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From the corner of his eye, Jericho saw Marco fire into the air. Arnez saw it, too, whirling in that direction. The man cursed, bolted off Jericho and started running toward the woods.
Hell.
Escaping.
Not again.
“Get these ties off my hands,” Jericho insisted.
As he’d done earlier with his surroundings, Jericho made another quick assessment of the two operatives. Marco and Rayna both looked disheveled and had some nicks and cuts on their faces, but they didn’t appear to have any serious injuries. Later, he’d need them to fill him in on what had happened.
For now though, he had an asshole to catch.
“You’re hurt. I can go after him,” Marco insisted, yanking out his knife and slicing through the zip ties.
Jericho didn’t take the time to respond. As soon as his hands were free, he took off after Arnez. Behind him, he heard Marco curse. And then follow him. Rayna was no doubt coming along for the chase as well.
So he could hear Arnez, Jericho forced his heartbeat to level, using some deep breathing techniques, and he moved cautiously through the thick woods. Since Arnez had indeed proven himself to be a coward, he could just duck behind one of the big oaks and ambush Jericho.
That wasn’t happening though.
Jericho could hear the man moving. Flat-out running. And he could also hear which direction Arnez was going. He was trying to circle back to get to that truck.
Doing some circling back of his own, Jericho shifted directions, trying to keep his footsteps as catlike as possible. Marco and Rayna were doing the same thing.
All of them heading for the truck.
Converging on it from slightly different angles.
The moonlight was spearing down into the clearing, giving Jericho a good view of the vehicle. A good view of Arnez, too, when the man finally came out of the woods and approached it.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Jericho called out to him. As he’d spoken, he’d already stepped out from the cover of the trees and had taken aim.
Arnez whirled in his direction, and he, too, had his gun ready. He fired at Jericho.
A heartbeat too late.
Because Jericho got off his shot first. And he hadn’t gone for the chest protected by Kevlar. He went for the man’s head. With a double tap of the trigger, Jericho ended the miserable coward’s life.
Chapter Sixteen
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Rachel frowned when she heard the sound of footsteps in the bedroom. Footsteps she shouldn’t be hearing since Jericho and she were alone in the house.
And he was supposed to be in bed.
That wasn’t actually the doctor’s orders. But rather Rachel’s. She wanted him in bed. Not in a sexual way either. She wanted him on the mend, and the fastest way for that was for him to give his body time to recover from the horrible ordeal he’d been through.
An ordeal that Jericho certainly hadn’t told her about.
Instead, she’d caught snippets of it from a call Marco had made to Ruby and from Rayna’s whispered conversation with Rafe before they’d all left to go back to their own respective homes.
Leaving Jericho and her to handle the aftermath.
The aftermath had certainly been a lot better than the ordeal itself.
She’d been so terrified after seeing the van blow up on the dash cam screen. Then, even more terrified when Marco and Rayna had requested an immediate backup vehicle so they could go after the person who had taken Jericho.
