Bad Men - Piper Stone Page 0,85
his hand falling away, a whimper escaped my mouth. This just couldn’t be happening.
“Just hold on, Jack. Everything is going to be all right.”
But it wasn’t.
The flight was bumpy, the situation with Jack getting more dire. While he was still breathing, I knew there was something significantly wrong with him. He’d developed a fever, falling into vicious hallucinations, the words he muttered terrifying even for someone who had no idea what he’d been through.
“You’re never going to get the best of me, Sergeant,” he mumbled, tossing his head back and forth. “You can imprison me, but I will hunt you down. One… day.”
I felt Diego’s presence as I had for the duration of the flight. He’d remained so damn quiet, as if the helplessness was something he’d never experienced before. “I’m not certain he’s going to make it.”
“Only thirty minutes until we land,” Diego said quietly before moving toward one of the windows.
“What the hell happened to him in the Marines?”
He exhaled, still staring out the window. When he spoke, there was such reverence in his voice, the kind that I hadn’t heard from him before. At least when talking about Jack.
“He and the men he worked with were considered ghosts to the enemies. They formulated a plan and went into whatever dangerous situation, always returning victorious. There was a huge price on their heads, every insurgent looking for them. They didn’t like to play by the rules, but they did their job, even becoming highly decorated.” Diego spoke slowly, taking several deep breaths.
“That sounds like Jack,” I offered.
He nodded a couple of times, darting a glance down at Jack’s shaking frame before continuing. “On their last mission, something happened. What I don’t know. Everything I learned was from our handler and the few records that the men we work for found. As you might imagine, there are hundreds, thousands of secrets within the military, operations that are kept deep under cover. What little our handler was able to ascertain helped in getting Jack freed from prison, a place he should never have been sent. He did nothing wrong, merely questioned why the operation had failed. Only once did Jack mention he believed his sergeant had betrayed him. What I do know is that it profoundly affected him, changing his entire demeanor.” He chuckled. “At least from what Dante told me.”
“Does Jack know you found this out?”
“Oh, hell, no. He would be pissed. That’s why I respected him from the beginning, even if I had difficulty being able to stand his surly ass.” Diego offered a smile after issuing the words, hissing as a series of hard vibrations rocked the plane.
“Whatever happened with the woman he was in love with was the last straw for him,” I half whispered as I rubbed a towel across his sweat-laden face.
“I don’t know anything about that, other than what little he told me. Your resemblance was almost too much for him to bear. What I can tell you is how much he cares for you, even if he might not want to say it.”
“I know. I feel the same, for good or for bad.”
“And I completely understand. He’s worth fighting for. At least in my opinion.”
“So are you,” I offered.
Diego seemed surprised at my words, as if he’d never expected that he could compare to Jack. He was so very wrong. “I contacted Dante and he made arrangements for Jack to be taken by ambulance to the hospital you selected.”
“Good. Thank you. I’m going with him.”
He smiled and gave me a single nod. “As I expected, but you’re not doing so without having me there. There’s still a significant threat out there to your life and I have a job to keep doing.”
I’d purposely made certain that we wouldn’t be taken to the MedStar Hospital where my father had absolute control. I wasn’t honestly certain who we could trust at this point and I knew that Diego felt the same. “I understand.”
“I hope you do, Lindsey. Just because we left the country doesn’t mean the Serpent doesn’t have a faction of soldiers within the United States.”
“If you’re trying to scare me, you’re doing a good job. All I want is to live a normal life.” As I looked down at Jack, I fought a new round of sadness creeping in. “That’s never going to happen. Is it?”
His hesitation was to be expected. He’d once told me that he’d never lie and so far, he hadn’t. “I doubt that you can for a period