Page 62 of Jacking Jill

Six or seven of Romeo’s men were killed on impact, the shrapnel from the blast ripping through their bodies with shocking speed. Jill’s heart lurched, but she couldn’t stop watching, found herself clawing at the glass when she saw the four Darkwater men charge out from separate doors, all of them running with long easy strides, handguns spitting fire as they weaved through the smoke and shrapnel, picking off Romeo’s men with deadly accurate shots to the head.

Jill’s gaze was fixed on Jack, and her breath caught each time someone pointed a gun in his direction. But Jack moved like a ghost in the night, his muscular body gliding with the grace of a tiger, his aim steady and true, each shot finding its target in the head of an enemy, the crash of bullet into skull sending little puffs of dark red mist into the night air that added a sickeningly surreal vividness to the scene.

The last man dropped dead ten feet in front of Jack, a gaping crater where Jack’s bullet had exited the back of the man's skull.

Jack stopped his advance, swept his gaze and his gun in all directions, checking to see if his military brothers needed help.

They didn’t.

An eerie stillness fell across the battlefield.

Broken bodies were strewn haphazardly, interspersed with pieces of flaming wreckage, like a gruesome work of modern art.

“Give it a minute,” said Benson quietly from behind them. “Let them do their jobs and make sure it’s clear.”

Jill nodded, wiping her nose which was running from the smoke in the room. It was getting hard to breathe, but they were almost home free now. Jill could wait another couple of minutes, couldn’t she?

No, she couldn’t.

Now Jill gasped when she saw movement around the back of one of the burning SUVs. She moved along the glass window to get a better angle, then shrieked when she realized what she was looking at.

“He’s got Nina!” Jill blinked in horrified disbelief, hoping to heaven that she was hallucinating, that it wasn’t really Nina being dragged to her feet by Romeo. She rubbed her eyes and looked harder. It was Romeo Carmine, no mistake about it. He was charred and bloody, but alive and upright, holding a gun to Nina’s head, using her shivering shuddering body as a human shield as he yelled something to Jack and the others, who were closing in on him in a tightening semi-circle, each of them aiming squarely at his head—which was terrifyingly close to Nina’s head. “No! Don’t shoot! That’s Nina! Ohmygod, tell them not to shoot, somebody! I’m . . . I’m coming!”

Jill turned from the window and suddenly she was running through the smoky room, frantically looking for the door. Behind her Benson was shouting for her to stop, Fay was running after her, Paige and Nancy were calling her name, telling her that the guys down there were Special Forces veterans trained to handle hostage situations and she was only going to complicate things by going down there.

But Jill didn’t stop. She could barely see through the smoke, was wheezing and sputtering by the time she found the door and yanked it open, stumbling out into the smoky corridor. Somehow she found the stairs, grabbing the railing and guiding herself down to the main floor. Behind her Fay was calling her name, but Jill couldn’t hear a thing except for poor Nina’s hysterical shrieks.

“Nina, I’m here!” Jill tore out through the first open door she found, running barefoot down the unfinished concrete stairs, across the gravel lining the sidewalk, over the rough cold asphalt, past the bewildered Hogan and the cursing Keller, scampering past Ice, ignoring Jack’s shouts ordering her to get back behind him.

Jill stopped now, panting and gasping as the cold night air opened up her lungs, sending fresh oxygen to her starving brain, clearing her vision so she could see everything in startling crispness.

And the first thing she saw was Romeo Carmine’s gun now pointed at her forehead instead of Nina’s, his shrapnel-scarred face twisted in a savage grin. In her frantic desire to get to Nina, Jill had run past Jack and the other guys and was now blocking their aim at Romeo’s head.

Which was exactly what Jill wanted.

Because Jill sensed that Benson was perfectly capable of giving the order to take the shot, regardless of the risk to Nina. Jack would not follow that order, but the other guys might. Jill didn’t know much about Benson, but if he was willing to sacrifice himself and his own team to keep this whole mess under wraps and protect that guy Kaiser’s job, Benson surely wouldn’t hesitate to add Nina to the list of casualties.

“Just . . . just go away,” Jill stammered to Romeo, the words sounding clumsy because her lips were trembling either from fear or the cold—perhaps both, since she was barefoot in a short dress with no underwear. “Let Nina go and we’ll let you go.”

“Like hell we will,” came Benson’s voice from behind her. “But that doesn’t mean you have to die tonight, Romeo—which you absolutely will if you keep pointing your weapon at Jack’s woman.” He chuckled dryly. “Give it up, Romeo. Hell, you don’t even have a vehicle to escape in. And the truth is, you might be safer hanging with us for a bit. Someone besides us wants very much for you to die tonight, and that makes me want to keep you alive for now. So toss the gun, release the girl, get down on your knees, just like you mafia guys do in church on Sundays. Come on. It’s cold out here. And not very safe, with all these planes dropping out of the damn sky. Do you trust Miss IMG not to drop a fucking weather satellite on our heads just to see us go splat?”

“Wait, what?” Romeo tilted his head to the left to get a look at Benson. “That was the IMG bitch who crashed the drones into my vehicles? It wasn’t you calling your contacts in the NSA or CIA or Air Force or whatever?”

“You see?” said Benson, strolling languidly past Jill, drawing Romeo’s attention along with him. “We’re both just flies in someone else’s spiderweb. Now let go of the girl.”

Jill felt movement behind her now, and before she realized what was happening, Jack had grabbed her by the waist and pulled her out of the line of fire, planting his big body squarely in front of her.

But not before giving her a look that was a strange mix of scolding and admiration, similar to when he’d called her recklessly loyal, dangerously selfless.

And completely his.

Suddenly the cold chill of fear left her, and she shuddered in warm relief behind Jack’s body. She peered cautiously past his shoulder to give Nina a reassuring smile, but Nina’s eyes were glazed and her body was almost limp as Romeo held her from behind. After the day Nina had just had, Jill wasn’t surprised. Nina was close to passing out, but it was better than being hysterical and twitchy with a gun pressed to her head.

“I’m not an idiot, Benson.” Romeo shook his head, slowly backing away from Benson, dragging Nina’s almost limp body with him. “You didn’t call the cops or feds or any backup. That means you want to keep this whole scene quiet, clean it up just like you spooks do with your cover-ups. And that means I’m a dead man if I surrender to you.” He shook his head again. “Get me a car and I’ll drop this junkie bitch off at a gas station or rest stop once I’m far enough away from you.”

Benson sighed. “You’ll never be far enough away from Miss IMG, though. You don’t stand a chance against her and you damn well know it.”

Romeo hesitated. “You know who she is? I’m pretty sure she knows you.”

---