“Neutralized the tangos. C4 confirmed,” Reed said over comms. “Enough to level the structure. Countdown active. Three minutes. I’ll handle it. Be safe up there.”
“Roger that,” Ryder replied.
Audrey cast one final look back. Locked on me. Then vanished into the night air.
The screen reset.
Three minutes. The timer ticking again. And that was the guest’s cue: Kill or be killed.
Two shots cracked in succession. One from outside the ballroom but inside the hotel. Sharp enough to stop everyone cold.
Someone had tried to sneak out and had been dropped. Screams from outside the doors leading to the interior part of the hotel followed. Then another shot from the same location as before. One more down. Red light, green light. With blood.
Reality snapped into the place. Survival instinct. And just like that, they surged.
The three of us collapsed together like a triangle. Muscle memory took over, each of us guarding a different axis.
“You don’t have to do this,” I warned, arms slightly raised, body at an angle to minimize target profile. “We’re going to get you out alive if you just stay calm. We don’t want to kill anyone.”
The hosts immediately advanced toward the bar with the French auctioneer and hid, letting us know they weren’t up for fighting. The few other women at the event also peeled back, wisely not engaging.
Most of the men nearby remained hesitant, staring at us, frozen, until two broke forward, charging me at once.
One swung a cane at me, which I parried upward, redirecting its arc, then stepped inside his guard and hip-tossed him onto the otherguy. Nonlethal takedown. Efficient. Fast. Doing my best not to get blood on my hands unnecessarily.
I kicked the cane toward Ryder, who snatched it and cracked it across someone’s knee.
To my left, Hollis shattered her champagne flute on a table’s edge, weaponizing it. She buried the jagged stem in a man’s thigh and yanked it free, backing him off.
Mimicking her idea, I grabbed an empty, uncorked champagne bottle from the closest table, shattered it on the pillar to my left, and drove the broken glass into another attacker’s deltoid. Not deep enough to kill, but enough to drop him.
The three of us continued like this, moving out of triangle formation.
Strike. Disengage. Repeat.
Someone switched it up by flinging a folding chair at me. I ducked under it, popped up inside his guard, and landed an elbow to his throat. He went down, choking.
Comms lit up again. “Alpha Two here. Sorry we’re late to the party. What’s the status? Package on the move?”
Gray Chandler. That was a relief, even as someone clipped me across the jaw.
I shook it off. Countered with a knee to the gut, then shoved the bastard into a column.
“This is Delta One, glad to have you. Now, I need you to track down a helo that took off seventy-five seconds ago with the package.”
“Roger that,” Gray answered. “Expected target location?”
“No, last-minute change of plans,” Ryder grunted between dodging blows to the face while taking one in the side. He relayed the coordinates after dropping the asshole trying to shadowbox with him. “Expect obstacles on your way.”
“Alpha One. That’s a good copy. En route now. Alpha Team out.”
Another man lunged from my left. I sidestepped, grabbed his jacket, and redirected his momentum, using him as a shield. The guy behind him plunged a pen into his gut instead of mine.
“Delta Team, this is Foxtrot Three,” Hollis’s team transmitted, crashing the party now, too, as planned. “There are ten armed men nearing the hotel entrance. Do you want us to push or hold?”
Thankfully, Hollis’s people had the Helix operatives under surveillance after Reed had rejoined us at the hotel last night. Any second now, every Helix team member would be getting a message from Hollis’s twin brother: Pick a side or die on the wrong one.
Ryder answered mid-fight, panting, “Hold until the text has been sent. Continue on mission after that. We’ve got this room covered.”
