“Yeah. See you there.”
On the ride over, I sent the other teams a text message letting them know we were a go. The others responded not long after. They’d found the same thing we had. The safe houses looked ripe for the picking. Things really seemed to be looking up.
We met up with Diego and all got into the same car before heading back for another recon drive-by of the house. The whole neighborhood was in various stages of construction. It looked like none of the homes were even occupied. We parked three blocks away, and I used the binoculars I’d brought to zoom in on the house. At five p.m. on the dot, a black SUV pulled up in front of the house. Six men piled out of the car as six others exited the building. They all wore the standard clothing of construction workers. They were hiding the fact that all these men were coming and going from a residential house by playing it off as construction. Cute. No one would call the cops if it seemed like all these guys were doing was working and trading out shifts, even if it was in the middle of the night.
Once the day-shift security left, the SUV pulled away from the curb. I glanced at the others. “Looks like we go at midnight.”
“How ominous,” Diego said. There was no humor in his voice.
“Let’s head back to the hotel room. Try to take a nap. I’ve barely slept the last couple of days,” I said as I turned the car in the direction of the hotel.
A few hours later,we were back in the car. To my surprise, I actuallyhadbeen able to sleep for a couple of hours. Diego and Felipe both seemed well rested. Nevertheless, the trip to the house was stressful. The drive had the distinct feeling of a trip on the River Styx. Instead of Diego at the wheel, it was Charon the boatman, steering us toward death.
I shook that thought away, not wanting to fill my head with dark nonsense. I had enough to worry about without fantasies and nightmares taking over. My hands were clenched into fists on top of my knees. I was doing my best to keep them fromshaking. I knew I was brave, but bravery wasn’t a lack of fear, it was being able to push through the fear.
We pulled up a few hundred yards from the house, and Diego decided to park in the driveway of a house with aFor Sale sign out front. I pulled out my phone and called Luis first.
“Luis, it’s Nico. Are you guys in position?”
“Yeah,” Luis whispered. “Good to go.”
I checked my watch. “Seven minutes until midnight. As soon as the night shift pulls away, we make the move. We’ve got to keep it coordinated. Good?”
“On it, brother.”
“Cool.” I called Javi next. His team was ready and on the same page. All that was left was the countdown.
I was thankful all the locations were in the same time zone. Was that an oversight by the royals? Or was it blind luck? Either way, I was happy with it. Otherwise, there was no way this would have been a success, even with all the information Maddy’s mother had given us.
“Car pulling up,” Diego whispered.
Through the windshield, I saw the black SUV creeping up the road to the house. I sent one last text to the rest of the teams:
Good to go!Be careful.
I gave a curt nod,and Diego, Felipe, and I got out of the car, closing the doors as quietly as we could. The moon was masked by clouds, so the only light was the few street lights in the neighborhood. As Diego, Felipe, and I slunk through the shadows between houses, I kept an eye on the switching teams. There were some exchanged words, handshakes here and there, then the departing team piled into the car and pulled away.
Adrenaline surged through my body, making me feel both nauseous and excited at the same time. My pupils dilated, giving me even better night vision, and my breathing became quicker and shallower. This was the precipice, the last moment before we descended into chaos. I gritted my teeth and released a deep, rumbling growl before breaking into a run.
Diego and Felipe followed closely behind. The front door closed when we were less than fifty feet away. The men inside would already be dispersing to their watch posts. They’d have no idea what was coming for them. I leaped all six steps on the porch in one jump, landing softly in front of the security beside the door. From memory, I punched in the nine-digit code and held my breath. An instant later, the red ARMED icon changed to a green DISARMED icon.
I heaveda sigh of relief and glanced back at the guys, nodding once. Taking two steps back to get a running start, I burst forward, then took three heavy steps before lowering my shoulder and slamming my full weight and all my shifter strength into the door.
The cracking of the wood sounded like a gun going off. The explosion of wood, hinges, and glass burst through the night like the first cannon fire of war. War was exactly what this was. I crashed to the floor with the rest of the door. Felipe and Diego leaped through the opening, already shifting into their wolf forms. Before getting to my feet, I glanced around, taking stock of what we were up against, and my insides turned to liquid.
I saw four of the six men. Each one had already slung silenced submachine guns on their shoulders. They were startled but not as shocked as I’d hoped. These were, unfortunately, well-trained men.
An older man with short blond hair fired a burst of rounds in Diego’s direction, the silenced gun coughing out bullets. I watched in horror as the bullets punched holes in the wall,almost as though they were chasing my brother across the room. I shifted and sprang at the blond man. From the corner of his eye, he saw me coming and turned the rifle toward me. He was able to get off one shot, the bullet barely grazing my ribs, drawing a line of fire across my fur and skin. I buried my teeth into his throat, his larynx cracking between my powerful jaw. I turned away, leaving him to writhe and gag as he suffocated to death.
My instincts told me to move. I tucked my wolf body into a roll an instant before a burst of gunfire ripped through the drywall where I’d been standing a moment before. A grizzled-looking man with face tattoos stood there, teeth bared, screaming incomprehensible curses at us as he continued to fire at me. I sprinted around the room, drawing the attention away from my team. I ran into the kitchen, using the walls to guard me against gunfire. Once I circled through the dining room and back to the living room, Felipe had already tackled the tattooed man.
Felipe’s jaw was clamped around the barrel of the gun. The man below was trying to push Felipe up and away. I saw it a moment before it happened—too fast for me to do anything to stop it. The man couldn't get his gun free. Instead, he pushed up to give his other arm access to his belt. A knife flashed up out of a sheath at his side. The arching blade moved like it was in slow motion, I howled out a warning to Felipe, but it was too late. The blade buried itself to the hilt into his body. He yowled in pain and tumbled away from the man.
With no idea how badly he was hurt, I snarled at the man and hit him full force, knocking the gun away from him. His knife was still inside Felipe, so the guard had no weapons left but his own hands. He screamed and fought back, pressing against my face and chest. One hand came too close to my jaw, and I clamped my teeth shut. The sound of three of his fingers snapping off was cathartic, and the echo of his screams was evenbetter. This man might have just killed one of my best friends. His people wanted to bleed my mate dry. He deserved nothing better than this. I tore into his throat and left him bleeding on the floor, then spun in place to see if Diego was okay.
He had already shifted back to his human form and stood over the other two men. One looked dead, and the other was unconscious on his side. I shifted back and took a step toward him.
“You good?” I called.
