That was where I came in, and I seriously didn’t like this part of the mission. While they were going into the facility to get Paul, I’d be in the tower on the roof with my rifle. Ethan sent us the building plans for the place and we were able to plan out how best we could get in, but most important get out.
I wanted to go in with Claire and the others, but in missions like this, we looked at each other’s skills and worked accordingly. I was damn good with a rifle and my sharpshooting skills were off the scale good. It was that attention to detail ability of mine. I’d shoot anything that moved. Even if it was an ant.
So, I’d be covering them from above when they went in and came out. Then we’d head towards the allies.
I had one request to make though, one I knew she wouldn’t like.
“Let’s move guys, get ready. Clock’s ticking.” Claire nodded. Lucas and John went out the door.
I continued to sit where I was, just looking at her.
She frowned when she saw me and set her hands on her hips. She might not have meant for that to look as feminine as it did, it did though. My eyes went straight to her curves and the way her body looked in her catsuit.
“What?” she huffed.
“Don’t go in,” I stated. No point pussyfooting with a conversation. I needed to go in for the kill and tell her straight.
“Are you crazy? I’m captain of this unit, I have to go in.”
I bolted up. “In two month’s time I will take you to Paris, I will ask you to marry me and you will say yes. We’ll get married and you will be my wife. So as your husband—your husband to be— I’m asking you not to go on this mission. I can take charge and still cover the guys.”
I was known for being fearless and forward. It was how I was when I first kissed her, and how I was when I first declared her mine.
Just then however was perhaps the most forward I’d ever been.
We’d known each other since we were sixteen, got together when we were eighteen and stayed like it for the last thirteen years. I’d been with her for the last thirteen years and I loved her like nothing else. Never spoke about marriage though.
It was always a given for me though. I always knew I was going to be with her.
The stunned expression on her face softened and she blinked to focus.
“In two months’ time you will take me to Paris and when you ask me to marry you, I’ll say yes. We’ll get married and I will be your wife and you my husband. So I expect you to understand, as my husband to be, that I can’t just sit down and do nothing while Paul goes to his doom. Death. He has a baby and if we had a baby, I’d want to know that your team did everything they could to get you back to me. I’d want to know that your captain didn’t just back out of any chance of rescuing you.”
Damn it.
I gazed at her and saw the softer side of the woman she was, underneath the harsh exterior she portrayed to the world.
I walked up to her and pulled her into my arms. She held me, held me close and I savored the feel of her. I savored the feel of her in my arms.
“I love you,” I whispered into her ear.
She moved back and looked at me. “I love you too Xander Cage.”
“You better be careful Claire. You better be. I can’t lose you. I can’t. I’m gonna say that something feels off about this whole situation.”
“I know. I do know that. I know it feels like a trap Xander, but that’s the risk I’m willing to take. I can’t just follow protocol and leave him to die. I can’t do it and I don’t think you or anyone else can either. That’s why we’re going… If it wasn’t a trap I would never be able to forgive myself.”
I nodded and agreed.
“Okay, Captain… Let’s go.”
A little smile pulled at the corner of her delicate mouth and she stood on the tips of her toes to kiss me.
I kissed her back, showing her how much I loved her.
When we pulled apart I knew it was time to move.
Time to go.
* * *
Night gave us the perfect cover.
I hated the terrain here, it was the sort that was difficult for anything.
And we were heading up to the mountains in a truck that the driver used to transport chickens.
It smelled like shit. Literally like we were sitting in a pile of shit.
“Guys, what if we see Balthazar?” John asked.
Lucas gave him a sarcastic laugh. “Are you kidding me man? You think we’ll see him? I doubt we’ll even see Paul.”
“Lucas,” Claire chided.
“We’re all thinking it, Claire. We’re all thinking that this is a fucking trap to piss on us. We’re the guys who’ve been so close to catching Balthazar. We’re what they call obstacles, for the fact that the idea of catching him drives us. It stopped being a job from Kazakhstan when that bastard murdered all those people, all the children. It’s not a job anymore. People like us are dangerous to him.”
The man spoke truth, it didn’t feel like a job anymore to me. It never did. I’d always seen the threat Balthazar posed and his unhealthy obsession with women rubbed me the wrong way too. We’d seen the rough stuff. We’d seen the stuff nightmares were made of and seen him at his finest, but there were other things too.
The links to the sex trade. The links to him mutilating the women he held captive. The things I’d heard he did were enough for me to kill him on sight. No questions asked.
Bullet to the head to take him out. That was my take.
“You kill him on sight.” I spoke up in answer to John’s question. “If this is real and Paul truly got to us to get us to come in and help him, and we see Balthazar. You kill him on sight. You will not need to question him.”
Lucas nodded, as did Claire.
I was glad she agreed with me. I supposed the unit would have loved to hand him over to the Ministry of Defense or our CIA liaison, so we’d look good for bringing such a guy down, but our orders from Ethan were to kill the motherfucker if we got the chance and take him out.
