Page 78 of Mountain Target

He'd fucked up.

He'd hurt Valentina.

And the worst thing was that he knew, if he could go back in time, he'd end up doing it again. Because he didn't have anything to offer her and Ren, so he didn’t have a good answer to her questions. All he could tell her was that he was a loner—had always been a loner, and would one day die a fucking loner.

So why does it hurt so much?

He was about to call a stop to the sparring match when, suddenly, Hugo’s left arm dropped below his ribs. Beau saw his chance to end this and attacked, putting everything he had behind the punch. Except Hugo sidestepped cleanly, and Beau realized, too late, that he’d fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book. And still he powered through, unable to stop the momentum he’d generated, exposing the right side of his head, so when Hugo’s punch fell, it felt like being hit in the head by a hammer.

Beau tried to step back, but his knees weren’t responding, and apparently neither were his arms. He hit the mat, turning his head at the right instant and narrowly avoiding a broken nose.

Hugo was next to him in an instant, his face ashen.

“Fuck, Commandant, I’m sorry. I thought you would sidestep that.” There was real concern in his voice.

Still flat on his face, Beau tried to laugh it off, though it came out like a groan. He managed, with a lot of effort, to turn so he was lying flat on his back.

“How many fingers am I holding?” Ry asked.

“Very funny, asshole,” Beau finally dragged out, glad to see his mouth working again.

“He’s fine,” Ry determined.

“I’m sorry, Commandant,” Hugo repeated, apologetic.

Beau waved his hand vaguely in the air. “It was my fault.”

Now that they knew he was okay, the men started laughing, gently at first, then louder and louder. Beau used the time to sit up. The ringing in his ears had stopped, making him think he didn’t have a concussion. He’d gotten off lightly.

He was still grumbling by the time the door opened and Colonel Pelegrin ran into the gym—at which point Beau’s first thought was that maybe he did have a concussion, because the colonel never ran anywhere, so maybe he was seeing things that didn’t exist.

Then the colonel spoke.

“Commandant Fontaine, we have a problem. I need you and your men in the briefing room in fifteen minutes, ready to go.”

25

Beau

Hair still wet from the shower, Beau and his team filed into the meeting room to find Damien and most of his team there already. Gilles, Liam and Irina were also there, wearing matching funereal expressions on their faces.

The men nodded a greeting, but nobody made any small talk, and moments later, Colonel Pelegrin entered the room, closing the door behind him.

“Dr. Bristow sent a voice message to his team this morning,” he said, without preamble. “I want you to listen to it and let me know what you think.”

At first, there was only white noise, as if coming from inside a tunnel. Then, the doctor’s voice came through.

“Gilles, this is an emergency. The small aftershocks have stopped. I have the data ...” The voice broke, swallowed by a loud, intermittent sound, then began again, much more garbled this time around. “Get help … Check the blue line—“

At that point, the call disconnected completely.

Fuck.

He sounds … afraid.

Apparently, the photographer had been right to worry about Dr. Bristow’s whereabouts.

“How long has he been missing?” Beau asked.