Levi
It took two hours to clear the filth off the streets of the tiny city of Sparta. The Triads and El Sangre backed down and moved out, smart enough to realize when to fold when it wasn’t even their fight. Once the town was secured, we moved to The Bad Debt Hospital.
Everyone was in place. The evening sun had set, and I was itching to go in, but smart enough to know that we couldn’t rush this if we planned to meet our objectives—rescue Hunter, Drew, and the victims of the attacks, and end the reign of Los Caballeros for good.
Johnny and his boys would infiltrate the hospital with us, while the FBI and Secret Service would cover the perimeter of the building, catching anyone who tried to run away.
The Cabs’ reign of terror would end tonight.
Johnny grinned at me, clearly enjoying himself. “Any idea what we’re dealing with in there?” His southern accent drew out every word. We were all from the South, but Johnny’s accent was reminiscent of country songs and pickup trucks. Or better yet, country songs about pickup trucks.
“Oscar flew the drone over earlier, but there are too many heat signatures in there to count. We’ve got a single person on this end, though, with two or three more roaming the corridor.” I pointed to one side of the hospital. “And I’d bet my bottom dollar that’s where Drew is. This wing as well as this one here—” I pointed to the blueprints of the hospital. “Are heavily populated. That’s where the victims will be, and I’d assume everyone is heavily guarded. I have no idea where The Vicar is or where Hunter will be. So, we’ll need to be careful.”
“Roger that.” Johnny slapped me on the back. “Let’s go get the bastard!”
We broke into two groups, Johnny leading one while I led the Shadow Force team. Once we were inside the building, we’d separate to cover more ground.
Four guards manned each entrance, but before they realized we were upon them, the FBI and Secret Service took them out and took over their posts. Unfortunately, that would have the undesired effect of letting the enemy know we’d arrived.
Johnny’s team cleared the patient quarters where we were certain most of the victims were being kept. My team ventured in the opposite direction to the ICU and two separate wings of the hospital. There were fewer people on this side, but I had reason to believe it would be more heavily guarded. I knew in my bones that’s where we’d find The Vicar.
We rounded the corner, where two guards aimed their guns.
“Drop the weapons! Now! Do it!”
The two guards looked at each other and chose well, dropping the guns to the floor and lifting their hands in the air.
“Secure them.” Cruz and Oscar tied their hands behind their backs with flexicuffs as we all continued to move forward.
Ryder and Jolie led, as we approached another four guards.
“Drop the weapons! Drop them! Don’t be stupid! Drop it!” Ryder screamed the commands at the guards, who weren’t as smart as the other two. I saw the intent in one of the guard’s eyes before he pulled the trigger. I opened fire as the rest of the team followed suit, taking out the four guards before they could get a shot off.
We cleared each room, and when we hit the last one, I tried the handle.
Locked.
“Stand back!” I screamed into the room, hoping that anyone who might be on the other side would hear and clear the area. I fired one shot at the lock, then kicked the door open and moved out of the way in case of any retaliation fire.
With my gun raised, I stepped inside to find Hunter sitting on a bed, tears running down his face. He was alone.
“Hunter, buddy. It’s me, Levi.”
Hunter seemed unsure as he took in my black clothes, big guns, and painted face.
“Levi?”
“Yeah, buddy. It’s me.” I sank down to my knees, and he ran over, throwing his arms around my neck.
“Where’s my mama?”
“I’m going to find her, okay? I need you to go with Ms. Jolie, though. She’s going to keep you safe.”
Hunter nodded, taking Jolie’s offered hand.
“We’ll let them out the emergency exit at the end of the hall. The Secret Service and FBI should be on the other side. Ryder, radio them now to let them know we’re coming out with the kid.”
“Roger that.”
Ryder radioed ahead and walked Jolie and Hunter out the back door, before returning back to us.
“Let’s go.” I led the group back the way we’d come, and we made a sharp turn to the ICU wing. We needed to clear that area before we could hit the final corridor.
As soon as we entered the ICU, we were met by several Los Caballeros members standing guard at the doors. They fired as we ducked around the corner, bits of plaster flying from the walls. I was done playing games. I had the love of my life waiting on me, and I knew in my bones I only had minutes to get to her. Something was wrong—I could feel it deep in my soul, and the urgency I felt to find her was unlike anything I’d ever felt before.
I stepped out, firing shot after shot as each guard fell dead.
“Dayum!” Oscar shouted as he moved in front of me to open the doors to the ICU.
The beds were full, patients lying in all states of recovery. I approached the bed of one girl whose eyes were wide with fear. I let my gun fall to my side and lifted my hands to show her I meant no harm.
“We’re here to help. Are you okay?”
