Chapter One
Jackson
Overhead, footsteps thundered as gang members pounded across the roof.
This was supposed to be a quick job. An Ambassador’s son had gotten in over his head gambling in Romania, and owed a shit-ton of money to the locals. They hadn’t taken kindly to his entitled attitude, so they’d tied him up and dumped him in a decrepit hotel.
My job was to get into the hotel, grab the kid, who at twenty-six, wasn’t really a kid at all. It was a typical Ranger rescue job -- get in, get the hostage, get the hell out.
Someone inside must have been watching more closely than we’d thought, or one of us had hit a trip wire, because as soon as the three of us entered the hotel, the gang had come running. One of my guys had stayed on the roof as a lookout, so we weren’t caught off guard. But we were going to have to speed this up a bit.
I side-stepped down the stairwell to the third floor. Room 332. The cheap wood splintered as I kicked the door in.
Thank the Lord. The kid was in the room, exactly where the intel said he’d be.
I checked the room. It was empty. Morons. They’d even left the kid without a guard.
The kid was tied to a chair by the ankles, but he looked fine. No blood, no bruises. I cut the ropes away from his ankles and pulled the gag from his mouth. “Stay quiet,” I said as I hauled him up with one arm and carted him down the hallway. He was so skinny he barely slowed me down at all.
He mumbled a few times, but mostly stayed silent.
Shit. The footsteps were getting closer. Some of the gang members must have come up from the street entrance. I couldn’t fight with the hostage over my shoulder, so I stuffed him into a broom closet. “Stay in there.” I said. “We’ll be back for you. Don’t leave unless it’s with a U.S. soldier.”
“But--”
“No arguing.” I pointed at him. “You do not want to be in a firefight with these people. Haven’t you learned anything?”
I didn’t wait on an answer. I got my back against the wall and waited until the door to the stairwell burst open.
The Romanians were screaming at me and shooting. Bullets whizzed by and for some ungodly reason, the little shit I’d just saved came running up behind me waving a dustpan.
He must be high. I should have realized.
“Get the fuck back,” I shoved him behind me. But it was too late. One of the bullets hit him right in the thigh.
He screamed and hit the floor.
Fuck.
Now the ambassador’s son had been shot, and I was the one responsible. Thank God it was in the leg and not the head.
Fire sliced across my shoulder. Dammit. This was not good. I was distracted, and now I’d stood there and let a bullet graze me. I scooped him up and threw him back over my shoulder. The kid moaned and thrashed a little. “Put me down,” he said weakly.
Not happening. The chance for a dignified exit was long over.
I ran.
Outside the hotel, our car was gone. Fucking perfect. I ran down the block and ducked into an alley. Within seconds, tires screeched and I heard someone yell, “Ace, get in the car.”
Relief flooded my body. It was my team. Ace wasn’t my name, or even my title, but it’s what my team called me, because I was the lead. I raced down the alley where they were waiting with the car door open. I shoved the kid into the backseat and climbed in after him.
“Couldn’t stay in the street,” my teammate said. “It was like an invasion of ants back there. Gang members running in every direction.”
“You can’t take me to the hospital here,” the kid said, groaning and clutching his leg. “They’ll kill me.”
“Fine,” I said. “We can handle this.” In my bag, we had a shot of lidocaine, penicillin and some butterfly bandages. I got to work, sanitizing my hands with rubbing alcohol, and doing my best to remember all the field medicine training I’d had.
After enduring a long phone call with our supervisor at the American Embassy, and a request for paperwork, and a visit with a medic to patch us up, we were finally cleared to go. The Romanian government even put us up in a nice hotel in Bucharest.
It looked pretty swanky, but I was too tired to appreciate the fancy architecture and the high-thread count