CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

 

The great lawn was littered with bodies and three smoking MRAPs as he approached the back tire of the second militarized vehicle. Gunfire buzzed in Jax's earpiece as smoke billowed from the blazing MRAPs. He stood over the Suarez militant with the tactical gun palmed and his trigger finger itching for a pull.

His heart pounded, and sweat coated his back. Licking his lips, Jax prayed for strength. "Do you understand English?"

The bound man shrank against the tire. "Y-yes-s."

"Good." He tugged his face mask back then ran the muzzle of his weapon along the man's jaw. "Of all the assholes you didn't want to see, I'm the one that will give you nightmares."

The bastard bared his teeth, hissing at the gun in his face.

Jax pistol-whipped him. "Those kids? They're very special to me."

Again, the man's mouth opened, but this time he simply held up his hand and pointed at the gun. "Think hard. I don't kill for sport, and I don't care if you take another breath. I give zero fucks. But the woman who was taking care of those children?" Jax dropped his hand and inched his weapon forward again. "Her, I care about. You have a simple decision. Tell the truth and live. Where is she?"

The man hesitated, and Jax shook his head. "That was your warning. Next I'll shoot ankle, knee, gut shot. I've seen how they bleed so purple, it looks black. Interested?" He aimed for the man's ankle. "Where is she?"

"The militia quarters—" Then he buried his face in tied arms, preparing for death, anyway.

"I gave you my word." He ran toward the barracks to the sound of the man sobbing and thanking him.

"ACES," Jared barked in his earpiece. "Target is on-site. Find her. Jax, you can get there on foot. Follow the way the MRAPS came."

"Roger that." He recalled the satellite maps and was already hauling ass.

The acrid smoke burned the night air as Jax covered as much of the gravel road as he could.

"Hold your fire! ACES, confirm targets visually or under direct assault only."

Jax rounded a bend and saw one-story buildings surrounded by a flood of people.

"Report. What's the situation?" Jared demanded of the change in the operational directives.

"Freaking chaos." Jax didn't recognize the voice. "Civilian captives released. Scattering like ants out a flooded hill. Young, old. Kids. Women."

A tsunami of people rolled in every direction. How many prisoners did the Suarez cartel have captive?

"First priority remains the same," the ACES commanding officer ordered. "Eyes stay on the pivot. Report on back side and jungle line?"

 "They're being pushed in all directions," another unfamiliar voice reported. "Diversions and body shields—"

"I have eyes on the target, eyes on the target!"

"Who's that? Where?" Jax rushed through the chaos that the Suarez militia had created. Half the people didn't know who to trust or which way to go, but ACES could manage that. "Where?"

The faces were indistinguishable. Some people were dressed in rags, while others had been obviously forced into military garb and held weapons awkwardly. Jax took a defensive position and scanned the perimeter, unable to find Seven in the churn of people.

"Give me your location and her direction," Parker said calmly. "I'll lock a bead on her."

Jax's heart thundered in his ears as the two men volleyed intel back-and-forth regarding one of the women who had fled toward the jungle. A civilian might've assumed the jungle was safe. But that only took into account the threat of man with his weapons and military maneuvering. Fleeing into the jungle was unlike escaping into the woods at a park. A jungle tree canopy would block the light from the moon and the stars, and most wildlife inhabitants survived by the eat-or-be-eaten code.

Seven was fierce, but she had no idea what she had walked into.

"Jax," Parker said. "I'll ping her coordinates to you. Find her, and I'll get you an extraction locale."

Like there was any other option. He was coming for his woman.

 

###

Everywhere looked the same as Seven stumbled to the ground. The thick vined plants tangling around her feet were just as black as the sky was above her. No matter which way Seven turned, she smacked into thorned bushes or trees that were wider than the expanse of her arms. Her eyes never adjusted to the dark; she couldn't see anything anymore. What was the point of running away when she didn't know if she was getting any closer to a neighboring village or town where someone could help?

Her lungs screamed with pain from pushing past any athletic ability she had and from panting against tiny bugs and spiderwebs.

