Chapter 24

They worked on Ella for two hours. The bullet had done damage by bouncing off a rib before deflating her lung. They’d transfused a pint of blood. Each member of Endgame had offered up their own for her. She was AB positive, the universal recipient. That was something in their favor when so much had gone wrong today. When the doctor who worked on her came out, he looked haggard, but there was a small smile on his face.

“You guys got lucky,” the man said in perfect English.

“How’s that?” King questioned.

“My specialty is trauma, specifically the lungs, and I just arrived yesterday on loan to this hospital from Johns Hopkins. My military residency requires me to practice here for six months. I got the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs’ call as I landed, was able to bypass customs, and voilà, I’m here,” he told them.

Jude heard it all from a distance. His blood pounded in his ears.

“Ms. Banning suffered some blood loss and a collapsed lung. Her lung has been repaired, and we’ve reinflated it so she’s breathing easier. She’ll be sore for a few weeks due to the gunshot, but she’s in excellent health, so barring anything unforeseen, she should make a full recovery rather quickly. I’d like to keep her a couple of days.” He checked his chart and shook his head. “No way. You can’t take her back tomorrow. She’ll not be ready to fly for another week or so, maybe longer.”

“She goes tomorrow,” Jude said firmly and stepped around the doctor.

“Where are you going?” the young physician asked worriedly.

“To see my woman,” he growled, and he pushed open the doors to the recovery room.

She was the only patient. So tiny against the bed, her skin leached of color. But the monitors she was hooked to showed a steady heart rhythm, and her chest rose and fell evenly.

God, he thought he’d lost her.

Again.

“She’s going to make it,” Brody said from behind him.

Jude nodded but said nothing.

“Anna Beth Caine is heading back with us,” King said as he walked into the room.

“Where’s Chase?” Rook asked as he and Knight entered the room.

“He headed back to get Dr. Moeller settled in a safe house outside DC,” King answered. “We head back tomorrow. Vivi will make sure Ella has what she needs the second we land.”

Jude sat on the metal chair beside Ella’s bed and grabbed her hand. She hadn’t woken from surgery yet, but Jude would be here when she did.

“Knight, you’ll head back to meet up with Chase. Get Dr. Moeller settled, and then come back to Port Royal,” King said as he took the seat on the opposite side of the bed. He stared at Jude. “Dresden knew we were coming.”

Jude didn’t respond. The hows and whys didn’t matter here and now. The only thing that mattered was the elimination of Horace Dresden. He looked at each of his teammates. “Bastard is dead now.”

Brody sighed but stepped forward. “He is, but this shit has gotten deeper.”

King shook his head, and the gesture made him seem weary. “We’ve got to plan. There are still way too many unknowns in this. We will all go home tomorrow. We’ll plan. And then we’ll destroy whatever Dresden was working to build and whoever was pulling his strings.”

Jude stared at his team leader, knowing it was the right tack to take, but his blood pounded through his veins. He didn’t want to wait. He wanted the people responsible for Dresden in his hands. Now.

“He’s right,” Brody said, his broken voice loud in the eerie quietness of the recovery room. “Dresden has been plotting and planning for years. We’ve had to play catch-up. He’s gone now, but this is something we have to figure out before we make another move. Let’s go home, Keeper. We’ll fill you in on everything you missed in the last war room. We’ll plan. And we’ll kill all of them. Dead.”

Jude hung his head, took a deep breath, and pushed the rage down. It seemed his last year had been spent doing that—battling his rage. It all came back to him in a second: watching Ella fall in Beirut, the year spent mourning and searching, and finally finding her. He’d experienced the lowest low when he lost her. Then the highest high when he’d seen her again, very much alive in Beirut.

He’d buried himself in her again. Found every piece that had been missing since she was taken from him, and then he’d almost lost her one more time.

Never again.

He looked at the woman lying so still on the bed in front of him, glanced at her monitors, and felt the rage click into place inside a space that wouldn’t touch Ella.

She had a long road to recovery ahead of her. He had to be right there for her.

“We’ll plan,” he said with a nod. “Then we’ll hunt.”

“Hooah!” each member said softly, but the cheer resounded in the room.

With Endgame behind him, he could do this.

They called him Keeper.

So that’s what he’d concentrate on—keeping Ella safe.