Surrendering To Her Sergeant (45 page)

She cut into that thought with a
horror-stricken sob.

“Ssshhh.” A man in desert
camouflage, who’d be the poster guy for smoky handsomeness if it
wasn’t for the automatic rifle in his grip, issued it.
“
Cálmate, mija
.
You’re safe and so is your man, as long as you stay
put.”

Inside seconds, the missing memories
rushed back. Ethan on the phone with Luna Lawrence. Their insane
drive to the hotel. Ethan spotting Franzen and Colton inside then
parking her car on the sidewalk. And then—

Holy shit. She wasn’t hung over. She’d
been hit by industrial-strength sleeping gas. They all
had.

“I’m not your
mija
,” she
snarled.

The soldier shrugged. “Fair
enough. As long as you stay there with your little
amigos
, we don’t have a
problem.”

“Where’s Ethan?” From the moment the
man had referenced him, her heartbeat had spiked into a new realm
of terror. What the hell had they done with him?

“He is fine as long as you are
obedient.” He cocked his head, looking even more like a magazine
spread as his black hair fell into his eyes. “You do know how to
obey a man, don’t you?”

She huddled her legs against her
chest, shuddering at how the guy raked his stare over her near
nakedness. She chose to believe that Lor and Stock had threatened
his balls if they got anywhere near her. And if not, she knew
plenty of ways to hurt an asshole simply by watching the show’s
stunt experts teach the moves to Bella.

She had to focus. She had to try and
think.

First priority was a quick assessment
of her surroundings. She recognized things at once. They were in
one of the trailers the studio reserved for guest stars of the
show. It had the basics: a couple of couches and chairs, makeup
mirror and vanity, kitchenette with a fridge and sink, widescreen
TV, and a short hallway into a windowless bedroom. She sensed they
weren’t in the structure alone and hoped that instinct was
right.

“Wh-where are the others?” she asked
the soldier. “The ones you and your boss decided to ‘put down’
along with me?”

He jerked his chin toward the bedroom.
“They are safe.”

A hurricane in the form of
a five-foot-three blond burst from that direction in retaliation.
“The hell we are, asshole.” Sage’s face was streaked with tears,
fear, and desperation. Her hand shook on top of her protruding
belly. “We are
not
safe! And you aren’t fucking doing anything about
it!”

The guard responded with an impassive
stare. Sage sobbed, grimaced, then sank into the chair next to Ava.
Moments later, Rayna appeared. After locking hands with Ava, openly
grateful to see her alive, Ray kneeled next to her friend. As she
did, Sage’s face contorted harder. “Sweetie,” she whispered, “you
have to try and stay calm. Breathe, Sage. Please
breathe.”

“Good advice,” the soldier
stated.

Rayna snapped a glower at him. “Shut
up. Can’t you see what this is doing to her? She’s nearly eight
months along, asshat. Do the math. If you don’t radio out and at
least try to get a doctor in here, this might get really
messy.”

“Wh-what’s wrong?” Ava reached to
Sage. “Are you okay? Is it the baby?”

Rayna gave the answer since the
question seemed to worsen Sage’s distress. “Not yet,” she murmured,
“but if Garrett doesn’t get attention soon—”

“Garrett?” Ava blinked in confusion.
“How? Why?”

Rayna gulped. Her dark green eyes
gained a gloss of tears, too. “He’s still out.”

“Out where?”

“Out
, cuz. Asleep. He and Sage were closest to the sleeping gas
canister when it went off, but he covered her head with his jacket
and his own body. He took the brunt of it for all of us. They
supposedly ventilated him for a while but when Stock snapped his
fingers and rallied the minions up, nobody was designated to stay
and monitor Garrett.”

Ava processed the revelation as calmly
as she could. “But he’s still alive, right?”

Sage started trembling from head to
toe. She pushed Ava’s hand away before baring her teeth in a snarl
at the guard. “Depends on what you call alive.”

Rayna explained, “His pulse is thready
and his pupils won’t respond to light. And his spinal reflexes are
really slow.”

