Destruction

by Knightley, Reese

  He moved out of the way when Roscoe stepped closer.

  “I’m sorry,” the lieutenant said quietly to Jagger. “Your sister’s DNA was found at a burn site in Russia.”

  “I figured that’s what happened,” the man choked out. “Thank you for finding her.”

  Roscoe reached out and squeezed Jagger’s shoulder. “Rest up.”

  Reggie roared up and screeched to a halt in a loaner tactical SUV.

  “Let’s move,” Roscoe said.

  They left Jagger in the care of the EMTs and SWAT standing by. “Keep him safe,” the lieutenant ordered before jogging to the vehicle. The unit followed suit.

  Alex dropped into the seat across from Micah and held the man’s gaze.

  Micah

  Alex wore dark aviator glasses, a tactical helmet with the strap cinched beneath his chin, and a thick, black and dark gray bandanna wrapped around his neck, the ends covering the open neck of the full, dark hunter green army gear and vest.

  Instead of the usual ear piece, a small microphone attached to a wire curved around and down the side of his helmet. Combat boots, a tactical knife tucked into a black leather sheath at his hip, and a thick strap over one shoulder with a semi-automatic assault rifle resting on one thigh.

  The man glanced over and their gazes held until the SUV hit a pot hole and Micah glanced away. He frowned at the red glow rising up over the tops of nearby trees and houses on the residential street. The low roar of a firetruck siren filled the air. Reggie pulled around the corner and the site was in chaos.

  The address turned out to be an apartment building and the whole complex was on fire. Several fire trucks had already arrived at the scene and connected hoses were aimed at the building. Smoke poured from windows and doors.

  On the far side of the street, people sat on the snow encrusted curb. Screaming, crying, and coughing filled the air. Tears left tracks of grief on the victims’ faces. Others sat in stunned silence as they watched their homes and possessions go up in flames. The firemen who had already entered were coming out the side and front exits with victims. Some were able to walk and others had to be carried or helped along. A man was carried by one fireman and another walked behind carrying a wheel chair. The sobbing man was gently placed in the chair and wheeled over to nearby EMTs, who were checking over the wounded for injuries and smoke inhalation.

  “This is fucking Mez,” he growled.

  Roscoe came back from talking to the fire chief. “We can’t go in until they clear the building, but I want everyone on all exits just in case that son of a bitch is still in there or he’s watching.”

  Micah glanced surreptitiously over the crowd of spectators and injured with Mez’s face burned into his brain from the first moment he’d seen the man’s face on the airport camera.

  The man stood a little over six feet tall and had broad shoulders, but with all the Phoenix and firemen on site, that was over half the men in the area. The henchman’s face was hard and cruel, his nose crooked as if it had been broken a few times. Mez’s hair was brown and cut in a traditional men’s crew cut.

  Micah wanted one minute with his knife alone with Mez in a room. But he knew they wouldn’t let him because he’d end up killing Mez just as he’d killed Vladimir. No, if they caught the madman, then someone with much more patience would need to question him.

  Micah glanced at Alex. The man was speaking in low tones to Storm and Roscoe, but he knew Alex was casing the place, stealthily looking over the crowd the same as him.

  Micah spotted Mez at the same time the guy spotted him. The guy could have passed for ordinary except for the look in the killer’s washed out blue eyes. Their gazes collided and Mez’s moved on and then snapped back. Micah sprinted toward the man.

  “Got him!” he shouted into his mic. Mez spun and pushed through the crowd. Micah leaped after the guy. Mez shoved people out of his way and disappeared around the building.

  “Micah!” Alex yelled, and then the soldier was on his six.

  Alex was fucking fast and passed him. Wild was just a few seconds behind Alex. Then from his left, Noah came out and they all fucking ran.

  Reaching the side of the building, they careened around the corner, sliding through the snow. Ahead of them, Mez shoved through another group of spectators and then jumped into a waiting car.

  “No, motherfucker!” he screamed at the car speeding away with Mez.

