by Lea Griffith
She crawled to her, her surroundings shredded and still unable to hear anything but continued gunfire and incessant ringing.
“Bone!” It sounded as if her name floated to her from a thousand miles away. She looked left and saw Raines there gesturing her toward the doorway.
“Get the babies in the panic room,” she ordered. Smoke poured through the room now and she made it to Arrow, pulling her by the underarms to the hallway.
Bullet had disappeared but then she was there, her rifle in her hand and her eye to the scope.
“Raines! Take Arrow to the panic room,” Bone commanded.
“But—”
“We do not need you here. Take Arrow to the goddamn panic room and lock yourselves in. You keep them safe!” Bone yelled in his face.
He didn’t hesitate, just scooped an unmoving Arrow into his arms and took off disappearing down the hall before he took the stairwell down to the panic room.
“You’re sure the panic room is a separate entity from the house?” she asked Bullet.
“Yes. They have their own air flow system and it’s completely underground. They will be safe,” Bullet assure her.
She fired a single shot and glanced at Bone. “There are at least thirty men out there, Bone.”
Bone pulled her knife from its scabbard at her back. She was not in good shape but she’d fought with worse. “Are they Joseph’s?”
Bullet nodded. “They move like soldiers. I’m guessing U.S. Special Forces.”
Fire licked up the walls behind them and Bullet grimaced. Bone slid to Bullet’s side, grabbed the pistol from her sister’s pants and turned to her. “Let us kill them,” she said with a grin.
“Kill them all,” Bullet said viciously.
Another RPG rocked the house and the men were on them. Bone did not wonder where Raines’ men were. They were not here so it did not matter.
She met the first soldier through the door with a knife to the chest. The second with a bullet to the head and the third with a punch to the throat. Behind her Bullet picked off man after man but still the smoke writhed and the men kept coming.
She heard Bullet grunt and Bone turned, firing a single shot and knocking the man who’d attacked her to the ground. Bullet kicked him in the head and he dropped like a stone. Bone was lifted off her feet by another one and she head-butted him until he let her go. She slid between his legs, raised her knife and drove it home in his femoral artery.
How many she killed she didn’t know, her only thought was to eliminate as many as possible. Bullet continued to reload and fire but they were overwhelmed. It was something Bone had sworn she would never be again.
“Never again,” she whispered. She tapped into her lust and stoked her rage, fanned the flames until all she knew was the clawing need for death. Pain was eclipsed by the desire to kill and she stepped willingly into its embrace.
She turned, slid her gun to Bullet and she took them on with her strongest asset—her hands. Because she moved so fast, and because Bullet kept them busy dodging her shots, they couldn’t track her. For every punch or kick she received she eliminated two men. She punched throats, took out eyes and broke several necks and still they poured through the doorway, soldiers in full camouflage.
They’d known the men of Trident weren’t here and they’d struck. Nothing about that was good.
“Run, Bullet,” Bone yelled.
Bullet did not answer and it was then she saw Bullet on her knees, a gun to her head, her gaze narrowed and promising death.
Bone rushed the man, dodging the bullets they fired at her, taking several winging gunshots to various parts of her body before she reached the man threatening her sister. She ran until she reached him and then she jumped, grabbing his head in her hands and twisting her body at the same time she twisted his head.
It was enough to crush his spine and weaken the surrounding tissue enough to decapitate him on the spot. She gained her feet, standing in front of Bullet and holding the dead man’s head in her hands.
The soldiers stopped and it gave Bone enough time to grab two grenades off the dead man’s flak jacket. She tossed his head to his fellow soldiers, pulled the pins and threw those as well.
“Run!” she yelled at Bullet.
Bullet was already gone, heading through the hole in the wall and hitting the hallway that lead to the panic room. The front of the house continued to burn and the smoke was heavy but they were close. They had made it halfway before a tall man stepped from the staircase that led down to the room.
He wore a smile and held a semi-automatic rifle in his hands, cradling it to his chest. This was their leader. “I’m so glad y’all joined the party,” he said.
Bone stopped and breathed in deeply. His accent reminded her of Grant. She heard the remaining soldiers coming up from behind them. She angled her body so she could watch them and the leader. Bullet did the same.
She took the man in with a single glance—trained but not experienced. His skin was smooth, his hands unmarked and soft. His stance was easy but not fluid. He was decidedly unprepared for the war he’d wrought today.
She cocked her head and continued to stare at him. “I’ve been here for a little while now and I still have no fucking clue what a ‘y’all’ is, Bullet. It’s a burning question I’d like an answer to.”
Bullet had blood running down her cheek. Bone had three separate gunshots, two that had winged her arm and one, deeper, which had dug a piece from her side. Her strength was evaporating with the blood falling from those wounds. This needed to get done quick, fast, and in a hurry.
Bullet looked at her and grinned. “I believe, sister, it is ‘you’ and ‘all’ combined in a perfect redneck combination.”
Bone nodded. “Ah, I see. Well then, sir,” she addressed the man who appeared to be the leader. “I’m glad y’all came too. My days had become quite boring.”
