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Hound did step in and refuse to let me lead the team. I’m at the mercy of Cerberus and beyond grateful for their help, so I really couldn’t argue that point. This is how they work. He leads the team and gives the commands.
“Thirty feet,” Hound whispers, his voice heard by everyone through our headsets.
“Movement to the east.” Tug’s voice is calm, and in a flash one of the guys ahead of me splits off. After a grunt, silence once again fills the air.
“One down, four to go,” Hound assesses.
Most people would think these situations look a lot like they do on the SWAT shows on television but banging loudly and announcing our entrance isn’t the tactical way to handle things. Stealth is key, and both my team and the Cerberus guys are experts in the field.
I’m seventh in line behind the Cerberus team, and by the time my feet cross the threshold into the house, all but one of the people inside have been seized.
The last woman, an old lady of about seventy who was still asleep on the second floor is bound with her head covered in a hood within a minute of the entire team making entry. She sighs loudly, mumbling something I don’t understand in Russian as she’s urged to sit on the couch. Each of them seems so unaffected that I have to wonder how often people burst into the house and tie them up.
Ignacio explains to them in Russian that we aren’t there to hurt them, urging them to tell us where Dani is.
“She said she isn’t here,” Ignacio explains.
It’s almost too easy, and my blood pressure spikes, my pulse pounding in my ears as we clear every other room.
“I’m not getting any other heat sensors,” Tug says as I follow him from room to room.
“That doesn’t mean—” Shadow clears his throat, the rough sound traveling through his mic, and I know if this weren’t a personal crusade, he would’ve finished that sentence. We all know the possibility of what we may find and dead bodies don’t give off heat. “Keep looking.”
I stand a little taller with each area that is cleared without finding my ex-wife. The grief I was already preparing myself to feel slowly dissipates to a manageable level by the time the entire compound is walked through and she isn’t found.
“There are no soil disruptions on the property,” someone says.
So, she hasn’t been buried here.
“The basement?” Shadow asks.
“Cleared.”
“Both floors?”
“Cleared.”
“The outbuildings?”
“Cleared.”
I tilt my head, hearing a growl come through the mic.
A slew of angry Russian spills from the living area where three guys are holding the house’s residents.
I don’t understand but one word and that’s Petrovich’s name.
“What’s he saying?” I ask Ignacio as I make my way through the house in that direction.
“She’s not here,” my guy answers.
“Torres,” I snap.
I can’t be placated right now.
“He says Dani isn’t here, but Petrovich is looking for her.” The long pause before he continues makes my skin crawl. “Nikolay is looking for her, and she’s as good as dead if they don’t recover what she took.”
“And now?” I ask when the guy starts talking again.
“Whores who don’t know their place end up only one way. He urges us with every curse word in Russian to come back in a few weeks and we can dig her body up from the backyard.”
Tug grabs the shoulder of my flak jacket before I can make a move against the guy.
“All clear?” Shadow interrupts, and I can tell by the tone of his voice that he’s seconds away from insisting we get the hell out of there.
“Every inch searched,” Hound responds.
“Roll out.”
The command is law. The Cerberus guys turn to leave, but Quinten finds my eyes from across the room.
All it would take is a simple nod of my head and my team would stay behind and spend the next week getting every ounce of information from these people as possible, no matter what it takes.
“Black,” Tug snaps with another jerk of my vest. “Roll out.”
I nearly jerk away from him, but then the old lady on the couch yawns, and with that one action I know they’d die before they gave anything up, and that’s if they know anything at all.
I hitch my head to the side, my guys understanding my meaning. We all exit the building, one Cerberus guy left behind a little longer so he can cut the old woman’s restraints. There’s no doubt that Petrovich will be pissed when he hears about what went down here tonight, but we used soft cuffs, not one single weapon was discharged, and no one was injured. It should count for something, but it doesn’t keep the pit in my stomach from growing. There will be some form of retribution, and I get the feeling that it’s going to hit on a personal level.
