“I do, actually.” Alec stands up, leading the way to his armory. “You fought alongside me when the Morales Cartel tried to take over my operations in Buenos Aires, even when it didn’t benefit your organization. You took a bullet for me.”
Frowning, I watch him check his weapons, selecting two Walther pistols and an M16.
“The Zhang attack is a three-pronged assault, yes?” He’s strapping on a holster and loading up on rounds of ammunition.
“It is,” I answer cautiously.
“Then there’s nothing else to say. I’ll take two of the warehouses with my men,” he zips up a duffle bag. “Callum, I’m assuming takes the other warehouse attack, leaving you to take the frontal assault on his safe house.”
I grip his forearm. “I would never resent you for choosing to sit this out, do you understand? It’s too much to ask of you.”
He smiles, though it doesn’t meet his eyes. “We made a vow of loyalty to each other all those years ago, and I won’t break it. Later, however, I might break your nose for sparing the MacTavish brothers.”
“Oh, I am certain I’ll be paying for this for years,” I say, suddenly exhausted at the thought.
***
When we go over the plan to decimate Zheng, I remind myself to double my tech team’s salaries. They’ve successfully isolated where Haoya Chen is hiding, squatting like a malevolent spirit over the empire he’s rebuilding. I’ve sent this intel to the MacTavish Brothers; he’s their responsibility now.
Cormac was so enraged when they discovered that they hadn’t killed Chen, that I’m certain a good portion of the city of Rye will be in flames tonight. The MacTavish men seem to be quite thorough when it comes to revenge.
“Here’s where we’re targeting,” Callum says, bringing up a series of aerial surveillance photos, showing a gated mansion in the hills nearby, along with three warehouses. “I’ll lead the team at the Mulberry dockyard location, it’s possible Zhang’s been storing people there after they unload them from the cargo ship. Alec’s group-” he nods at my expressionless friend, “tackles the two buildings in the transit zone. There’s a good reasonto believe that Zhang’s been using one of them to house his soldiers.”
Alec nods. “I’ll use drones carrying explosives to soften them up before we move in.”
Callum tries not to glare at me in front of my men, but I can see the scowl creeping into his expression. “Boss, the frontal assault on the mansion is the most dangerous. We don’t know if Zhang will have his strike team guarding his safe house or if he’ll send them to one of the warehouses. I could switch teams with you and-”
“No.” I cut him off. “Lucy and Terrance have done excellent work on their movements. We all know what we’re doing here. Alec, do you have anything to say?”
He shrugs. “Wounds heal. Chicks dig scars. Glory lives forever.”
The heavy moment disappears as our men laugh, slapping each other on the shoulder and holstering their weapons.
“That sounds suspiciously like a line from one of those abysmal American movies you used to make me watch,” I murmur.
He gives me an insolent grin. “Keanu Reeves,The Replacements, released in 2000.”
This forces a reluctant chuckle from me. “Good luck brother,” I say, hugging him.
“You as well,” he says, hoisting two assault rifles over his shoulder.
Watching him walk away, I rub the back of my neck. There’s an odd determination in his gaze that I can’t decipher. All my concerns aside though, there’s no one I trust more.
***
Sorcha…
It turns out that there are even more rooms in Alastair’s penthouse that I’ve not yet discovered, including an elaborate space that his tech people dubbed the ‘smart room.’ I can’t argue with that. Cables snake across the floor, patching one laptop into another, feeding information into a bank of monitors that bring up the action at each of the locations. Most of the soldiers are wearing cameras on their body armor too, including my brothers.
“Why couldn’t Chen pick a fortress of solitude somewhere more convenient?” Lachlan complains.
“So you could send an avalanche down on him and smash his compound into matchsticks?” Cameron laughed, “Sorry, no highly unstable snow loads here. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
“Yeah,” Dougal says, “with a metric fuck tonne of bullets.”
Lucy chuckles under her breath, winking at me.
I like her the best, she’s the only woman in a group of ten tech geniuses and I suspect she’s smarter than all of them combined. She’s got short, choppy hair, a nose ring, and a swagger that outdoes all the men in this room.