The girl nodded. “I am now. Some lady gave me something in my arm earlier today, and I’ve been feeling better since. What’s going on?”
“The lady—did she have long dark hair, different-colored eyes?”
“Yes. Do you know her?”
I nodded. “Do you know where she is?”
The girl shook her head. “I haven’t seen her since then. She looked really tired, and she was with some guy in a bright suit.”
The Vicar.
“Okay. Thank you. We’ll have you out of here soon, okay?”
The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you.”
I left her room just as a scream split the air. A female scream.
“Drew!”
I took off running down the hall, the shouts of my team members calling after me. I knew better than to go off half-cocked; that’s how people got killed. But it was instinct. A reaction I couldn’t control.
I rounded the corner, meeting several guards. I lifted my gun to fire, but shots sounded from behind me, and the guards fell to the ground. I whirled around to find Oscar, Cruz, and Ryder—they had my back.
With a quick nod of thanks, I took off down the hall to the only door that stood closed. I tried the door handle, but it was locked. Peering through the glass, I saw The Vicar standing over Drew. She was sliding backwards on her backside dragging her leg that was crooked at an odd angle.
“Drew!” I screamed her name, but she didn’t turn.
The door was reinforced, and all kicking it did was give me a sore foot. I aimed my gun at the handle and pulled the trigger. The lock exploded, and I kicked in the door. “Drew!”
The Vicar lay on top of Drew, neither of them moving.
I was too late.
***
After removing The Vicar’s body from Drew, I discovered she was still alive, barely hanging on to life. I held her tightly in my arms, screaming for Cruz to bring Lydia. Drew’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she’d gone limp. I pressed my fingers against her neck and found a weak pulse. She only had minutes.
Lydia pushed through the doorway, relief pouring over me in waves.
“She’s burning up with fever. It’s the virus, isn’t it?”
Lydia did a quick look over her, checking her pulse, taking in her appearance. Sores had started on Drew’s arms and the backs of her hands.
“Yeah, I think it is.”
“Do you have the antidote?”
She nodded, pulling a syringe from her medical bag and filling it with a vial of life-saving balm before injecting it into Drew’s veins.
“Her leg is broken, too. We’ll need to set that immediately or she could lose it.”
“That sick bastard. I wish I could raise him from the dead just so I could kill him all over again.”
“How?” Lydia asked, nodding at The Vicar’s lifeless body lying next to Drew.
“I don’t know. When I came in they were fighting. He had his hands around her neck. Then she stabbed him in the neck with that.” I inclined my head to the empty syringe lying on the floor.
“She’s clever. We’ll have to analyze it to see what it was. You’re sure he’s dead?”
“I assume so. I haven’t confirmed it.”
She leaned over, pressing her fingers to The Vicar’s carotid artery. “Yeah, he’s dead. Okay, I need to get a stretcher in here. Before we move her, though, I’ve got to set that leg to get the blood flowing.”
Lydia spoke into her radio, yelling at the person on the other end to “get a damn stretcher in here ASAP,” before standing and moving to Drew’s feet, straightening her good leg and adjusting her hips.
“Hold her head. Fortunately she’s knocked out—because this is going to hurt like hell. She may wake up; she may not. But you need to be ready to hold her down just in case.”
I didn’t know what to wish for. Having Drew wake up would give me some reassurance that she was going to be okay, but on the other hand, I didn’t want her to experience any more pain than she was already in.
“On the count of three.” Lydia held Drew’s foot in her hands. “One, two, three.” She jerked Drew’s leg back into place. Drew made a moaning sound, but otherwise, she remained unconscious.
“Okay. Good. Where’s that damn stretcher?”
Lydia jumped up and pulled out her phone. “I need transport in here for a critical patient. Now!”
Two minutes later, three EMTs rushed in with a stretcher in tow. I moved back so they could place her on it and transport her to a hospital. A hospital that was ninety miles away.
“We need air transport. She needs medical attention now.”
“I know. They’re on their way. They’re taking her to the closest hospital, and Dad is on his way there by helicopter. He should arrive about the same time we do.”
I nodded as I watched them load the love of my life onto the bed. I took her hand as we rushed out of the dilapidated hospital. “Hang in there, angel. I love you. Do you hear me? I love you so much.”
I knew I needed to wrap up the op, make sure all the patients were transferred, the bad guys detained, and ensure all the pieces fell into the right hands, but I needed to be on that flight with Drew.
I waved Will Fuller down, shouting over the crowd of operators. “Will!”
Will tipped his chin and jogged over to where I was still shadowing the stretcher heading to the ambulance. They would life-flight her to the hospital from a nearby field.
“Do you have this? I need to go.”
Will glanced at the stretcher that was being loaded into the ambulance bay. “Yeah, we got it.” He clapped me on the back. “Someone special to you?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ve got this here. I’ll let Washington know. The rest of your team will stay behind?”
