Alpha One Read online

  Gunfire erupted. Not down below, not outside. But from in the room. Gunner had crawled forward, and Juliana saw that he’d reached into his ankle holster and pulled out his backup weapon.

  “Don’t think—” his voice was a rough rasp “—you’re...helpless...”

  Susan staggered back. A balloon of red appeared on her chest. Her eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open in shock. She took another step back, another, her feet stumbling.

  Then her eyes closed. Her head fell backward—her whole body fell—and she tumbled straight through that glass window.

  * * *

  LOGAN WHIRLED AT THE sound of shattering glass, and when he saw a woman’s delicate form plummeting from the window, his heart stopped.

  He lurched forward, all of his instincts forgotten. It was too dark. All he could see was the tangle of hair on the ground. A broken body. Blood.

  No!

  A knife shoved into his back.

  “Don’t worry,” a voice whispered in his ear, “I’ll make sure the pretty lady joins you in hell.”

  Not Juliana.

  Through the moonlight, he could just see the woman’s face. Not Juliana. Susan.

  He spun around and grabbed the man behind him by the throat. “You’re not...touching her.”

  This time, the man drove a knife into Logan’s chest.

  Logan attacked. He shattered the man’s wrist, pounded with his fists, went for the man’s throat. His prey was near death when...

  Another man appeared and drove a needle into Logan’s neck. Logan roared and tossed him back. The second attacker fell, his body crumpling into a heap.

  But it was too late.

  Logan’s body began to shake. His vision blurred. He tried to swing out at the man charging him, but Logan’s body slumped to the ground. He wanted to shout a warning, to Jasper, to Gunner, to Juliana, but he couldn’t speak.

  Shadows closed in on him, faces he couldn’t see. Then a blade pressed over his throat.

  * * *

  “YOU’RE GOING TO BE all right,” Juliana said as she pressed towels against Gunner’s wounds. “I’m getting you help, okay?” She’d tried to call an ambulance, but the telephone upstairs had been dead. With the firefight going on out there...where was the backup?

  More cops had to be coming. Cops and EMTs. They’d fix Gunner. They had to.

  He caught her hand. His fingers were bloody, and they slipped over her skin. “Hide.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “No more...gunfire.”

  He was right. But there’d been a lull in the gunfire before. She wasn’t about to think it was safe just to have bullets start blasting again.

  “Stay...down.”

  Now he sounded just like Logan. She tried to smile for him. Hard, when she was sure the man was bleeding out right in front of her eyes.

  “I’m going to my room and getting my cell phone.” She’d call for help. She wasn’t letting him die while she did nothing. So those attacking might have cut the lines that connected the house phones, but they wouldn’t be able to stop her from using her cell. “Everything’s going to be okay.” Juliana hoped she sounded more reassuring than she felt.

  Gunner’s dark, tired gaze called the words a lie, but he didn’t speak. Maybe he couldn’t speak any longer.

  Juliana lurched to her feet. She took a staggering step forward and—saw a faint glint from the corner of her eye.

  She spun back around, her gaze flying to the painting. Susan had slashed it over and over, and there, hanging out from the bottom of the canvas, Juliana could just see the faint edge of...

  A flash drive.

  He said he gave you the evidence.

  She grabbed the drive with her bloodstained fingers. People were dying outside because of this tiny thing. She shoved the drive into her pocket and rushed for the door.

  Get. Help.

  She was almost to her room when she heard the creak of the stairs. Juliana tensed. It could be Logan, but if it were him, then wouldn’t he have called out to her?

  Her fingers reached for the doorknob. Then she heard another creak. Another. The soft pad of footsteps heading toward her father’s room.

  Gunner.

  Juliana spun around. She had taken Gunner’s gun, and the weapon felt slippery in her palms. “Stay away from him!” She rushed forward.

  And nearly ran into the man who haunted her nightmares.

  Juliana skidded to a halt. She’d expected to face his flunkies. The hired killers. Not...

