He pushed to his feet unsteadily, gesturing for Jasper to get in the van.
His friend was right, they needed to get the hell away from here. Out of the smoke, the heat, and take stock of themselves before they made a second move.
Using his hand to guide him around the vehicle, he climbed into the driver’s seat and found that the air wasn’t much cleaner inside. “Contact the team,” he ordered Jasper, starting the engine. “Make damn sure they haven’t broken position, and find out who took that goddamn shot.”
“On it.” Jasper coughed again. “Get us out of this fucking hellhole, will you, before we die from smoke inhalation.”
Good idea. Shaking the remnants of the ringing from his ears, Atticus slammed the van into gear and set off slowly, carefully. There was a lot of shit scattered everywhere, some of it still burning, some just embers, and all of it capable of putting the vehicle out of action. The smoke distorted his view, and there was a waver in his vision that made him wonder if he’d hit his head when he got tossed by the blast.
Thank God he’d been far enough away to miss the bulk of the blast. By his calculations, he’d only been maybe twenty feet away from grievous physical harm. Fifty feet from dying. It was a sobering thought.
Jasper was engaged in a quiet conversation as Atticus drove them away from the burning warehouse and the carnage left behind. There would be questions when the body was found—perhaps not so many once the cops identified Fable.
As the sirens grew closer and the smoke thinned, he drove for two blocks, lost in his thoughts as he assessed their surroundings, then pulled down a side street and switched off the engine. It would be better if they weren’t spotted cruising around in the area as the cops flocked to the scene.
“Alpha team remains in position,” Jasper relayed, winding down his window and sticking his head out into the unpolluted air. “Fuck, that’s good. Like a kick to the chest.”
Atticus rolled his down, breathing deep. The action forced his lungs to seize and spasm, struggling to accept oxygen now that they were clogged with shit. “The shooter?”
“Not one of our guys.”
“Well, fuck. We’ve either got a guardian angel sitting on our shoulder, or someone killed the wrong person. Tell Alpha team to return to base. Take a longer route, avoid the main streets until they’re out of the area.”
Jasper did so as Atticus continued to breathe slowly, deeply. As the adrenaline wore off, he began to feel exactly what his body had been through in the last hour, and it wasn’t remotely enjoyable. Dropping his forehead onto the steering wheel, he groaned under his breath.
“Fuck. Att, do I need to get you to a hospital?”
“Am I dying?” he asked sarcastically.
“I don’t know, are you? Hitting the ground that hard can’t be good for a body. There are fragile things like internal organs that really don’t like being slammed with force into a solid surface.”
“My internal organs are fine, J. It’s the rest of me that thinks I’ve been hammered by a fucking wrecking ball. No hospital,” he confirmed with a sigh. “Just inhaled a bit too much smoke and feeling battered. A hot shower and a beer will cure my ills. If not, your services will be required.”
“I’m not giving you mouth-to-mouth.”
Atticus laughed, grimacing as his chest constricted. “I’ve got someone much more attractive in mind for those kinds of activities, brother.” Sitting up, he slanted a glance at his friend. “Got any ideas on who we need to thank for this morning’s assassination?”
“Why, we gonna send flowers and a card?”
“I was thinking more like hiring the son of a bitch. Did you hear a shot?”
Jasper shook his head. “Didn’t hear anything but that lunatic prattling on about her demands, although some of it was lost in the roar of the fire. I forgot how loud an inferno can be.”
The scream of sirens grew louder, and Atticus glanced in the side mirror in time to see several fire engines and a stream of cop cars fly past. “A shot like that takes skill. A damn good eye, steady hands, and nerves of fucking steel. It’s no amateur with a BB gun.”
“Professional?”
Atticus started the van again, reversing it slowly out into the street. They might pass another flurry of emergency responders, but he’d deal with it if they got stopped. He had no doubts the vehicle resembled something driven straight out of a volcano—the windshield and hood wore a faint layer of ash, and if some of the flying wreckage from the explosion hadn’t damaged the exterior, he’d consider himself doubly lucky today.
