Leaping through the outside door, he ran across the abandoned parking lot and dodged through the slightly open fence that surrounded the entire property. If it was open, soldiers had already hurried outside.
Keeping low, he quickly ducked behind a barrier made of three dented soccer mom vans and slid in next to Wyatt. The barrier of downed vehicles took up the entire road across from a vacant lot and a damaged three-story brick building he hadn’t been able to demolish yet. God, he needed some C-4 or good explosives.
A burning truck at the edge of the vacant lot set the surrounding weeds on fire, and the smell of charring metal corrupted the air. Several other vehicles flanked the burning one, with men firing from the other sides. The empty apartment building rose behind them, silent and dark. “What the fuck?” he muttered.
Automatic weapon fire pinged against the nearest van. Wyatt ducked, his weapon out. “They sent in a truck to explode.”
Jax jerked his head, his gaze focusing on Wyatt. “They wasted fuel like that? How much?”
“Too much.” Wyatt coughed. “Your boy isn’t thinking.”
“We don’t know it’s Cruz.” If it was Cruz, and he’d wasted so much fuel, he was using meth again. Without question.
“Yeah. We do.” Wyatt shifted over and pointed. “Check out the carcass.”
Dread dropping like lead into his gut, Jax peered through a broken window at the Twenty symbol painted and burning on the side of the Mazda. His old gang. “Fuck.” He checked his clip and yelled out, “Cruz? What the hell?”
The weapon discharge ended. “Mercury? That you, buddy?”
“Who the fuck else would it be?” Jax loosened his hold on his weapon and took a deep breath. If he had to end Cruz in front of everyone, he’d do it. “What do you want?”
“The medical supplies and guns. All of them.” Cruz sounded closer, as if he’d stood up. “Take a look at what I can give to you, hermano.”
“You and I have never been brothers.” The words felt false, cut like a knife. At one point, Jax would’ve died for Cruz without hesitation. Things had changed. Jax stood, and his gut froze. “Shit.”
Cruz smiled, angled to the side of a truck, his arm wrapped around a teenage girl’s chest, his Ruger 23 pointed at her temple. Tears streaked down the girl’s pale face, mingling with dirt. Terror filled her blue eyes. “I have something of yours.”
Snyder’s kid. Haylee had gone scavenging earlier that day. “He’s got Snyder’s kid,” he said to Wyatt.
Wyatt groaned and stood, his gun pointed toward Cruz. “Remember? She was part of the group scouting earlier in local businesses. Didn’t even know she didn’t make it back.”
“I remember.” Jax kept his gaze on his old friend and not the girl. “We need better procedures in place.”
“No shit. We need more people in general.” Tace crab-crawled to his other side, still wearing his combat gear. As usual, he’d probably spent all day in the lab and hadn’t bothered to sleep or change. “What’s the play here? That prick won’t really kill a kid, will he?” He stood, set his elbows on the van, and pointed his weapon toward Cruz, who stood at the edge of the vacant lot with the girl.
The attackers hid behind cars they’d driven into the abandoned lot. Maybe the cars still had gas.
Jax studied Cruz across the distance. Olive skin, gang and kill tats along his neck, lines of experience too hard for the face of a thirty-four-year-old. His former buddy had had a rough life on the streets and behind bars. “Yeah. He’ll kill her.” Hopefully he hadn’t done anything else to her yet, but it wouldn’t surprise Jax. “Stop hiding behind a little girl,” he yelled.
Cruz smiled and nuzzled his nose into the kid’s hair, his mouth moving as he whispered something.
She answered him, fear all but shooting from her eyes, but the crackle of fire covered her voice.
Cruz nodded. “She’s not so little. Sixteen, apparently. There was a time, brother, when we fucked our way through sixteen-year-old girls.”
Jax settled into kill mode. “We were in the tenth grade, asshole. Now you’re just a pervert with a gun.”
“And you’re a coward who ran.” Cruz must’ve tightened his hold, because the girl cried out, tried to struggle, and then quickly stopped. “Away from home, away from us, and decided to act like a soldier boy. While I did time.”
