Three feet away, half-hidden in the shadows, a man was curled against the far wall, with his wrists bound in front of him. His head lolled forward. His clothes were torn, his skin marked with bruises that told of days of torture. But his eyes were open and locked onto Rowan’s.
Wilson.
For the first time since this op had started, Rowan let himself believe they might actually pull this off. He used his body to shield Wilson as bullets chewed up the air around them.
Mikey grunted. “Took you long enough, asshole,” his voice rasped as if he’d been screaming for days. The words were laced with pain, with exhaustion, but there was something else there too, relief, gratitude, the kind of dark humor that only men who’d stared death in the face could muster.
“If you’re talking, you’re breathing, so I ain’t late yet.” Rowan returned fire and thumbed his comms. “All stations, I have the package.” He let his men know so they could start clearing a path for their exit. “M-TOC, send in the bird.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rowan’s heart pounded in rhythm with the gunfire, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he shielded Wilson, returning fire with deadly accuracy as they made their way back through the building toward the courtyard.
“Did you get him?”
“Get who?”
“El Fucking Pastor is here, Rowe.” Mikey winced as he bumped off a wall. “Don’t think he had time to leave before you started blowing shit up.”
Holy fucking shit!
Thank fuck Gael didn’t come on this job.
He scanned the cluttered room, every instinct screaming at him to find the target. “Copy that,” Rowan replied, locking eyes with Mikey, who grimaced but managed a nod. “All Stations, Seahorse One. The cocksucking bishop is here somewhere. I want that fucker dead.” Every one of his people knew exactly who he meant. “M-TOC, get me a JDAM or a Hellfire, STAT.”
“Boss…”
“That’s an order, M-TOC, I don’t care whose ass we have to kiss to get it.” Before this day ended, this whole motherfucking compound was going to be dust in someone’s memory.
“Yes, sir, on it.”
The architect of Gael’s torture in Colombia, the man whose orders had murdered an innocent girl and left Enya’s skin marked and her nightmares endless, was officially on borrowed time.
Payback is a bitch, asshole.
Rowan’s heart pounded as he shifted into action mode, gesturing for the team to fan out and sweep the compound. It was time to flush out El Pastor and end this nightmare once and for all.
“Seahorse, on me,” he ordered, his voice a low growl. “Find me that fucker.”
“Roger,” the team echoed, the urgency translating into a flurry of movement as they set to work. Rowan felt the adrenaline coursing through him, sharpening his focus. Every second mattered if they were going to ensure they kept their mission objective and had time for a little payback. He flipped his NVGs to infrared and got to hunting.
“One, Three, QD2 clear,” Colson confirmed his quadrant had been cleared over comms, “Moving to QD3.”
“Copy.”
Damn it, where the hell are you, Fuck Face?
Frustration started to creep into his thoughts. The kitchen was filled with trash; rotting food and filthy magazines littered the floor. He kicked aside a chair, his eyes scanning the corners for movement.
“One, Six, first floor secure,” Bronx reported.
“All Stations, M-TOC. Hurry your asses up,” Theo ordered. “I have a JDAM spinning up.”
“Roger that, M-TOC.” Adrenaline was turning impatience into a simmering heat in his chest. They were on borrowed time. They ascended the creaking stairs to the second floor, each step heavy with anticipation. Rowan pushed open a door, swinging wide to reveal a long corridor. Shadows danced in the dim light, and the stench of sweat mixed with something putrid wafted toward them. “Eyes open. Let’s not get killed in this funnel of a K-Zone.”
A door exploded inward at the end of the hall and Rowan’s breath caught as he recognized the silhouette. It was him. El Fucking Pastor. The man was a ghost, a figure out of nightmares,and he was moving with purpose, trying to escape out the window.
Rowan surged into action, adrenaline igniting like a wildfire in his veins.