“That would be my guess. Maybe the Russians changed their minds about helping us with this shit.” Changing gear, Atticus continued down the street, taking his own advice and keeping off the main road, passing where his team had been waiting for the green light.
Their van had gone.
“Fucking Russians,” Jasper sneered, obviously as displeased by their response to Atticus’ request for help as Att himself was. “We go out of our way to help them get rid of the clusterfuck they landed themselves in, and they turn around and say no.” He snorted derisively, shaking his head in condemnation. “Yes, I know we have an ulterior motive for terminating Fable, but the goddamn Russians are the conduit to Chicago. If they’re corrupted, they spread the stain there.”
“The Russians are free to do what they want, J. I had no expectations of them joining the fight.” Atticus relaxed as they drove further away from the warehouse district. The more distance between them and it, at the moment, was desirable. “If they come to me asking for help in the future…well, they’ll just have to pay for my time and services like everyone else, won’t they?”
“Damn straight they will.” Jasper nodded once. “Don’t give them anything for free. If you’d sent the team in, the Russians would’ve been sitting on their asses, and twiddling their thumbs while our guys got blown up. Good call on that, by the way.”
“A sloppy one. Emotional decisions shouldn’t be factored into an op, and I’ve been running on emotion with this. Alicia is my priority, and I should’ve delegated this to you or Zach. It’s only luck that prevented a tragedy today, Jasper, not the kind of management my team expects from me.”
“Oh, I forgot. You’re a machine, incapable of making simple human mistakes.”
“At this level of the game, a mistake costs lives.”
“So does stepping off the curb at the wrong time or swimming too far out into the ocean. The team isn’t impressed by your management, Atticus, or not only by that. It’s how you handle your mistakes, own up to them, apologize for them, fix them. You don’t blame anyone else for what goes wrong on a mission—you stand up and take responsibility for it, just like you expect them to do the same.” The sadist lifted a lazy eyebrow in his direction. “This was a mistake that was rectified before it had a chance to be one. Acknowledge it and move on—the last thing we need is you doubting yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. I know you well enough now to understand that this eats at you. Wondering if Alicia has become your weakness, when in reality, she’s your strength. We’ll go back to base, find out who our mystery assassin is, and you’ll find your rhythm again. The world didn’t end today.”
They drove in silence for a while, Atticus mulling over Jasper’s words as he functioned on autopilot. Alicia had upended his world in all the best ways, and she hadn’t even begun yet. Ten days of living with her had opened his eyes beyond the depressed, reclusive, sometimes sulky young woman he’d looked after at Connie’s house.
Everything she was shored up the holes in him.
“No fucking way,” Jasper said with no little amount of shock.
Yanking himself from his thoughts, Atticus blinked and realized they were well away from the warehouse district. There were a few cars on the road beside theirs now, and civilians beginning their commute to or from work.
“Up ahead,” his friend continued, leaning forward in his suit. “That guy wearing the
suit, carrying a suitcase.”
Atticus slowed down and found the man Jasper pointed out. Tall, dark-haired, with his back to them, he was looking down at something in his hand. His phone, Att realized. The black suit wasn’t anything special, any businessman on his way to work would look the same, but the suitcase… “That’s not a suitcase, J.”
They exchanged looks.
“Do you think…”
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Curiosity piqued, Atticus kept driving until the van was almost level with the man, then pulled over and kept the engine idling.
The guy looked over, giving them an exasperated look. “Took your damn time, huh? I’ve been standing here for twenty minutes waiting for you.”
Well, this explained a whole fucking lot. Absorbing the jolt of shock, Atticus stared as Jasper leaned his arm on the window and chuckled. The sadist was the first to speak. “Out for a morning stroll, Thane?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Uh-huh. So you decided to take your pet suitcase for a walk, and dressed up for the occasion?”
