Badass: Deadly Target (Complete): Military Romantic Suspense (24 page)

I can’t move, but my face burns as emotion tries to escape. “How?”

Tate takes over. “When we discovered these three were the ones responsible for making sure the plans were uncovered, we knew their lives would be in incredible danger and were able to launch a rescue mission the next day. As you can imagine, we have the full support of the president.”

I look into the eyes of my father. Tears are streaming down his face. When he raises his arms, I fly into them. “Oh, my Mia.” He smells of sandalwood and citrus.

Soon, I’m surrounded by relatives I’ve never known. My grandmother is kissing my cheek over and over. She’s speaking in words I don’t understand, but someday I will because I’ll learn.

I’ll learn everything, I vow. Russian, but more importantly how to be part of a bigger family. How to open my heart wider. How to forgive. And how to be brave enough to follow my dreams and not let anything stand in my way.

When familiar hands settle on my shoulders, I turn into Jax’s embrace.

“Thank you.”

He kisses my hair. “You’re very welcome.”

Looking up, I gaze into his beautiful blue eyes. “I love you.”

He grins. “Kindergarten love?”

I shake my head.

“High school love?”

I shake it again. “I love you as the twenty-six-year-old woman I am now. And as the ninety-six-year-old woman I hope to be one day.”

He breathes in deep, then exhales.

“I love you, Mia Hewitt. The woman you are. The woman you will be. I’ll love you until the end of time.”

He looks up at the ceiling then, and I know he’s thinking of Laura. But that’s okay. Because I know she’s giving him her blessing. I feel him relax as if the weight of his promise to her is sliding from his shoulders.

When he looks down at me again, it’s only me he sees.

Me and our future together.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Badass: Deadly Target. As we were writing this book, Tatiana wasn’t far from our thoughts, and we constantly wandered about her life before Mia was born. As a special bonus, we’re writing a short story that delves into her past. Please sign up for our email list to be notified when it is complete. Sign up here:
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Sneak Peek - Stoking the Embers

Chapter 1—Stephanie

Turning onto Sunset, my hands are like lead weights on the steering wheel. I’m so tired; it’s bone deep. I could cry, knowing I still have hours of studying to complete before bed. I can’t continue this schedule much longer, something’s got to give. But I don’t know what that could be… job: gotta have it to eat; school: gotta have it for a better future; boyfriend: gotta have him for…

For what? I don’t know how to answer that question. Support? Love? Neither of those words feel right.

The sports car flying past me rocks me from my reverie. He’s so fast my car shakes from the wind shear he leaves in his wake. Where did he come from? I check my mirror, looks like he’s the only one driving at breakneck speed.

I speed up too, wanting to be home and put this shitty day behind me. I have to focus on my studies, I have to do well on Donovan’s exam. Plus, I have to work tomorrow, the morning shift from six a.m. to noon.

Bath first. Study second. Dinner somewhere in between—probably ramen noodles, again.

Although my windows are up and the air conditioner is on full blast in relief of this hot Vegas day, I hear it. Metal on metal, the bams and pops of a wreck. Glass exploding, steel wrenching and then quiet.

I drive forward, trying to see the damage. Oh my god. One. No two. No three cars are involved.

Even though the radio is still playing, the stupid red sports car is unrecognizable. It now resembles a piece of the term paper I have so many times wadded in my hand. It’s under a white van—oh no, it’s a small church van—the kind that seats eight or sometimes twelve. There’s also a convertible involved. It’s lying on its side, girls hanging from their belts.

This is bad. This is very bad. I’ve got to do something to help.

Pulling as close as I dare, I look around and see two people talking on their phone. Good. They’re calling 911 I’m assuming. Now onto step two.

I grab the stethoscope I keep in my backpack for nursing clinicals and pop open the glove box and pull out the pathetically small first-aid kit I keep in the car. I jump out, running to the trunk and snatch two towels and a ‘just in case’ sweater I always keep in there. Looking back at the wreck, I know there’s nothing in my car that can treat the injuries I’m about to witness.

There is no time to think, I run to the wreckage. I smell smoke and gasoline… blood. I run toward it anyway. The sports car is first and so badly damaged I can’t see inside. The driver must be dead. This can’t be survivable. I run to the van that the car rammed into from behind.

It is a church bus, oh God, filled with elderly men and women who appear to have been going on a field trip. I pull at the door handle on the sliding side door, knowing it won’t open, but I try anyway. The impact has crumpled it and it’s stuck. I couldn’t have opened it if I had super strength. The passenger side door opens and I jump inside and check the driver. His face is bloody, but he appears relatively okay despite the dash crumpled back on his legs.

“Can you move? Can you get out?” I yell at him and he shakes his head.

“My leg’s stuck.” He pulls on his leg as if to prove his point and his face contorts with pain.

The sports car had hit the van in the back, pushing it into the convertible of girls coming through the intersection. Through the shattered front window, I see people trying to help the girls, who are bleeding but conscious, to get out. Good thing they were all buckled. If not they would have been laying on the street, most likely dead.

