Charity's Passion (26 page)

I hear a sickening pop-crack type sound and as the light returns again, moving much slower now, Justin is yanking his knife out of the man's forehead while his body twitches.

The flashlight spins off us and finally comes to a stop facing the other way.

Thank God!

"You okay?" Justin asks in the dark. I hear him moving around, probably getting off the body.

"I'm fine."

Fine? Really?

The man just saved my life—again—and I'm bubbling over with love and appreciation, but the only thing to come out of my mouth is fine?

Justin scoops up his flashlight and shines it on me so that he can help me get up. He pulls me to my feet and now I thank him properly, my mouth colliding with his.

It's as if I can't kiss him hard enough. I use both hands digging into his hair to crush him into me. His protective arms wrap around me and squeeze the trembling out of me.

Malcolm comes bursting through the curtains, weapon out and ready as he interrupts our embrace. In less than a second he assesses the situation and lowers his gun. "You're both okay?"

"Thanks to Justin," I gush.

"Then you should come with me—we found the girl."

My heart leaps to a gallop. "Go!" I shout eagerly.

I need to see her with my own eyes; I won't be able to believe it until I see her.

"Is she okay?" I ask as Malcolm leads the way.

"We think so, but it's not that simple," he says. "She's locked in a room with no windows—and it's wired!"

Lena is talking to her through the door, trying to keep her calm and focused. "You're going to be alright, honey. The friends I told you about are here now. We're going to get you out."

"Okay, hurry," she cries. "I want my mommy."

The fear in her voice is heartbreaking, but I'm still celebrating inside.
She's alive!

Lena begins to tell us what she knows. "Emma says there are two wires coming from the door to the device on the floor that is about half the size of a shoebox. She said most of it looks like a battery."

"Low grade IED?" Justin asks.

Malcolm and Lena agree.

Justin thinks for a moment before putting his hand on the door. "This is metal," he says. Then he gets a look on his face that I love and hate in equal measure.

"What are you doing," Emma's shaken voice asks through the door.

"Emma, can you tell me where the thing with the battery is?" Justin asks.

"It's right by the door."

"If you're looking at the door, is the thing on the right side or the left of it?" he continues.

"It's on my right," she answers, being such a trooper.

Justin puts his hand on the doorknob. "That makes sense," he whispers to no one in particular. "The IED is on the same side as the knob, away from the hinges."

"Do you really wanna do that?" Malcolm asks, thinking ahead of me. I still don't understand.

"I don't see another choice that we have time for." His voice gets lower again, "Emma do you have blankets or a bed in there with you?"

"I have a mattress and some blankets. There's nothing else in here."

"Good," Justin reassures her. "That's very good. Can you move all of that to the corner of the room on the left side of the door? Just make a big pile for now."

He turns to Malcolm and Lena, "Start getting the pins out, one of you hold the door shut and steady."

"What are you doing?" I ask, beginning to get an idea that I do not like one bit. My voice shakes almost as much as Emma's.

Justin grabs me by my shoulders while Malcolm and Lena follow his commands. "It's going to be perfectly fine, Warrior. You need to trust me right now. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to me or that little girl. It's going to be a small blast. Marker didn't use this for the size of the explosion—it's about the shrapnel."

My knees feel weak. "No, no, no, Justin! I don't care, you're not doing it!"

"I am," he says sternly. "Neither one of us could live with ourselves if we let someone else do it and something happens to them or Emma."

"I can't live with myself if something happens to you!" I plead desperately.

Justin kisses my head quickly. "That steel door is going to keep me safe."

"Ready," Malcolm says more reserved than I've ever heard him. He has both hinge pins in his hand.

"Emma, did you put all your things in the corner?" Justin asks gently.

"Yes, I did it."

"Good girl," he says. "Now I want you to crawl under the pile. Keep all of it between you and the door, and stay as close to the floor as you can. Do you understand?"

"Okay," she replies.

"Do it right now," he tells her.

Justin takes the door knob from Lena. "Take her! I want all of you down around the corner—
now
!"

I'm completely immobile with fear. Malcolm and Lena usher me down the hall and I don't even have the strength to resist and fight them. I'm completely internal; my body is a separate thing from me at the moment.

When we get to the end and begin to turn the corner, Justin looks at me. Despite telling me it would be fine, his beautiful golden green eyes say goodbye just in case.

My paralysis finally breaks.

"NO!"

Justin swings the door in like a shield and disappears into a white flash. We feel the heat all the way down here.

It's over quickly as it went off. All that's left is dust and the sound of little pieces of shit landing and bouncing everywhere.

After that, it's too fucking quiet!

"JUSTIN?" I scream as I rip out Malcolm and Lena's grasp.

My heart is a throbbing wad in my throat, and Justin isn't answering as I run to the room.

"He's not dead. He's not dead," I pray out loud.

The room is a complete cloud of smoke impossible to see through.

"JUSTIN?"

Malcolm and Lena step in behind me.

I see the door laying on the floor. The upside is littered with shrapnel holes and fragment jutting out like barbs.

Suddenly there's a whimper. It's childlike and scared.

Emma.

"Are you okay, honey?" That was Justin—thank God—but I have no idea where he is, and he doesn't sound good.

