Page 9 of Russian Rescue

“Tell him to hurry his ass back so we can hit the Xbox this weekend,” Brooks responded. “Big group event on ESO going down.”

I groaned but then whispered back the message.

Wes’s face lit up as he nodded. “Hell, yeah. Tell him I’m in.”

“You computer guys are such nerds.” Rolling my eyes, I lifted my silenced Sig and leveled it in front of me as I stepped over the bodies and moved down the hallway. “Stay behind me.”

“Hot nerd, though,” Wes whispered as he kept pace with me. “You gotta admit, I’m a hot nerd now.”

“Not the time, Pretty Boy. Keep quiet and do exactly as I say.”

Luckily, he listened, and all I heard were his bare feet quietly padding down the floor behind me.

“Guards in the hallway to your left,” Brooks said.

I veered right, moving silently down the corridor toward the east exit we had mapped out.

When we reached the stairwell, I opened the door slowly, knowing this was one of the areas Brooks didn’t have eyes on. He’d been able to access most of the cameras, but he didn’t have Wes’s skills to hijack them all. With a quick glance back over my shoulder at Wes, I lifted my finger to my lips before starting inside.

We moved together up the stairs toward the roof on the twentieth floor, and I spun and checked each corner before gesturing for him to follow. When we made it to the twelfth floor, I started past the exit door when suddenly, it swung open.

A pair of shocked eyes stared back at me as the guard processed our presence. Before he could open his mouth or reach for his gun, I shot forward, slipping my knife from the holster on my thigh as I launched at him. My blade penetrated his throat before he uttered one word.

He dropped to his knees, gurgling and choking before he collapsed lifeless at my feet. His legs stuck out into the hallway, preventing the door from shutting.

“Shit. I just saw that on your bodycam. Sorry,” Brooks said. “I don’t have any cameras on that floor.”

“No worries. It’s handled,” I answered, then pressed my body to the door jamb as I readied my weapon. “But there could be more behind him. Wes, pull his body in so they don’t see him.”

Even though the shocked look on his face told me he’d just witnessed his first kill, Wes didn’t hesitate. He reached down and grabbed the guard by the wrist, yanking him hard until he cleared the doorway, and it slammed shut.

“Holy shit,” he breathed once we were safely inside. “That was close.”

“You good?” I asked, remembering the first time I’d seen a man die. I hadn’t slept for several days after. Now I could kill a man while eating a sandwich.

Could and had.

“Yeah. I’m good. I mean, I saw this shit through your bodycams all the time, but it’s definitely a little more intense in person.”

“We need to keep moving.”

He nodded, stepping gingerly over the pool of blood spreading at our feet.

“Piper,” Brooks broke into my earpiece. “They discovered the bodies outside his room. Alarms are about to go—”

A piercing alarm ruptured the silence, and he didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence.

“We need to move. Now.” I lifted my gun and started ascending the stairs rapidly but slammed to a stop when I heard the door above us fly open. I pushed backward into Wes as footsteps drummed down the concrete stairs. I could try to fight my way through, but Wes wasn’t wearing a bulletproof suit like me, and I wanted to avoid a gunfight if at all possible. It would only take one bullet to end his life. We’d have to find another way out.

A door creaked below us, and I heard more footsteps thumping up.

Shit. We had hostiles above and below. I pushed my back against Wes and moved him backward toward the twelfth-floor door. He understood my movement and didn’t resist. We moved through it quickly and quietly, my gun leading the way as we stepped out into the abandoned hallway.

“Piper, you’ve got six heat signatures coming your way from the west,” Brooks said.

“Shit,” I ground out.

“What’s happening?” Wes asked.