Page 135 of Hard Heart

She ran through a mental inventory of the on-board options, although half of them would probably malfunction, thanks to the impact and the fire damage. The smoke screen wouldn’t help, the missiles were pointing in the wrong direction, and the ejector seat might buy her ten seconds if she was lucky. That left the suicide button. She could take out these motherfuckers, but she’d have to sacrifice herself as well.

Would the outcome be worth the cost?

Yes, it would.

But where was Flora?

The car in front. The suitcase vehicle. It had turned around, hadn’t it? They’d created a trap, a three-pronged pincer, and she’d accelerated right into their grasp. Now the suitcase driver was climbing out, relaxed, far too casual for the situation. Eight was coming back as well, but this time he was holding a rifle, so even if Jez did nothing, she was a dead woman.

But she could take out three of them.

Were there more?

She couldn’t wait much longer.

The suicide button flashed green as she armed it, and she hoped to fuck it wouldn’t take out the car in front too. She was an expert on the charges in the Choir’s vehicles, but each point team customised their own equipment, and this could go with a little more boom than she anticipated.

Good because she wouldn’t feel a thing.

Bad because it could kill the girl she was supposed to be rescuing.

A voice crackled through Jez’s fallen earpiece, and she knew it was one of her girls. Dice or Spider. Don’t do it, you crazy kamikaze bitch. They’d realised what she was planning, and they didn’t like it.

But she was on her own. Nobody else could get here in time.

Eight raised the rifle, jammed the stock against his shoulder.

Aimed.

And his brain splattered across the windshield.

CHAPTER 42

JEZEBEL

What the fuck?

The blonde half-turned, and then she lost her head too. The driver tucked his pistol into his waistband and studied the SUV, moving around the car slowly, deliberately. Who the hell was this man? There were literal flames eating their way through the back seat, and as he tapped the windshield above the emergency release, Jez was left with two choices: embrace a fiery end, or find out what the grim reaper had in store for her.

That was when she caught sight of his features in the headlights.

And she realised she’d seen his face before.

Or at least, she’d seen what it once had been.

Not on an op, not in a classified file, not on a wanted list.

In the simple silver frame on her mom’s nightstand.

A sob welled up in her throat. “Dad?”

She tried to reach the release. Couldn’t. He picked up the rifle and aimed, not at her, but at the passenger seat. She had time to cover her head before he fired, kept firing until the hole was big enough to fit his hand through, and the glass came loose. He pulled, she pushed, and then he was hauling her over the hood as the flames reached the driver’s seat.

Jez might have been a soldier, an assassin, and an all-around badass, but in that moment, she was a child weeping in her father’s arms. Pain pulsed through every nerve as Jeremy Pope hugged her tight, her head pressed against his chest, his chin resting on her shoulder. This lasted around thirty seconds before she shoved him away with a ferocity he clearly wasn’t expecting. He stumbled back, arms windmilling, and tripped over Eight’s body.

“Was that really necessary?” he asked.

“How is that even a question? You show up after thirty years, shoot two people in front of me, and then expect me to what…go get coffee with you?”