Then that damn door moves. Malcolm and I grab it and toss it off to the side to see Justin laying there trying to blink his eyes open. Other than the fucked up expression of new consciousness, he looks perfectly fine, not a scratch or drop of blood anywhere that I see yet.

I drop to the floor beside him as Lena begins to dig for Emma. I fix his hair back, brushing the dirt off his face.

"You son of a bitch," I whisper. "Please be okay."

"I'm fine," he says softly, coughing. "I told you I would be."

Malcolm bends down on his other side and does some basic field level triage, checking his core vitals first and then his limbs. "You really are fine," Malcolm says surprised.

Emma is emerging from her corner now with Lena holding her hand. "My ears are ringing," she says.

Lena smiles. "That's okay, honey; it will go away soon."

Other than a layer of dust, her blankets and mattress are untouched. Justin had blocked and redirected the explosion away from himself and the corner behind him where he made Emma hide.

Malcolm steps away and picks up the door as I have Justin sit up. The door is now L shaped, bent in from the blast and just destroyed on that side, but it did the job.

"Are you okay?" Emma asks Justin. It makes all of us smile.

Suddenly it was all worth it.

"I'm good," Justin tells her, shaking the dirt from his hair.

Emma then unexpectedly throws her arms around him. This little girl understands exactly what he did for her.

I don't give a damn about hiding my tears.

When Emma lets go, she reaches for Lena's hand again. "Can I see my mom now?"

I don't know how we're going to tell her that her mother's in a hospital still, and we can't even take her to her father.

He's with Marker—and we have to go finish this today, now, before Marker finds out he's been severely compromised.

"
I
'll give you your daughter back after I get John Roberts—not before—that's how this works. If you don't like that I can just kill her and you both right now."

Franco is silent.

"That's what I thought," Marker continues, his voice in a controlled evil hiss. "If your intel is bad, Emma pays for your mistake, so you had better be right."

"It's right," Franco growls.

We're hearing both of them over a wire that we had Garrett hide in Franco's thick Italian hair. We're not even there yet; Garrett is playing it live over a headset for us as we drive.

Garrett knows about Emma, that she's safe now, but we're not telling Franco just yet, not while his life depends on him really looking scared and frustrated. We had the two soldiers that were with us stay behind at the theater. They have to get rid of the body we left there, and Justin wants them to search for any information Marker might have left behind.

Emma was picked up by one of our connections at child services.

This is really it, our best chance at ever stopping Marker from killing at least one of us. He has no clue we're coming, and that his upper hand is gone completely.

Holy fucking shit!
I have no patience now. The traffic it's driving me insane. My insides are alive and undulating a wicked dance.

"Finish your drink," Marker demands. "You're coming with me."

Shit!

Not what we wanted.

"He needs to do it," Justin says. "Marker will suspect something if Franco argues too much."

"I'm not going with you while you kill the man I work for," Franco says.

Justin grows tense.

"It isn't optional," Marker hisses again.

After a moment to think, Franco seems to get it. "Just let me pay," he says.

This just got harder. Marker plans to kill Franco whether he gets to John Roberts or not, he just can't do it right there at the bar in a speakeasy called Little Branch in the West Village. There are way too many people there for Marker, and the bouncer at the door that will remember his face.

Justin places his hand on mine. "Garrett will follow him," he says to calm me.

I know he's right, but it doesn't help. John Roberts is letting us use him as bait—we have to do our part to protect him.

The information we had Franco pass on really is where we hid John Roberts. Marker is too smart to screw with; if he checks, and he will, the location will be confirmed.

We got Emma out of danger, but we just put John Roberts and Franco in it. When we told John Roberts what we were planning and asked if he would let us, he was pissed the fuck off that we even asked, that we should have known he would help.

I'm going to start calling him Grandpa soon.

He told us, "We'd damn well better do whatever it takes to kill the bastard before Justin or I get hurt by him."

So Franco just gave Marker a room number for the Four Seasons Hotel on 57th Street that's being rented out by Senator Lewis. John Roberts has been there since he vanished.

"They're leaving," Garrett announces on the headset. He'll be able to hear them for now, but we won't, not while Garrett is on the move with them.

Justin checks the time. "We're fine,” he says confidently. "It'll be close, but we're fine.

If the traffic will let up, we'll be at the hotel in ten minutes; we've been keeping John Roberts right under Marker's nose just minutes away from him.

"This fucking traffic," I breathe.

Justin squeezes my hand lightly. "Marker will be stuck in the same traffic, and we're ahead of him."

Our ride time nearly doubles; it takes most of twenty minutes but we are finally parked. Garrett is a few cars behind Franco and Marker about ten minutes away from us.

It would have been a bitch to cut this any closer.

Everyone moves to their positions; Lena in an obscure corner of the lobby, Malcolm in the room with John Roberts and the guard that's been living with him.

Justin and I are in the room across from them. It's been rented this whole time along with the other room, waiting for this moment.

"We're here," Garrett finally says. "They're sitting in Franco's car."

I brace myself in a mix of fear and eagerness.

Several minutes pass but Garrett hasn't reported.

"Status?" Justin orders.

"Still in the car. Marker keeps watching the time on his phone and staring at Franco."