CHAPTER FIVE
TWO HOURS LATER, Dalton clung to the underside of Holden’s rental vehicle as Kimber drove the SUV into the warehouse where the kidnappers wanted to meet. She stopped in the middle of the big, open space. A few moments later, the metal garage door rolled down, blocking the illumination from the street lights outside and casting the interior of the place into shadows.
Even though his arms trembled from the strain of holding himself rigid against the underside of the van, Dalton stayed where he was. Footsteps approached from the left. That would be the man who’d closed the garage door moving around to cover Kimber as she got out of the SUV.
“Where’s my daughter?” she asked, using the question they’d come up with to let Dalton know Emma wasn’t in sight.
“Do you have the chips?” a heavily accented male voice asked.
Dalton didn’t recognize the man, but he sounded Asian or maybe Indonesian. Regardless, the question was stupid. Kimber had already told the kidnapper she had the things when she’d replied to his earlier texts. Maybe the kidnappers were simply surprised she’d pulled off the robbery. Which was also kind of dumb. They wouldn’t have grabbed Emma if they hadn’t thought Kimber could get what they wanted.
Figuring it was safe, Dalton slowly eased himself to the floor, then scooted to the rear of the vehicle so he’d be ready to slip out from underneath it.
The plan was simple. Kimber would do whatever she had to in order to get close to their daughter while Dalton would move to a position to cover them. At the same time, Wes and Holden would get ready to breach the warehouse from two different directions, the main door to Dalton’s right and a second story skylight directly over the center of the building. When the shit hit the fan—and that was likely going to be as soon as the kidnappers had the chips— Dalton would protect his family while his teammates dealt with the bad guys.
Dalton moved out from under the SUV and was sneaking through the deeper shadows along the back wall of the building when he realized where his mind had just gone. Family? Where the hell had that come from?
Kimber was an ex-girlfriend who’d walked away from him five years ago. Emma was his daughter, but purely by genetics. The little girl had never met him and there was absolutely nothing to say she’d ever see him again after tonight. What did he think was going to happen after they rescued her, that they’d all move in together and be one big, happy family?
He didn’t like the way those thoughts distracted him, so he quickly pushed them out of his head. He had to focus on saving Kimber and his daughter. What happened after that was out of his hands.
Dalton continued to move along the wall, trying to see what the hell was going on. Fortunately, the poorly lit warehouse was filled with rows of shrink-wrapped pallets. Blenders and other kitchenware by the looks of them. They probably wouldn’t stop much in the way of bullets, but they provided good cover.
He worked his way toward Kimber’s voice, coming to a stop between two tall pallets when he saw her standing ten feet away from him, facing three men. Dalton couldn’t see the men’s faces because they were hidden in the shadows, but they were all wearing suits. The glint of gunmetal in the darkness was unmistakable.
Kimber lifted her hand high, one of the chips dangling from her fingers. “Bring out my daughter, or I’ll smash this chip on the floor.”
“Do that and we’ll kill you, Ms. Grant,” the bigger of the three men said in a low, menacing tone.
“Go ahead.” Kimber’s hand trembled a little, but she didn’t lower it. “By then the chip would be damaged and worthless to you.”
Dalton couldn’t help feeling a surge of pride at the conviction in her voice. She was doing what she had to do to get the kidnappers to bring Emma where they could see her. He only prayed it worked. He’d never said as much to Kimber, but his worst fear was that their daughter was already dead. The thought made his gut clench up so hard he was almost sick. He pushed the fear down and slowly lifted the 9mm automatic that Holden had gotten for him. He eased his finger over the trigger, ready to shoot the big man the moment it looked like this was going sideways, whether they brought Emma out or not.
“Then we’ll simply take the other five chips off your dead body,” the man ground out.
Yup, that accent was definitely Asian.
“You’re assuming I brought the other five chips with me and didn’t leave them in a ditch down the street,” Kimber said, refusing to back down even though she had to be scared as hell.
Dalton didn’t know what shocked him more. How smoothly Kimber had handled that challenge or how much the Asian knew about the chips. Not only had they known what product code to send Kimber after, but they knew how many chips there were.
This whole thing was starting to smell like an inside job.
The big man laughed. “Very well. We’ll do this your way for now.”
Dalton caught movement out of the corner of his eye and he ducked just as another man appeared out of the shadows, dragging a little, blond girl by the arm.
Emma.
Dalton’s heart leapt into his throat as the man brought Emma into the faint light cast by one of the overheard bulbs. There were tears running down her cheeks and her eyes were filled with so much fear it was hard to look at her. Dalton’s finger tightened on the gun. He wanted to kill every son of a bitch in this room who’d dared to frighten his daughter.