“You deserved time.” A snap of a board springing loose caught Jax’s attention, but he didn’t turn. If he had to guess, he’d say Lynne had just uncovered his window to watch the action. If anybody saw her, he’d kick her ass. “It was your third offense, and you fucking deserved to go away.” The prick had shot at a defenseless shopkeeper.
Cruz grinned, and a gold front tooth glittered in the sun. “You half-breed piece of shit. I should’ve never allowed you in Twenty. Jax Mercury. A boy with a white daddy who probably paid for your mama’s cunt. You have a made-up name.”
Yeah, and he’d earned it. The second he’d been born, his mama had changed her last name to Mercury, giving them a family name that sounded strong. “You’re boring me. Let the girl go, and I won’t blow off your head.”
Forces of three, guns drawn, spread out alongside Cruz. Some former Twenty members, others from rival gangs. Jax’s chin lowered. Apparently Cruz had discovered how to bridge the gap and combine forces. With everybody but him. “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, but we have the numbers to work together against Rippers and whatever else is coming.” He didn’t like it, but he’d do it, and then he’d probably kill Cruz. The bastard deserved to die.
“Work with a traitor?” Cruz tangled his fingers in the blonde’s hair and jerked back, exposing her jugular. She cried out and went up on her tiptoes.
“I don’t have the shot,” Tace muttered.
“I’m not sure of the shot,” Wyatt whispered. “Might hit the girl.”
Jax could make the shot, but Haylee had to move to the left. And even if he took out Cruz, there were six guns ready to plug the kid before she got to safety. “Work with me, or I’m going to make sure you die, and it ain’t gonna be slow. You know how personal this is.”
Wyatt stiffened, and Tace breathed out. They’d heard him threaten folks before, but apparently enough truth lived in his words that they believed him.
“You’re the one gonna die, mulo, and you’re the one who screwed up by leaving your brothers. Any sorrow is on you.” Cruz’s upper lip curled as hatred filled his eyes. “Give me the supplies, or you’re going to burn. You and the rainbow of pricks you’re standing with right now.”
Wyatt glanced over at Tace. “Rainbow? Fucking rainbow?” He settled his stance and steadied his weapon pointed toward Cruz. “I’m black and he’s white, dickhead,” he yelled over the fire. “There aren’t any colors here. Dumbass son of a bitch.”
Jax slowly turned his head. “You okay, now?”
Wyatt harrumphed. “Just hate dumb people. You weren’t a racist way back when, were you?”
“No.” Jax fought the urge to look up and back, feeling Lynne’s eyes on him. “I was all about brotherhood, safety, and survival. Didn’t give a shit about skin color then any more than I do now.”
“Good, because I tell y’all, it’s tough being black,” Tace drawled.
Wyatt snorted. “You’re the whitest white boy I’ve ever seen, Texas.”
Jax caught movement on the roof of the abandoned apartment building behind Cruz. In the distance, Jax could see Raze’s dark hair and odd blue eyes as he unpacked a rifle. “Sniper in position, but a kill shot won’t help the girl.” At the moment, Jax had no choice but to trust the new guy and hope he didn’t shoot him. Frustration heated his throat, and echoes pinged his mind. Gunshots, fire, blood. Remembered pain flared along his damaged arm and wrist. He shook his head, banishing the flashback to a different war, when he’d lost Frankie in a burning pile of metal. He’d failed, and his best friend had died an unbearable death. But now wasn’t the time.
“Mercury?” Wyatt muttered. “We nee
d orders here.”
Jax nodded. He couldn’t fail. Not again.
“Haylee!” a female voice screamed from behind Jax.
He pivoted just in time to grab April Snyder and take her down to the torn asphalt. She fought him, kicking and punching, her elbows hitting the van, trying desperately to get to her kid. He flattened her until she couldn’t move.
She gasped for air, her eyes filling. At thirty-two or so, she had pretty blue eyes and wildly curly brown hair, now matted with dirt. “Haylee.”
