Page 46 of Ace (The Deuces Wild #4)

Son of a bitch, that fucking hurt! Keller damned near slapped both hands over his ears as Savannah’s voice exploded inside his head.

He didn’t know what hurt worse, the bullet that had just ripped through his chest just short of his collarbone, or the angry woman suddenly shrieking inside his head.

That was new. But out of the blue, he now had Savannah’s fear coiled inside his mind like a living, breathing snake, filled with worry and rattling with love for him. WTF?

“I hear you, baby,” he said out loud, not exactly sure where she was or if he were hearing things.

He shook his head. This might be that singular moment when a man’s life passed before his eyes, and he got to revisit all the wicked things he’d done, right before he dropped dead. That scenario actually made more sense.

Until she breathed a tremulous, ‘Thank heavens, Keller. Honey, I saw you go down. How bad are you hurt? Can you breathe? Are you going to die? What can I do?’

Yup, that was Savannah all right, scared and worried for him. But man, was any of this real? It couldn’t be. He’d built strong psychic barriers. They hadn’t been breached before.

“Where are you?” he asked, looking around and mad as hell she might’ve put herself in danger by coming after him.

How’d she expect him to protect both her and the birds from all these guys with guns?

“Speak to me, damn it.” Tell me you’re not going to jump up and run to me and get shot and die, too.

‘No, honey, I’m not going to get shot and die. I’m still in Louisiana, and for the first time in your life, you’re speaking psychically. Do you understand what that means? You’re telepathic, you’d just built so many walls, no one’s been able to get through to you until now. Until me. But listen—’

Bullshit. “No, you listen! Wherever you are, stay down!” This nonsense had to be the gas talking. Couldn’t be Savannah. “These guys will kill you if they catch you, and they won’t be nice about it.”

‘I know but Keller—'

“Stay down! Damnit, keep that pretty ass of yours down on the ground, and—where are you?”

‘KELLER! Knock it off. It’s true, honey. You are telepathic, so stop arguing and talk to Tucker and Eden. Isaiah would be here too, but he’s home with Roxy and his baby son.’

“What? You’re really in Louisiana? I really am telepathic? But… ”

‘Let your boss and Eden in,’ she demanded, her voice drill sergeant stern. ‘Do it now. Hurry!’

For the first time in his life, Keller closed his mouth and asked psychically, ‘They’re here?

Tuck and Eden are really here?’ Like he had any idea where ‘here’ was.

All he knew was he’d been stuck inside RJ’s container with hundreds of crates of smuggled birds and maybe animals.

He was sure part of that trip had been via truck, part by air, yet here he was, on land again, and not sure which time zone he was in.

‘Yes, honey. FBI agents are already inside Fontenette’s mansion executing a warrant.

He’s already under arrest, but he’s got hired guns.

Talk to Eden and Tucker. Let them know how to help you take these bad dudes down.

There’s three Russians, eight other guys, who I’m thinking are Fontenette’s local security. ’

Dudes? Russians? None of this made sense.

Fontenette lived in Florida. Savannah was in Louisiana.

What were Russians doing here? Keller had to know.

‘Where the hell am I, Savannah? Which state?’ he asked as he sent a warning shot over the head of the seven-foot bald giant coming at him.

That bastard had gotten off the lucky shot that hit Keller.

He squinted past the numbing pain clouding his vision.

Was that a LAW on the guy’s right shoulder?

‘You’re in one of four containers Bruce Fontenette shipped air freight from Louisiana to Florida earlier today.

You were gassed, remember? You were on the phone with your boss when it happened.

Now you’re on Fontenette’s estate near Jacksonville, but you need to work with Mr. Chase and Eden.

Communicate with them. Let your guard down.

Please, for once let someone help you. I know you can do it. I have faith in you, honey.’

She did have faith in him. She had from the first moment he’d seen her, and.

.. she’d called him ‘honey’. Keller swallowed hard.

It’d been years since any woman wasted endearments on him.

It shouldn’t mean so much, and it sure as hell shouldn’t feel so good—but it did.

If Savannah trusted him, then so be it. Which was the only reason Keller put a tentative feeler into the universe and asked, ‘B-Boss? Eden? Can you guys really hear me?’