Seven wrapped her elbow across her face as a mask even as she worked to suck in as much air as possible. She hadn't been able to catch her breath while in Columbia, and today was even worse. But she didn't care because she had to get help and her children back.

Tears welled in her eyes as she took in the magnitude of the situation.

"Seven!" Jax's voice sifted through the hot, humid air, and maybe she had been bitten by something poisonous.

Hallucinations had to be one of the signs that she was losing her mind or had been poisoned by some stupid jungle insect.

"Seven, stop moving. I'm coming for you."

She laughed as delirium strangled her common sense. This was what it was going to be like when her mind finally gave up—delusions about Jax riding in to the jungle to save her. She should've guessed.

The crunch of leaves and branches startled her, and the cold prickle of sweat cascaded down her back and arms. She had nothing to fight off whatever animal may have sniffed her out, sweating and crying.

"C'mere, princess, I'm here." The snaps of twigs and the crumble of plants underneath steps came so close, she was sure that if she held out her hand, she could touch its source. What she wouldn't do to have Jax with her now. "Target acquired."

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight to his chest and dropping his mouth to her sweaty forehead. "Found you. I promised you everything would be okay."

"Oh God. It's not." Seven sobbed. "Bianca and Nolan." Her arms shook then her body with the full force of terror. But if he was there, maybe there were more resources to save the kids? "Jax, please tell me you're real. Please."

"Real." He slowly released her.

"My babies," Seven whispered, trying to make sense of what was true and what wasn't a dream.

"Titan has them. They're fine. Anxious to see you."

"God, thank you." Relief found its footing and overtook her. Light on her feet, as if she could breathe fire and float on angel wings all at once, she leapt back against Jax and hugged him. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. I owe you forever."

He chuckled. "That's what husbands are for."

Seven kissed him on the cheek and would kiss him head to toe if she wasn't foul, and they weren't in the middle of the jungle, likely being hunted by the men who had kept her captive.

"We need to get moving again. I have a rendezvous point for a helicopter pickup. But it's not close, and we have to hustle." He gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Are you good to start hustling?"

Seven took a deep breath in the dark night. Tears dried on her cheeks as the man she was crazy about held on to her. "I'm so good, I might be able to fly if I tried."

 

###

"You know, you're my hero." The darkness was all surrounding, and Seven could no longer make out his face.

"One person's hero is another person's nothing to lose. My job well done happens to mean extreme circumstances have occurred. But Seven, don't make me out to be something more than I'm not."

His words were everything with a far more evocative texture than she had ever heard before. "You don't have to be perfect to be a hero. You know that, right?"

At his urging, they began moving again, faster than the leisurely pace he'd let her take before. They had all the time in the world, at least until they found the abandoned field medic station and their rescue helicopter came in the next twelve hours. Jax could speedwalk her through the jungle all he wanted, but he couldn't outrun a conversation.

"Where did you grow up?" she asked.

He grumbled. "Is this the point in our walk where we start the twenty questions? Is this where you want to pick me apart and figure out what's wrong? What could be fixed?"

Seven planted both of her feet firmly in the squishy jungle ground, yanked her hand back from his, and, unable to see his face clearly, twisted in his general direction. "What the hell crawled up your ass? I'm the one that's dead tired and not used to jungle walks, thank you very much. If anybody wants to get in a snippy-pants mood, I call dibs. Not you."

"Keep moving, Seven. We don't have time for this."

"Then we didn't have time for you to push your lips against mine a few minutes ago. I'm not moving. If you're going to be a dick anytime I ask you a simple question, I'm gonna be a bitch. See how that works? It's the whole yin and yang thing. Like a teeter-totter."

"Then I'll throw you over my shoulder and get there faster, anyway." Jax took a step closer, his hand jutting out as though he might follow through on his threat.

"So help me God, big boy. I'll never forgive you if my feet leave the ground, and it's a simple freaking question. Where are you from? Who are your parents? Are they alive? What's the deal with not wanting to share personal information? Because that's weird."