“I know.” He kept his voice low. “If you want her back alive, you’ll go inside.” April’s presence did nothing but escalate the situation, and he had to shut her down and now. “That’s an order.”
Her lip firmed. “I’m not leaving my daughter.” She started to kick again.
Damn it. He needed Wyatt and Tace on the guns, and everyone who could fight was in position. If he left to drag the woman back, there was a good chance Cruz would get frustrated and just shoot the kid. “April. Last chance. Go inside so I can save your daughter.”
April got an arm free and punched him in the throat, struggling with everything she had.
He went cold as the mission took over. There was no choice. Scrambling off her, he turned her around, wrapping her in a headlock and increasing the pressure. She flopped and fought, but within seconds, she went limp.
He set her against the van and rose back up.
“Was better than knocking her out with a punch,” Wyatt said quietly.
Was it? Fuck. He hated this world. “Cruz? I’m done playing. Let the girl go, or I’ll blow your head off.”
Cruz ducked down behind the girl. “Send out medical supplies, and we can trade. Just a trade. For old time’s sake.”
The sarcasm hazed Jax’s vision. He struggled to think clearly and signaled Raze up on the roof, hoping to hell the guy knew what he was doing in a sniper position. “Tace, sweep left; Wyatt, right on my go.” He angled past Wyatt so he could run for the kid. He couldn’t crouch and aim, or Cruz would know. So he angled the weapon slightly to the side and appeared to relax his body.
Then he fired.
Chapter Seven
Despair is a mud-filled bog of doubt that one must swim through to reach hope.
—Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony
Standing on the bed, Lynne gasped, her head spinning, her stomach lurching as she peered down at the fight. Jax and his soldiers were outside the fence yelling at a bunch of guys hiding behind vehicles in a vacant lot across the street. A three-story brick building cast a wide shadow behind them. Most of the enemy wore bright purple.
One second, Mercury was talking, the next he was shooting. His shot, off his hip, hit the guy named Cruz in the arm.
He dropped the girl, and she plunged to the ground.
With bullets spraying from what seemed like every direction, Jax ran toward the girl in a crisscross pattern. Without missing a beat, he picked her up, cradling her, and shielding her with his body.
Cruz scrambled around a dented truck, as did his men who were still standing. Two lay dead in the burning weeds, their eyes open and their blood filling the dirt around them.
Jax ran for the barricade. Blood sprayed from his right arm, but he didn’t falter.
He jumped around the van and set the girl down, his hands doing a cursory check of her arms and legs. Then he grabbed his weapon, jumped up, and started firing.
Cruz and his soldiers backed away, still firing, many of them bleeding. The survivors jumped into two of the trucks and sped away, trash and weeds flying from the spinning tires.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, the gunfire stopped. Only the crackle of fire and echoes in the air remained.
The three Vanguard men behind the van held some sort of meeting, the big black guy picked up the woman Jax had knocked out, the blond guy picked up the girl, and Jax tilted his head until his blazing gaze met Lynne’s.
She instantly fumbled away from the window. Shit, shit, shit. Her hands shaking, she grabbed the board she’d removed and tried to shove it back into place. Damn her curiosity. Swirling around, she eyed the door. Locks. Although she was locked in, she could lock this side, too.
Instinct ruling, she ran forward and locked the door. Yeah, she knew he had the key to all the locks, even the interior one, but she couldn’t help herself.
Silence ticked around her, so odd after the overwhelming firefight. Her shoulders shook, and she shoved away all panic, backing toward the bed. She’d handled bureaucrats, she’d dealt with scavengers, and she’d overcome monsters. But Jax Mercury was all soldier—all man—savvy and dangerous.
She took a deep breath and held it. Okay. Obviously he had a lot to do, especially with the fight and all. Surely he wouldn’t come looking for her just because she’d opened a window.
Locks disengaged, and the door flew open to slam against the wall. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he bellowed. He stood in the doorway, stance wide, big and powerful. Dirt marred his cheek, and blood flowed down his left arm.
She swallowed, her entire system going into overdrive. Without moving her body, she eyed the weapon she’d left on the counter.
“Try it,” he said softly. Too softly.
