Page 26 of Avenging Jessie (Black Swan Division Thrillers #3)

Twenty-Six

Spence

The upload bar was at seventy-eight percent when every monitor in the control room blinked once, then died.

Black screens.

Dead silence.

Spence’s stomach dropped. “Son of a—”

Brewer had shut down the hub’s power, stopping the failsafe activation before it could finish. The bastard had cut him off at the knees.

Through the glass partition, he saw Brewer heading for the rear of the warehouse, his long coat snapping behind him.

“Jessie!”

“I see him!” she shouted, barreling after the man.

Spence shut his laptop and shoved it in its sling, grabbed his weapon, and ignored the screaming protest in his injured hand as he bolted after them both.

They burst into the main warehouse floor, a cavern of shadows and sharp angles. Forklifts loomed like sleeping beasts, their forks jutting up like steel tusks. Towering stacks of drone crates formed narrow aisles, each one a choke point waiting to be used against them.

Jessie was just ahead, moving like a ghost between the rows of crates, her boots barely making a sound.

Brewer scrambled past a tool area, glanced back once, and fired a quick burst over his shoulder.

Jessie dove behind a forklift. The alarm klaxon continued to wail overhead, a bone-deep howl that set Spence’s teeth on edge.

He cut left, angling to flank Brewer, catching brief flashes of him going up a catwalk, down again, moving in unpredictable bursts that forced them to adjust course constantly. Brewer knew this place’s layout better than anyone, and he was using it to bleed time off the clock.

A forklift chain clanged as Brewer brushed past, vanishing behind a stack of crates. Spence’s pulse roared in his ears. Every second Brewer stayed ahead was another second the second fleet of drones got closer to Langley.

Jessie shot him a quick look over her shoulder. “We can’t let him get out through the rear bay door.”

“Let’s cut him off,” Spence said, breaking into a sprint.

They rounded the end of a crate stack—and ran straight into Brewer’s ambush.

Gunfire ripped through the narrow aisle, splintering wood and pinging off forklift steel. Spence dropped behind cover, dragging Jessie with him. Her shoulder slammed into a crate, and she yelped through her teeth, but she was already returning fire.

Brewer fired two shots, shifted, fired off two more, keeping them pinned while edging closer to the loading bay.

Spence spotted his opening near a catwalk ladder and broke left, using the angle to try to duck under it and box the man in. He caught Brewer before he got to the bay, and for the first time, Spence saw his calm crack. Their eyes met over the sights of their weapons.

“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” Brewer yelled, voice carrying over the ringing in Spence’s ears.

“Funny,” Spence shot back, “I was about to say the same to you.”

Brewer’s smirk twisted into something cruel. Something that reminded Spence of Ian Bastion at the end, when Spence and his two step-brothers had had the man cornered. Brewer opened his mouth to say something, but Spence wasn’t interested in hearing it. He squeezed the trigger.

Brewer pivoted, taking the bullet in his arm. He disappeared behind a group of barrels.

Jessie stalked up from the other side, weapon trained on the spot. Spence waved her off, and then had to whirl around when he heard footsteps coming from behind him.

The shot by the guard went wide. Metal screamed as it ricocheted. Spence fired and the guard went down.

“Spence!”

Jessie’s voice was an octave too high. He ducked, spinning at the same time, and a bullet whistled over his head.

Then Brewer was there, right in front of him. Spence brought up his weapon, but Brewer knocked it aside with his own.

The bastard was strong, and Spence’s hand was screaming. He tried to leverage Brewer’s momentum into a takedown, but Brewer rolled with it, forcing him back toward the crates.

The muzzle came up, this time steady on Spence’s heart.

Spence’s pulse spiked. He saw the twitch in Brewer’s fingers—the tiny, inevitable squeeze that meant this was it.

“Look out!” Jessie came out of nowhere, slamming into Brewer’s side. The shot cracked like thunder in the enclosed space. Pain lanced across Spence’s ribs—not his pain. Her weight hit him hard, her knees buckling as they went down together behind a forklift.

“J!”

Her breath hitched, eyes wide but fierce. Blood bloomed hot against his hand where he clamped over her side. “You idiot,” she rasped, forcing a smirk that didn’t hide the tremor in her voice. “You’re not dying on my watch.”

“Dammit, Jess—” His throat was tight, rage and fear tangling until he could barely see straight.

Across the aisle, Brewer raced toward the loading bay.

Spence started to rise, torn between going after him and keeping pressure on the wound, but Jessie’s grip on his jacket stopped him. Her fingers curled in the fabric, holding him there with more strength than she should’ve had.

“Finish it,” she whispered, blood staining her teeth. “Take him down.”

He shook his head. “I’m not leaving you.”

Her eyes softened, a rare crack in her armor. “I love you, Spence.”

It was a sucker punch straight to his chest. He swallowed hard, forcing a grim smile even as his hand stayed pressed to her side. “Then don’t make me live without you. Got it?”

The echo of Brewer’s footsteps faded, punctuated by the slam of the loading bay door. Somewhere out there, the bastard was slipping into the dark, carrying whatever fight he had left straight to Langley.

Spence’s muscles screamed to go after him and finish this. Every instinct drilled into him through years of ops screamed move, chase, kill.

But Jessie’s blood was warm against his palm, and dammit, there was too much of it. Too, too much.