  John.

  He smiled at her. The same tired, slightly crooked smile he’d given her when they were trapped in that hell. “Hello, Juliana.”

  Ice chilled her. Logan would never have let the arms dealer get inside the house. The only way this man could have gotten past him...

  No, Logan’s not dead.

  John’s stare—no, Guerrero’s stare—dropped to the gun. “Give that to me.”

  No way. “I’ll give you a bullet to the heart!”

  His smile stretched. “I don’t think so.”

  “You need to think again.” She wasn’t backing down. This man had destroyed her world. She wasn’t about to just stand there and be a lamb for his slaughter. She had the gun. She had the perfect chance to shoot.

  Then Guerrero lifted his hand, and within his grip, a bloody knife blade glinted. “This is your lover’s blood.”

  No. “Is he dead?” Her heart already felt as if it was freezing.

  “My men will make sure that he is if you don’t come with me now.” Guerrero dropped the knife on the floor and opened his hand to her. “I’ll let him keep breathing, but you give me the gun and we leave.”

  “He’s already dead.” The man thought she was a fool. “And so are you.” Logan. The scream was in her head, desperate to break out, but she saw herself calmly aiming the gun right at his chest. One shot would be all that it took. Of course, she couldn’t aim with her trembling fingers, so maybe she’d just empty the gun into his chest.

  That would work.

  His smile vanished. “You’re killing him. Every moment you waste, every second. My men are so eager to pull the trigger...”

  Only, there wasn’t any thunder from gunfire outside. Just silence.

  “Jasper...he’s there.” Jasper would still be fighting. And there were other guards. Other cops.

  “The one at the gatehouse? The sniper? It took some doing, but we took him out, too.” His hands were up in front of him. “There’s no one out there to help. Backup might be coming, but they’ll get here too late.” No Spanish accent coated his words. “By the time they arrive, Logan will be dead.”

  “He’s already dead.” And Guerrero was just jerking her around.

  “Come with me,” he said, his voice low, emotionless. “I’ll prove that he’s alive.”

  She wanted to believe him.

  “Or stay here,” Guerrero said as his dark eyes glittered, “and you will be responsible for killing him.”

  “Move,” Juliana ordered. “Head down those stairs and keep your hands up!”

  He laughed, but he moved, taking slow, measured steps as he headed down the stairs. She expected him to try for the gun, to attack her, but he didn’t.

  He didn’t even glance back at her as he walked.

  The front door hung open. He was just about to head out that door now.

  “Wait!” She hated to get close to him, but there wasn’t a choice. Juliana rushed forward and shoved the gun into his side. She didn’t know what might be waiting out there, and she wanted a shield.

  He grunted when the barrel of the gun dug into his body. “So different...than the girl in Mexico.”

  “Maybe you didn’t know that girl so well.”

  His eyes flashed at her.

  “Anyone comes at me, I’ll kill you.” Just so they were clear.

  His head inclined toward her. “I think you mean it.”

  “I do.”

  “Pity...” Th
en he started walking, nice and slow. “Don’t you wonder why more cops aren’t here? Why it was just your lover and the skeleton staff of guards?”

  Yes, she did. Where the hell was the backup?

  When she went outside, all she saw was carnage. Bodies on the ground. Men moaning, twisting. Shattered glass. Susan—

  Juliana jerked her gaze away.

  “Money can buy anything in America. A slow response time from cops. The right intel from a disgruntled detective who feels like everyone is going over his head on yet another case.”

  Two men had risen from the ground. They were bloody, bruised, but coming right toward them.

  “Tell them not to come any closer,” Juliana whispered.

  “Don’t come any closer,” he called out easily enough. “Such a shame that things had to be this way between us. You know, I became quite fond of you in Mexico.”

  The man was the best liar she’d ever met. “Where’s Logan?”

  She didn’t see him. Hope had her heart racing too fast in her chest. Guerrero was a liar, but maybe, maybe Logan wasn’t dead.