Ava nodded softly but didn’t push her
cousin for anything more. None of that sounded good and she figured
both the women, who were medical corps, had already started
guessing at diagnoses. Sage looked awful. Her pale profile was a
picture of consuming anguish, except for the spasms that made her
grimace with such regularity, Rayna started noting them with quiet
glances at her watch.

Ava’s heart panged. This wasn’t fair.
Two years ago, Sage had been presumed dead by the world until
Garrett rescued her from a slave trader’s den in Thailand. Now her
body swelled with new life, a miracle that had turned Garrett as
giddy as a flute-playing minstrel dancing in a meadow. Thinking of
him beneath that imaginary meadow instead, dead before ever seeing
his child…

No. She couldn’t go there. She
wouldn’t.

Taking care to keep her
feet tucked beneath her, she pressed toward the guard as far as she
dared. “
Amigo
,”
she implored. “
Por
favor
, you must listen—”

He chopped her short by
lifting his rifle. “I’m not your
amigo
, remember?” he retorted.
“Probably for the best, anyway. Shit’s gonna go down soon and I
don’t wanna be on your side, honey.”

Rayna bared her teeth at the bastard.
“This has nothing to do with sides! This has everything to do with
decency. Do you want a man’s death on your conscience?”

The guy unfurled a wide,
lethal smile. “Just add it to the stack,
mijita
.”

Ava squeezed her eyes shut
to activate the kill switch on looking at him anymore. It was
better than killing
him
, which every cell in her body begged her for. If she popped
open her bra, how many seconds of distraction would that get her?
Certainly it wouldn’t take any longer than that to lunge the few
feet to him, grab the rifle, and—

The plan was ripped off the table in
the next moment. Her eyes flew wide as the trailer’s door was
yanked back. But after the panel traveled a few inches, seemingly
tugged by a ghost, it got shut again. The guard peered, blatantly
curious. His frown deepened when the motion happened again. The
third time, he got to his feet with the rifle poised in front of
him.

Less than a second later, with less
sound than a wisp of wind, Tait Bommer filled the space between the
soldier and the door. He’d brought a pair of helpful accessories.
Each of the pistols filled one of his big, steady hands. Their
muzzles, nicely fitted with specialty suppressors, were a perfect
fit on top of the guard’s eyebrows.

“You willing to die for your mission
today, asshole? If not, secure the safety on that stick and let it
down nice and slow.”

Without a word, the soldier complied.
Tait pushed him further into the trailer while kicking open the
door behind him, allowing someone to climb in behind him.
Astonishment jumped into her mosh pit of emotions now. It was Luna
Lawrence, the nutcase who’d helped that Mua monster to nearly
recapture Rayna last year. The woman was the same—but not. She
still wore head-to-toe black, accented now by a matching backpack,
and the lavender streaks in her hair still matched her fingernails.
But the torment in her eyes was gone. And even in this insane
situation, the creases of anger had been erased from the corners of
her mouth.

That was when the mosh pit came to a
stunned stop. Ava’s gape stretched wider. The woman to whom Ethan
had talked this morning, when he called from Ricochet seeking the
CIA guy, had been named Luna. And if someone stuck a brown wig,
pencil skirt, and heels on this woman, she could pass for a saucy
studio accountant…

What the
hell
?

“Hi.” The woman herself broke into
that rumination with deliberate friendliness. “It’s Ava, right? You
okay? Hey, cute naughty nothings. Freddy’s of Hollywood or Vicky’s
Sec—holy shit!” She gingerly pushed the bee jar away with her
booted toe. “What bozo thought that would be funny?”

Tait grunted. “Hey,
flower?”

Luna’s lips quirked. “Yes,
dear?”

“As much as I love listening to you
talk about panties and shit, I could use some of your bondage
expertise over here.”

“Oh yes, Sir!” She set down the
backpack but not before reaching behind the chair and pulling out
Ava’s clothes. “You probably want these now.”