That was what I would be gunning for, with my rifle on the rooftop of the facility.
Twenty minutes later we pulled up near a river bank.
It was on foot from here.
We knew Paul was in one of the storage rooms on the second floor of the facility. He’d said to look for the room near the computers.
We jumped out of the truck and in true stealth mode got across the river and split up.
Claire looked to me, telling me with her eyes to be careful. I nodded and she knew damn well that she should be careful too.
While they went around the side to get in through one of the windows, I went for the roof. The facility covered a vast expanse of roughly a hundred feet across and was more of a factory than a warehouse, with the floor structure and machinery. They made car parts here. Or, rather it was a front to make it look like that’s what they did.
I got to the tower on the roof. It was a little hollow where it looked like they stored tools. Like we knew it would, it gave me a good view and position to provide cover to the team. Most of the roof here was glass. Then a brick area near the stair well that would take me down inside.
I readied myself zooming in closer through the scope attached to the rifle, positioning to open fire the minute I caught sight of trouble. It would help if I could take down anybody who looked like they might give that trouble.
There were several floors down and people milling about on the inside. None of them looked like they belonged to The Ra though. These guys were all Oriental and looked like run of the mill workers. I guess though that it didn’t matter. People worked and often didn’t know who they were working for.
Claire and the guys were supposed to enter on to the second floor and the room Paul was being held captive was at the end of the corridor. If this went to plan they should be able to get him out. But… when did things ever go to plan?
Shit!
Some men with guns just came into view. They were on the thi
rd floor.
I could also see Claire and the others creeping out on to the second.
“Babe, there are some guys looking to party on the third floor, hang back for a minute,” I told her, speaking into the communicator attached to my headset. I wasn’t the kind to panic, but I couldn’t keep the tremor out of my voice. It was getting to me that I wasn’t down there with her.
“Thanks,” she replied.
I watched her hang back for the minute and the men passed. Thankfully they went down the corridor.
“All clear, baby,” I told her and she moved forward with John and Lucas, heading to the room Paul was in.
Anxiety ate away at my insides as I watched them go into the room and the large metal door closed behind Lucas. I couldn’t see them anymore. I just had to wait.
How I hated waiting. Fucking waiting, and patience were not virtues of mine.
The anxiety continued to gnaw away at me with every second that passed and, fuck, the crackle of static in my earpiece actually made me jump.
“Xander Paul’s dead,” came Claire’s hurried voice in my ear. “Oh God. Looks like he’s been dead for a while. It wasn’t him we spoke to this morning Xander! It someone else. Oh God, he’s dead.”
Fuck!
Fuuuck!
Here we go. This was a fucking trap. “Get out of there, Claire. Get the fuck out. Claire get out.”
Bullets firing sounded in my ear.
“Xander I –” her voice snapped away.
Shit!
Fuck!
I was already moving before my brain could process the thought that I had to do something.
I ran across the roof and growled when I saw more men with guns running below on the same floor Claire was on.
This was one hell of a trap.
Fucking hell why hadn’t I been more forceful. I should have been more forceful in insisting we check this out before coming here.
And Claire…
Please be alive.
Please be alive…
I looked down through the glass. I’d just neared a section below with flooring
on the fourth floor. Shooting through the glass on the roof with one of my handguns I jumped down, tucking and rolling right into the path of another group of men who’d emerged as I landed. It was a good surprise attack accompanied by my double barreled shotgun.
A few shots took them down but more men came. I dashed and ran to the steps leading down to the floors below. Adrenaline took over when I got to the second floor and burst into the room Claire and the guys had gone in.
My gaze landed on her straight away, then John and Lucas. They were fighting off some goons who looked more in line with the Spade guys we’d seen. They wore the mark. The Spades didn’t just have the Ankh tat on their wrists, they had a spade tattooed on their cheek. Looked like a teardrop, but a closer look would confirm it.
The room was large and spacious. The kind that was good for storage. Not one you would hide in though.
The men filled the room, and bullets were flying. I took down a few with my gun as I ran over to join Claire, then fuck, my eyes landed on Paul and the sight of what they did to him made my soul shiver.
He sat dead in the corner of the room in an office chair. A bullet to his brain had taken off half his head but the way his body looked pale and decomposed suggested he’d been dead for at least a week. The week he’d been missing for.
It definitely wasn’t him we spoke to this morning.
I ran in guns blazing, taking down the Spades around me, and the ones who now came in after me.
There were too many though.
Four of us against them.
Shit. Fucking shit, we needed to get out.
I needed to get Claire out.
Get her out of harm’s way. She was just so far away from me.
“Bravo, bravo!” Boomed a voice I knew all too well.
Balthazar Kane came from the other side of the room where Claire was.
The Spades stopped to give him access but Claire and the guys rushed him.