  Don’t be dead.

  Guerrero pointed to a black van that was idling on the right. “In there.”

  She kept her gun to his side. They walked slowly toward that van. It seemed to take them forever to reach that spot.

  Where is Jasper? He should be out there but she sure couldn’t see any sign of him.

  “Open the door,” Juliana ordered when they drew close to the van.

  Guerrero moved forward. He grabbed the side door on the van and yanked it open. It was dark in the van, but Juliana could just see the crumpled form of...a man inside. She couldn’t tell if the body was Logan’s. It could have been anyone. Any—

  Gunfire.

  Blasting right near her body. No, near Guerrero. Her head whipped up. Gunner was leaning out of the broken second-story window, firing down on them.

  Then Juliana was hit from behind, rammed so hard that she stumbled forward and fell into the back of the van.

  More gunfire.

  Coming from behind her now. Jasper? Finally?

  But the van door had closed behind her. The gun had fallen and she’d slammed face-first onto the van’s floor. Her forehead hit hard and pain splintered through her skull.

  And she hit—someone. The man in the van. The man who wasn’t moving. She shoved her hands against the van’s metal floorboard even as the vehicle lurched forward. She was tossed back a bit and tires squealed. More gunfire.

  The van kept going—racing away.

  She lifted her hands, afraid, and touched warm skin. Her hands slid over the man’s body nervously. Wide shoulders. Strong muscles. She touched his neck and felt the thready beat of his pulse.

  Her finger smoothed higher. Felt his chin...and the faint scar that raised the skin there.

  Logan.

  She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close and—felt the wetness of his blood on her. “Logan?”

  “Isn’t that sweet?” Guerrero’s voice. Her head jerked up. In the darkness, she could make out two men in the front of the van. The driver—and the shadowy form of the man who held a gun on her.

  “Told you he was alive,” Guerrero said as the gun’s barrel swung between her and Logan. “And if you want him to stay that way, you hold him tight, and you don’t so much as move until I tell you to do so.”

  They were leaving the senator’s mansion, heading down the twisting roads of the swamp. Roads that could take them to a dozen secluded locations.

  “This time,” Guerrero promised, “we won’t be interrupted, and if you don’t tell me everything I want to know, then you’ll watch while I slice your lover apart.”

  He’d already started slicing.

  “He’ll be the one who screams soon, Juliana. You could hardly bear it when you heard the sound of a stranger screaming. Tell me, what will you do when those cries come from someone you love?”

  Anything.

  And Guerrero, damn him, knew it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Logan opened his eyes, aware of the pain that throbbed through his body in relentless waves. It was the pain that had forced him to consciousness.

  The darkness hit him first. Wherever he was, there were no windows, no fresh air. He was sitting, bound with his arms pulled behind him and tied to the wooden slats in the back of his chair.

  He also wasn’t alone. He heard the soft rasps of breath coming too fast. So close to him.

  There was a faint beam of light on the floor to the right, just a sliver that came from beneath what Logan suspected to be a door.

  He tried to shift in his chair but the pain doubled, knifing through him.

  Hell, yeah, he’d been knifed all right—

  “Logan?”

  He stilled. That was Juliana’s voice, and when he took a breath, he smelled vanilla. Beyond the blood and dust and decay in the room, he smelled her.

  No. Gunner should have been keeping her safe. He’d made a dumb move; Logan knew it. He’d seen the body falling and fear had made him reckless for a moment, but Juliana—

  “Please, Logan, talk to me. Tell me you’re okay.”

  “I’m...” He cleared his throat because his voice was no more than a growl. “I’m okay, baby.” A lie, but he would have told her anything right then. He didn’t know how much blood he’d lost; Logan just knew he was too weak.

  The cops have been working for Guerrero. He’d figured that little fact out too late. From the sounds of the battle that had echoed in his ears, he knew Jasper had reached that same conclusion.

  Too late.

  You couldn’t even trust the good guys these days. But then, maybe there weren’t any good guys.

