Go,Katie told him as sheadvanced.
Kyle didn’t need to be told twice. Cillian was trying escape, but his run was more of a stagger akin to a drunk man. Kyle wouldn’t pretend to know what Katie had done to his mind to put him in this state, but it got the fucker within his reach and that was all thatmattered.
Kyle dropped his AKR-75 assault rifle on the ground, breaking the cardinal rule of a Strike Force soldier of never letting go of his weapon in favor of revenge. He trusted Katie to watchhissix.
“Hey, asshole!” Kylesnarled.
Cillian turned, raising his arm with a gun in hand, but he never got a shot off. Kyle came at him, gripping the gun and wrenching it out of Cillian’s hand while he savagely punched Cillian in the face with his other fist. The gun went off at the last second as Cillian desperately tried to keep hold of it. Kyle had the gun aimed at the damaged carousel to diminish the chance of hurting any bystanders. He ended up breaking Cillian’s finger as he got the gun free and tossed it aside. Kyle rammed his knee into Cillian’s stomach and used the grip he had on Cillian’s arm to twist it into a stress position before breaking hiswrist.
Cillian screamed, heaving against Kyle’s hold. He twisted in Kyle’s grip, using his free hand to try to pummel Kyle in the chest. Kyle easily sidestepped the blows, twisting aside and putting some distance between them. That gave him just enough room to slam his boot into Cillian’s right knee. The crunching sound the joint made as it bent in a way it shouldn’t ripped another scream out of Cillian’smouth.
Kyle shut him up with a spinning kick tothejaw.
Cillian’s head snapped around as he staggered backward, falling against the fencing that encircled the carousel. Because of the earlier crash, it wasn’t stable, and went down underneath his weight. He groaned, flailing around as much as he could with brokenbones.
“Get the fuck up,” Kyle growled as he stalkedforward.
Blood flowed out of Cillian’s mouth from a split lip and broken nose, giving Kyle the fleeting impression of the wounds he’d seen on Sean, to say nothing ofAlexei.
“Th’ fuck did ye do ta me head?” Cillian slurred, dazed blue eyes blinkingrapidly.
“That was all Viper. As for me? I haven’t doneenough.”
It wasn’t a fair fight by a longshot, but Kyle didn’t care about fairness, not after what had been done to Alexei and Sean. He hauled Cillian off the ground by way of his broken wrist, feeling the bone grate together beneath his fingers. Cillian choked on another scream and kicked out with his feet, trying to land a blow. It was pathetically easy for Kyle to dodge them. His Strike Force training against a man who learned his fighting in the streets and leaned on his notorious reputation as a bomb-maker to get people to toe the line meant the fight was laughablyuneven.
Kyle was fine with that. He needed to vent his rage in an appropriate way, and this was as good as any he’d find inagym.
He punched Cillian in the face hard enough he lost teeth, a thin stream of blood mixed with enamel arcing through the air to splatter on the ground. Cillian sagged in Kyle’s grip, trying to breathe around a mouthful ofblood.
“Thought about making this last, but I need to get back to my team,”Kylesaid.
In a perfect world, he’d get a week—one week to carve Cillian down to the bone, bit by bit. To give back what was done to Alexei and Sean twice over. He wanted to give Cillian every moment of pain his brother endured, but he’d settle for sheer brutality. Kyle unsheathed his combat knife and flipped it between his fingers, the serrated blade exactly what heneeded.
Cillian spit out more blood as Kyle slammed him back against one of the trees planted near the carousel, grown tall and wide over thedecades.
“Ye need me alive,” Cillian said, trying to bargain his way out ofdeath.
Maybe that was true, especially if word got back to Stanislav that Kyle had taken out one of the Russian’s associates. But in the grand scheme of things, Kyle was fucking tired of the lies they’d been living. The Pavluhkin mission was untenable, had been since the beginning, if he were honest. Being unpredictable only got them hurt, orworse.
Kyle was absolutely fucking done with allofit.
His comms switched on, Stirling’s voice ringing through his ears in a commanding tone. “Reaper, we need Halloran alive. Disengage, now! That’s anorder!”
Kyle ignored the deputy director in favor of shoving his combat knife into Cillian’sstomach.
The scream Cillian let out nearly deafened Kyle as he pushed the knife in all the way to the hilt before cutting sideways through his body. Cillian jerked hard against Kyle’s ironclad grip and the combat knife digging through hisintestines.
The MDF could yell in his ears all they wanted about bringing Cillian back alive, but that wasn’t happening. Not on his watch. They could slap him with a reprimand and a black mark in his personnel jacket; Kyledidn’tcare.
He wantedCilliandead.
Kyle leaned forward, ignoring the way Cillian grabbed weakly at his hand, keeping him pinned against the tree. Stirling’s voice was a buzz in his ear he refused to listen to as he ripped open a hole in Cillian’s gut large enough to shove a small hand grenade, already primed, inside his body. The bleeding edges of the messy gut wound swallowed the rapid flash of the timercountingdown.
“You shouldn’t have touched my brother,” Kylegroundout.
He made sure the grenade was in so deep Cillian wouldn’t be able to claw it out. Kyle let go of the Irishman and didn’t watch him fall to the ground. He sprinted away, scooping up his discarded rifle with bloody hands as Katie stood watch by the motorcycle. Kyle had nearly reached her when the small grenade went off in a messy explosion that sent blood and body parts flying throughtheair.
Something small and wet smacked against Kyle’s shoulder before sliding off and falling to the ground. He kicked the bit of flesh aside and kept going. Katie lowered her weapon as he approached and jerked her thumb at themotorcycle.
