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He looked dangerous, with the same hard-eyed glint that Micah often carried.
Risa moved back to the couch, curled up in the corner, and dragged the blanket back over her. She was cold, though she knew the apartment wasn’t really chilly. It was an inner cold that she wondered if she would ever be free of.
The cold that came from shock and disbelief.
How was her grandmother
dealing with this? she wondered.
Abigail had been through a lot. She had faced the truth of what her only child had become, and now she had learned that the man she had been in a relationship with for nearly a decade was a rapist and the sort who would hire a killer.
“Will the world ever be sane again?” Risa whispered.
“Was it ever?” Nik asked with cool curiosity. “Most people live in whatever dreamworld they build for themselves, Risa. The key to survival is to see the world as it is. It was never sane.”
No, it wasn’t. At least not during her lifetime.
She sighed wearily and watched the clock across the room. She watched each second tick by and held on to the thought that Micah wasn’t alone. He had a whole team as backup. He would survive.
He might not return, but he would survive.
MICAH WAS SILENT as the van pulled into place outside the brick wall that surrounded the estate on the back end. The van doors were thrown open, and like shadows he, Travis, Jordan, and Noah spilled from the vehicle. Behind the van Micah rode in, another eased to a stop and the four men of the Durango team joined them as they rushed the wall.
The six-foot perimeter stone wall was scaled in seconds as each man hoisted himself over it and dropped to a crouch before moving steadily for the three-story white brick mansion set in the middle of the five-acre property.
The house was silent. Oswald Heinrick’s sporty personal vehicle sat in the drive at an odd angle. He’d rushed home from the ball at the same time that Risa had left. He’d known she remembered him. Standing there in the lobby surrounded by all his medical buddies in their pristine suits with their noses in the air, he’d known he was finished.
“Maverick taking main entrance.” Micah spoke into the mic that curved along his jaw from the receiver at his ear as he eased up to the wide front doors.
“Black Jack back. Security disengaged,” Travis responded.
Travis was at the back door where the main security terminal was located and disabled.
Micah pulled the electronic lock pick from the belt at his side, slid the metal spike into the lock, and engaged it.
The sound of the tumblers disengaging had a smile pulling at his lips. Within seconds both locks were disengaged. He eased the door open, weapon in hand, eyes narrowed against the pitch-black recess of the entryway.
“We have no lights,” he announced quietly. “No sound.”
“Maverick, proceed with night vision,” Jordan ordered. “Let’s not spook him yet.”
Maverick adjusted the night-vision device over his eyes and scanned the entryway through the green haze that picked up each detail.
“Maverick moving in.”
“Heat Seeker moving in,” John announced through the receiver from the side entrance.
“Black Jack in,” Travis announced from the back door. “Silent as a tomb.”
“Team one, clear the way for teams two and three,” Jordan announced.
Micah moved into place, the lightweight P-90 held comfortably in his hands as he covered the main staircase.
“Main case covered,” he stated.
Two shadowed figures moved from the door and quickly up the stairs.
“Maverick scanning.” He moved from the staircase to begin a search of each room in his designated area of the house.