“Of course.”
Jolie waved her hand at me just as Hunter saw me and ran over. I didn’t want him to see his mom that way, but it was too late. “Levi! Levi!”
Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and I scooped him up as soon as he reached me, hugging him tight.
“Hey, buddy. You okay?”
“Yeah. Jolie is taking me for ice cream later if I’m a good boy.”
“That’s great.”
“Is that my mommy in there?” Hunter peeked around my shoulder, his fingers going to his mouth.
“Yeah, bud. She’s feeling kind of sick, and her leg is broken. They’re going to take her to the hospital and make her better.”
Hunter looked unsure, but finally leaned in for another hug. “Okay. She’ll come back?”
“Of course. I’ll make sure they take good care of her, okay?”
“Okay. Maybe she needs some ice cream too.”
I chuckled, wishing that Drew’s problems could be solved with ice cream. “I tell you what; when your mom gets out of the hospital, we’ll all go get some ice cream together. Does that sound good?”
Hunter smiled, wrapping his arms tightly around my neck and squeezing so hard I thought he’d cut off the circulation to my brain. “Yes!”
I lowered him to the ground, and Jolie took his hand in hers. “Keep us posted, okay?”
“Sure thing. Thanks, Jolie.”
“Anytime. She’s going to be fine, Levi.”
“I know.”
She had to be.
***
Drew came through the surgery on her leg with flying colors. The doctors said that Lydia’s quick work had saved her leg, and she’d make a full recovery. Her fever had broken and her symptoms seemed to be subsiding, but she’d yet to wake up, and that was concerning.
The doctors thought she’d wake up when she was ready, that perhaps her brain was protecting her from all the trauma she’d endured over the last few weeks, but especially the last twenty-four hours.
The FBI and Secret Service had arrested seventy-five people in connection with Los Caballeros. Many of them were gang members from rival gangs, as well as men who worked directly for The Vicar.
They’d found almost two hundred sick people lying in dirty beds. The ICU area had been cleared out of recovering patients, who were now being transported by ambulance to local hospitals. Apparently, they’d received the antidote earlier that day. The rest of the victims were treated by Lydia and a team of nurses and doctors. They were given the antidote immediately and would be transferred around the state once they were stable. A few sterile cloths thrown over the dirty beds, and we had a temporary place to care for the patients until they could be moved.
I sat next to Drew’s bed, holding her hand, praying she’d wake up any moment.
“Angel, it’s time for you to wake. Come on, baby.” I’d yet to leave her side. I still sat in my black fatigues and T-shirt. Cruz had stopped by to check on me and had offered to stay while I went to a hotel to change and shower, but I refused to leave. What if I left and she woke up?
So, I talked to her. Telling her all the things I’d been longing to say to her since I had that first dream of her. Before I knew her, I’d loved her. How was it even possible? A miracle? A premonition? I wasn’t sure. I just knew she was mine, and she had to pull out of this. We had a lifetime together waiting for us.
“I love you, angel. From that first dream, I knew you were going to change my life. I think I’ve loved you from that moment.” I watched her eyelids, watching for any sign of movement. Nothing. “But you’ve got to wake up if we’re going to start making those memories.”
I laid my head down on the bed next to her hip, her hand still firmly in mine. “I need you, Drew. Hunter needs you. Don’t leave me.”
“Levi?”
I shot upright, terrified that I’d imagined her sweet voice.
I hadn’t.
“Drew, baby. How do you feel?”
“Like I was on the verge of death and came back.”
“Pretty much sums it up.”
“Hunter?”
“Safe. He’s with Piper and Cade. Jolie took him back to Atlanta.”
“Good.” She cleared her throat, which turned into a coughing fit. She winced in pain, and I grabbed a cup of water and a straw and put it to her lips. She sipped it and inhaled deeply.
“Thank you.”
I took her hand again, retaking my seat.
“The Vicar? The Cabs?”
“He’s dead. The Cabs have all been arrested, or at least those we know about. What did you give him?”
“It was the mutated virus I told you about. The accident we discovered while creating the antidote. It causes an immediate heart attack.”
“Geez. You could have been killed.”
She shrugged slightly and leaned her head back against the bed. “Yeah, well, it was a chance I had to take. I couldn’t find Hunter. I knew I only had one chance. So I gave him the virus knowing he’d come looking for an antidote.”
“But how did you get the virus?”
She hesitated. “He kissed me. I knew I’d need to be infected too, or as soon as he started having symptoms he’d blame me and maybe kill me before I could inject him with the poison.”
“Pretty risky move. What if he’d injected that nasty stuff into you?”
“He didn’t.”
