Sherry shrugged. “Sam said to come along. Besides, I wondered whether you were all right when you didn’t show up at the condo. The Colonel’s men get to you?” She asked, nodding toward his waist and leg.
Annabelle’s brow furrowed as she followed the exchange. How did Sherry know Jack had been shot? And in the side and leg? She must have been talking to Sam. Of course, he would tell her that her husband had been hurt.
“I don’t know,” Jack sighed, running a hand through his hair. Annabelle turned a surprised expression on him. Despite everything, he was being calm about this situation? But he ignored her look and continued. “Maybe Osborne’s direct hires. Whoever they were, though, they were able to find us when they shouldn’t have been.”
“You’re being tracked somehow,” Sherry nodded sagely.
“Yes, but I can’t bloody figure out how.”
“Oh my God.” Annabelle finally spoke. The words just came out. Because, in that moment, she realized that Sherry knew what was going on. She knew everything that was going on. How was that possible? And, wasn’t she supposed to be in Rome or something?
Everyone in the room stopped talking and looked at her.
Sherry’s gaze shot to Jack, as did Beatrice’s. Jack sighed and walked around Annabelle so that she was facing him.
“Bella, it’s time you knew the truth,” he began. “Sherry isn’t my wife because we love each other. She’s a hired gun.” He paused a moment, allowing the information to sink in. Annabelle’s gaze flitted to Sherry, who smiled, and then back to Jack.
He went on. “Maria was in the Business as well,” he told her, referring to the woman he’d been married to before Sherry. “They’re covers,” he said softly, cupping her face in his hands. “Nothing more.”
Annabelle stared up at him for a long time.
Too long.
Jack swallowed, his blue eyes pleading. “Bella, I didn’t tell you because-”
“Let me go, Jack.” Annabelle spoke the words very, very softly. Jack almost shivered. But he slowly removed his hands and let them fall to his sides. And then Annabelle turned around, opened the door, and quietly left the room.
Jack put his face in his hands.
“Sucks to be you, Thane,” Sherry said as she stood from the bed and moved up alongside him. “But I’ll tell you this much. The longer you let it go, the worse it’ll get.” Then she brushed past him and left the room after Annabelle.
When they were alone, Jack put his hands down and turned to his ex-wife. “What do I do, Bee?”
Beatrice’s expression softened, going from angry to sympathetic in the space of seconds. She stood and made her way to her ex-husband, taking his hands in hers. “You go to her, Jack. You make her understand, tha’ even if what you did was wrong, you did it all for the right reasons.” She stared up at him for several long moments.
He pulled her into a hug and placed a kiss on her head. “Thank you,” he whispered, and then let her go.
She smiled warmly and gave his hands one last squeeze. “’S all ri’, Jack.” She let him go and moved around him, turning the door knob and cracking it open. But before she stepped out, she turned to him one last time. “And, for God’s sake, Jack, don’t lie to her any longer.”
When Jack left the room a few minutes later, it was to find that the group had split up, each going their own way. It gave him only a moment’s pause to find that Clara and Dylan were together in the entertainment room, which had once been the servant’s quarters. It had since been outfitted with a large flat-screen TV and one of his men had obviously dropped off a Wii during their stay there. The two teenagers were battling it out with boat loads of zombies in dark forests in the Wii version of Resident Evil IV. Jack watched them for a moment and then sighed. As long as they were busy being unnecessarily grisly and violent instead of having sex on the couch, he was letting it slide.
He moved on, coming to the kitchen. Sam was popping open the fridge as Jack walked in.
“Wanna beer?” the Texan asked, without even looking up.
“No, thanks.” Jack leaned up against the counter. Sam knew he didn’t drink, but he still always offered. “Where’s Sherry?”
“Took off. Had a job to do. Says you owe her a drink, by the way. She hated scaring the bejeesus out of Annabelle.” Sam turned around, a grin on his handsome face. “She says you made her out to be the ogre.”
Jack blew out a long sigh and ran his hand through his thick hair. It was definitely becoming a nervous gesture.
“Where’s Annabelle?”
“She went into that room the two of you were occupying earlier.” Sam screwed the top off of a distinctly dark beer and took a swig. “How’d she take the news?”
“You have to ask?”
“Nah,” Sam shook his head once, his smile broadening. “Not really. Just wanna hear you say it.”
“You’re a right bastard, Sam,” Jack told him, shaking his head. “I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me for this one.”
Sam whistled. “Sure hope she does, ‘cuz it’s the lesser of your particular evils, my friend.”
Jack shot him a look and then gazed back at the floor. Sam was right. Jack was so screwed. But he didn’t have a whole lot of time to contemplate his level of screwdness, since it was at that time that gunfire erupted and glass imploded all around them.
On instinct, Jack and Sam immediately hit the deck. But then Jack was up and running, hunched over, toward the entertainment room in the next instant. It was with little surprise but a whole hell of a lot of relief that he saw Clara had already hit the floor as well, taking her would-be boy friend with her. She spared him a glance as he ran by, but wisely didn’t move.
Jack didn’t stop either. He ducked beneath more shards of splintering wood and flying glass as the gunfire continued.
Finally, he made it to the room where Annabelle had gone and he slammed through the door and hit the floor, rolling over to look around. Annabelle wasn’t in the room.
“Jack!”
Jack turned his head to the right to find Annabelle beneath the bed, clutching something protectively to her chest. All around them, the explosions continued. The air was filled with dust and particles and floating feathers from the mattresses and pillows.
“Bella, take my hand!”
Annabelle reached her left arm out and took hold of Jack’s hand, allowing him to slide her across the floor toward him. As he did so, something heavy and round shot through the window and landed on the ground beside them, bouncing once and then rolling to a stop.
They both turned to look at it. Annabelle’s eyes locked on the small green form. Recognition registered even as horror immobilized her.
But her hand was still in Jack’s, and he used the connection to yank her to him, pulling her to her feet and against him in the next swift action.
He took Annabelle out the door with him once more, diving for the leather couches that graced the adjoining study. He’d just managed to get himself and Annabelle behind the nearest one when the grenade went off and the room they’d been in a split second before burst outward like an over-inflated vacuum.
Annabelle screamed as her ears popped painfully and the world around her bellowed in agony. The noise of the blast was tremendous. It wasn’t like anything you hear in the movies. It was deeper, more like a thumping, in-your-bones feeling than a sound. It shook the very earth.
A few seconds after the blast, Jack shoved himself away from her and took a second to look her over. When he saw no major injuries on her, and no embedded shards of shrapnel, he pulled both of his weapons from the shoulder holster he wore and got his booted feet under him once more.