Three, two, one.“Of course, Ronin.”
It’s not choosing one over the other, because there is no choice. It’s doing what I have to, and that makes my chest squeeze so hard, I feel like I’m having a heart attack.
Rafferty reaches down for Maeve’s hand, but he waits until I’m looking into his eyes. “She will not be taken by the Russians. We either get her back, or we die trying.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
TALLY
Catalina is the first to leave. It makes sense. She’s still deep undercover, and her position in the field is too important. Throw into the equation that Johnny and I are well equipped and trained to handle four dirty cops, there’s no real reason for her to risk her hard work once she’s got our comms set up. With a final hug to us both, she passes over the portable jammer she’s hotwired in case the telcos decide to fix the towers before we’ve finished our arrests.
We count down her departure. On Johnny’s go, we move out.
The underground network of rooms and corridors would be easy to get lost in, but Johnny’s sense of direction is better than mine, and he guides us to where we’re meant to be.
Black, Sean, James, and Patrick have each taken to different parts of the Cathedral. Johnny’s heard enough of their planning to know their movements, so finding them isn’t terribly difficult, nor does it take long.
We change our initial plan and take out Special Detective Patrick Doyle first. Once he’s restrained and gagged, I read him his rights. Cuffing him to one of the old plumbing fixtures cemented into the ground, I smash the door handle of the room we’ve put him in, hoping for the best.
And that’s all we can do. Hope for the best. Because working in the field is vastly different from being taught in a classroom. In the real world, the unexpected gets you killed.
The Fanning brothers are next. It’s hard to keep a level head when all I want to do is fill Sean’s groin with every bullet on me, but when Johnny mouths “go,” a lot of my emotions drain away. They have to.
I get tasked with taking down the weaker Fanning—James. My injuries match closely to Johnny’s, but I don’t need to prove my place by saying I can handle the bigger threat when I can’t. Letting Johnny take the stronger Alpha is sensible, considering we still have Black to take down.
“You dirty fucking cunt. You’re a feckin’ shade,” James snarls as he races towards me with nothing but his wicked temper and outstretched hands.
Plain stupid on his part, because I taser him, then when he’s locked frozen up by the 50,000 volts, I flick my batten to length and swing with all my might into the side of his knees. He goes down and hits the ground hard. I manage to drop my knee into his back and pull one of his arms back to slap the cuffs around his wrists before he bucks up violently and breaks free.
He rises in a smooth motion, charging at me like a bull does to a matador. At the same time, he uses every tool in his Alpha designation arsenal to influence and overpower.
Perhaps if I hadn’t taken the pills as soon as Johnny got me to a safe room, I’d be in a lot worse position. While James’s influence makes me stumble, it doesn’t make me stop. Rookie mistake, I misjudge the timing of jumping out of the way whenhe comes at me, and he rams the both of us straight into the wall behind me.
The back of my head connects with a sickening thud, my vision growing spotty and my hearing wavering in and out, like the changing frequency of a radio. I shake myself and climb back to my feet, racing to where my taser dropped. Like me, James is definitely worse for wear, his movements slower.
We both line each other up, and even though he knows I’ve got another charge in my taser, he still runs at me like he’s got nothing to lose. I fire at short range, hitting him in the chest, and this time manage not to fuck up moving out of his way while I pull my service revolver free.
As the volts discharge, his fight drains, though the venomous hate in his eyes stays right until he passes out. I take a step to help Johnny but collapse backwards, smashing my head again. When I can finally make sense again and see what’s going on, Johnny has propped me up against the wall. He’s in front of me, waving his fingers and leaning on my leg.
“Murphy, fuck. Hang on.”
His words make sense, but the urgency I hear in them doesn’t.
“Come on, we have to go,” I growl, slapping his hand off my forehead.
He doesn't let me push his hands away. “Tally, look at me. I’m going to get these arseholes secured, and then I need to get you out. Emergency evac.” Johnny’s voice is slow and hypnotic, and I nearly close my eyes at how sleepy it makes me feel.
“No,” I say.
But my voice sounds weird, like I’ve been drinking. I start to list over to the side, dragged down by gravity. Something warm drips into my eye, and it’s confusing as hell because I seriously can’t figure out what it is.
“My head?” I ask, finally putting two and two together.
He nods, but he’s holding some other important detail back. I know it as easily as I know I’m not doing as well as I thought I was. When I start to lean, he lays me down gently on my side, and it’s like getting lost in a television show as I watch him doing things in front of me, racing around the room, talking on his MDT.
There comes a point where awareness wins over my body shutting down and going into shock. “Leave me here and go get Black. Please, Johnny.”
Johnny closes his eyes as soon as I finish speaking.