I tamped down the anger I felt that she’d taken it upon herself to singlehandedly take out one of the most dangerous men in the world. I just kept reminding myself that she was here, whole, alive.
“I killed someone else, too. I think they took him out and disposed of his body somewhere. I had two vials of the mutated antidote. I gave it to him in order to get that call out to you.”
“That call saved your life. It was you or them. I choose you each and every time.”
“I know.”
Her face contorted, and I stood quickly. “Are you in pain?”
She shook her head. “No. There’s something I need to tell you, but I can’t remember what it was.” Drew held her head in her hands as if trying to pull the thoughts from her brain.
“You’ll remember. You’ve been through a lot. It will come back to you.”
Drew put her fingers to her temples. “No, Levi. It was very important. Urgent.”
She rocked back and forth as she tried to remember. Her blood pressure and pulse rose incrementally until I was worried she’d do herself harm. I hit the call button for the nurse, who came rushing in.
“Oh, I see you’re awake. And agitated. Let me give you something for that, honey.”
Drew put a hand up. “No—not yet. It’s right there. Just out of my grasp.”
The nurse looked to me, and I shook my head slightly. “She’s trying to remember something.”
“Ah, okay. Well, I’ll be back in a few minutes. Your leg is healing nicely. You came through surgery just fine, and now you just have to heal. Here, let me get you some water.”
“That’s it!” Drew shouted, the alarm on her machine letting off a high shrill. The nurse bustled over, pressing on Drew’s shoulders to make her relax.
“You have to relax, Dr. Bellamy.”
“No. Levi—The Vicar. He had a backup plan. The water supply in Atlanta. He was going to put the virus in the water supply and distribute it to the city, killing half a million people. There’s no way we could make enough of the antidote in time to save all those people.”
“Dr. Bellamy, please.”
Drew slapped at the nurse’s hands. “Would you just leave me alone for one second? Levi, do you hear me?”
I did, but I was still processing her words. I’d thought it was over. That we’d snuffed out the threat. And now Drew was telling me that the virus was on its way to Atlanta’s water supply?
“Are you sure? You didn’t dream it?”
The monitor stopped screaming as Drew relaxed slightly against the pillow. Her numbers were still high but coming down. “I didn’t dream it. He said Atlanta was just the first city to fall. Levi, so many innocent people. We have to do something.”
“You need to relax. I’ll take care of it, okay?”
Drew sat back up as I moved to leave the room. “Wait. I need to help—”
I returned to her bedside and leaned down, kissing her softly on the lips. “You did good. Just rest, okay? I promise I’ll let you know what happens.”
She nodded, relaxing back against the pillow. The nurse had stepped out for a moment but returned with a syringe. “Just something to help you relax, dear.”
Drew didn’t argue this time—too tired, it seemed, to put up any fight.
I stepped out of the room, taking out my phone from my pocket and calling Ryder.
“Hey, man, it’s me.”
“How’s Drew?”
“Awake—but listen. She remembered something The Vicar told her before he died. He sent someone to put the virus in the water supply for the city of Atlanta. We have to stop them.”
“There are three water reclamation centers that service the city. That would be where they’d put it in for distribution. I’ll make some calls. Can you call Washington and fill him and the president in?”
“Yeah. Keep me posted.”
“Will do, boss.”
I ended my call with Ryder and placed one to Washington.
“Slater, how’s that lady of yours?”
“She’s holding her own. Awake now, thank goodness. Listen, we have a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“The Vicar sent someone to Atlanta with the virus. The plan is to distribute it through the water supply. There’s no way we can have half a million doses of the antidote ready in time to save those lives. Thousands will die unless we stop them.”
“I’m assuming you have Ryder on this already.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Tell him to let me know if he finds anything out. Meanwhile, I’ll contact Homeland Security, and we’ll get the National Guard out there within the hour.”
“Drew mentioned that Atlanta was just the first target. She said The Vicar indicated more would follow.”
“We’re on it. Thank you, Levi. We’ll take it from here.”
“Are you sure, sir? My team and I—”
“Have done enough already. We owe our national security to your team, Levi. I’ll keep you posted on what we find.”
“Thank you, sir.”
When I returned to Drew’s room, she was sleeping soundly. The nurse was just leaving.
“Why don’t you go change and get a shower. She’ll be out for several hours.”
“I can’t. I should—”
“You should get some sleep. We’ll be releasing her in a couple of days, and if you expect to take care of her, you’ll need your rest.”
It made sense. I nodded and went to Drew’s bedside, taking her hand and placing a kiss on the back of it before leaning in and kissing her cheek. I loved this woman with my entire being. She was so courageous, such a fighter. It was as if she’d been made just for me.
“I’ll be back, angel. And I give you my word—no one will ever harm you again.”