Jax muttered and snagged her hand but didn't start walking. "They're alive. They live in Jersey. Everybody's Italian and eats sausage and peppers on Sunday." He started walking, and Seven relented, falling into stride next to him. "I played in the river with my friends when we were kids. Football was king. Still is in that town. It was a perfectly normal childhood. Nothing to talk about."

"Ever been in love?" she asked.

"Really, Seven?"

"I want to know who you are. I'm not some nutso chick that's going to go into a jealous rage in the middle of the goddamn Colombian jungle. I have a compulsion with folding when I wish I could control chaos." She grumbled because this moment was pretty much the definition of chaos. "I've never been in love. I thought I loved Johnny. I didn't really know what it was because I grew up with everybody telling me that I was supposed to love him and that we were supposed to date and that we were supposed to get married. It was like a checklist—" She tripped over a branch and stumbled then limped for a step but refused to issue a complaint. "He grew up as one of my best friends, and if I had had a brother, he would've been it. And I understand that's very weird to say because obviously we got married. It was more like he was the boy next door. Essentially, it was an arranged marriage. I never dated anyone else in high school, and when I turned eighteen, we got married."

"Jeez, that sucks."

"No, it doesn't suck if you don't know what you might be missing. I care about him. I want good things for him—"

"The cokehead who hit you."

"You've never made a mistake before?"

"That's not a—never mind."

"When I was sixteen years old, he gave me butterflies."

"At least it wasn't the clap."

"Jax. I'm trying to explain that he's always been a very attractive person, and I didn't think anything of it. It was what I knew. Normal. We did the prom thing. Johnny was the first boy I kissed, lost my virginity to, and the same person I ended up marrying. It seemed like that was how it was supposed to go."

Jax helped her down a small embankment, and she heard water splash around his feet. "Back up." He shuffled them up the hill and moved in a different direction. "When did you know you wanted something different?"

Seven groaned into the jungle humidity. "I'll tell you if you promise not to judge me."

Jax lifted her over a downed tree. "Maybe. Hang on. Duck for a minute." They crawled through thick branches, and he helped her through the last ones. "You know I'm not going to judge you."

He held her still as though she had to acknowledge that he meant what he said. "I know."

"Careful over here."

Footing wasn't easy, but it was better than baring her soul. Still, she wanted Jax to know about her, regardless of how uncomfortable sharing made her. "It wasn't when I knew he was sleeping around. But when I realized my dreams and fantasies revolved around things I'd never have with him, I started to change. More importantly, I knew it was happening, and why I was changing scared me. In how addictive it felt. Like a compulsion." Which she already had and couldn't stomach explaining.

Jax stopped and turned to her. "Like what?"

Nervously, she fidgeted, unable to see where she could pace but wanting to move. Maybe she'd said too much. Maybe he'd picked up on the OCD and thought she wanted to talk about that. "I don't know. Stupid stuff."

"How did you change?"

"The first time I dyed my hair an outrageous color, it was a rush. And then the piercings. It's not the high from the pain that excites me. I like the rush of planning, the nerves of not knowing, the thrill of seeing something that some say shouldn't be there. It's the closest thing I can find to butterflies, and I wanted to keep chasing it."

"Why would I judge you for that?"

"I didn't work on my marriage."

"You were eighteen years old."

"How old were you when you joined the navy?" she asked.

"Eighteen."

"And you're always a SEAL."

"That's different, and you know it."

Seven agreed but could still make the argument against herself. "I'd been through the ugliness of my parents' split and couldn't handle that one decision trapping me for the next fifty, sixty, however many more years of my life."

"I get that."

"I didn't want to be like my dad. He ran out on my mom. Or maybe, it was that I didn't want to be like my mom, who finally gave up on my dad. I don't know… My father fucked around on my mom a ton, and perhaps that's why I didn't bat an eyelash when getting married didn't stop Johnny from sleeping with whoever he wanted to. But you know what the weirdest thing is?"

Jax put his hands on her biceps and gave a soft squeeze. "Tell me."

"It didn't feel real. The marriage, wedding rings. I had this fairytale wedding in my head. And I know the wedding ceremony doesn't make the marriage, but I wanted this very traditional wedding with a giant wedding gown and veil, bridesmaids, and groomsmen. I fantasized about a church with an organist and people throwing birdseed or blowing bubbles as we ran out."

