Jenna looked up at the others, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then her gaze found Isaac’s and he nearly fell to his knees, because her expression was one of goodbye. “I’ll always love you,” she said in a low voice. “Be thereasonI can endure anything. Stay alive.”
Then Jesus appeared above her and Isaac wanted to bring down hell on him and every last minion in his devil’s army, but they were in a losing proposition and they knew it. The only ace in the hole they had was Ramie and if they did anything to fuck that up now, Jenna would die, they’d all die, and it would have been for nothing.
“Touching. I think I may have felt a tear,” Jesus sneered. “Now get the fuck away,” he said, waving his gun as his men gathered to reinforce the threat.
Isaac and the others had no choice but to back down as Beau cradled Ari in his arms and ran for the waiting ambulance.
“I believe I kept my end of the bargain,” Jesus sneered at Jenna.
She nodded tiredly. “Yes, and now I will honor mine.”
As he turned, his men still facing down Isaac and the rest of DSS, he threw Jenna over his shoulder and strode rapidly into the distance, where a helicopter waited to fly him—and Jenna—away.
Isaac turned as Jesus’s men began melting away and making their escape, looking desperately for Ramie.
“Ramie!” he screamed. “God—please, Ramie, you have to help me. Can you touch something of hers so we know where to look for her? I have the light sweater she brought with her to the restaurant but left on the chair when she went to the bathroom.”
Caleb didn’t even argue. He knew that they all owed Jenna a price they could never repay. He looked anxiously to his wife for answers, but her expression was devastated as tears sliced down her cheeks.
She looked up at Isaac with so much regret that Isaac felt dead to his soul.
“I can’t use my powers yet,” she said urgently, as if trying to make him understand. “All I ever know is what’s happening right here and now, and weknowwhere they are now. They’re in a helicopter. I can’t tell the future and if I did attempt to use my powers now, I’d be too drained to use them again later, when they’d actually do us good and I could then tell you where they have her.”
Isaac completely lost it. His men tried to hold him back, tried to calm him, but he was adrift, with no anchor and no way to find the woman who meant more to him than life itself. Having to wait for God only knew how long, while Jenna endured hell just so they could locate her and then start to mount a rescue that might be too late, was more than he could bear.
TWENTY-NINE
EVERYDSS agent, as well as Tori, Ramie and Gracie, gathered in Dane’s private impenetrable fortress, where he’d taken Tori for her protection. Beau and Ari were heavily guarded by Ari’s father, Gavin Rochester, a very powerful, wealthy man with a shadowy past and vast connections. He had offered his services to Beau for the rescue mission that would be mounted as soon as Ramie was able to pinpoint Jenna’s location.
Dane was busy on the phone as well, calling in every marker he’d meticulously collected during his long years in security—and the man had an astonishing number of people that shocked the hell out of Isaac.
Then there was Wade Sterling, Eliza’s husband, who before marrying Eliza was just as steeped in gray and questionable business practices as Gavin Rochester used to be. He unapologetically offered the full power of his resources, uncaring if DSS knew or found out about them. He kept nothing from his wife, and while she wasn’t happy to have her husband’s dirty laundry aired in front of her coworkers, she wasn’t about to interfere when Jenna’s life was at stake.
Not after she’d done so much to save every single one of the people Eliza cared about so much and had once been willing to sacrifice everything for. She recognized a kindred spirit in Jenna and remembered well the horrific choice she’d been forced to make when she believed her teammates’—her family’s—lives were on the line.
Tempers were edgy and emotions were running high, and an argument immediately broke out when Eliza told Dane and Wade in no uncertain terms that she was not being left out of the mission to save Jenna. Especially since Wade was going with a contingent of his best men. She’d stubbornly set her foot down and while Isaac would have normally sided with Dane and Wade when it came to Eliza’s safety, given that she still wasn’t back on full duty with DSS, at this point he was grateful to have her support. There was no one else he’d rather have at his back than this tenacious, extremely loyal woman.
He was humbled and grateful at the outpouring of unconditional help from so many different areas when many otherwise wouldn’t be so forthcoming about exposing their connections or the gray areas of their past. But for Jenna, not a single person stood on pride, and they opened their lives to the scrutiny and knowledge of the others.
There was trust involved in those offers, and Isaac knew that he could ask for no better men or women to support him in getting back the woman he loved with every piece of his heart and soul.