“No!” I yelled, but it was too late. One of the men grabbed Claire from behind and held a gun to her head. She couldn’t even fight back.
John and Lucas stopped in their tracks when they saw that, keeping their guns low.
Balthazar and two men came forward, humor on their evil faces.
I stopped too and Balthazar looked to me with a vibrant smile.
“Got your woman, Xander Cage,” he chanted in a sing song voice. He walked up to Claire, took her from the guy and lifted her into the air by her throat. “I got her good this time.”
“Put her down!” I roared, glaring on in complete horror.
It was a fruitless attempt.
“Yeah, you want me to put her down? Sure.”
When he set her down I knew that wasn’t going to be the end of it. He wouldn’t just let her go.
I was ten feet away from them, so close but too far away.
She looked to me. It was in her eyes.
Goodbye.
Goodbye was in her eyes.
“Please don’t –” the shot that rippled through the air stole my words away.
It was like having an out-of-body experience. Watching something that didn’t seem real.
It couldn’t be.
How?
I’d just seen a bullet rip into Claire’s head and blood splatter everywhere.
Everywhere.
My girl.
We met when we were sixteen. We did everything together. I followed her everywhere and she followed me.
I was going to ask her to marry me.
We were going to…
A bullet tore through my chest… and then another.
It took me down, sent me straight to my knees.
Even then the shock of seeing the woman I loved die still gripped me. I was moving to her, crawling forward. In the corner of my eye I saw John go down and the Spades started to run.
The air was filled with a tension that spilled over into my soul, accompanied by laughter. Balthazar’s laughter.
Slow motion and laughter.
Balthazar laughing.
“I told you, you won’t win, Xander Cage.” His voice pierced into the fog that clouded my brain. I looked to him as he was going through the door with his men. It was where he’d come from. He waved something in his hands. Looked like a grenade.
As he threw it I looked back to Claire.
Her beautiful face.
What was I going to tell her father.
I couldn’t protect her.
“Xander get down!” That was Lucas.
Before I could even register what happened, the grenade went off.
Chapter 17
Xander
Present day …
The sight of Balthazar earlier had my mind on replay of the past.
That day was one I’d never forget.
The day Claire was killed.
The day my world flipped and turned upside down.
The bomb went off but the blast only knocked me out because I’d gotten shot. I wasn’t close enough for it to take me out. Not like Lucas. I couldn’t tell if the bullets or the bomb killed John.
When I came too their bodies had been blown up, unrecognizable. It seemed like the facility had been evacuated. That gave me the chance to get myself out.
The thing to do was to contact Ethan but I never did that.
I decided that since it was a trap it was best if everyone thought I was dead. It would give me the advantage of being one step ahead to get Balthazar.
It didn’t really though.
Today was a reminder.
That fucking asshole came back for me to remind me that I was useless.
That was what he wanted me to think.
I refused. I was a mess but I was refusing to give up and be forced into that chasm of shit where I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it.
I’d just arrived at the park and this was me jumping into action
to do what I had to do to steal the blueprints.
I pulled out my phone and called Wes. he answered on the first ring.
“Is everything in order?” I asked him, trying to keep the tension out of my voice.
It was a good thing we were on the phone and he couldn’t see me. I was a mess.
“Yes. Ethan thinks you’re doing a job for Giovanni,” Wes answered. “I’ve suggested a closer look at the inventory list in the courtyard to make him think that we missed something there. He’s got the guys from the team looking over it and working with intel. It’s all busy here, so we really do have him thrown off track.”
It was perfect. The way things had worked out was perfect.
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me and kicked a rock that was in my path.
After I dropped Jia off to Giovanni, I went back to my apartment to meet Wes and plan.
Of course, I told him what happened with Balthazar, so he knew my stress.
All the while we planned I couldn’t get what happened out of my damn head.
Balthazar came to screw with me.
The man was surely a sick fuck. His goons had been watching me, saw I was with her and he came to screw with me and remind me that he killed Claire and there wasn’t a damn thing I could have done to save her.
He came to let me know he could do the same thing to Jia.
Then there was fucking Giovanni that added to the shit. His mobster greed had infuriated me to no end, because his greed got her tangled in the mess.
Giovanni had looked stunned beyond measure when I mentioned The Ra and The Spades, but the fucking prick also looked like he was fuming. He looked furious at me, and suspicious.
“Great work Wes,” I told him.
“Thank you bro. You know I’m not happy though right? I feel like I should be with you watching your back. I really do.”
I could hear the worry in his voice. When I thought about it, this was the first time in the years we’d known each other that he hadn’t been watching my back.
I had a portable surveillance device we’d conjured up that connected with the camera system and motion sensors inside the chamber. It would allow me to see my surroundings once I got in. More important it would detect motion and alert me if someone came down there.
Tease of Spades: Game of Love Series Page 13
