“They’re going for hostages!” I shouted. “Cap, do you read me? Get that fucking panic room open and get them inside. I’ll hold them off as long as I can!”
“Copy that. Doors are opening now.”
The sticky bomb went off and the lock exploded, sending the door flying outward and slamming against the wall. Five men moved inside as I raised my gun and started firing. I got the last two, but the first three were already inside. Hunter and Derek were sweeping around the sides of the building, going after the others that had rappelled down.
I ran to the door and peeked around the corner, not seeing the guys anywhere. I moved quickly, clearing the first room and then the second. I knew that they couldn’t get in the panic room, but I also didn’t want them seeing our technology and how we used it. A second attack could be devastating.
“Three in the training center,” I said quietly to Cap. “Are the doors sealed up?”
“The doors are sealed, but we’ve got an issue.”
I gritted my teeth, hating that there was an issue. “Fuck, tell me everyone’s safe.”
“It’s Vittoria. She got separated from everyone when they ran for the panic room. She went to hide in the locker room.” The line went quiet for a second and then Cap was on again, his voice strained. “Knight…Maggie went after her. You have to get to them before these fuckers do.”
“Don’t worry, Cap. I’ll get them. Does Gabe know?”
“No.”
“Don’t tell him, and don’t open the doors to the fucking panic room unless there’s no chance of any of these assholes getting inside.”
“Copy that. I’ve got eyes on you. Two of them are approaching the panic room. The other is down the hall from the locker rooms.”
I moved quickly toward the locker rooms. It didn’t matter if Maggie and Vittoria got to the panic room. I just needed to get them to safety. I moved down the hallways as quietly as I could. I saw one of them up ahead, but if I fired at him and took him down, that would give away my location for the other two in the building.
“Up ahead,” Cap said.
“Yeah, I see him.”
“The other two are moving back toward you. Get in there and get them the fuck out.”
“I’m working on it. Why don’t you get your ass down here and do some fucking work?”
“I just had my hair done. Can’t risk messing it up,” Cap joked.
I moved quickly and silently down the hall, pulling my knife as I approached the man. Only when I was close did I holster my weapon. He turned just as I was approaching. I saw his eyes go wide with realization, but my knife was lodged in his throat before he could utter a word. I slowly lowered him to the ground, yanking out my knife and taking his weapon as I moved down the hall further.
“You have ten seconds before they see you.”
“Like I need ten seconds,” I muttered, slipping down the hall to the locker room. I was just slipping inside when I saw them rounding the corner. They were facing away from me and hadn’t seen me.
“That was cutting it close,” Cap whispered. “Thought you didn’t need ten seconds?”
“Do you want to bust my chops over this or do you want me to save your wife?”
“Save me?” Maggie said, stepping out with Vittoria behind her. “Since when have I ever needed saving?”
“Do you want a list?”
“Maybe save that for later,” Cap muttered. “The list is too long.”
“Let’s move,” I said, handing a gun over to Maggie, and then pulling a second for Vittoria. “Don’t shoot me.”
“I know how to use a gun,” Vittoria said snottily.
“I was referring to Maggie, kid.” I moved back for the door, all of us pressed up against the wall. “How’s it looking out there, Cap?”
“One down the hall, about to turn the corner. The other one is blocking your exit out. You’re going to have to take him out. No guns.”
“No guns,” I repeated with a sigh. It wasn’t that I wasn’t skilled enough to use my knife, but shooting the fucker was a whole lot faster. “Alright,” I said, turning to Maggie and Vittoria. “Vittoria, you’re behind me. Maggie, you’d better have my fucking back. We’ve got one in our path, so Maggie, I need you to watch our six.”
“What about me?” Vittoria asked.
“Don’t shoot unless I tell you to.”
She looked disappointed, but nodded. I opened the door quickly and moved down the hallway, sticking to the walls. I was confident that we were covered between Cap watching the monitors and Maggie on my tail, but I still had a kid with me, and that made everything more dangerous.
“Move now,” Cap ordered. I swung around the corner and started to run. A massive explosion rocked the building, knocking me to the ground. The ceiling caved in up ahead as part of a helicopter crashed through the roof. The propellers spun down, headed right in our direction. The guy in front of me turned, catching sight of me, a look of panic on his face. He ran in a full out sprint, but didn’t make it more than ten feet before one of the propellers swung down on him, slicing his head clean off. I turned and yelled for everyone to run just as the whole building started caving in, the walls crumbling around us. I dove over Vittoria, blocking her with my body as Maggie curled up beside us as best she could. Blocks of the ceiling fell on top of me, crushing me further into Vittoria. I grabbed Maggie and shoved her under me as much as I could.
When the building finally settled and all that was left was dust hanging heavily in the air, I pushed off the girls, only to wince when I felt my ankle twinge in pain. I started to turn when Maggie shouted out to me.
“Stop!” I froze in my spot, not sure why she looked so panicked. “Don’t move,” she whispered quietly, like that would make me take her more seriously than before. She stood up and moved slowly over to me.
“What? What is it?” I barked out.