“Now, ladies, I’m just here to talk. This can go civilly if you’ll let it,” he said with a placating smile.
Bullet snorted. “You could have knocked. It doesn’t get much more civil than that. Rand will be really pissed you fucked up his house.”
Bone hummed her agreement. “How about you, Bullet, are you pissed?”
Bullet bit her lip and nodded her head. “Come to think of it Bone, I am pretty fucking pissed.”
The man spread his legs, his stance wide. His soldiers stood at least ten feet from them now. Bodies littered the floor behind them and the house continued to burn. She tsked and then tsked again.
“What is it, sister?” Bullet asked calmly, as if they were having a simple, everyday conversation.
“I’m thinking these fine, upstanding American soldiers have zero idea who they’re dealing with. Tell me, sir, did you tell them this mission was unsanctioned and just who you were coming here to murder in cold blood?” Bone asked him inquiringly, her tone level and still pleasant.
“I am here on orders from the President of the United States of America. You are hereby determined to be enemy combatants and you can either surrender your weapons or die here at my feet.”
Bone sighed. “So much for talking.” She wiped a hand down her face and wiped it on her pants. “Look, the whole surrender or die thing might work for y’all,” she said, making sure to get the inflection just right, “But that doesn’t work for me.”
Bullet shook her head. “Me either.”
“And besides,” Bone continued, “I have no weapons on me.”
She slid a foot closer to him and the bastard was so ill trained he didn’t even notice.
“Now see, I know all about y’all. You’re killers. Assassins. And Rand Beckett has been harboring you here. You’re plotting and planning terror on American soil. That makes you the enemy. Surrender or die,” he finished.
Bullet nodded slightly. Bone winked at her and between one breath and the next, Bone was behind the leader, his head in her hands.
Bullet now held his rifle pointed directly at this heart.
/> The sound of every gun the soldiers held chambering a round was almost lovely to hear.
Bone pushed the leader to his knees. “You came into this house, threatening innocents. That was your first mistake. Your man holding a gun to my sister’s head was your second. Now how do you recommend we resolve this, sir?”
He opened his mouth and Bullet relocated the rifle to press deep inside it.
“Well, lookee there, Bullet. You done shut him up but good,” Bone said in the best damn hick accent she’d ever heard. “Call your men off. Now,” she whispered in his ear, voice dead. She allowed the promise of pain to linger in the notes and he stuttered in a breath.
He tried to speak but the barrel of his rifle prevented it. Bullet made an impatient noise and removed it.
“Retreat,” the man ordered immediately.
The soldiers lowered their weapons and began streaming out from an enormous hole in the side of the house
“Stand up,” Bone ordered roughly.
He stood. Bone pulled his hands behind his back, cuffing them with her own, and then she led him to the destroyed doorway. “This is how it’s going down. You will cooperate and for every order I give that you disobey or do not hasten to perform, I will make you suffer. Let’s start off easy, shall we? Have your men go to their knees and raise their arm to clasp behind their heads.”
He did as she demanded. “Now you,” she ordered.
Again, he did as she demanded. She met Bullet’s gaze and nodded. Her sister turned to leave, took two steps and turned back, firing a single shot and dropping one of the soldier to the ground, a smoking hole dead center of his forehead.
She pulled the leader’s hands up so far behind his back his shoulders popped. He screamed at the pressure she was putting on the joints, begging her to stop. “That’s what will happen every time you try something,” Bone called out. To the man at her feet she said softly, “So if you like your shoulders attached and your men’s brains inside their heads, don’t move.”
Bullet left then and it was just Bone. She had gone over every escape avenue available with her sisters the last two days. She’d known what Dmitry refused to acknowledge—Joseph was worried and worried men pulled out all the stops in times of need.
“I know who sent you,” she told the leader.
He didn’t say a word.
“I’m going to send you back to him with a message,” she said prolonging the conversation as long as she needed to allow the babies and her sisters to escape.
She stood behind the man and pulled out her knife again. The sound of the metal Blade had honed for her sliding over the leather of its scabbard was quite lovely against the backdrop of silence.
“I know this will piss you off, but I’ve held you here, at my mercy, with nothing more than my hands. It is ironic to me that your guns and knives could not do what my bare hands have managed to accomplish.”
He didn’t speak but anger and frustration rode the lines of his body. American men hated being at the mercy of women. Bone enjoyed exploiting it. The simple anger bleeding off the Spec Ops solider in her grasp was an end-run emotion. Rage though—rage could be channeled making everything sharper, more distinct, defining that line between life and death. This man had no idea how much of a tightrope she was walking at present.
“Face down boys, hands and legs spread wide,” she yelled at his men.
They did without hesitation.
She put her hands on the leader’s shoulders and said, “Your turn.”
He did and when he was face down she cut his flak jacket and then cut open his shirt. Bone was quick about her work but she wanted Joseph and the last remaining name on her list to know Blade was coming.
