by Kaylea Cross
“No. And it’s not because I don’t trust that you can handle yourself. That’s not why.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not going to try to stop you or talk you out of this, but I don’t have to like it, and I’m going to be there to make sure you’re safe.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “That’s exactly why I love you.”
He grunted, didn’t move.
She didn’t like knowing he was so upset. She didn’t want to hurt him or make him sad, ever. But she had an important job to do.
“It won’t always be this way, you know,” she soothed, holding him close. He’d never needed or come to her for comfort before. It only made her feel closer to him. “One day all this will be behind us, and we’ll all be free.” Her, Tyler, Amber and the others. She couldn’t wait for that to happen. To be able to start living a brand new life of her choosing.
Another grunt, but at least he didn’t argue or pull away.
They stayed like that, him still inside her, wrapped as close as he could get. “I can hear your brain working,” he said a minute later without moving. “What are you thinking about now?”
She grinned. He knew her so well. “I’m thinking about where I can get my hands on a bottle of hair dye, and an oxy acetylene torch.”
****
The op was a go.
Jesse glanced at his watch. Ten minutes until zero hour.
He circled back on foot to his assigned position for the op, the smell of the river filling the night air as he made his way to the back room of the portable office building on the west side of the transport company lot.
No one would see his movements, because Amber had uploaded a looped video showing the site as it was prior to set up. Anyone watching the security feeds would see no activity.
He slipped in the back door and shut it silently, the faint blue glow coming from the next room reassuring. Seated behind her bank of monitors and keyboards with Lady Ada open on her lap, Amber glanced up. “Everything ready?”
He nodded. “Just checked on Bautista and Georgia. They’re in position.” Bautista was acting as spotter for his wife, the two of them concealed on a rooftop that gave them the best view and angle into the property. They would give recon intel to the rest of the team, and take care of things if shit went sideways at any point.
“Megan and Ty still in place?”
“Waiting and ready outside,” he said, nodding toward the front of the building where the two armored trucks were parked. Their plan was clever, with a high chance of success.
Except plans rarely went as planned in the real world.
As for Jesse’s part in all this, he and Tyler were a different sort of backup on this one. The entire point of this op was to capture Stanislav and turn him over to British and U.S. authorities so they could slap all kinds of charges on him for things he’d done, all the innocent lives he’d taken. But Jesse and Tyler’s first priority was to guard the Valkyries.
To put it bluntly, he and Tyler were expendable. No one had said that in so many words, but that’s how it was. The women were way more valuable, and their mission extended far beyond tonight. They were necessary to the cause of finding their remaining fellow operatives out there. So Jesse, Ty and Bautista were all here to make sure the Valkyries were protected at all cost.
Amber was worth it, whether she believed that or not. Helping her in her cause was worth it. Because she mattered to him.
This was anything but a job to Jesse. Not when it involved Amber. So if it came down to it, he was prepared to give up his life to save hers.
“You ready for this?” she asked as he checked his rifle one last time.
The glare from the monitors illuminated her face in a pale blue wash that made her eyes glow. She’d made it clear before leaving for London that she didn’t like him risking his life for her, but too damn bad. He loathed her risking her life to nail a piece of shit like Stanislav, yet here they were.
“Yeah. You?” She was deep under his skin at this point, and he was pretty sure that went both ways.
Once this was all over, he was going to whisk her away to have a solid stretch of time with her—alone. He wanted to fall asleep beside her and wake up with her in the morning. Wanted to learn more about her quirks and interests, how her sexy mind worked.
He wanted her to be his.
She shifted in her chair and focused on her laptop screen. “I’m good to go.” She was armed too, just in case, but her greatest weapon was her brain and her fingers on the keyboard.
So very hot, and she didn’t even realize it.
For the past several hours he’d witnessed her working her electronic wizardry when he’d been in and out of here in between recon trips and helping set everything up. Her talent astounded him, and at this point he was just glad they were on the same side. She made one hell of a formidable enemy.
She lowered her hands to her lap, her gaze serious as it settled on him. “Promise me you’ll watch out for my sister.”
He could tell it wasn’t an easy thing for her to ask him. And her asking at all told him just how important it was to her. He inclined his head. “I will.”
“Comms check,” Trinity said through their earpieces.
Everyone checked in by team. Bautista and Georgia. Ty and Megan. Him and Amber. And Marcus and Kiyomi, back at Laidlaw Hall.
“Is everyone in position?” Amber asked.
The entire team replied in the affirmative.
“Okay, curtain’s about to go up on this show. Stand by for things to go dark. I’ll count us down.” Her fingers worked lightning fast on the keyboard, her eyes moving restlessly from one screen to the next as she checked her systems. “Ten. Nine. Eight…”
Jesse left her and took up position by the front window, rifle in his hands and his sidearm in its holster, using a tiny gap in the blinds to keep watch on the gate Stanislav should be arriving at shortly. The two armored trucks were parked nearby, Megan bound in the back of one of them.
He breathed out slowly, clearing his mind. The shortage Amber was about to create would only buy them a small window of time. For their plan to work, Stanislav had to show up pretty close to on time.