“Um…you just have a helicopter blade inches from your head, so if you want to die, by all means, twist around and get stabbed in the face.”
I grumbled under my breath, irritated at the situation. My foot was jammed under a piece of concrete. I tried to twist it free, but it felt like my leg would snap off if I tried to move it any further. Not to mention that my range of motion was a little limited at the moment.
“Cap?” Nothing. “Cap, do you copy?”
With no way to communicate with him, I was flying blind. I had no one to guide me away from the bad guys and toward the good guys. And being stuck where I was, I had to make a tough call right now. The longer Maggie and Vittoria stayed put, the more danger they were in, but with not knowing the extent of the damage to the building, I couldn’t be sure that sending them off on their own was smart either.
“Alright, coms are down. My leg is stuck, and the longer we sit here, the more likely it is that someone finds us, and I really don’t want that to be anyone other than Reed Security. Maggie, I need you to take Vittoria and get to the panic room.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she said incredulously.
“I’m not giving you a fucking choice,” I growled.
“Yeah, I’d like to see you do something about it while you’re stuck under a pile of rock.”
“It’s concrete.”
“Whatever.”
“Maggie, Cap will kill me if anything happens to you. Please, I’ve never really asked you for anything.”
“Cap will also kill you if we leave you and end up dead anyway. Our chances of survival are better if you’re with us than if you’re not.”
I ground my teeth together, irritated that she was right. “Fine, then you’ll have to slowly start moving the rubble. Don’t get stabbed with the fucking blade.”
“Please.”
“Please,” I ground out.
She handed her gun to Vittoria and climbed over the concrete, trying to get to the lower half of my body. When she shifted the first piece, I clenched my jaw and screamed internally as pain shot up my leg.
“Try not to ma
ke it worse,” I gritted out.
“Do you want me to drop this boulder on your head? Because I can make that happen.”
She continued to shift around the pieces until after about ten minutes, she was finally where my foot was wedged. “Okay, so good news and bad news.”
“What’s the good news?”
“Well, your foot is still attached to your leg.”
I rolled my eyes. “I could have told you that. What’s the bad news?”
“I have no fucking clue how I’m going to get it out from between these two pieces without causing you a lot of pain.”
“Just do it.”
“Fine,” she grinned. I squeezed my eyes tight and waited for the surge of pain, but all I felt was relief. I opened my eyes and glanced over my shoulder to see her grinning at me.
“I thought you said it was going to hurt.”
She shrugged. “Eh, just thought I would see your reaction.”
I pulled my foot free and glared at her. “That’s not funny.”
“It kind of is. It’s not every day that someone gets to pull something on you.”
I slowly slid away from the blade and struggled to my feet, testing the weight on my foot. When I almost fell, Maggie was right there beside me, shoving her shoulder under my arm.
“Come on, you big baby.”
I wanted to snap back at her, but I couldn’t because I really did need her help right now, at least until I could put more weight on my leg. She tried to move around to my right side, but that was the hand I shot with.
“No, you need to be on the other side.”
“Um…I don’t think so. I need to be able to shoot,” she said.
“I’m the one that needs to be able to shoot,” I clarified.
“You’re about to fall on your ass. If you fall, I need my weapon handy.”
“I won’t fall if you stand on the left fucking side of my body. Besides, it’s my left foot that’s hurt. It makes sense that you stand there.”
“Again, you’re the injured one. I need my gun.”
“I’m the assassin. Who has the better chance of killing someone walking down the hall?”
“You’re an assassin?” Vittoria gasped.
“Shit,” I grumbled, forgetting that she was standing there.
“That is so cool. Can you teach me?”
“To kill people?”
“Yeah, but to do it as well as you do,” she said excitedly.
“Nice,” Maggie nodded. “I’m sure Gabe and Isa are going to be thrilled with this little revelation. Their daughter wants to kill people for a living.”
“Oh, I’d do it for fun,” Vittoria piped up.
“Even better,” Maggie grinned at me.
“Can we just get the fuck out of here? There’s still one guy around here somewhere, and we don’t know if anyone else has infiltrated the place.”
“That’s not likely. He was probably killed in the ceiling collapse.”
“Don’t say shit like that,” I grumbled as we moved down the hall. “It’s like you’re trying to jinx us.”
“Oh, come on. What’s the worst that could happen?”
I sighed heavily and continued down the hallway. Sometimes I really hated that other people could open their mouths. It would be so much easier if they had a mute button. We hobbled along, both Maggie and I watching ahead of us and behind us. It took a little while to get to the outside doors, but they were closer than the panic room, and with the elevator most likely compromised, it didn’t make sense to head in that direction.
“Vittoria, why don’t you run ahead and get the door,” Maggie suggested. She shot past us just as I shouted for her to stop. She shoved the door open without checking first. I lunged forward, but it was too late. There was someone out there, and now he had her from behind, holding a gun to her head.
