Dane yanked out his phone, and as he was pressing buttons for the secure line so Isaac would know to answer it regardless of the situation he might be in, he glanced up at Tori again.
“What was she wearing when she was shot? You said that wasn’t what she was wearing on the television program.Think, Tori. I need this information.”
“Designer blue jeans, spike-heeled boots, long-sleeved white turtleneck sweater. It’s why the blood was so vivid in the dream,” she whispered. “All the red on her white shirt. So much blood.”
Dane wrapped one arm around her, pulling her into his side, and she turned her face into his body, overwhelmed by having to describe the event that had already played over and over in her mind. He hated making her relive it, but now he realized the impact this could have on ... everything.
“Tori, this time there is something you can do about it—I can do about it—we just have to hope to hell we aren’t too late.”
Tori stared at him with wide frightened eyes. “I didn’t see Jenna or Isaac. No one from DSS. Why did I only see her mother? What could have happened to her—I mean will happen if it hasn’t already?”
“I can’t answer that, honey. I just have to try to warn them before it’s too late.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
JENNAwas forced upward as she was dragged to her feet and then pushed forward, the gun never far from a vital part of her body. She was violently shaken from the sudden surge of memories and the ugliness revealed in her mother. Jenna recoiled from something so evil, wondering how her mother could have passed off acting with so much sincerity. She’d fooled them all, but Jenna most of all.
“It’s not often I get the chance to sell my brat daughter for a fortune not once in my life but twice,” her mother sneered. “When Eduardo annihilated the compound, he tracked me down and asked me to help him find you. For a price of course,” she added with a chuckle.
“Ah, here he is now,” her mother said as she shoved her toward a group of men who’d materialized from the nearby stand of trees that divided the commercial strip from a residential area.
The man she called Eduardo, Jenna only knew as Jesus, or “Jaysus” as Isaac and the other DSS men called him in order to deflate the egotism he’d wrapped himself in by comparing himself to the son of God.
Before anything else could be done or said, Jaysus pulled out a gun and quickly fired off two, silent shots at her mother, hitting her first in the chest and then right through her head. She crumbled to the ground, her white top now crimson with all the blood erupting from the enormous wound in her chest. Jenna slid to her knees, covering her ears and shutting her eyes as her silent screams echoed through her mind over and over. She wasn’t a healer with a beautiful, miraculous gift to save life. She was dirty, tarnished, a bringer of blood and death, disguised by something that appeared to be good. She should have never left the compound. Every single innocent person who’d made the mistake of protecting her and being kind had been marked for death. She was nothing more than a death sentence and she was to blame. This was her penance for daring to dream of a better life and for wanting so many of the things that had been denied her.
“Get up,” Jaysus ordered, grabbing Jenna’s arm and hauling her to her feet. “You’ve cost me far too much time and delay as it is. All you’ve done is earn the deaths of every single person who came to your aid.”
“Hands up, Jesus! Back away from the woman or you and every one of your men will die.”
Jenna heard Isaac’s voice in the distance, but she was too in shock to register how close he was. All she could think was that her own mother had betrayed her not once buttwice. Her mother had killed her father, the one person who’d loved her when she was a child. And now she had put Jenna in the position of losing the only person who loved the woman she’d become. She was going to lose everything and be sentenced to hellagain.
Jenna found herself roughly hauled up against the muscled body of Jesus, whose stench reeked of death. To her horror, he seemed to be looking for someone among the DSS agents who’d given pursuit. Then she saw the look of triumph spark in his eyes as he held up his gun, and Jenna began screaming and kicking and fighting as hard as she could.
Jesus merely knocked her away, instructing his men to handle her while he took careful aim and shot.
A cry of pain rose from the distance and a roar of rage and grief bellowed from Beau.
Oh no. Oh no!Jenna turned, scrambling against her captor’s hold as she watched a barrier being formed around Ari, but it was too late. She was lying on the ground in a pool of blood.
Beau’s gaze found Jenna’s through the chaotic turmoil, his eyes begging her. “She’s pregnant,” he said, his voice cracking. “We only just found out. Please help her. You have to save her and our baby.”
Jenna fought against the drugs that had slowed time and the entire world around her. It all seemed like something straight out of a nightmare, and for a moment she closed her eyes, praying she’d wake up in Isaac’s arms, being soothed while he told her it was just a dream. That she was safe. But when she reopened her eyes, she knew it was only too real. And she had to act fast if she was going to save Ari.
Isaac motioned desperately for his men to get into the best position to take out Jesus and his men the moment they got a clear shot. He could see Jenna struggling against the effects of whatever drug her bitch of a mother had given her at the restaurant. This was all his goddamn fault. None of it had seemed right from the very first, and worse, he’d allowed Jenna out of his sight, believing that nothing could happen to her in the small confines of the bathroom with him standing right outside. Damn him for not being more observant. For not insisting on taking care of Jenna himself. He’d let her and every single member of his team down and he’d never forgive himself.
The bastard had done his homework on DSS and he’d taken out the biggest long-distance threat to him at the very first opportunity. Ari.
Isaac watched, even as his men grimly reported in that no clear shot was available and they couldn’t simply start picking off Jesus’s men, because then Jenna would die.
Jenna straightened in Jesus’s hold and shot him a look of pure hatred. It was a look that told Isaac she was about to act and he silently pleaded with her not to incite the man’s anger even more. They just needed to buy more time. Just one slip-up and they’d take the son of a bitch out and lay waste to every single one of his men.
“Let me heal her,” Jenna said coldly.
Jesus laughed. “You’re in no position to be making demands. I’ll kill every last one of them and not give a shit.”
“Then you’ll lose what you most want. Me,” she said, shrugging indifferently, as if she didn’t care one way or another.
He actually looked confused for a moment and then laughed again, though this time it sounded nervous and not at all confident.