  Four gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons. They ducked the bullets but kept running forward, returning fire at the gunmen and the distant car.

  One gunmen dropped dead in the street from one of their bullets.

  “Get down!” Micah yelled at the crowd the same time the gunmen opened fire. People screamed and scattered, running in all directions. Wild grabbed a woman and her child out of harm’s way.

  Micah pulled an older man behind an industrial sized trash can. The trash can took the brunt of the damage as bullets cleaved into the metal with several brutal tat, tat, tats.

  With a break in the gunfire, Micah dodged out, gun raised, and ran toward where Alex and Noah were fighting.

  Noah snap kicked the second suspect and then rolled, taking the guy to the ground.

  Alex shot the third man, who dropped to the ground and toppled sideways. Noah yanked the suspect he’d tackled to his feet, the guy’s shoulder bleeding from the bullet wound.

  The rest of Phoenix and the cops converged on the scene.

  The fourth suspect decided running away was better. Allison, heading their way, snapped out with a kick, catching the guy in the head and then slammed the butt of her gun down into his face. She yanked the guy’s weapon away as the perp stumbled back and landed in the dirt on his ass. Stepping up, she pointed the man’s own semi-automatic in his face.

  “Fuck!” he yelled, punching the air. Gazing in the direction the car had gone, the street was empty save the emergency vehicles and parked cars from the residences.

  “Don’t worry,” Noah said, striding over. The sexy blond held up the small hand held rocket launcher they’d had in Colorado. “I tagged his car.” He glanced at his watch. “Reggie should be pulling up.” The roar of the SUV cut off his words and Noah gave a cocky grin. “Right about now.”

  “You brilliant man,” Micah said, running for the vehicle.

  “Cuff them and hold them here,” Roscoe shouted the order and several officers stepped up, pulling handcuffs out.

  The unit sprinted to the SUV and jumped inside.

  Reggie tore away down the street. Several miles away, the blinking light of the tracking device stopped moving.

  “It’s stopped,” Reggie said.

  “Don’t underestimate Mez,” Alex cautioned, and the rest of the unit turned to the soldier. “He’s highly trained. Viktor saw to that when Mez was in his employment.”

  “Well, so are we,” Storm growled.

  Reggie turned off the siren when they drew close and flipped off the flashing lights.

  A car sat double parked and three people stood near it almost in the middle of the road.

  Phoenix slipped out of the SUV and converged on the suspects, guns drawn.

  “Police, don’t move,” Frost snarled.

  A woman screamed, and then all three lifted their hands, their eyes wide. The woman held her cell phone up.

  “Who are you calling?” Wild asked her gently.

  “911, I was car jacked.” Her voice wobbled.

  “Damn it,” Micah said between his teeth.

  “Lower your hands,” Frost told them.

  “What kind of car do you drive?” Allison stepped forward and took the woman’s information.

  “Think he’s going for the airport?” Roscoe called out. The lieutenant was standing with a phone to his ear, near the open doors of the SUV. Alex turned and headed over and Micah followed.

  “No,” Alex said.

  “How can you be sure?” Micah snapped, anger rushing to the surface. It was the closest they’d ever come to Mez.


  “He’s smarter than that. Besides, I don’t think he plans on leaving.”

  “You can’t know that.” Micah frowned.

  “Trust me, if Mez had planned on leaving, he’d already be gone. He wouldn’t have stayed to burn the place and he sure the hell wouldn’t have stuck around to see our reaction to it.”

  Micah sighed. Alex was right. “He’s toying with us,” he growled.

  “He has a wide open opportunity to take over the Lakhonin empire if we don’t shut him down,” Alex said, and the rest of them nodded.

  Wrapping up the small scene with the carjacking, they headed back the way they’d come. Reggie pulled up and parked near the crime scene and suspects.

  Micah leaped from the vehicle and stalked toward the officer who held one of the suspects. Micah kept going until he had the man bent over the hood of the car, his face smashed into the metal.

  “Where the fuck is Mez?”