“Put the gun down,” I growled. The man was shaking slightly. He was panicking, which meant that he was probably all alone, with no help in sight. That made him even more dangerous. I couldn’t take the shot, not with him holding a gun to her head. It was too risky. His finger was on the trigger. Just a flinch from him and Vittoria would be dead. But Vittoria didn’t look scared at all. In fact, she grinned at me and then shoved his hand up, twisting his arm around and pointing the gun back at his chest. He was so shocked that he didn’t even realize what was happening until she fired the gun three times, hitting him right in the chest. He slowly looked at me in confusion and then down to his chest. He collapsed on the ground where he took his last breath.
I saw Gabe running flat out toward us, his eyes so angry that I knew I wasn’t walking away without a bruise or two.
Vittoria jumped up in the air. “Yes! Did you see that? That was so awesome! See? I can totally be an assassin like you!”
My eyes slipped closed as Gabe came to a screeching halt behind her. “What did you say? What did she say?” he asked, turning to me. “You told her she could be an assassin?”
“I didn’t-”
“I totally want to do it! Did you see how I took him down?”
“You are not becoming an assassin,” Gabe insisted.
“Yes, I am. I can totally do it. And I won’t even ask for any money, because it’s so awesome!”
Gabe sighed and covered his face with his hands. “Isa’s gonna kill me. This is so fucking bad.”
“Not as bad as I am,” Vittoria grinned. “Seriously, I need to move up in my classes. Maybe I should start working with you,” she said to me.
“No!” Gabe shouted. “You are not working with Knight and you are not becoming an assassin. You’re going to continue to use your throwing stars and stay away from guns.”
“Now, what sense does that make?” she asked, tossing a hand on her hip. “I mean, you’re the one that convinced Mom to let Enzo and I join the other kids training.”
“Yeah, but-”
“And you’re the one that wanted me to learn to use a gun.”
“That was only for-”
“And if you hadn’t insisted on that, what would I have done in there?” she pointed to the collapsed building.
“You killed more of them in there?” Gabe asked, his face going pale.
“No, but when Knight saved us, someone had to have a gun and make sure we weren’t attacked.”
“But you were attacked as soon as you walked out the fucking door.” He pointed a finger at me, “Which we’re going to talk about later.”
“But I also disarmed him and shot him. Face it, Gabe. I was a hero today. This is just the start of my career.”
She walked away, completely disregarding the fact that there could still be danger out there. Gabe shook his head in astonishment, running his hand over his jaw.
“What am I gonna tell Isa? She’s gonna kill me.”
“Well, that or your assassin daughter will,” Maggie grinned.
“Not helpful,” I muttered under my breath. Gabe walked away, looking completely lost. I saw Hunter approach with Derek, rifle in hand and almost as dirty as me.
“I see you got caught in the whole…” He motioned down and then made a big explosion with his hands. “Yeah, lucky break.”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” I grumbled.
“Well, you’re not dead.”
“I’ve had enough of buildings collapsing on me for one lifetime.”
“Is everyone else safe?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah, they didn’t get anyone, but they tried. By the way, you should probably go let Cap know you’re okay. He’s been freaking out since coms went down.”
“Oh no. I’m not going anywhere near him. The last time that something happened to me, he wrapped me in a bubble for-”
“Freckles!” Cap ran full sprint towards us, but Maggie took one look at him and bolted in the opposite direction. “Get the fuck back here. I’m gonna spank your ass!”
Chapter Thirteen
Senator Burke
“Sir,” Senator Brunswick’s voice came over th
e line. “The mission failed.”
“What the fuck do you mean it failed? You said this would work!”
I paced my office, pissed as hell, but also worried. This couldn’t be happening. We were supposed to wrap this up. We were supposed to get this all under control, but instead, everything was falling apart. And it all started the moment Cortez decided to have Knight’s wife kidnapped. We could have found a way without his idiotic behavior. And now he was missing, probably dead at this point.
“I could only get three helicopters, and Reed Security was well armed.”
“Did you identify yourself as police?”
“You know I couldn’t do that. Besides, I didn’t call in the feds on this one. That would have required paperwork, but a few helicopters going out on training missions, that’s something that I can slip through.”
“If you didn’t call in the feds, who the fuck was on those choppers?”
“Men that were paid to do a job. That’s all you need to know.” He sighed heavily. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Most of them are dead and we’re down two helicopters. I can’t just go in and get more.”
“You’re saying that was our last attack?”
“We need to find a different way to get that information,” he said harshly. “You have Agent Collins in holding. Do whatever you have to. Just get that information out of her.”
He hung up the phone. It was up to me now. I was going to have to go in and do the dirty work. I never did the dirty work. I was always the leader, the one that gave out the commands, but with everyone else fucking up everything, it didn’t look like I had much of a choice.
Chapter Fourteen
Blake
The door to my cell flew open and two men came charging in, hauling me up by my arms and dragging me from the room. I was half asleep, but now I was fully awake as they dragged me down a hall in the middle of the night. I knew that I was still in some kind of FBI holding center. Whether it was legal or not, I wasn’t sure, but I knew for damn sure that this wasn’t any kind of prison.
I was tossed down on the floor next to a large tub of water. Agent Dennick stepped into the room and glared at me. “Where’s the journal?”
GoodKnight: A Reed Security Romance Page 7