He swore under his breath and scanned the shadows, listening for a second wave of gunmen. Nothing yet, but he knew they’d come.

“We can still—” She tried to push herself up, but the effort wrung a sharp cry from her throat.

“Don’t,” he said, more harshly than he meant. His free hand found her cheek, tilting her toward him. “We’re not doing the hero bleed-out thing, Agent Medoza. That’s a direct order.”

“Spence—”

“Not negotiable.” He shifted, hauling her arm over his shoulders and forcing her to her feet. She stumbled, but he caught her, keeping his injured hand clamped to her side as they moved.

Each step was a calculated retreat, weaving them back through the maze of crates toward the catwalk stairs and out of the line of sight from the bay.

He could still picture the drones screaming toward Langley. But right now, the mission wasn’t a fleet of Cyclones or stopping Brewer in his tracks. It was Jessie.

And no one—not Harris Brewer, not the Pentagon, not even the CIA—was going to take her from him.

“I should have shot him,” she mumbled, “but I was afraid I’d hit you.”

He half-carried, half-dragged her through the warehouse’s side exit, his arm locked around her waist, her blood soaking into his shirt. The night air was damp, cold, and smelled faintly of diesel from the truck yard beyond. “And then you took a bullet for me. Such a dick move, Mendoza.”

She grunted a laugh. “Told you to stay out of the field.”

They reached the SUV, and he eased her into the passenger seat, shoving his pack onto her lap. “Keep pressure here,” he ordered, tearing open a field dressing with his teeth. His injured right hand was slow and clumsy, but he wrapped her side as tightly as he dared.

“Call Tommy,” she rasped.

“That’s not the most important thing here.”

Her eyes were glassy but fierce. “Call him. I need to know my brother’s okay.”

“Taking care of you is my priority.”

“Damn it, Spence—”

He cursed under his breath, snatched his phone from his pocket, and stabbed Tommy’s number with his thumb. The kid picked up, and Spence said, “Talk.”

“Drones are down,” Tommy said without preamble. “Langley’s secure. Hastings is—”

“Neutralized?”

“Yeah. You guys okay?”

Spence tightened the last knot in her bandage. “On our way to Walter Reed. Meet us there.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” Jessie called out, her voice too thin to sell the lie. Spence ended the call before Tommy could ask them more questions.

He swung into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and dropped the gearshift into drive. The tires screamed as they tore out of their hiding place and onto the two-lane road.

Up ahead, headlights flared—Brewer’s black sedan.

“Follow him,” Jessie said, trying to sit forward.

“We’re going the same way,” he said, jaw tight.

She levered the rifle into her lap from the back seat. “Good.” Before he could stop her, she had the barrel out of the open window. The crack of a shot split the night, the back window of Brewer’s sedan exploded, and the car fishtailed hard.

“Jessie!” He grabbed the back of her jacket, yanking her inside as the sedan veered off the shoulder and plowed into a telephone pole.

“Stop!” She beat at his injured hand, and he nearly let go when pain erupted in his wrist all over again. “Arrest him!”

He accelerated and they whizzed past. “I’m not letting you bleed you out for an arrest.”

Her hand slipped from the rifle, her body going limp. Her head lolled against the seat.

“Jessie.” He shook her. But she was unconscious. “Dammit, woman.”

He blew through two red lights and didn’t slow until the gates of Walter Reed loomed ahead. Military police waved him through after a glance at his credentials and a look at Jessie, slumped in the seat, pale as chalk.

He skidded into the ER bay, yanked open her door, and had her in his arms before anyone reached them.

“GSW, left side,” he barked as the trauma team rolled up with a gurney. “Through-and-through, but she’s lost a lot of blood.”

Hands were on her then, lifting her, cutting the bandage he’d tied. Someone shouted for more IV fluids. The doors swallowed her, leaving him standing in the wash of fluorescent light and antiseptic air.

His right hand throbbed like hell, his shirt was stiff with her blood, and he couldn’t shake the sound of her voice in the warehouse—I love you.

He moved to follow, but a nurse barred his way. “You need to wait here, sir.”

“She’s—”

“They’ve got her,” the nurse said firmly. “Let them work.”

Spence turned away before he punched the wall. He braced both hands on the counter, forcing himself to breathe.

Ten minutes felt like ten years before Tommy appeared, Tessa right behind him.

“They said she’s stable,” Tommy reported, eyes flicking to the dried blood all over Spence. Flynn already spoke to the surgeon. “Are you…?”

“I’m fine.” His voice was flat.

Tommy frowned. “The best surgeons are on it. She’ll be okay.”

Spence nodded, jaw tight, knowing Tommy was trying to convince himself as well as Spence.

Inside, he replayed every second between Brewer aiming at him and Jessie stepping into the line of fire. Tommy insisted he tell them everything, and he did, fighting to keep his cool, calculated self in place so he didn’t punch a wall.

An hour ticked by, and when they finally wheeled her into recovery, her eyes cracked open just enough to find him.

“You didn’t arrest him,” she murmured.

He leaned down, his voice rough. “You didn’t give me the chance, sweetheart. You were too busy taking bullets for me.”

Her lips twitched with the ghost of a smile. “Told you… You needed me.”

He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “Yeah. You’re damn right I do. Now, stop talking and get some rest.”