SCHULTZ HAD DONE everything in his power to ensure that Don didn’t see Julia hiding behind the bedroom door. He’d known the minute he’d let the agent inside that she hadn’t done what he’d asked, but it was too late for him to rectify her mistake. He’d made a call to place the weapon he’d had in his hands into a jacket that was on the coat rack near the door. He’d made sure he had other weapons on his body, but with Don pointing his SIG Sauer P229 at his chest…he’d made a choice.
Don found himself between a rock and a hard place, having done something to ruin his career. He’d become desperate and now all the pieces of the puzzle had come together to form a despondent picture of this man’s life—and he was frantic to try and piece it back together. Schultz just needed to delay his request for money until Jon arrived with the calvary. This didn’t need to end in bloodshed, although Schultz would do what had to be done if the situation went too far. Unfortunately he’d pushed a little too hard.
The gunshot echoed through the apartment and for a brief moment Schultz thought Don had been the one to fire his weapon…until the man turned toward where the first gunshot originated from and returned fire. Schultz didn’t have a choice but to rush him, pulling the knife he’d sheathed on his belt behind his back. Don instinctively brought his SIG around, but Schultz was able to stop the advance with his left forearm at the same time he brought the blade up under the left side of Don’s ribcage, plunging the knife to the hilt and twisting it violently. Both of them fell to the ground, the gun skidding across the hardwood floor.
“Breathe slow,” Schultz instructed, drawing the sharp knife out of Don’s body. His lung had been perforated, but it was a hell of a lot better than his heart. Schultz had purposefully disabled the man to prevent him from doing more harm than necessary. It had never been Schultz’s intentions to kill Don. All that he’d wanted to do was stall for time and it was his own fault for letting this situation escalate. “You’re going to be fine. Julia, are you hit? Are you okay?”
Schultz put pressure on Don’s wound, trying to minimize the blood flow while glancing over his shoulder to see the damage done. Don’s return fire had gone through the bedroom door, although Julia was now standing in the doorway with her arm at her side holding her Beretta. The sight of her standing there in one piece was more than a relief. Their eyes met and she nodded her answer. They’d have a talk about her not following instructions at a later time. Right now they needed to make sure that Don made it until the medics arrived.
“Grab a clean towel and the phone,” Schultz instructed, wanting emergency personnel here as soon as possible. Time was of the essence. “Call 911 and—”
The door swung open to reveal Jon with additional backup. All of the men and women had their weapons drawn, taking in the situation in front of them. One by one, they lowered their weapons after seeing that the threat had been subdued. Jon must have notified Schultz’s office because the majority of the agents behind him were senior Secret Service agents.
“Schultzy, you always have to be the one to clean house, don’t you? You never could complete the task at hand without getting your hands wet,” Jon said with a shake of his head, holstering his weapon. The apartment was suddenly overtaken with agents and Julia managed to dodge most of them as she came through the room with a couple of towels. An agent asked for her weapon and she handed it over before she sank to her knees, gently placing the towel underneath Schultz’s hands where he was putting pressure on Don’s wound. She then did the same with the bloodstain on the agent’s shoulder. Her first shot must have connected, but the man’s adrenaline prevented the .40 caliber Smith & Wesson bullet from stopping him. “We need medics!”
“Don, you’re going to be fine,” Julia said softly, never taking her gaze away from the man’s face. Schultz admired her strength and compassion, knowing that most people would have allowed others to tend to a man who’d committed such heinous acts. “I know it hurts to breathe, but the paramedics will be here shortly. They’ll get you to the hospital and get you some oxygen.”
“Braeden and Emmett?” Schultz asked, looking up at Jon who’d stepped away from the coordination a lead agent had taken of the Secret Service. “Are they all right?”
“Yes, although they’re quite out of it from the sedatives that Don had put into their coffees. Don apparently put enough drugs in the cups to keep them incapacitated while he tried to pull off this little heist of his. All this over money? Here I thought that maybe you were the target of a foreign intelligence agency. Don’t your agents get psych evals every quarter to keep this kind of shit from happening?”
Schultz wasn’t going to get into the ins and outs of the Secret Service vetting programs with Jon; however, he thought he might just take a look at it himself. Maybe it was time for the Inspector General to verify that the Agency’s procedures were being comprehensively followed. He nodded at what Jon was implying, because he had the right idea. The system wasn’t foolproof and Don Mercury stood as that example. He’d gotten himself in trouble and instead of taking responsibility for his shortcomings…he acted with malice and greed to demonstrate his complete sense of self-interest over the principal’s primary safety.
Schultz heard more commotion behind him and it wasn’t long until the medics had taken over for him and Julia. She slowly backed away, blood on both of their hands. She was the most important thing right now and any statements could wait until he tended to her needs. He wrapped his arm around her waist and helped her stand, taking her into his embrace when she turned into him. He held her close while trying to ignore the mess on their hands, the adrenaline finally exiting their bloodstreams and leaving both of them a little shaken.
“Jon, we’re going to get cleaned up. Let the agent in charge know that we’ll be a few minutes and then we will head to the hospital with Braeden and Emmett. We’ll give our individual statements there.” Schultz rubbed his forearm up and down Julia’s back, taking a moment to nod his thanks to the lead agent indicating that they were both relieved. He leaned in close, placing his lips against her ear. “You have no idea how scared I was until I saw you leaning against that doorjamb.”
“You asked me to marry you, Schultz,” Julia replied, pulling away to look up into his face. There were many emotions within her blue eyes—regret that the situation had come to this, pain that someone she trusted had been behind such a malicious threat, and relief that they were both safe after it was all said and done. “That means a partnership. I do have to admit I feel like I could throw up at this very moment considering the fact that I pulled the trigger.”
