He sealed the declaration with the shortest, sweetest kiss. Stole my breath. Then he vanished into the night, and I hated him as much as I loved him.
In the short seconds it had taken Ranger to cast his spell on me, Saint had disappeared too, leaving Alexei in a mood as grim as my own. His heart in shreds. It did not show on his face, but I knew how he felt about Cam and Saint. How I felt about Ranger—aboutAsher. And right now, it was nothing but pain.
“We must go.” Alexei came to my side. “I do not want to drag this out.”
Donning masks and gloves, we followed the first phase of the plan and fanned out around the target building. Ranger and Saint took the front, Alexei and I the back, while Jake and Camcircled around, monitoring every square inch, in real time and on Jake’s screen.
This is madness. Six of us. Fifteen of them.
Fifteen.
Fifteen.
I’d faced worse odds, but not against an enemy as protected and prepared as this. As resourced. I could only pray that Alexei and I found the unnatural speed we’d need to kill every soul in this building before Ranger and Saint came after us.
The radio crackled. Ranger’s voice filled my ear. “Vehicles are crocked.”
“Copy.” Jake’s tone flattened to accentless English.
“Copy.” I spoke into my mic. “Hold your positions.”
Alexei and I crept on, moving fluidly as if we had fought as comrades many times over. Hand signals. Sharp glances. We communicated like brothers and I felt light on my feet as we neared the building. “Security check.”
Static buzzed in my ear. Then Jake, clipped and calm. “Clear. Cameras down. No infrared. Proceed to the top.”
Of the building, where every man on our list had arrived at some point over the past few days, confident in their ability to protect themselves from an assault like this. Time would tell if they had been right. “Copy.”
I jabbed a gloved finger to the rear entrance.
Alexei nodded and covered my back.
Weapon raised, I moved forward, creeping up on the men guarding the door. Three. No radios. And Jake had already infiltrated their phones, cutting signal to the nearby mast, glitching their Wi-Fi connections, hacking away, a heartbeat ahead of every step I took.
It had been a while since I last killed someone. Over the past few days, I’d wondered if I would feel different when I snapped a man’s neck tonight, but I didn’t. I wrenched bone and cartilagewith the same blank efficiency I always had, felling two marks, while Alexei took care of the third.
Inside, we swept the lower floor and killed again. Another three. Nine left and we ascended the building to reach them, following Jake’s guidance until the radio scrambled, cutting him off.
Halfway up the stairs, I froze, glancing back at Alexei. Covered by a mask, his face was hard to read, but his eyes spoke to me.
Keep going.
I concurred with a clipped nod and pressed on, turning my radio down, dulling the static, straining my ears for any sounds of struggle outside. Any sign that we’d misjudged the number of men upstairs.
Nothing reached me, and we made it to the closed door of the last room in the building with time to spare.
I paused, taking a breath. Alexei banked around me, flanking the other side of the door.
He’d barely broken a sweat. I had, but for the discomfort in my hip, a distant grind I’d worry about later.
Too easy. The voice was nagging, insistent. An instinct I shouldn’t have ignored, but so close to the end, with Alexei by my side, I wanted this too much to let it go.
I checked my weapon. Reloaded. Touched my mic. “Final push. Proceeding.”
Nothing but static answered me, but it did not alarm me as much as it had moments ago. It felt safe; it felt right. Nine shots and this was over.
One breath.
Two.