  “I was afraid... I thought you were dead.”

  “Not yet.”

  Her laughter was choked. Desperate. “That’s what Guerrero said.”

  And Logan knew how the guy had gotten her out of the house. This time, I was the bait. “G-Gunner?”

  Silence from her, the kind that told him something had gone very wrong.

  Of course something went wrong. We’re both being held in this hole, and Guerrero is about to come in and start his sick games.

  Games that Logan couldn’t let the man play with Juliana.

  “Susan stabbed him. When we left...he was alive. He was shooting at Guerrero.”

  If Gunner was still breathing, then they had hope. He’d get Sydney. They’d track Juliana through the implant.

  All his team needed was a little bit of time.

  Logan could give them that time. He could take torture, as much as necessary. As long as Juliana makes it out.

  He’d suffered plenty over the years. It wasn’t the first time he’d been taken hostage. He’d gotten out before. He would now.

  “I’m sorry.” He had to tell her that. He couldn’t stand to be there, to all but feel her next to him, and not say the words. When he’d last seen her eyes, she’d looked as if she hated him.

  If they weren’t in the darkness, would that same hate glitter in her stare?

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.” Truth. “I didn’t want—”

  “Logan, we can talk about that later.” Something thudded—her chair. Her leg brushed his. So close. He wanted to reach out and touch her, but the rough rope just dug into his wrists and arms.

  “You will get out of here.”

  “We’re getting out.” Her voice vibrated with intensity. “I’ve been in this dark, you weren’t talking, I was afraid—I never want to think that you’re dead again, got it? You were so close, and I thought you had died.”

  His hands fisted. “I won’t die.” But he had to warn her. He wasn’t going to lie to Juliana, not ever again. “But it’s going to be bad, baby. What comes...” He swallowed and said what she had to hear. “I can take it, understand? You stay strong and just know that I’ll be all right.”

  Guerrero and his torture games. Logan had seen the bodies left behind after Guerrero’s playti
me was over.

  “I’m not going to let him slice into you!” Her voice was fierce. “I’ll give him what he needs. I don’t care.”

  But they didn’t have anything to give him. Even if they did... “The minute you talk, we’re dead.” She was only alive because Guerrero couldn’t stand the idea that evidence was out there floating around. Evidence that could lead a path back to him.

  “He’s not letting us escape,” Juliana whispered, her voice so soft in the darkness.

  Logan kept pulling at those ropes. She was right. Guerrero wasn’t going to let them slip away.

  “What happened?” Juliana asked. “What went wrong?”

  They’d trusted the wrong local cops.

  The silence must have stretched too long because she said, “Logan?”, her voice sharp.

  He exhaled slowly. “The cops were working for him. When I went out, they turned on me instead of fighting off his men.” Those who’d been left alive, anyway. The cops on their side had been taken out or injured instantly. Money could talk, and Guerrero sure had a lot of dough. “Guerrero probably had a contact at the P.D., one who knew just which cops would turn for the cash.” Enough cash could make even the strongest men weak. “Hell, some of ’em might not have even been cops, just plants who were sent in.”

  But he’d been fighting them back. He and Jasper had been holding their own against them all.

  Until he’d lost his control. He’d seen the body and... “I thought it was you.” He’d never forget the fear. How could he? Echoes of it still burned in his bleeding gut.

  “What was me?”

  “When the body fell, for an instant...” He wished he could see her through the darkness. His eyes had adjusted, and he could make out the outline of her body, but that wasn’t good enough. He wanted to look into her eyes. To see her while he had the chance.

  Time was all they needed. Hurry up, Syd.

  His breath expelled in a rush. “I thought it was you, and I’ve never been so scared in my life.” Not even that horrible night when his father had destroyed three lives.

  The night that was between them. Always would be.

  His fear, that crack in his control, had cost them both. Guerrero never would have gotten the drop on him if he’d stayed focused.

  But with Juliana, focus had never been his strength.