Page 119 of Zeus

I nod, my brain still not operating at full capacity.

"Care to tell me what the fuck is going on?"

"You'll be briefed when we get to the command center," Hemlock snaps. "Get in the fucking vehicle."

The men pair off, half going to a second SUV parked behind the first one that I'm only noticing right now.

"Too much fucking heat," Jersey says from behind the wheel as we pull away. "It feels disrespectful to leave her just lying there. If only they would've fucking listened."

"Locals are on the way," Hemlock says, looking down at his phone.

"And our cover in the community?" Lark asks from beside me.

"It'll stand," Hemlock says. "This will be written up as a traffic stop gone wrong."

"Too fucking close to the compound for my liking," Jersey mutters, taking a turn faster than I would've, but the vehicle handles the demand with ease.

"We'll be fine," Lark assures him. "The mountains have a way of muting all sorts of shit. I doubt they heard any of it."

"What the fuck is going on?" I demand again, but the vehicle screeches to a stop in front of a small warehouse.

No one answers me as we wait for a massive door to roll up.

The inside of the building is a flurry of motion. Men and women I don't recognize swarm around, body armor and tactical gear covering each of them.

The chest rigs they're wearing tell me this is bigger than I would've guessed.

FBI, DEA, and ATF are represented. Even Homeland Security is here.

"It's a joint federal task force," Hemlock says.

"We set this in motion?" I ask, knowing there's always someone Cerberus has to answer to, especially on domestic soil, but we've always been more of a Black-Ops group.

"She set this in motion," Jersey says, pointing in the direction of a woman barking commands to those around her.

I pull in a breath of relief when my eyes land on a familiar face.

Melody.

The waitress from The Garage.

"I thought she was dead," I say, more than a hint of awe in my voice.

"I don't think she can die," Lark says, sounding a little in love with the woman.

"Clementine Monroe," Jersey explains. "She leads the FBI HRT Unit."

"Hostage rescue team?" I say. "That's unusual."

The cross-training required to lead that position and also to go undercover is damn near unheard of.

"She's an unusual woman," Lark whispers. "She goes by Zero."

"We can gossip and fawn over federal agents at a later time," Hemlock says as he shoves open the passenger side door. "We have shit to do."

I climb out, my head fully in the game and unwilling to think of any other outcome than getting Zayne out safely and taking these horrific people down.

"She escaped the clutches of one of those pieces of shit," Lark says as we walk forward. "But not before his high-as-a-fucking-kite ass revealed all sorts of secrets about the group."