‘Keller!’ Eden’s squeal rang his bell as hard as Savannah’s first words had. My hell, that woman had a pair of lungs. ‘I hear you! Finally! Did Savannah reach you? Are you hurt? Can you hear me? Do it again, talk to me.’

Before he could respond, some rowdy former Navy SEAL with a big mouth picked that moment to stand and deliver a burst of rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-rat automatic rifle fire from the open side door of the FBI van.

While he did, Tucker yelled, ‘Damned straight I can hear you, Kell. Good to have you back.’

Just like Savannah’s sweet voice and Eden’s before him, Tucker’s rough and ready psychic conviction reverberated inside Keller’s pounding head like the unholy bells of Notre Dame. Loud. Deafening. But so damned—good—not sweet.

‘It’s about Goddamned time. We’re coming for you, buddy. Hang tight. We’ll save you. ’

Like hell. No SEAL ever—EVER—saved a Ranger. Keller slouched out of his bloody shirt, keeping an eye on the fool with the LAW. Junior needed a safe place to weather the storm. With the pocket folded gently inside his shirt, Keller draped it over the nearest crate and told Savannah, ‘I gotta go.’

‘You saved a bird,’ Savannah whispered in his head, ‘for me.’

‘Yeah, sorta,’ Keller said as he patted the little guy once more. ‘I knew you’d save him if you’d been here, but mostly I saved Junior for himself. He doesn’t belong here.’

‘And neither do you. I love you, Keller.’

But that’s where she was wrong. Keller did belong on this Florida battlefield with his team. No place else he’d rather be.

Wounded or not, he dropped off the rear of the trailer without another word, flexing his knees to cushion his fall, while both pistols came up on reflex.

He’d taken a shot to his chest, but it was a through and through.

He was bleeding, but pumped full of adrenaline.

Okay, so his chest hurt. He was a Ranger. He had a job to do. Dying could wait.

Acting on instinct, he fired both pistols at the bastard aiming that POS Russian-made shoulder cannon. It took four center mass shots before the big guy fell, but when Nikita hit the dirt, he was stone-cold dead.

By then Keller knew he was a sitting duck, out in the open like he was.

But he was so damned mad at the greedy world of rich, entitled sons of bitches who hired mercenaries to do their dirty work.

It didn’t hurt that, for the first time since he’d been dragged into Deuces Wild, Keller respected the team around him.

Some FBI. Some FWS. All felt like brothers and sisters in arms.

He caught Eden’s eye, and it happened just like it used to happen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He, Eden, and Tucker became one. They moved in sync, covering each other’s backs as if they’d worked a lifetime together and knew each other’s moves and strategies.

Damned straight. This was what soldiers did.

As if he needed to prove his point, Keller mowed down the other two bald guys who thought they could shoot Eden in the back. Cowards.

‘Thanks, Keller. Watch your left,’ she reported as she smoothly took out one, two, then three of the armed men scrambling out from beneath the trailer.

Keller slid to one knee in the gravel, crouching like an Old West gunslinger, and, with the pistol in his right hand, he gut-shot the assassin beneath the trailer who’d taken aim at Tucker, while at the same time, Keller leveled the pistol in his left and nailed the target Eden called out. Two more down. Hoo-rah!

Man, he’d missed this type of teamwork, the coordinated professional takedown of creeps out to ambush federal agents. He loved the smell of gunpowder in the air. Even the coppery scent of spilled blood. Cordite. Ozone!

The whump-whump-whump of an FBI chopper overhead drowned out the final shot Tucker got in.

Another asshole on his way to meet his Maker, Keller didn’t care if he was Russian or local talent.

Tucker fired again and again. By the time the smoke cleared, all mercs were down.

Fontenette, eleven dead or wounded assholes.

Deuces Wild, zip. It didn’t get any better than this.

Still holding both smoking hot firearms, still poised for attack and edgy as hell, Keller listened for Savannah’s sweet voice in his head.

She’d grown silent, not that he could hear much over the rush of battle and the blood thrumming in his ears.

Or with his heart hammering a mile a minute.

Silence was always the first casualty in war.

‘We clear?’ he asked his psychic teammates as he quartered the kill zone, alert for just one twitch, one gasp, or one gurgle out of these paid assassins. Fontenette had his nerve, hiring Russian mafia. That boy was going down.