“Two. One. And… Show time,” Amber finished, hitting the enter key with a flourish.
Jesse locked his stare on the gate at the north end of the property as everything suddenly went dark and waited, ready for anything.
All right, Stanislav. Let’s do this.
Chapter Nineteen
“The whole area’s down, and it wasn’t me.”
The hacker’s words set Yury’s teeth on edge. “Down how?”
“The power’s been cut all around the meeting point. Probably all security cameras and systems as well.”
It’s a trap.
Yury chuckled softly in amusement. He would have been disappointed if Cordova hadn’t thrown a few last-minute surprises at him. But Yury wasn’t alone, and he had enough firepower to overwhelm an attack. The money he’d spent for tonight was well worth it to get both Amber and Cordova.
“Did you see any activity over the past few hours?” The hacker had been monitoring various security feeds.
“No. I don’t know who’s doing this. I can’t even find where the hack came from.”
That didn’t matter now. By the time they figured that out, the op would be over, and Yury would have a Valkyrie hacker in his possession. “But the drone’s still operational?”
“Yes. I’m monitoring you now with it. The cloud cover’s obscuring some visibility but the infrared mitigates that. There are two armored vehicles parked inside the gate. I’m not getting a thermal reading from either of them, but that’s likely because of the thickness of the armor. The second one just pulled in there fifteen minutes ago. No one’s gotten in or out of either of them.”
“Which one is the woman in?”
“I can’t tell.”
Yury wasn’t worried. Not with the firepower he had at his disposal. He was goin
g to kill everyone he encountered regardless. “I’m cutting comms. Only break radio silence from now on if it’s critical.”
“Understood.”
He slid his phone into his jeans pocket and drew his weapon as the SUVs came within sight of the gate. It was wide open, as specified. “Go,” Yury ordered the driver in the vehicle ahead of him.
He owned Amber now, and no one was going to take her from him. After he got his money back he was going to let his men have her before he finally got down to the business of paying her back for the pain Zoya had suffered in her final few hours.
He’d made himself read the autopsy report. He knew exactly what had been done to her, and it wasn’t hard to imagine how. Torture didn’t bother him; it was a means to an end in his world. But knowing the woman he loved had been subjected to it filled him with visceral rage and grief.
All Amber Brown’s fault. That bitch had turned his and Zoya’s enemies against Zoya, knowing full well what would happen. Now it was her turn to see how it felt.
The lead SUV pulled through the gate and approached the armored trucks. A man jumped out of the one on the left.
Yury’s gaze locked on him, his whole body tensing, ready to spring. Cordova?
The first SUV’s headlights illuminated the man as it drew closer. Yury cursed under his breath when he realized it wasn’t Cordova and immediately looked around for threats. His hacker said he hadn’t seen any activity, but he might have missed something.
What have you got up your sleeve, asshole? he thought, thinking of Cordova.
Ahead of them, the man hurried around to the back of the second armored vehicle. He opened the rear door, revealing the woman in the cargo area.
Yury leaned forward, scrutinizing the hair color, the size and build, and triumph pulsed through him.
Amber.
She was seated on the floor in the back, blindfolded, her hands bound behind her. A heartbeat later the unknown man slammed the rear door shut and hurried back to the driver’s side of the other armored van. Its tires spun as he started the engine, cranked the wheel and turned in a sharp hairpin turn to race past the lead SUV.
“Go after him,” Yury ordered, all his focus on the remaining van. His men could deal with the male driver and use him to find out where Cordova was.
In the meantime, Yury would take the bitch and worry about sorting everything else out later. He wasn’t going to walk away now.
The SUV behind him peeled away and raced after the armored van. Yury’s vehicle stopped beside the first, directly behind the van Amber was in. His hacker hadn’t broken radio silence to report anything, and their drone was top of the line. Yury couldn’t afford to sit here and waste time being overly cautious.
He waved a hand, signaling the men in his vehicle to get out. They exited the SUV and surrounded the van, weapons aimed at the doors, forming a protective circle for him.
Nothing happened.
When the acting leader of his security gave the all clear, Yury got out, pistol in hand, and approached the rear door. One of his men threw it open.
Shock jolted through him as he stared at the empty cargo area. “What the hell,” he muttered in Russian, jumping inside to look around. Had she slipped into the front seat through a secret panel?
But there was nothing.
“Where the fuck is she?” he snarled, his heart beating faster. He’d just seen her sitting here, she hadn’t been a damn hologram. There was no way for her to get through the steel bulkhead between the cargo area and the cab, but she couldn’t have disappeared into thin air—
He stopped and spun around, reaching for the edge of the rubber matting covering the floor. With a vicious yank he wrenched it aside…
To reveal a neatly cut circle in the steel floor.
“God dammit,” he bit out, staring at the closed manhole beneath him.
****
Amber smirked to herself and watched on screen as the cameras planted in the back of the armored truck showed Yury swearing in Russian and English before shouting out orders to his men.