He checked his watch, swearing in frustration. Though it had seemed a lifetime since Jesus had taken off with Isaac’s entire life in that damn helicopter, it had in fact been only a few hours. Every DSS agent and those connected with the DSS family had pooled their resources in a record amount of time and Dane was still on the phone arranging what sounded like a full-scale military operation from a highly secretive special ops group, though which branch of the armed services they served under was a mystery to Isaac. That was if they even officially existed.
From providing highly classified stealth prototype aircrafts in the past to the partnering and coordinating with a badass black ops military team, Dane always managed to pull off the impossible and pull it right out of his ass. One of these days, Isaac was going to ask Dane exactly who the hell he was and what he did before agreeing to head up DSS for the Devereauxs, because this was not indicative of a regular civilian, coordinating a civilian operation with a civilian security service specializing in personal protection and kicking asses for a living.
Dane had more secrets than the rest of the DSS recruits put together, and that was saying a hell of a lot given the men—and women—who’d signed on as Dane had continued to put together the best of the best to work under him at an agency that didn’t even belong to him. And that begged the question. Why did Dane work for someone else when it was so obvious he didn’t need Caleb or Beau’s backing, support or business name to operate under?
But despite the fact that everyone knew the secret that wasn’t a secret, that Dane’s word was law when it came to DSS and Caleb and Beau were mere figureheads who deferred to him as having the final say in every situation, Dane didn’t act as though he wielded that kind of power or influence. Yes, he wanted to be kept apprised of all his men’s comings and goings, but he was never on a power trip, and he didn’t insist on taking charge and inserting himself into every situation. Only the ones he had a personal stake in. Like Lizzie’s going rogue and vigilante without her teammates, and most importantly her partner and the person she was closest to at DSS—Dane.
Even then, to Dane’s frustration, he hadn’t been able to take the lead and had to defer to Wade Sterling, whom Dane had himself called in and unleashed on Lizzie when he knew she wasn’t being completely forthcoming with him. But for Lizzie, and what he knew to be best for her, he allowed Wade to dictate the plan of action, and Dane and the rest of DSS acted in a support capacity, something that likely still ate at Dane to this day.
Isaac waited impatiently. With every minute that passed, he died a little more as he imagined what his angel was enduring right now. What was that cocky, victorious little bastard doing to show her what he thought of her having the audacity to bargain with him and not back down in the face of his threats? Hell, she threw his threats right back in his face like she didn’t give two fucks what he did to her, and that was what made Isaac break out into a cold sweat and panic eat holes in his gut. Because he knew the kind of man Jesus was and he knew he’d make Jenna pay for every one of those insults.
He glanced helplessly at Ramie, who was pale and looked as though she was going to be sick. Caleb was hovering over her, holding her, kissing her, trying his best to comfort her in any way. As if feeling Isaac’s gaze, Ramie looked up, raw regret terrible in her eyes. He pleaded silently with her, knowing he was baring himself to anyone and everyone in the room in a way that a month ago would have made him crawl out of his skin in discomfort. Hell, never would he have allowed anyone to see anything but the stony stoicism he always brought to the job. But that was before Jenna. He had no pride when it came to her. There was nothing he wouldn’t do or say to have her back in his arms, safe and loved. He’d vowed not to ever ask God for another thing, but wasn’t this merely a continuation of that same prayer? That he’d never ask for more than for her to be back in his arms so he could spend the rest of his life loving her so damn much that she never had another dark cloud so much as pass over her.
Caleb looked at Isaac, sympathy bright in his eyes. “It’s not me holding her back. It’s not even Ramie. She’s ready to go as soon as she gets the go-ahead. But there’s little point in having Ramie give us information we can’t act on. We have to have every man, every source of firepower we can pull in, be ready to go the minute Ramie gives us what we need. If we wait even a little while after she’s found Jenna, she could end up giving us faulty intel, because the bastard could move her again before we make our move and then not only are we fucked, but we tip our hand, and then we stand zero chance of having the element of surprise on our side.”
Isaac swallowed back the knot that threatened to choke him. He wanted to scream that he knew. God damn it, he knew! But just because he knew the right way to handle the mission—any mission—it didn’t make it any fucking easier to sit here on his ass while the reason for him to live was out there, terrified, hurting, wondering if she’d ever be safe again.
