Ten minutes later, we’re surrounding a sundown house in the middle of nowhere, the van parked haphazardly by the front door.
“Plates confirmed.” In my ear, Bones makes my day and I smirk because it’s game fucking on.
“On me!” On my command, we immediately start moving toward the house, hand signals flying and concentration on point. There are only three of us but we’re lethal and precise.
“Heat signature detected.” Hollywood is handling the infrared and this would be a good time to know how many hostiles we’re dealing with.
“Number?” I ask, my voice low and my adrenalin pumping overtime. This is the first time that I’ve got something at stake.No, not something…someone, and there’s no fucking way I’m losing her today. Or any fucking day.
Dusk is turning to night quickly and with our gear, it’s to our advantage.
“Five with one below.” That one is most likely Berkleigh being held hostage in the basement. Looking around, I don’t see an outside access door to the basement and it pisses me off because that would have made our lives a fuck load easier. This means we need to go in through the windows or doors and kill these fuckers before I can get to Berkleigh.
Karma’s filing her nails and wishing me good luck soaked in sarcasm.
“Target confirmed. Move out.” My orders shut down my brain to anything but the mission. I’m not Tanner and this isn’t about saving Berkleigh.
We have a target and it needs to be eliminated. Quickly and efficiently.
Bullets are flying all around, the hostiles are heavily armed, and it almost feels like they were waiting for us. Throwing tear gas through the windows closest to the targets, we bust down the doors and go in red hot.
At one point, I think I hit the corner of a table, but I ignore the blunt force of it as I pop off a couple of rounds into a big motherfucker aiming his Glock at my head.
“Drop your weapons! Drop your fucking weapons!” Under my helmet, I hear Bones trying to be nice, but fuck these guys. There will be no survivors tonight.
Standing to my full height, I’m about to fire another round when the force of a thousand punches to the chest has me flying backwards and landing I don’t fucking know where. It’s hard to breathe behind my mask. The pressure in my lungs is keeping the oxygen out.
“Man down! Man down!” I hear the echo in my ringing ears and it motivates me to get the fuck up. Who’s down? I think it was Bones screaming so that means Hollywood is hurt…or fucking worse.
The distinctpop pop popof gunfire tells me we’re still fighting hostiles but I can’t find my weapon.
“Request immediate extraction!” Fuck, that’s bad. I’m trying to get up but something has landed on my leg and it’s keeping my ass down.
“Help me up, I need to get Berkleigh. Get this shit off of me. Now!” It’s still hard to breathe and I’m gripping at the mask with one hand, trying to take it off.
A blurry vision of a body coming toward me has me freezing. It’s fucking big and I can’t move to defend myself.
Fuck! Where’s Berkleigh?
Scrambling, reaching for my gun, I blink my eyes a couple of times when I hear another gunshot, this one really fucking close to me. A solid mass lands next to me but the smoke is too thick to see clearly.
“Tanner!” Fuck…is that? “Oh my God! Someone do something!”
That’s when I see her. Through the haze and through the smoke, her face appears mere inches from mine like a beacon of light on dark waters.
“Berkleigh.”
“Why isn’t he responding? Oh my God, there’s so much blood.” My ears fill with screams of rage and my chest aches with the pummeling of tiny fists.
The last I hear is Berkleigh’s furious words as she brings her lips to mine and speaks into my mouth.
“You do not get to leave me. Not now. Not ever.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Berkleigh
“Stop fucking standing there like you’re watching the final scene in a tragedy and help him!”