A shudder blitzed down her spine. “I, uh . . .” There wasn’t anything to say.
He stepped inside and shut the door.
Any breath she still had whooshed from her lungs. “I . . .”
“If they had seen you, do you have any fucking clue what a shit-storm would’ve descended on us here? What they’d do to get to you? Half of them want to kill you. The other half think you can save them. Hell. They’d call in anybody they needed, even the Mercenaries.” He stalked toward her, menace in every line.
She backed away until the bed at her thighs stopped her. “They didn’t see me,” she choked out.
“I did.” He moved into her space. “What part of ‘don’t let anybody see you’ did you not understand?”
Fear began to dissipate, replaced by anger. Just who the hell did he think he was, trying to intimidate her? She’d survived a hell of a lot worse than Jax Mercury’s formidable temper. She lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “I stayed out of the way. I just wanted to see what was happening. Nobody but you saw me.”
“You hope.” If possible, his face hardened even further. “Do I need to bind you to this bed to keep you from making stupid choices?”
Heat flared through her cheeks, and an inappropriate flare of desire skittered inside her abdomen. At the very thought, anger roared through her veins. Finally. “Not a chance, you lowbrow dick.”
His chin lifted, while his eyelids lowered to half-mast. “I don’t think you understand the lengths I’ll go to here, or what kind of danger you’re putting yourself in right this second.”
Oh, he did not. “You don’t scare me, jackwad.” Once her mouth started, she couldn’t stop. “You might know how to choke a woman out, but we both understand unconsciousness doesn’t last long. And I don’t think you’d hit a woman.”
“Don’t you?” he murmured.
Her heart stuttered. Everything she’d learned about him said he wouldn’t. “No.”
“You’re wrong.”
The very fact that his voice had softened somehow bolstered her courage. “I don’t think so.” She kept his gaze, her jaw setting hard.
Then he moved. So fast she didn’t see it coming, he somehow spun her around and planted a hand on her upper back, shoving her head down toward the bed. A boot kicked her legs apart, and the sound of a leather belt yanked through loops swished through the room.
The first hit landed on her ass before she’d put two and two together. The second hit had her crying out, pain flaring her neurons alive. The third hit made her struggle uselessly against the hand holding her too easily in place.
Blows rained down and spread agony across her butt. Finally, he grabbed her arm and hauled her around. “Any questions?”
Her breath panted out, and tears fil
led her eyes. Both hands went to her seriously smarting ass. That did not just happen. “No.”
He slowly slid his belt back through his pants, his gaze on hers, until he buckled the leather together. “You’re correct that I wouldn’t punch you. Ever. But I think we both understand the parameters here now, right?”
Shock fuzzed her brain.
“Lynne?” His hands paused in the buckling.
“Yes.” Agreement seemed wise, at least for now. Later she’d figure out how to make him pay.
“Good.” He turned and grabbed her pistol off the counter to tuck it in his waistband. “Don’t wait up.” Without another word, he exited the room, the sound of locks engaging slamming home.
She swallowed and fell onto the bed, wincing as she landed. The bastard had made a smart move by taking her gun. She might’ve shot him when he returned. Time to calm down and think.
Letting herself be seen by a roving gang was stupid, although she certainly hadn’t deserved his reaction. Even though she’d kind of challenged him about hitting women.
One thing was for sure. She wouldn’t underestimate Jax Mercury again. Maybe she’d miscalculated in seeking him out, but she’d needed temporary protection. And she’d needed someone who could kill, who’d proved he was the strongest and smartest badass out there.
Now the only question was, could she get free?
Jax strode into the tactical infirmary, his temper still simmering as blood flowed down his arm. He reached Tace just as the medic finished mopping blood from the floor. “How bad?”
“We’ve had worse.” Tace set the mop to the side and jerked his head to the examination table. “Three wounded, all easy to sew up. April Snyder regained consciousness, no permanent damage, and you’re forgiven since you saved her daughter.”
Jax shrugged out of his vest and sat on the table, his legs extending to the floor. “And the kid? How bad?”