Jax grumbled.

It wasn't everyone's ideal day, but it was hers. "You know what else?"

"Hmm?" The cold, rough edge of his disinterest barely registered because she'd tried to share her dream with Johnny time and time again, and his responses had run along the lines of "better luck next time" to "sounds like a waste of money."

"I couldn't see Johnny's face. It was never him." Seven shook her head. "No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't put him in my dreams."

Jax squeezed her arms and let out a deep sigh. He finally said, "You would look beautiful in a big white dress."

"Thanks." That was more than she'd ever gotten before, and Seven squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to be closer to him than their layers of clothes would allow. She leaned nearer and held on to him, refusing to be overwhelmed by history.

Jax stroked her hair. "I was in love before."

Seven tilted her head back.

"I was a couple years younger than you. Man, and I was naïve. Green as fuck. Her name was Carrie, and she worked for the Agency as an operational analyst. Essentially, an intel grunt. She would take info from ops and digest it. Sometimes, that meant fieldwork, but mostly, she was behind a computer. The whole thing is classified, actually. What I'm about to tell you doesn't even exist. But…" His body tensed, and Seven thought he might never continue. "I married her."

Having no idea what to do, she stayed wrapped around Jax because those last three words sounded like they hurt him to say. If nothing else, Seven wanted to simply touch him, tell him without a sound that she wished he never hurt.

"Carrie wore a white dress. Sounds like you might've liked it. A long veil too. Her hair was long and… up. There were these pins. They shimmered and held the veil in place."

Seven couldn't tell if pain or anger made Jax's voice gravel. She inched back, wanting to ask if he was okay, needing to see his face, but the jungle night was dark to the point of blindness. It was cruel not to be able to see his eyes, his cheeks, those lips that she wanted to kiss when his pain shook the wilderness. "You don't have to continue."

"I should tell you." His ragged, broken sigh shattered her heart. "There was a small room at the back of the church. Music still played. We didn't even have a chance to laugh over the stupid way one of her bridesmaids kept sneezing during the ceremony and how the priest kept glaring. We never got to talk."

"Jax, what happened?"

His clothes rustled as he pulled back, rubbing his chest. "What happened?" Jax's hurt bottomed out in a deadness that sent chills down Seven's skin. "Deacon Lanes happened."

Oh—They were both employed by the CIA. Did they have an affair? Or—

"Their cover was blown for a job, and Deacon's identity was in question while we were at the church. Him and her at the same location. They walked into the room seconds after we shut the door, and Deacon didn't even look—"

What happened? Seven would never ask, but hell…

"He said, 'she means nothing,' shot her in the head, and kept his cover."

"What!" Seven's heart broke for Jax. The idea of a loved one killed in action was unbearable, but to witness it? And after getting married? Seven didn't know how Jax was still standing.

She also understood the rage she'd witnessed in Las Vegas. What had seemed like a snap, out-of-control decision to attack and nearly kill Deacon now didn't seem vicious enough.

How was Deacon still alive? She had no idea. She would never ask why Jax hadn't murdered the man who'd murdered his wife. They were raised in different ways. But his self-control, the dedication he had to his cause and country, and the fact that he placed what he did and what he was doing for Nolan, Bianca, and her so high, had elevated him to sainthood.

"I've been angry and hateful since that day." He wrapped his arms around her. "Time heals wounds, but Seven, I have to thank you too."

She jolted back in his arms. "Me?"

Jax didn't let her go anywhere. "Yeah, princess, you. Because I go through the motions and do a hell of a job, but I couldn't feel a damn thing." He inched her close until his breath tickled her face. "Until I felt my heart beat when I woke up married, next to you."

Seven had no doubt how deeply she'd fallen in love with him, but she had no idea how to focus her mind around the gravity of that realization.

"Not too much farther and not much left to say. Let's get in and get some shut-eye." He slid his hands down her arms and found her grip. With a squeeze, Jax signaled that it was time, and into the darkness they went.