He was pretty damn close to doing just that when the big Asian stepped into the light and put a hand on Emma’s shoulder to keep her from running to Kimber.
Dalton cursed silently.
It shouldn’t have been possible to recognize the man because there was nothing distinctive about him other than his height and his broad shoulders. He wasn’t wearing any of the camo paint from their last confrontation, either. But Dalton knew in his soul the man was the Chinese spec ops team leader who’d been so interested in getting his hands on an American F-35.
It made Dalton wonder what the hell these chips from JASCO could do. Because he got the idea the Asian wouldn’t be wasting his time if Kimber was holding the smoking fast microprocessor for the next generation PlayStation 5.
“You wanted to see your daughter. Here she is,” the man said. “Now, stop playing games and bring me the chips.”
“Mommy,” Emma said in a small voice, her lower lip trembling. “I want to go home.”
“We’re going home, baby,” Kimber said. “I promise.”
Dalton moved closer, ready to fire. His mind spun, ignoring the danger, focusing instead on his sight lines, the distance to Kimber and his little girl, possible cover in between, weapon types and number of rounds in the magazine for each, and the amount of men who stood between his family and their safety.
All four of the kidnappers were within ten feet of Kimber and Emma. Two of those men were even closer. Movements in the darkness told Dalton there were more men back there.
Dalton didn’t overthink it. He had to deal with the men closest to Kimber and Emma so he could keep them safe until Holden and Wes got inside to help. It was that simple. And there wasn’t anything in the world that was going to stop him from doing it.
Kimber moved closer to the kidnappers and Emma, holding the chip out in front of her to the big man. The Asian relaxed a little, releasing Emma. Kimber knelt down, arms wide like she was going to hug their daughter, but the moment she had them wrapped around her, she threw herself to the side, taking Emma with her.
Dalton immediately stepped out from behind the pallets, aiming first for the men closest to his family. That left the three free to get away, but there was nothing Dalton could do about it right then.
Glass crashed overhead as Holden made his entrance, followed a split-second later by the clang of metal as Wes kicked the door in, and Dalton knew his buddies were in there with him as muzzle flashes erupted all over the warehouse, blazing in his direction. He ignored all of it, focusing every ounce of his attention on getting to where Kimber and Emma huddled together on the floor.
Dalton poured his entire magazine into the men directly in front of him. They went down even as their leader slipped into the darkness.
Without bothering to reload, he launched himself forward, throwing his body over Kimber even as she wrapped her arms protectively around their daughter. Bullets zinged over his head and smashed into the concrete all around him, but he didn’t move, terrified that if he did, Kimber or Emma would be hit.
Dalton had been in a lot of firefights—more than it was probably healthy to think about—but he’d never truly been scared in any of them. Keyed-up, on edge, tense…definitely. But right then his heart was pounding a hundred miles an hour.
Then, as fast as it had started, the shooting stopped. And in its place, was silence.
“The front area is all clear,” Holden called out from somewhere to the right.
“Clear in the back, too,” Wes added from the darkness behind him. “Two guys bolted, but they’re long gone. You doing okay out there, Dalton?”
Dalton pushed himself up, checking for signs that Kimber or Emma had been hit. He sighed in relief when he didn’t see any blood. “We’re good. Go ahead and call the cops.” He scanned the dead men lying around them. Some were the one’s he’d taken down. His teammates had dealt with the rest. There was no sign of the lead kidnapper. “Make sure the cops know the shooting is over with,” he added. “I don’t want them coming in here with guns blazing.”
“I’m on it,” Holden said.
Dalton reached down and gently put his hand on Kimber’s shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s over.”
She lifted her head, pushing her long hair back from her face as she gazed up at him. “Really over?”
He nodded, ready to tell her how amazing she’d been. But then he caught Emma looking at him, her brown eyes huge, tear streaks lining her cheeks. The urge to pull his daughter into his arms was damn near overwhelming, but he checked himself. She was already scared. Some strange guy grabbing her up wasn’t likely to help.
“Daddy?”
The word came out as little more than a whisper, but it melted his heart all the same. Time seemed to stop then, and he couldn’t find it in him to do anything more than stare at the perfect little girl in front of him.
Finally, as his mind fought to grasp the incredible implications of that one simple word, he found himself nodding even as he reached out and slowly tugged his daughter into his arms.
There were some tears then. And yeah, maybe some of them were his. But that was okay, because he’d never been so friggin’ happy in his life.