“Goose!” Keys shouted, already on his feet. He didn’t care thathe didn’t have shoes or a shirt or a weapon. He needed to get to Goose. Needed to help him.
His shout was so loud that he nearly missed Grimm’s. The youngest Riley brother finally moved. Whatever had locked him in place, whatever mental demons had kept him immobile, broke the moment Goose hit the floor. Moving with the swiftness of a man who had earned his Trident, Grimm grabbed the mercenary’s weapon and turned it on him. A bullet to the head put him down.
But Grimm wasn’t done yet. The mercs who followed Grimm into the hall raised their weapons. Grimm was faster, followed quickly by Thorne.
With shaky fingers, Keys forced himself back into his chair. Going into the corridor was a foolish instinct. The Riley brothers and his club brothers were all more equipped than he was to handle the situation. If he’d gone, he likely would have had to have been rescued himself. He had to stay here. As much as it grated on his ego at times that he was not the super soldier he was constantly surrounded by, Keys also knew thatthiswas where he was the most useful.
This washisweapon.
Keeping an eye on the monitors, Keys returned to what he’d been doing. With his oldest brother standing guard, Grimm dropped to his knees beside his middle brother, hands going to Goose’s chest.
“Is he okay?!” Thorne shouted over the echoing noise in the corridor.
Grimm ripped open Goose’s tactical vest, searching for the entry wound. After several painstakingly long seconds, he dropped his head and let out a long sigh even Keys could hear over his headset.
“He took it in his vest,” Grimm informed Thorne, and anyone else who was listening on the comms.
Relief flooded Keys like a drug, and he had to pause with his hands over his keyboard for a minute to collect himself.
“The vest held?” Thorne repeated, his back still to his brothers as he stood guard over them.
“Vest held.” Grimm reached up shook Goose’s face. “Come on, big brother. Wake up. You’re not dead yet.” Goose must have hit his head upon falling, but the brothers were too exposed to delay. As Grimm reached into his own tactical vest to pull out a smelling salt packet, Keys warned them of another merc coming around the corner that Thorne quickly took down.
The moment the packet was dragged under his nose, Goose jerked awake—and then groaned. Grabbing his head, he complained, “Fucking hell. I’m going to feel that tomorrow.”
“You’re going to feel it right now,” Grimm said, holding a hand out to him. Together, the brothers stood.
Thorne backed up, gun still raised. “We need to move.”
“Head to Rose,” Keys instructed them. “She’s your closest egress.” Counting club brothers, Keys let out a long sigh, “Scar, stop toying with them and get clear. It’s payback time.”
* * *
When Keys had designedthe MKSS building, he’d never anticipated a full-on assault, but he’d still planned for one. Beyond the building being the model used to fund his and Tom’s security firm, he layered contingency upon contingency, knowing if the club was ever breached, his building was the last resort.
Clearly, the mercenaries had wanted inside his building badly enough that they were willing to tear it down to get inside—and he was going to let them have it.
Once he was able to lock the intruder out of his system, Operation Mousetrap engaged. Every wall, window, door, vent, and panel sealed, both interior and exterior, sealed closed by steelshutters, maglocks, or dampers. Any building could be a fortress—Keys had built a cage.
Magnetic seals engaged simultaneously across all six ground floor entry points with a sound as finite as a bank vault closing. The men who thought they were taking over Keys’ building were slowly realizing that they were no longer in control. More specifically, that they hadneverbeen in control. Keys watched on the restored feed as one man tried to pound frantically at the steel now blocking the doorway they’d entered through only seconds before.
Fear grew as mercenary after mercenary realized what was happening, and soon, it became every man for himself.
The ventilation kicked on, entering the corridors silently through small slits in the flooring. Nothing dangerous—Keys wasn’t interested in killing them—but he didn’t mind adjusting the air quality to be notably less pleasant than it had been sixty seconds ago. Enough to make the corridors feel smaller and increase the men’s discomfort. It wasn’t difficult with how on edge they already were.
Lights were killed a second later, leaving the men in total darkness. Keys kept the computer lab at full brightness, of course, but out in the halls and stairwells he wanted to leave no doubt who was in control.
They were no longer hunting. They were well and truly caught.
Keys pulled up the intercom for the entire building. “Gentlemen,” he said pleasantly. “And maybe ladies, I can’t tell with your getups. Welcome to Master Key Security Solutions, your one-stop solution toallyour security needs. I hope you find your accommodations quite adequate. I have spared no expense to ensure that this building is as safe and secure as I can possibly make it. Most recently, a senator even took notice. You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you?” Due to the balaclavas on most of their faces, he couldn’t get facial recognition, but his system was scanningeverything else about them. Height, weight, shoe size, gender, weapons, injuries… “Now the first person to tell me why they’re here?—”
He didn’t even get to finish speaking before shouting rose up so loudly through the headset that Keys had to rush to type the mute command. Damn. While the mercenaries were speaking over themselves to get him the answers he sought, Keys checked on the others.
Thorne, Grimm, and Goose had made it to the apartment. Rose turned off the electric floors before letting them in. Keys couldn’t see into the apartment, but knew there was enough supplies in there to help Goose until they could get him to a real doctor.
Keys frowned at the thought, not recalling seeing Ghost, Lucky, or Bear at all on his monitors. Checking their trackers, he saw that all three were at Ghost and Becks’ home, along with Ranger, Becks, and Tessa. He didn’t know what was going on, but this early in the morning, it couldn’t be good.
He sent a quick message to them to see if they needed anything and to let them know that everything at MKSS was handled.
