Ryder
Atlanta, GA
Saturday night
“Ryder!”
It was her voice, my angel. My small sun.
“Ryder! Fight, Ryder!”
I blinked my eyes, trying to bring the world around me into focus. Igor’s hands were still wrapped round my neck, but I wasn’t dead. Not yet.
“Ryder! Fight, man!”
Oscar, his voice carrying over the crowd like music to my ears.
“Ryder, they have Jolie! You have to fight!”
No. No—she was supposed to be safe. I tried to find where he was, but all I could see was Igor’s angry face, mottled red with fury, his sweat, spittle, and blood dripping down onto my face.
They would not take her. Not while there was still an ounce of life in my body.
With a boost of energy that had to come from some supernatural force, I moved my hips upward. Igor didn’t move, but his hold loosened. He was tired. He wasn’t used to long fights, as he always made sure his were over quickly, usually with the other guy being carried off in a body bag. He was always the victor.
But not that day.
As his hold loosened, I pulled life-giving air into my lungs, then, with everything in me, I jerked upward, hitting the bridge of his nose with my forehead. His grasp around my neck released, and I used the momentum to get to my feet.
Igor scrambled on the ground, his hands over his face, his strength waning.
“You’re pathetic.”
I turned, lifting my hands in victory. I wouldn’t kill him, not if I didn’t have to. Washington would take him into custody. We might be able to learn what the Cabs were doing with the Russian Mob and find those victims they were using for human experiments.
A gasp sounded in the crowd, and the air shifted behind me. I whirled around to find Igor on his feet, coming for me. I didn’t have time for this. I had to get to Jolie.
I spun around, landing a roundhouse kick to Igor’s midsection. It all happened in slow motion. Igor stumbled backwards, his foot slipping off the building. His arms windmilled before shock registered on his face. Then he fell backward.
The crowd rushed forward to watch Igor’s body slam into the pavement below, the sounds of a car horn blaring and the screeching of tires a horrid accompaniment to his death, but I kept walking, struggling to fight my way through the hordes of people as they sated their thirst for blood and gore. I knew what they’d find. Igor’s crumpled body, a pool of blood beneath him, his head cracked open like a coconut.
He was dead.
And I had to find Jolie.
Oscar reached my side, just as Cruz and Levi joined him. Several men lay on the ground, incapacitated, possibly dead. We checked the barrels by the stairwell door, hoping no one had confiscated our guns. They had.
“Dammit! Who took her?”
“Looked like Rubio,” Levi answered, opening the door for me to go down first.
“We tried to get to her and to you, but they had goons detaining us. It took a few minutes to take them out, especially without weapons,” Oscar explained.
I jerked my head in a nod. I knew they’d done all they could. Dmitriev had the upper hand that night, but his reign of terror would come to an end. I would make sure of it.
Ignoring the agonizing pain in my ribs and head, I raced down a flight of steps, pushing through the door to that level, searching for any sign of Jolie or her captors. The floor was empty, so we continued down to the next one.
When I found that one empty as well, I turned to go. But something on the ground in the middle of the room caught my attention. My pulse pounded in my ears as I walked forward.
Blood.
I knew it was hers. Something inside me just knew. Had they killed her?
“Let’s go.” Levi tugged at my arm, pulling me back to the stairs. We checked every other floor, but there was no sign of her. No sign except that one horrible indication that she’d been severely hurt. I held on to the hope that maybe she was still alive. There was no body, after all.
When we reached the first floor, I ran to the bathrooms, retrieving the weapons we’d stowed in the bank of the toilet tanks. Thank God, no one had thought to check there. In the lobby, Levi, Cruz, and Oscar were retrieving their own weapons from a pile of overturned paint buckets and plastic drapings in the corner of the room.
We left the building, rushing out into the cool night. A black sedan was pulled up to the sidewalk, a large man shoving Jolie into the back passenger-side door.
“Jolie!”
She was alive! Dead on her feet, covered in blood but alive. She didn’t turn around, but the thug did. I dove behind a large planter, while he and his flat-faced friend fired off several shots before they launched themselves into the front of the car and sped away.
As soon as the gunfire stopped, I leaped up from behind the planter and ran after them into the street. A motorcycle came up behind me, shouting at me to get out of the road. I turned to face him, my hand up in the universal sign for stop. He obliged, all the while screaming at me about my lack of intelligence and calling me some pretty creative names while he climbed off the bike and rushed towards me.
“I need your motorcycle. It’s an emergency.” I spoke calmly, hoping the sound of authority in my voice would keep this guy from doing something stupid. I should have known better.
“Are you crazy?” The man pulled his helmet off, tucking it under his arm as he continued to rail at me. “You moron. I’m not giving you my motorcycle.”
I pulled my fist back and launched it into his dumb face, and he stumbled back, shrieking with rage. I climbed onto the back of the bike before he could get himself together enough to come after me.
Levi raced over. “Go! We’ll take care of this and get the car.” He slid my phone into my pocket. “We’ll follow your GPS.”
“Roger that.”
