter wire for the van. His woman had serious skills.

He checked the back of the barn, but couldn’t see Dani. The gunfire hadn’t lessened. Where the hell was she? Trust in her skills or not, he couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave Rhys, so he sure as fuck was not leaving Dani behind.

He leaned into the van and spoke in Russian to the older woman. “Can you drive?”

“
Da
.”

He flicked the starter wire against the others Dani had twisted together, until it sparked and the engine turned over. He jumped out while the woman slid into the driver’s seat. She yelled something back to the other women and revved the engine.

“Stop them!”

He heard the shout from behind and raced to the sliding barn doors, throwing his weight behind one and pushing it open. The woman waved at him to come back.

Jake shook his head and waved them on. The woman nodded and gunned it, screeching out of the barn and down the dark road to freedom.

He crouched by a crate and used his stolen weapons to pick off Vladimir’s men as they ran toward the open barn door. His gut urged him to find Dani and get the hell out of this clusterfuck.

They’d have to play a little ‘Escape and Evasion’ through farmers’ fields, but he was confident they could get away, if only they could get out of this barn. He began to make his way back to where he’d last seen Dani.

When he finally saw her, his heart almost gave out.

Out of the corner of her eye, Dani watched Jake herd the women toward the waiting van. She needed to get back there ASAP.

Another of Vladimir’s men left cover with his gun pointed right at her. Her gut clenched and she threw herself backward. Splinters flew from the crate where her head had been.

“Don’t kill her,” Vladimir shouted. “I want her alive.”

A frisson of fear lanced through her at his words. She pushed it aside and adjusted her grip on the gun. She panted. Vladimir’s men would surround her soon. She needed to get up, but the thought of poking her head over the dubious protection of the crates paralyzed her.

She swallowed. Okay, next time, she would volunteer to hack the bad guys’ systems, but no more superhero antics for her—she’d leave that to Jake. She’d had no concept before this of what his job really entailed, and now that she did, her feelings for him expanded. He’d come here alone to rescue her. He really was a hero.

She’d better not make his job any harder.

With that decision, she jumped around the far side of the crate and shot once at each of the three men heading in her direction. One of them yelped when she hit his arm, and the others ducked for cover. She crouched back down, panting.
Merde
, hitting a moving target was hard.