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Knowing our window of opportunity for surprise was growing shorter, I instructed the remaining teams to move in. I’d just issued the order when I heard Blackjack say, “Ares, behind you!” through the comms. A split second later, I felt a knife penetrate just under my arm. At the same time, I heard the pop of a weapon being fired. I spun around when the man wielding the blade about to puncture my axillary artery dropped to the ground, and looked into Nem’s eyes—the person who’d just saved my life—as all hell broke loose around us.
In fewer than the same number of minutes, ten of the Todorovas’ crew were dead. Another eleven were apprehended.
“Let me see,” said Nem, approaching and raising my arm. “There’s a considerable amount of blood,” she said, leading me over to the medical teams who were entering the warehouse.
“What happened?” Merrigan asked, intercepting us.
“Knife wound,” Nem told her before rushing off when Cayman shouted her name.
“That isn’t all that happened,” I said as Merrigan led me over to triage.
“What else?” she asked, looking me up and down.
“Nemesis shot the guy. She saved my life.”
“We’ll be sure to thank her once we’ve gotten you patched up.”
“They got closer than you thought,” said the doctor Merrigan led me to. “Looks like you’re going to need subdermal work done too, maybe a little deeper than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your artery appears to have been nicked. Another couple of millimeters, and you would’ve bled out, son. Whoever stabbed you either got real lucky or knew exactly where to stick that knife.” He motioned to two men I didn’t recognize. “Get him loaded into one of the Black Hawks.”
“What? No! It’s just a few stitches. I don’t need to be transported anywhere.”
The man raised a brow. “I can always sedate you now if you’d like.”
Several hours later,I sat in a hotel suite with Baissier Marchand, Doc, and Merrigan Butler. Z, Wren, and Wilder were patched in via a video feed. We were waiting for Nem, Poseidon, Zeppelin, and Magnet to arrive for the hotwash.
“How are you feeling?” Doc asked.
“Like a pussy.”
“You could’ve died, Ares. It wasn’t just Nem who saved your life. If you hadn’t been stitched up properly, things could’ve gone much worse,” said Merrigan.
The door to the suite opened, and Nem walked in. Poseidon followed, but I only had eyes for her. She was fresh out of the shower, her long hair still damp.
“You’re here!” she said, rushing over. “I wasn’t sure if you would be.”
I opened my eyes wide but smiled. “Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
“That’s not funny.” When she reached over and slugged my arm that hadn’t required repair work, she was close enough I could inhale the scent of her shampoo and see the faint flush on her cheeks as well as the fullness of the lips I wanted to brush with mine. Our eyes met, and I could hear the catch in her breath that jarred us both. She straightened and looked away.
“I hope you don’t mind I invited a few more,” she said to Baissier.
“Not at all, Nemesis.” There was pride in his eyes when he smiled at her.
Zeppelin and Magnet filed in along with Cayman, Puck, and my three guys—Tank, Blackjack, and Atticus.
“Hey, boss. Glad to see you,” said Tank.
“It was a very small knife wound. The doctor acted out of an overzealous abundance of caution.”
Doc laughed. “Is that everyone? Can we get started?” he asked Nem.
She looked around the room. “I believe so.”
Marchand cleared his throat. “Between the first raid on the warehouse, the interception of the containers leaving and arriving at the Todorova compound, and the subsequent raid, a total of over sixteen hundred victims were rescued,” he said.
