Page 36 of Jacking Jill

Because by then Jill would already be gone, taken back to the mansion along with the dead Bobby and the hysterical Nina. Right now Jack had a small window of opportunity to get Jill and get away. The Range Rovers with Carmine’s guards had already pulled up, but the guys were occupied with trying to get Bobby’s body out of the Mercedes while calling back to the mansion for more help. It wasn’t clear if word had gotten to Romeo Carmine yet, but that was seconds away at best.

Which meant Jack had mere seconds to make his choice.

Choose his mission.

“It’s not a choice, Jack,” came the voice from somewhere near his hammering heart.

Jack frowned, wondering if maybe that bullet had messed up more than just his cheekbone. Because why was his heart speaking out loud? Also, why did his heart sound like John fucking Benson?

“Sonofabitch,” Jack growled when he realized Benson’s voice was coming from the phone in his jacket’s inner-pocket near his chest. “Diego’s gone, Benson. I need to get Jill out of here before Romeo’s guards get orders to bring her back to the mansion or maybe just put a fucking bullet in her head.”

“Negative,” came Benson’s voice through the phone’s loudspeaker. “Your mission is Diego, not the woman. You were ordered to use her and then lose her, Jack. Well, it’s time to lose her. There’s no choice here, kid. There’s more at stake than one woman. Go get Diego. Do it now, damn it. That’s a fucking order, Soldier.”

Jack stared at the snow-covered ground in front of him. The entire world looked surreal now, the snowfall settling to gentle flurries that swirled around him like bits of cloud. Jack was no stranger to orders, understood damn well that sometimes you had to make hard choices in battle, decide between two bad outcomes, sacrifice something precious because the stakes were just too damn high. Every warrior knows you can’t save everyone, you have to be able to rise up and see the bigger picture, the greater good, the larger canvas.

So Jack rose up.

He rose from behind the boulder, weapon still drawn, body half-turned so he could see the dark trees to his left and the road to his right. The snowstorm had settled but the storm inside Jack raged wild. He stood there like he was between worlds, like this choice was the fulcrum on which his entire life would turn. The disciplined soldier in Jack knew damn well that Benson was right. And just a day ago Jack would have listened to that voice of discipline, heeded the call of duty.

But not today.

Not when a deeper kind of duty called to Jack.

The kind of duty that felt ancient and primitive, old and eternal, undeniable and inescapable.

The duty a man has to his woman.

Fuck it, Jack thought as his body sprung into motion. Benson was saying something, but Jack didn’t give a damn. He was taking orders from a higher power now.

His heart.

“Jill! Hey, Jill.” He spoke in a rasping whisper as he crouched behind the red Honda, then dropped flat on the snow-packed road, peering beneath Jill’s car towards the black Mercedes. “Here, Jill. Come on.”

Jack’s heart lurched when he saw streaks of blood on Jill’s face. But she was clambering out of the backseat and her eyes were wide and alert. A quick glance at the mess that was once Bobby Carmine’s head told Jack that the blood was his, not hers.

The guards were wholly occupied with Bobby’s body, and Nina was still hysterical, wailing one moment, sobbing the next, then screaming and wailing again. It was absolute chaos, with one of the guards shouting something into his phone, another trying to hold Nina back from where Bobby was still wrapped up in a tangled mess of seatbelts and airbags. The downward pointing angle of the Mercedes was making it hard for Romeo’s thugs to get Bobby out, and Jack realized that shit, they might not have seen yet that Bobby had been shot, might simply assume he’d been killed in the crash.

Which meant none of the guards was on alert for a shooter.

Not yet, at least.

That would change in about two seconds flat when they realized the hole in Bobby’s head was an exit-wound.

“Jill, over here! Hurry!” Jack hissed urgently from beneath the Honda. “Get into the damn car, Jill. Right fucking now.”

“Jack? Are you all right?” Jill was looking around wildly, clearly shaken up but alert because of the adrenaline. She absentmindedly wiped Bobby’s sticky blood off the side of her face. “Where . . . where are you?”

“Where are you going, you bitch!” came Nina’s scream from behind Jill now. “You killed him! You did this!”

“What? No!” Jill turned to Nina just in time to dodge a wildly swinging fist. Thankfully the guard trying to control Nina managed to grab her around the waist as Nina screamed and howled and then broke down into sobs again, slumping across the guard’s arm as he dragged her to one of the waiting Range Rovers.

The distraction was just enough for Jack to crawl into the Honda’s still-open driver’s-side door. He stayed low, reaching across and pushing open the passenger door and calling for Jill to get in.

This time she understood, her eyes going wide again, making her look beautifully deranged with her snow-dusted hair and blood-crusted face and bare shoulders because she’d lost that red shawl. Within moments she’d gotten in beside him and closed the door silently.

Jack started the engine, then reversed the Honda away from the scene, going slow in the hope that maybe the guards wouldn’t notice the car was moving until it was too late.

“Hey, what the fuck?” shouted one of the guards who was still trying to get Bobby’s body out of the Mercedes. He glanced over his shoulder as Jack turned the car around and slammed his foot on the gas, the tires spinning uselessly through the snow for one excruciatingly long moment before catching and propelling the little red Honda hatchback forward. “Stop them!”

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