I spun out onto the street, heading in the direction of the car, while the guys took care of the irate man I’d just assaulted before stealing his ride. The traffic was thick in the city, but the motorcycle allowed me to navigate it fairly easily, weaving in and out of traffic. It wasn’t long before I caught up with the sedan, but I kept several cars between us, hoping they wouldn’t notice that they were being followed.
Apparently, I didn’t stay far enough back, though, as bullets pinged off the bike, and I ducked, weaving all over the road, hoping to make myself a very difficult target to hit. They kept firing, so I backed way off, not wanting innocent bystanders to be hurt by the flying bullets. I took a cross street, knowing they were heading towards the highway, and a mile later pulled in two car lengths behind them. If they noticed me, they didn’t shoot.
They took the highway, and I followed, but after a few miles, the car pulled off the exit. It was clear they had no idea I was back there, which was good. I’d prefer to rescue Jolie without a gunshot wound. I had a bad feeling I knew where they were headed, and the stakes had just ramped up higher than ever. I prayed Levi and the guys would make it in time to help.
Sure enough, ten minutes later, the car turned off the road for a small private airfield. I stopped before going down the road, waiting so they wouldn’t notice me. When they pulled through the gate, I took my phone out and dialed Levi.
“Yeah?”
“There’s a guard at the gate at the airfield. I need to get past him without bringing down all of the TSA on me.”
“Okay, give me a minute.”
“Hurry, man. I don’t have long.”
It was three long minutes before Levi called me back.
“You’re clear. Tell the guard you’re DEA. He’s expecting you.”
I didn’t waste time answering Levi but clicked off the call and stuck the phone in my pocket. I turned the throttle and barreled towards the gate. The guard stepped out front, took one look at me and opened it for me.
Apparently, Levi had given him my description, which would have been hard to mistake. I glanced down at my bare chest, covered in blood and bruises. Yeah, I didn’t look like someone you wanted to mess with, and there was no denying I’d fit Levi’s graphic recounting.
I gunned it as soon as the gate was opened, just in time to see two thugs running with Jolie towards the plane. Her feet dangled between them, her head bouncing around on her neck.
I revved the engine, giving them notice that I was coming, and I slammed down hard on the brakes, swinging the back of the bike around. It slid across the pavement as I jumped off, gun in hand. The adrenaline was racing through my body. I barely felt the cuts on my face, the swollen lips and eyes, the cracked ribs. None of it fazed me. All that mattered was getting to Jolie.
Nikolai was holding her close to his body, a gun to her head, steps away from the plane.
“Dmitriev! Let her go!”
Dmitriev turned slowly, keeping Jolie in front of him as a shield. He grinned, his lips pulling tight over his teeth. He looked like a snake, a slimy, belly-dragging reptile. Jolie was barely standing upright, her body folding in on itself, her face battered and bruised, and her head slumping forward.
Her eyes met mine, and I saw shock and then confusion on her face. When it faded to hopelessness, it was all I could do not to rush over and jerk her away from the bastard.
“Kill him!” Nikolai shouted the command to his guards, and I fell to the ground as bullets sprayed the pavement in front of me. As the first round stopped, I jumped up, running in a zigzag pattern to a stack of large pallets near the single building that sat next to the runway.
Bullets pinged off the wood. The guards were trigger-happy and appeared untrained. They had big guns, but that didn’t mean they knew how to use them. Something that would work in my favor. I wasn’t untrained. And I wanted them dead.
Dmitriev was pushing Jolie up the steps of the plane, and I knew I had seconds, or she would be lost to me forever. I fell to my belly, cursing the pain in my ribs. I settled my gun on the first guard with the AK-47. I lined him up in my sights and pulled the trigger. He dropped like a rock.
The second goon aimed his gun at me, but I didn’t let him get a shot off. I aimed and fired, hitting him right between the eyes. His body slumped heavily to the ground.
The two guards who were left were hiding behind the car doors. I stepped out from my hiding place and unleashed an entire clip as I stalked forward, dead set on reaching Jolie before the plane could take off.
Both men fell dead, and silence settled over the night.
“Dmitriev! It’s me you want. Leave her out of it.”
He whirled around, as if just realizing his guards were all dead, and put the gun to Jolie’s head, keeping her tight against him. Too close for me to shoot without fearing I’d hit her or hit him and reflex would have him pulling the trigger as he went down. I couldn’t take that chance. Nikolai started back down the steps, pushing Jolie as she teetered on unsteady legs.
“Since you are alive, I assume my nephew is dead.”
“Yes. He is.”
“You have taken far too much from me, Ryder Blake. I think I will let you watch me kill her.”
I lifted my hands. “No. Don’t. Please. This is between you and me.”
“Ah—but, see, that is where you are wrong. I want you to suffer like I have suffered. You stupid Americans. You’re all the same. You think you can just take what you want without any consequences.”
“I killed Ivan and Igor in self-defense, Nikolai. You know that. You killed Nina in cold blood.”
“She was a traitor! The big bosses, they were taking notice of me. I was all set to be given a greater territory. More money. More fame. More power. And then you and my whore of a niece stole that list of the names and addresses of Mafia spies located in the US, and I lost all my credibility.”
