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“Be safe.” Mya’s trembling tone was going to fuck with my head. “Go get your girl back, Jack.”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I plan on it.”
“The place has a regular six-foot fence. So you won’t need a breaching charge. You can scale it. In fact, the security seems fairly light,” Gwen shared. “We don’t have time for an aerial view or to put up a drone for heat signatures, but something just feels . . . I don’t know.”
Feels what? What don’t you know?
“Like they weren’t planning on company? They gave us the other location, so they’re probably assuming we’ll mount a campaign there instead,” Gray said, trying to reassure Gwen’s concerns. Concerns I now found myself sharing. “And if I had to guess, when the police check the address we gave them for the other property, it’ll be empty or rigged to blow.”
“You did give them the heads-up, right?” Gwen asked him, and Gray shot her his “of course” knitted-brow look.
But I was still hung up on the op being an easy infil. Anything that looked easy usually had us bottoming out and falling into the depths of Hell, where we’d have to claw our way back from the dead.
“Alpha Two, come in. Do you copy?” I waited for Gray’s response from his position on overwatch. My team had infiltrated the property far too easily. We’d only had to jump a fence. Hell, not even any barbed wire to stop us. Talk about a red flag.
“This is Two,” Gray said over comms. “You have an armed tango about to round the corner by the front porch. He’s all that stands in your way of entering the home.”
One guy? One fucking guy? That’s it? Red flag number two.
From my crouched position behind a boulder at the front of the property, I took a knee for extra support—fucking shoulder injury—lifted the rifle, steadied my aim, and took the shot the second he came into view. “Tango down,” I confirmed, then stifled a groan as I pushed back up to my feet, my shoulder on fire. But the pain radiating there had nothing on my heart.
“This is One,” Carter cut over the line. “I have my sights on a helipad in the back of the home, but no helo.”
Please don’t tell me they left and the tracker stayed behind because someone . . . “Roger that,” I said, my voice shakier than I was comfortable with.
“Charlie mike, Alpha Four,” Carter said despite the news, telling me to continue mission, and I did. I kept pushing forward.
Gray popped into my ear to let me know of another tango on approach, and I took him down before he could so much as raise his AK.
“This is Alpha Three. I have . . . people in my sights. I think the missing women are among them. This is, welllll, weird.” Jesse’s words had me hanging back on the porch.
“What do you mean?” I rasped, my heart thundering in my ears.
“They’re having a pool party. Pretty sure some of those women we identified as missing are drinking and living it up by the pool with a couple sporty jock-looking guys.” Jesse sounded tentative. Well, more like shocked.
“I’m sorry, what?” Gray shot out. “Say that again.”
And Jesse did. Word for fucking word.
“Do you see our targets?” Carter was referencing both Charley and her sister, as well as the Luther brothers. “Any of them?”
“Negative,” Jesse answered. “What do you want me to do?”
“This is One. Let me clear the house first. Everyone, hold your positions.”
Hanging back outside while Carter searched the house for Charley and Lucy wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I’d be damned if I compromised the mission and became the reason something happened to Charley due to my irrational state.
But what IF following orders is why—
My thoughts were muted by the sounds of gunfire inside the house, which also prompted screaming from the back, and the poolside music stopped.
“This is One. The house is secure. Tangos down,” Carter shared once the gunfire ended.
“This is Five,” Oliver said. “You’re all clear from my vantage point.”
“This is Six,” Mason spoke up. “Clear from the north side as well.”
At that, I rounded the porch and entered through a side door. “Do we have eyes on the package? Anyone, come in. Does anyone have the package?”