The man screamed and cried but he didn’t lift up. His fear smelled delightful. The stylized C crossed with an X she carved into his back really was lovely.
“Tell him we aren’t finished and that it will be painful,” Bone whispered.
Then she took off, running like the wind to the panic room where she punched the buttons and entered, closed the door back and locked it. She had a moment’s pause. Her bag was upstairs…she needed that bag. Yes, the things inside it were from her past but they were hers. She would grieve their loss but realized she could not go back for it.
So she set the trip switches on the system that would blow this entire house sky high and she unlocked the door before she took off down the tunnel that led to the beach.
It didn’t take them long to trip the switch and the concussion from the blast knocked her off her feet. Debris and dirt rained down on her but she picked herself up and ran. She ran until she came to the door that brought her to the sand and when she opened it, she saw the babies, her sisters, Juana, Carmelita, and Raines.
She fell to her knees, eyes dry but tears streaking down the windows of her soul. Blood leaked from her body, dotting the sand around her—reminding her of another time the sand had been thirsty.
The tears she refused to cry were not tears of pain. They were tears of acute joy and still she could not give them life.
Tears were for death. Her people were alive. And in the end that was all that mattered.
Chapter Twenty
Rand watched Gretchen sleep, but could not keep his hands off her. He stroked her skin, careful of her bandages and careful not to wake her. She had taken three bullets. Two in the back and one in the thigh.
He would never be able to thank Bone. There were no words for what she’d done for him earlier today. None.
“I’m alive,” his woman whispered from the small bed.
“And because you are, I am as well,” Rand murmured, kissing her lips and skimming down to her collarbone.
“Sleep, Mr. Beckett. I will heal and this will all be a dream,” she said softly, her tone faraway.
“I know, baby. I know you’ll heal,” he said, kissing the skin over her heart.
She was asleep moments later.
He had their names with a simple hack of the DOD’s database. He knew where they lived, what they’d eaten last week and where the ones who’d survived would be next. His hands clenched and so did the heart in his chest. His killer knew more pain.
“You will heal and I will kill them,” he promised. “I’ll kill them all.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Adam could not breathe. Saya still had not woken, had not even acknowledged he was there with her. She had a nasty bump on her head though Dmitry said her vitals were fine. She more-than-likely suffered a concussion. Her pupils were reacting fine and she responded to stimuli, but she would not wake.
He would never be able to thank Bone. Not for what she’d done for them all today. She’d gotten his woman out of harm’s way and for that he’d lay down his own life for her.
He watched Saya breathe and feared she was locked in the darkness. He could not leave her there alone. Adam climbed into bed with her and just like that, with his heat against her, she turned into him, eyes slitting open, mouth curving just enough to let him know she knew he was there.
“I will be fine, Adam,” she murmured.
Her husky voice reached into his chest and squeezed his heart.
“You will,” he commanded.
She was back asleep just that fast but at least he knew it was sleep and not something more. His woman had walked darkness without him. It wouldn’t happen again.
He pulled her deeper into his embrace, twining their legs so their bodies aligned and their hearts were together. He kissed her brow, stroked his fingers through her hair and he made a promise in his heart before he gave that promise life with his words.
“I will kill them, Saya. I will kill them all.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dmitry had watched the tapes of what had gone down in Virginia but never could he have imagined the violence with which Bone could operate. Rand had long ago set up remote feeds in the event something like this ever happened. But Trident had made a grave error in judgment. Not anticipating the strength of Jose
ph’s hold within their own government, they had left a handful of men and Raines to watch over the property.
Unfortunately, Raines had lost several of his mercenaries. Thank God the women of First Team were who they were. The house was destroyed but the people within its walls had survived.
Watching Bone kill was one thing. Watching her defend was something else entirely. She moved without caution or thought of her own safety—she’d been a machine.
And now she lay in this bed, more gunshots, this time a very nasty one to the side, and she was broken once again. He’d been unable to stop the flow of blood, only staunch it. The bullet remained in her side though it had clearly taken a chunk out of her.
“The look on your face tells me I will die,” she stated in a low voice.
His gaze rose to meet hers and she hissed in a breath, reaching for him.
“I am too mean to die, Asinimov. But I would be grateful if you could get this lead out of my side,” she whispered.
Her pain sank inside Dmitry, twisting his mind until he wondered if he would go insane with the need to kill for her.
“We will be somewhere safe soon and then we will get you fixed up,” he assured her.
Dmitry could hear the worry in his voice. Her capacity to endure pain was remarkable. But she had lost too much blood, even now her pressure was dropping dangerously low. He didn’t have the equipment to help her and his inability relegated him to prayer.
“You were praying,” she said, wonder filling her voice.
He nodded. “For you. I was praying for you.”
She swallowed and coughed, blood dotting her lips. “Maybe He will listen to you. He abandoned me long ago.”
She closed her eyes and his torture began anew. They had at least another hour before they landed in London. Nowhere was safe anymore. Trident was compromised so they’d been forced to flee. Their assets were varied so their finances would remain in order but they were scrambling to find safe harbor.