Since Rayna seemed just as
excited to see Luna as Tait, Ava decided her bewilderment about the
woman could go on hold. She gratefully accepted the wad from Luna
before watching as the woman unload her pack. Out came four more
pistols, a steel box labeled
Breaching
Kit
, a handful of sheathed Bowie knives, a
couple of hand scopes, and two filled water bottles. It looked like
there was a bunch more but that was the point when the woman
reached a pack of plastic zip ties and a large roll of duct
tape.

Finally, Ava found her voice again.
“How did you two know where we were?”

Luna smiled. “You can thank Ethan.
That man of yours can think on his feet.” She yanked out a long
swath of the tape and nicked it for a tear with her teeth. “Is my
boy toy ready for me, Weasley?”

“Damn straight, baby,” Tait
drawled.

“Have—have you seen Ethan?” Ava
stammered. “Where is he? What’s happening?”

Luna bobbled her head for a second.
“There’s a really interesting answer for that.”

“Tell me.” She backed the demand by
shooting to her feet but was forced to sit back down, clutching her
clothes in front of her, as Rhett. Rebel, and Kellan stumbled out
of the bedroom at that moment. With them was another guy who had
the potential of being a life-size Ken doll, though right now, the
four of them looked more like the toys some kid had dragged through
the backyard one too many times. When Luna jogged her chin toward
the guy and cracked something about “Dan the man, back in action,”
Ava made the connection that this was the CIA agent Ethan had been
looking for this morning.

“Ava.” Kellan stepped forward to
address her but respectfully dropped his head so she could at least
get into her T-shirt again. “I know this won’t help much, but I
don’t think they’re going to hurt Ethan soon. When they came and
got him, I stayed coherent long enough to hear Stock ordering him
into his Class A’s.”

“Makes sense considering with whom he
was doing the grip-and-grin a few hours after that.”

As Tait stated that, Franzen staggered
out to join the party. He looked worse than the others combined,
blue polo shirt clinging to his sweat-soaked torso, eyes bloodshot,
skin sallow. “That sucked worse than fast-roping on those Afghan
gun pirates in the middle of that gnarly sandstorm.”

Tait crossed to his captain with grim
purpose. “Sorry to be the messenger, Cap, but there won’t be spa
time yet. We have to get our shit together. Something major is
coming down the line, and soon.”

“That’s exactly what our friend kindly
shared.” Ava was busy yanking up her jeans so she just dipped her
head at Mr. Gorgeous and Evil, who glared as Luna wound the tape to
his ankles in an intricate figure eight.

Franzen wrenched open the trailer’s
refrigerator. He went straight for the freezer section, hauling out
the bucket under the automatic icemaker. As soon as he plopped the
thing in the sink, he rammed his face into it. After drying off
with a paper towel, he told Tait, “First things first. Did you and
Luna bring wheels?”

“Affirmative. We’ve stashed the
vehicle between soundstages eighteen and nineteen. It’s quiet over
there; take it from the guy who’s kept tabs on most of this place
for the last week.” He circled his stare to the others as he
hoisted the goodie bag of weaponry onto the counter next to the
sink. “But we won’t need it. This fox is hiding right in the
backyard.”

Colton flashed a knowing smirk at
Luna. “I see you remembered where the fun room was.”

She grinned back. “Memorized the code
for that before the front door.”

“Nice work. And the car you brought?
It’s the Fiat?” After her confirming nod, he beamed his confident
look at Franzen. “It’s not big but it’s fast. It’ll get the job
done.”

“Outstanding,” Franzen
replied.

“What job?” Tait asked.

The captain’s jaw clenched. “Hawkins
isn’t in great shape. Still in lullaby land with a set of vitals
that isn’t pretty.”

Rayna stood. “And I’m fairly certain
that Sage is in the early stages of labor, too.”

“I heard that.” Right after she flung
the accusation, Sage whimpered, grabbed her stomach, and rolled her
head back in pain. “And I’m—officially—refuting it.”