“That feeling never totally goes away, sweetheart.” Schultz rested his forehead against hers, remembering all the times he had to take a life to save his own or that of his fellow Marine or colleagues. He didn’t like that she had to experience it and he would do his best to be by her side as she learned to accept what had taken place and be at peace with it. “Focus on the fact that we are safe and sound. No more bad guys at the door.”
Julia nodded as tears filled her eyes at the sound of Don wheezing as he tried to breathe. The medics already had him on a stretcher, getting ready to transport him to the hospital. An agent had already read the man his rights and was now giving instructions to the medics on how the transport would go down, along with additional directives for when they arrived at the hospital.
“Go get cleaned up, you two,” Jon ordered, grimacing at the mess that was left behind. “I’ve got some phone calls to make and then I’ll follow you to the hospital. The lead agent on this wants a statement from me as well, so I might as well get it over with while they are getting yours. I also need to let Ali know that I’ll be getting home a little late tonight.”
Schultz had to stop and speak with several agents before he was able to take Julia into the bedroom, where the door was riddled with holes. He didn’t want to think what those bullets could have easily done to Julia. She had a mind of her own and she would definitely keep him on his toes, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He breathed in air albeit shakily as he led Julia into the bathroom. They both needed to take a shower to wash the blood off.
“Schultz, I can do this on my own,” Julia said, leaning against the counter of the sink. She was holding her bloody hands away from her body and he caught sight of the tremors in her fingers. It was there in his as well.
“Don’t you know we don’t ever have to do anything on our own that we don’t want to?” Schultz asked, turning the handle on the shower and allowing the water to warm as he undressed himself, throwing his clothes into a pile. They would be collected for evidence. After all they weren’t salvageable, and honestly, he didn’t want them around as a reminder. What he needed at the moment was to wash Julia with that shower gel she loved and submerge them in the fragrance of the lavender scent to wash away the stench of spent gunpowder and copper leftover from Don’s blood. “Here.”
Schultz drew Julia’s shirt over her head and then went to work on her shorts. She didn’t stop him but her blue eyes followed every movement. She appeared to be more concerned about him than herself. He finally pulled her into the walk-in shower and allowed the water to wash away the red stains that would show up in their nightmares for many nights to come.
“I still don’t understand,” Julia said, watching as he drizzled the shower gel onto her hands. He went to work, wanting to do what he could to rid her of the reminder that she’d almost taken a life with her firearm. “Don has been one of my agents, for the most part, for the last year. Why would he blackmail me? Why would he do this to us?”
“He panicked,” Schultz said, wishing he could make it sound better than what it was. The man was weak and had made poor choices to compound the wrongs he’d committed. “Don had gotten to know you rather well and he was probably aware that you would have paid the extortionist rather than take the chance of your past hurting me. What he hadn’t counted on was Jon and the fact that I would discover what happened.”
“How did you know before he came to the door?” Julia asked, rinsing the purple tinted suds from her hands and then holding them out to him once more. Both of their hands were now clean, but it wouldn’t be clean enough…not for a long while. “Did your contact figure it out that quick?”
“Actually no, Jon did,” Schultz admitted, not really wanting to talk about this right now when they would have to rehash every moment when they gave their statements later today. He washed them both once more before putting the bottle of shower gel back on the small ledge. Once the hot water had rinsed them clean, he pulled Julia back into his embrace and just held her. It could have been five minutes…it could have been thirty. He just took the time to cherish her and give thanks that she was alive and well. They’d both made it through a harrowing ordeal and he didn’t want it repeated any time soon…never, in fact. “You know, even in the military…men and women know when to take orders. You should have done as I asked.”
“Don’t start with me,” Julia replied, her lips moving against his chest. He smiled when she lightly pinched his hip in retaliation. “He would have gotten off that shot and you know it. I will take a thank you though. I make a pretty good partner, if I do say so myself.”
“Oh, will you now?” Schultz asked, smiling tenderly when she remained strong. She wasn’t the wilting type and she wasn’t prone to theatrics. He’d seen many men and women become somewhat dramatic during these times—not that it wasn’t their right to do so. Julia wasn’t like that though and she marched on like the true heroine she was. She would have been an asset to many of the missions he’d undertaken in the past. “How about this…thank you, Julia Melina, for being my partner, my lover, and my future wife.”
“You’re about to make me get out of this shower, aren’t you?” Julia murmured, wrapping her arms tighter around his waist. The steaming water was streaming down both of them, creating a cocoon of warmth. He kissed the top of her head, not wanting to leave this sanctuary either. “How long will this take?”
“A while,” Schultz said truthfully, their night of planned lovemaking being delayed. They had the rest of their lives to make up for it though. “I’ll be by your side the entire time, but I’ll give you something pretty to look at.”
“I only need you, Mr. Jessalyn.” Julia pulled back and looked up at him with blue eyes brighter than the sky. “I’ll be by your side, holding your hand the entire time. An engagement ring is only a symbol…our love is much, much more.”
Schultz released her, letting her grab a towel and get ready for the long evening ahead. He stayed underneath the water a few moments longer, contemplating the events of the day. He’d asked for her hand in marriage on the same day a rogue agent was willing to resort to their murder. Their future was bright while another person’s had gone pitch black. Good versus evil. Balance.
Julia would have that ring on her finger before they left this apartment. She was his balance and he wanted the world to know. She was his light in the darkness. She was his everything.