Page 78 of Her Defiant Warrior

Fuck!

He texted back on the phone.

‘Prince’s family is the target.’

He waited for at least seven seconds, but there was no reply. He shoved the phone at Gideon. “The prince’s family is the target, not the prince. They’re going to be in the audience, right?”

“I think so.”

“I got a text from Nolan saying that there are two shooters.”

“Landscapers,” Gideon said. He was on the right page.

“Exactly.”

“Let’s move,” Gideon said as he started running toward the stairwell.

They hightailed it up the stairs. When they got to the lobby floor, they each took a deep breath so that they could look calm when they came out of the stairwell.

“Hold up,” Gideon said as Jase went to open the door. He was looking at the cell phone display. “They have spotted one of the shooters. They don’t want to take him out until they can do it simultaneously with the other one.”

“Have they spotted the other one?” Jase asked as Gideon’s fingers were flying across the keys.

Gideon shook his head.

Jase yanked open the door.

There was no way they were going to get to the VIP audience to warn the prince’s family. Even if they just started shooting to warn the prince’s bodyguards, there was too much of a chance that the Kraken could take out one or more of the family members in the confusion. Nope, they had to take out the shooters.

The phone rang in Gideon’s hands.

“Got it.”

He turned to Jase. “Victor and Nolan found Ryker. He’s convulsing. They’re getting him to the hospital.”

Jase took the phone from Gideon and looked down at his watch. “Seven minutes is when Ely expects the lights to go out.”

“I hear you,” Kostya responded. “Linc has a lock on a sniper. He’s on the west side of the entrance. He’s literally in a bush. We’re searching the east side. No luck so far.”

“We’ll look on the east side, too,” Jase promised.

“You won’t be able to do any good. If you went into the museum, you couldn’t have weapons. That left me and Linc. Linc’s got a lock on the east side sniper. I can get a shot on the west side. We need to get them at the same time. I haven’t spotted the son of a bitch.”

“Gideon and I will find him.”

* * *

It was dusk and the light show had started. It was gorgeous. Every color in the rainbow, and special three-dimensional effects, were all on display. Taking shots in this mess was going to take a special kind of skill.

“There is no way we can just run around on the landscaped grounds,” Gideon pointed out reasonably. “That’s why they were using the landscapers as a cover.”

“We just need to spot them. Kostya will do the rest.”

“Really? With this light show going on, you think you can spot them?”

Jase tuned out his friend. There was something that he wasn’t remembering. He was with the rest of the crowd, far away from the VIP area, waiting for the prince to make his way to the podium.

Think Drakos. Think.