21
THE SH*T GETS REAL… AND IT GETS UGLY
GREYSTONE
Squirreled away in the conference room at the Black Site, Greystone viewed the surveillance from the Riverdale Apartments and confirmed two of the terrorists were living there.
His phone rang. He put the call on speaker. “Carrera, tell me good news.”
“I got access to the surveillance footage from the camera outside the restroom and uploaded it to ALPHA,” Carrera said.
“We’re checking.” A few seconds later. Caroline nodded. “Got it.”
He thanked his cousin, hung up.
“I’m all over this one,” she said.
As he stared into her eyes, a fiery connection passed between them, then a whisper of a smile filled her face.
Over the next thirty minutes, he pulled together his hand-selected team for the surprise raid at oh-two-hundred. Then, he spent the next hour, heads-down, working out the deets.
An errant noise had him glancing up. Teddy, Sin, andDakota stood on the other side of the conference table staring down at him. They wore no smiles. Sin’s cheek muscles were ticking in his jaw, Dakota’s lips were slashed in a thin line, and stress lines were etched deep on Teddy’s face.
“This can’t be good,” Greystone said.
“We have a problem,” Dakota said.
All three men sat. Dakota spun his laptop toward him and Caroline.
Greystone stared at the posted photo and the constant agitation that clung like a fucking virus exploded in a sea of rage.
“You’ve been made,” Sin said.
“Fuck,” he growled.
“Oh, no,” Caroline murmured.
In the private chat group, where Greystone had posted a pic of Haqazzii’s dead body, was a photo of him and Caroline at the joint base in Anacostia—he in the flight suit he was still wearing, she in her street clothes.
“Looks like it was taken from across the river,” Sin said.
“With a very high-powered camera,” Teddy added.
“Jesus,” he growled. “They could have shot us.”
“No, they’re having too much fun fucking with us,” Sin said. “Did you see the caption?”
Greystone read it.
We know who you are. Bring it on.
Fury swirled around him like a tornado, until his gaze found Caroline’s. Bolstered by the sheer determination in her eyes, an overwhelming desire to win rose from the depths of his soul.
“You can’t leave the Black Site,” Dakota said.
“Not happening. We’re raiding Riverdale at oh-two-hundred—two AM—and we start our planning meeting here, in thirty minutes. Nine o’clock.”
“Are we kidnapping or eliminating?” Sin asked.