I kept my mouth shut, hoping Levi and the others would arrive soon. I could really use the backup.
Jolie stared at me in a stupor. Had they drugged her? Did she have a head injury?
“You know I’m not going to let you get away, Nikolai. Let the girl go.”
“Not a chance. America will pay for what it’s done to me. To what it has done to Mother Russia. Drop your weapon, or I’ll kill her.”
I kept my gun trained on him. He jammed the gun harder into her temple, and she yelped.
“Drop it! Now!” His voice had taken on a frantic edge, and I was afraid he would accidentally kill her before I was able to save her.
I put my hands up in front of me in the universal sign of surrender and slowly started to lay the gun down at my feet.
The sound of tires squealing was music to my ears. I dove to the side, my ribs protesting at the beating they took against the pavement, and rolled. Nikolai fired his gun at the empty space where I’d just been, accompanied by Jolie’s screams. Three car doors slammed shut, as Nikolai glanced around in panic. He was outnumbered and outgunned.
Jolie’s head raised, and her eyes focused on me where I was lying on the ground. I got to my knees slowly and carefully so as not to spook Nikolai. He knew if he shot her now, he’d be dead, and I knew he had enough self-preservation not to make a sudden move.
“Ryder?”
Nikolai jabbed the gun hard against her temple. “Shut up!”
“I’m okay, Jolie. Just hang tight. I’ll get you out of this.”
I focused all my attention on Nikolai, instead of Jolie’s terrified eyes. She was always so tough. So confident. Seeing her this way tore me up on the inside. I wanted Dmitriev to pay for what he’d done to her. But patience was a game I’d learned to play, and it was the only way to win.
“There’s nowhere for you to run, Nikolai. Drop the weapon and let the girl go.”
“It doesn’t matter what happens here tonight.” He shook his head, clearly distraught, his words rambling and not making sense. “Something terrible is coming to America. Her future will be destroyed. People will weep in her streets.” His voice rose as his gestures grew more frantic.
“You’re surrounded. There’s nowhere to run. Drop the weapon, now.” It was Levi’s voice, approaching to my left with Cruz and Oscar by his side. All had their guns aimed on Nikolai, but if we shot him, we risked Jolie’s life. We had to get him to put the gun down or somehow get her away. And I knew what we had to do.
“Jolie, my solnyshko. Just stay calm.”
Telepathic gifts weren’t something I possessed, but I hoped she was able to read my expression. I gave an imperceptible nod at Nikolai, and she responded with a sharp nod back, lifting her chin. There she was. My strong, determined girl. My love. My life. And she knew what to do.
“If you shoot me, I will take her with me. It will kill you to lose her, you know. I like that idea. Ryder Blake suffering for the rest of his miserable life because of me. Yes, you took everything important away from me. Now I will take it from you.” The gun settled at her temple, his resolve to pull the trigger clear on his face.
I held up a hand to cue the rest of the team. Jolie’s eyes bored into mine, and I winked.
She moved lightning-fast, her hand sliding behind his and pushing the gun away from her face. She dove off the steps, and rolled at the bottom, while the team and I unloaded our clips into the Russian Mafia boss.
He fell face forward, barely missing Jolie as he hit the pavement. Jolie jumped up and ran towards me, my arms opened wide to receive her. She collapsed in my arms, and I fell to my knees, holding her tight against me.
“I thought you were dead.” The sobs wracking her body were heartbreaking, and my eyes filled with unshed emotion.
“Me too. But my small sun gave me hope. I had to get to you.”
“When I saw you standing there, I thought I’d died and was experiencing the worst version of heaven ever. Only, your face gave me hope for the afterlife. But when the guys arrived, I realized I wasn’t dead. And neither were you!”
She lifted her head from my chest to cover my mouth with hers. I kissed her softly, careful of our busted lips and bruised faces. When she pulled away to cuddle against me, I pushed gently against her arms.
“What’s wrong?” Her face was lined with concern, but I wasn’t waiting another minute. We’d almost lost each other tonight.
As sirens rang in the distance, I switched my position, going to one knee, taking her hands in mine.
“Jolie Phillips, I love you with all my heart and all that I am. Marry me. Let me spend the rest of my life trying to be the best thing for you.”
Jolie’s red-rimmed eyes filled with tears, and she took my face in her hands.
“You already are the best thing for me.”
“I know this isn’t the most romantic of places, and it doesn’t come close to a gondola ride in a ritzy Vegas hotel. But I didn’t want to wait another minute.”
“I don’t need Vegas. I just need you. Of course I’ll marry you!”
I stood, pulling Jolie to her feet as the guys clapped and hooted around me. With her body pressed against mine, I poured all my love, all my joy, all my hope into kissing her. When Oscar yelled for us to get a room, I drew back, both of us chuckling. I cupped her face, her poor, abused face, and kissed her lightly on the nose.
“Two weeks, Jolie. You have two weeks to plan a wedding.”
“Two weeks?” She shook her head. “Ryder, that’s hardly enough time—”
I put my finger to her lips, shushing her.
“Two weeks. I don’t want to spend another moment without you as my wife.”