“Jasper, can we tease the switch when he’s inside the vehicle? No point drawing attention to ourselves now.” Atticus tapped his fingers on the wheel in agitation as Jasper slid across to the middle seat so Thane could climb in. His jaw clenched as the thick black box settled between Thane’s legs. “Seatbelts on, guys. We don’t need to get pulled over for that, especially now there’s a goddamn sniper rifle on board.”
Pulling back onto the road, Atticus wondered how the hell he hadn’t considered Thane’s involvement in the shooting. He was ex-military, trained for the special forces. “What the hell are you doing out here, Thane?”
“I recall being hired as part of the team, Atticus. When you start a war with an enemy who holds the advantage with more numbers, you don’t leave out the fucking sniper.”
“I hired you as my private investigator. I never intended for you to get involved with wet work. Do you know how much shit Connie is going to give me over this? And how the hell did you find us?”
“Ask the right people, you can find out anything. No, I won’t reveal my sources. They wanted to help, and so did I. Their loyalty to you is unwavering, Atticus.”
“You were who Archie was texting last night,” Jasper stated with a groan. “Goddamn it, that kitten of mine is going to learn that her actions have consequences.”
“I won’t confirm or deny,” Thane retorted.
“You don’t need to. I’ll hear it straight from the subbie’s mouth,” the sadist growled.
“Enough. I’ll speak with Anarchy when we get back.” And if she had been the one responsible for dragging Thane into this, Atticus would have to think carefully on what her consequences would be. “I want details, Thane. How you got there, why you were waiting so far ahead of us. What possessed you to take the shot without a green light.”
Thane sighed, his amber eyes dark and sober as he peered around Jasper. “Being part of a team is a serious commitment for me. I might not be in the special forces anymore, but as far as I’m concerned—PI or not—I’m part of yours. I don’t let my brothers walk into the firing line without having their backs.”
Atticus could appreciate that. It was what he’d always intended his team to be—Alpha, tech, research—a family. The kind of family that went out on a limb for each other.
“For starters, Connie won’t give you any shit. I haven’t kept this from her. We had a discussion about it last night and agreed that some things are worth the risk. She dropped me off this morning, half a mile from where you picked me up. I did my research last night and found the best spot for height and line of sight to the warehouse. There are a lot of shitty buildings just waiting to be torn down in this area, and that includes a condemned block of apartments just west of here. Go high enough and there’s an unblemished line of sight.”
“That’s like two miles away from the warehouse. No one can make that shot.” Jasper jabbed his elbow into Thane’s ribs. “Stop yanking his chain.”
“Actually, as the crow flies, the distance between the apartment block and the warehouse is one point six miles. The world record for the longest distance sniper shot is two point one nine. The shot is more than doable,” Thane argued without any heat. “I’ve missed shots at that distance, early in my career, but I’ve also hit my target at greater distances.”
“Maybe I should have hired you as a sniper instead,” Atticus muttered.
“Unfortunately, that career is over for me. My leg makes holding any form of prone position uncomfortable, which doesn’t bode well for an accurate shot. This was an emergency, and in all honesty, I wasn’t intending to shoot the girl.”
“No?”
“No. I’ve killed for my country. I’ve had the faces of politicians, world leaders, religious fanatics in my sights. Reading faces is a talent, and what I saw on hers…neither you nor Jasper was going to leave that place alive, Atticus. Insanity leaves a mark, and she was certifiable.” Thane shrugged, shifting his leg. “I dressed up like a junkie, staggered my way up to where I thought the best angle would be in the building, and set up the rifle. I was watching you when you used the smoke grenades, Atticus. Lost sight of you after the building blew up. Had me worried for a few minutes.”
“He was laid out on the ground,” Jasper supplied.