But her smugness vanished instantly when Yury leapt out—on the wrong side where Georgia couldn’t hit him—and one of the SUVs rammed the van from behind. Its tires spun, kicking up gravel as it inched the heavier vehicle forward with brute force.
“Georgia, you got a shot?” she asked.
“Negative. He’s hidden behind the armored truck. Standing by.”
The SUV stopped, reversed and angled itself to block the men. Almost as if they knew a sniper was watching nearby.
One of the men rushed for the manhole with a crowbar in his hand, all of them hidden from view except by one of the cameras installed in the back of the armored truck. “Shit, they’re already prying it open.” They hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. “Megan, you need to move your ass.”
“Ass moving,” her sister replied from somewhere beneath them. Ty was already on his way to rendezvous with her. They’d planted a cache of extra gear and weapons in the tunnel for them earlier, just in case, and thank God, because it looked like she might need them.
Amber tracked the beacon on the second screen showing her sister’s movement in the tunnel. Before she could say anything else, Jesse left his position by the door and hurried over to peer past her at the monitor. “How much lead-time does she have?” he asked.
Megan was past the third turn now, about halfway to the RV point. “Sixty seconds. Maybe a bit more.” Enough that she should be able to meet up with Tyler before enemy contact, but not that long considering the number of armed men hot on her tail.
A worried frown drew her eyebrows together as she typed something quickly and then reached up to tap her earpiece. “Megan, they’re going down the hole. They’ll be on the tunnel floor any second. I count six.” She squinted at the monitor. The camera angle gave her a shitty view of what was happening beyond the back of the truck. “No, make that seven.” And one of them was Stanislav, who thought Megan was her.
Cold spread in Amber’s gut, the sharp edge of fear lacing through her.
“Roger that.” Her sister’s voice was calm, the rapid treads in the background suggesting she was running.
“Ty, you copy?” Amber said, already on her feet. She had to stop this. Had to take Stanislav down before he reached Megan.
“Affirm.” His voice was clipped. Urgent, and she could only imagine how he felt right now. “Heading to RV point now.”
“Copy. We’re on our way from this end.” She and Jesse would go down and take out as many of Stanislav’s men as possible from their side.
“We’re on the move too,” Georgia reported. “We’ll cover Megan and Ty from the other side.”
“Roger that.” Amber quickly shut down Lady Ada, grabbed her weapon from the table and raced for the door.
Jesse barely caught her before she got there. “Whoa, no. I go first,” he told her, and she held up at the last second.
It was on the tip of her tongue to argue, but he was right. His role was to go first to clear any threats. Hers was to get to the manhole as fast as possible. She and Ty had to get down there and back up Megan immediately.
“I’ve got a problem down here.” Megan’s words froze her.
Her insides clenched at the edge to her sister’s voice. “Sitrep,” she demanded, already by the door.
“This section’s been sealed off, the hatch is shut. I’m at a dead end.”
What? Amber raced back to the desk to check the screen showing the sewer system. Had she missed something?
Everything showed green/open on her end, and it had been open when she’d checked it personally prior to the op. So what the hell had happened?
She opened Lady Ada again. “Stand by, I’m trying to open it now.” She raced to override the system and open the hatch.
Nothing happened.
Swearing under her breath, she tried again.
Nada.
“I can’t open it.” Fear for her sister forked through her. “Ty?” T
he beacon notating his position showed him close to the same hatch.
“I can’t get through.” His voice was heavy with frustration.
Jesus Christ. “Copy that. We’re on our way down.” Her system should have alerted her to any movement of the hatches. Dammit.
Another hacker. It was the only explanation. She could have hacked her way in and overridden the new coding her rival must have uploaded, but with Megan in immediate danger she didn’t have the time now.
She set up Lady Ada to keep trying the override, then hurried to meet Jesse at the door. He gave her a nod and took point as they exited the building and crept toward the armored truck, staying in the shadows created by the SUVs’ headlights.
It was up to them to save Megan. They had to get to her sister before Stanislav did.
Amber stayed in the shadows, a warning buzz filling the pit of her stomach. By her count there should be two men left out here, maybe one more.
The vehicles were blocking her line of sight. Georgia and Bautista were on the move and unable to provide eyes on target for them, and Trinity was at an offsite location on a different comms frequency to avoid confusion.
A shadow moved to the left of the truck. Amber ducked back behind cover and opened her mouth to warn Jesse but he was already taking cover around the side of the building when the first shots rang out.
Bits of concrete exploded off the façade. The angle would keep Jesse pinned for the moment at least, and they couldn’t afford to lose a second.
Weapon raised, she shot out from behind cover and raced toward the rear of the two SUVs to get a better angle. A man was crouched down near the far side of the hood, using the engine for cover.
He jerked around when he finally caught sight of her in his peripheral vision, but too late. Amber fired two shots as she moved, hitting him in the chest.
He grunted and dropped to his knees, but didn’t go down.
His arm started to rise. She fired again, this time hitting him in the head.
A shot pinged off metal. Someone returned fire, the muzzle flash giving the shooter’s position away. Amber angled toward him, using the back of the second SUV as cover.