Focus.

“Help is coming,” I tell the driver and cross between the seats and to the front row of the van. There is a mixture of injuries, cries and moans. I ignore those who are conscious and aware and try to make my way to the back, where the scene becomes more and more ghastly with each hunched over step I take.

Two dead, a man and a woman in the backseat, holding hands. The woman had fallen over into his lap. Tears fill my eyes. I’m not ready for this. I’ve never seen death this fresh, this brutal.

The two people in the seat just before them are seriously hurt. Blood’s everywhere. I pull on gloves from the kit and do my best to assess the injuries. I tear apart the towel, pressing the cloth to the most grievous of wounds.

My heart beats in my throat and the smoke makes my eyes tear, but I say as calmly as I am able, “Everyone who can, get out. Hurry.”

The smell of plastic burning is horrendous. I glance and see no one is moving. I see people milling around outside, unsure what to do. I scramble to the front of the van and yell, “Help me get the less injured out of here.”

Taking a deep breath of fresh air, I turn back into the gore and hurry past the hands that are reaching out to me, trying to make me stop to help their wounds. I say, “I’m sorry, let’s get you out of here.” I don’t stop for them. I know time is running out for the man and woman I was previously trying to help.

Once again in the back, I cut the sleeve off the sweater I’d brought with me and use it as a tourniquet on the man’s heavily bleeding leg. I’m just a student. I’m not ready for this. Their lives couldn’t have been in less capable hands.

Focus.

I’m worried about the woman’s neck and yank off the scrub jacket I was wearing for clinicals. Folding it, I create a neck brace of sorts and use the tape in the kit to secure it around her neck.

Pulses. They both have pulses, but both are weak and thready. They need a hospital. Surgery. Oxygen. Oh God, we all need oxygen, the smoke in the van is getting worse. I yank off my t-shirt, leaving me in my tank top, and tie it around my face, a feeble barrier against the smoke.

Having done all I can do for these two, it’s time to save the others. Everyone will die if the van catches on fire, or worse, explodes. People are trying to help the frail passengers navigate between the front seats and out the passenger door. They’re going too slow, not one person has made it out. The passenger seat… is there a way to remove it?

I scramble forward, searching for a release that might possibly allow the seat to be removed. Mom’s van had them, all but the driver’s seat could be taken out. I see nothing.

“Can this seat be removed?” I yell at the driver, who is still trying to pull himself from under the dash.

“No,” he yells back, coughing from the smoke and I nearly collapse with disappointment. We’ll have to do this the hard way. Turning, I help the elderly lady next to me navigate the small opening and climb out of the van. Two pairs of hands lift her the rest of the way out and I turn to the man who’s next.

“Take her,” the elderly man yells at me, pointing to the lady sitting behind him. “Women and children first.” He gives me a snappy little salute and I almost smile for the first time.

“Yes, Sir.” Turning, I help the woman scoot through the opening between the seats and the crunched door. She’s so frail, I’m afraid of holding her too tightly. Slow. So slow. I scoop her up, my back screaming in protest, and duck-walk her to the front seat where the men pull her out.

There’s one other woman on board, besides the dead and dying in the back. I go to her and do the same, scooping her up and duck-walk to the front.

“Children next,” I yell, holding out my hand to the man. He laughs at me and shakes a finger, but he’s much more capable of getting out on his own. He’s out in only a few seconds.

Two more men are left, but the dark gray smoke is nearly overwhelming. Where is the ambulance? The fire department? I look at my watch, only seven minutes have passed since I first stepped into this van.

I hear them. The most beautiful sounds—sirens.

I grab the hand of the next man. It’s so frail, he’s having trouble standing, his knees not wanting to lift him. I pull, the strain screaming through my arms. He’s not a little man. There’s no way I can lift him or carry him. Should I leave him? Or, help the last man still conscious? He seems more mobile.

Oh someone help me; the choices I’m having to make seize through me. I’m not God. I can’t choose who lives and who dies.

I pull harder and the more mobile man helps. Finally, the heavy one is on his feet. I scramble onto a seat and out of their way and they lumber slowly… so very slowly… to freedom and fresh air.

Turning, I head back into the worst of the smoke, to where my patients need me. This does it… obstetrics it is… where life bursts into the world instead of slipping away. I see past my patients, to the ones still slumped together in the back. I wonder how long they’d been married and if it’s a blessing for them to have died so quickly together. How many children did they have? How many grandchildren? Did their family consider them a blessing, or had their presence became a burden?

Focus.

There is no help for them. The tears sliding down my face need to stop.

Thump. Looking up, I see firemen running to the scene, a fire hose pointing at the van, putting out the source of the smoke I’m experiencing.

“How many?”

I jump at the voice, turn toward the front and see a fireman climbing inside.

“The driver is stuck. Two back here barely alive. Two DOA. I can’t get them out.”

“Paramedics are here, we’re going to break the glass, get some O2 in here as soon as the fire’s out. We’re going to pop this door,” he motions to the sliding door to his left, “then cut the driver out.”