“That’s not surprising. In my opinion, that blast was rigged to take out people on the inside of the building. She was waiting for your team to go in before she detonated it, and you threw a wrench in her plan. The majority of the debris caved in, which would have crushed anyone inside. Between the explosion, the fire, and the structural collapse, there would have been no survivors.” Thane lifted his shoulder when Atticus slowed, then stopped at a red light. “What? She could quite easily have wired the whole thing to blow outwards. Just set the explosives against the wall instead of in the middle of the floor. It’s not rocket science.”
“Huh. Sniper and explosives expert. Give the guy a raise, Att.” Jasper grinned at him.
“I’m thinking about it,” he muttered, keeping an eye on the light. “How did you know Fable wasn’t just a civilian?”
“Seriously?” Shooting him a disgusted look, Thane shook his head. “Civilians don’t saunter along moments after a bomb’s just gone off. That crazy bitch was skipping down from one of the warehouses further along the row, without a care in the world. My guess is that she—or whoever rigged the explosive device—made sure that there was nothing in that building that would provide a secondary explosion. She was confident that the danger had passed—she didn’t even look at the fire on her way past, her attention was on you.”
The light switched to green, and Atticus hit the gas, crossing the intersection and taking the turn that would lead them toward home. “How the hell could you see her through the smoke?”
Thane winced. “Well, that was a bit of a gamble, to be honest. I prefer headshots for a clean kill, and the smoke wasn’t ideal for a visual sighting. As a wind indicator, sure—I gauged the speed and direction using it as a point of reference—but it distorts the visual. There was a fraction of an instant where it lifted, like the parting of a curtain, and I took what I was given. Her guys were already moving in on you, Atticus. One signal from her and you’d have been dead in a heartbeat.”
That wasn’t the point, even though it kind of was. Atticus had kept his team out of harm’s way, but put both himself and Jasper directly in its path. Without Thane popping up without authorization, their friends would be holding a double funeral.
“What if the plan had changed? If I’d changed my mind about the way forward and how we were dealing with this mess?” Atticus gestured with his hand in frustration. “What if we didn’t want her dead after all, or if Alicia’s life depended on Fable continuing to breathe?”
“I see where you’re coming from. I worked on data from within the team, which was being sent to dispatch the woman, but that wasn’t all I went on, Atticus. I read the scene, th
e body language, the surroundings. Like I said, I wasn’t intending to kill her unless I was given good reason, and she gave me one. Psychopaths never play by the rules. If killing her had brought a threat down on Alicia, I guarantee that threat would exist even if Fable lived. I’d just rather have you and Jasper here to deal with it instead of joining her in the ground.”
“Fuck. You’re making it hard for me to be pissed, Thane.”
“Be pissed all you want. It means you’re alive.”
Smartass, Atticus thought. “Just because I’m grateful for your intervention doesn’t mean you’re not in trouble for inviting yourself onto a mission you weren’t prepared for. It’s your first day, for Christ’s sake.”
Thane gave him an apologetic smile. “I like to make a good impression on my first day?”
Jasper elbowed him sharply, clearing his throat emphatically. He didn’t have to say anything, Atticus understood the implication. He scowled at his friend when the elbow returned for a second volley of jabs into his already tender ribs. Just what he was desperate for right now, another layer of bruises on top of goddamn bruises.
He continued to drive, not talking as his mind spat disturbing scenarios at him.
It was okay trying to set the distinction between boss and friend, he thought, but the truth was, someone would have been knocking on his door sometime today to tell Alicia and Anarchy that the men they loved wouldn’t be coming home without Thane’s foresight.
Atticus had the sun on his face, the breeze ruffling his hair through the open window, because a man he considered a friend had stepped up to the mark and followed through, taking position behind Att’s back and covering it as efficiently as his military training deemed necessary.
Tonight, Atticus would curl around his little girl and hold her close because Thane had taken the shot. Jasper would spank his kitten raw and likely fuck her until she cried for divulging operation data, but he’d be with her, instead of cold and dead on a morgue slab.
Walk For Me: Club Avalon Book 4 Page 35