  The man said nothing, just spat on the hood. Micah knocked the man in the back of the head and the suspect’s forehead hit the metal with a loud crack.

  Phoenix moved in and made a barricade, protecting him from cell phone footage. Nobody said a word. Micah fisted the man’s hair and slammed the guy’s face again into the car.

  The guy coughed and gasped. “I don’t know! I swear.”

  “You better give me something,” he snarled.

  “Front right pocket.”

  Micah dug and pulled out a piece of paper. He flipped it over and found himself staring at the face of his little brother.

  The world whitened out and then whipped back into focus and suddenly Alex was there, by his side, taking the photo. The soldier studied it and then spun.

  Alex lifted the perp by the neck and squeezed.

  “Where is he?” Alex roared in the guy’s face.

  Micah wasn’t sure if Alex meant Caleb or Mez. But nothing mattered after the suspect’s next words.

  “Mez killed him in Oregon.”

  Micah

  A sound woke him and he sat up realizing he’d slept in his clothes and boots. He stepped out of the spare room and into the hallway.

  They’d arrived back in California the night before and he could still smell the scent of Maria’s cookies on the air.

  Walking past the small den, he heard Alex sit up from the couch. He knew without a doubt, the man would follow. He pulled open the front door and stepped outside.

  It was a short walk when he stopped a few blocks away. He stood on the sidewalk gazing at another home. Unlike Alex’s mother’s manicured flower beds, this home had weeds cresting the edge of the house like the remanence of some forgotten holocaust. As if it knew that a terrible tragedy had hit the people who lived inside and left only a hint of the life it had once contained.

  The key slid easily into the lock and he entered the home, leaving the door open. So many memories assaulted him. The meals, the holidays, the fighting, the making up, the love.

  He took the stairs to the upper level, the narrow stairwell they’d bitched about every time they’d moved something up and down the stairs. First their furniture, then a new bed and computer desk for Caleb.

  The door to one room stood ajar and he pushed it open and stilled in the doorway. The desk stood empty as it had for over a year now. Minus one curly-haired, blue eyed boy.

  Taking a deep breath, he started collecting trash and placing it into a nearby trash bag. A partially full box stood on the floor near the closet from his last attempt at cleaning this room several months ago. In that box, he carefully placed keepsakes. Clothes he put in a separate trash bag to be donated. The rest of the stuff he shoved in bags.

  At a slight noise and a soft creak, he turned to find Alex in the doorway.

  Alex held his gaze for a long moment and then lifted a trash bag and began folding clothes and placing them inside. Micah turned back to pick up junk mail and papers from the floor. They worked in silence until there was nothing left but a bunch of stuffed bags and two boxes.

  Two boxes was all he had left.

  He didn’t realize how long he’d been standing until he felt Alex at his back, his nose bumping against his nape. That tall, muscled body hovering, a solid force. His breath stuttered and he turned, clutching at Alex.

  “I’m going to keep looking,” he whispered fiercely. “I don’t care what that thug said.”

  “Yes,” Alex rasped.

  “Forever.” His voice broke when Alex gathered him close.

  “Together,” the man whispered the promise against his temple.

  Alex

  Micah eased out of his arms and headed out of the room. Alex turned back to glance inside one more time before backing out of the room and closing the door. He turned and found Micah standing in the hallway with a faraway expression in his eyes. The man’s sudden stillness worried him.

  He swallowed around the gravel that suddenly filled his throat and forced his feet forward.

  The wide eyes meeting his churned with a pain that he was all too familiar with. He drew Micah close and the man clutched at his shirt. A harsh sound erupted in the still quiet of the hallway.

  Alex tipped his head back and blinked up at the ceiling as he squeezed Micah tight. He set his cheek to the top of the man’s head and drew on a strength he wasn’t sure would last in the face of such destruction.

  With Micah’s face buried in his neck, Alex eased back to hustle the man down the hall to the bedroom they’d once shared. He sat Micah down on the edge of the bed and went to the small bathroom. Back before a minute had passed, he pressed a cool, damp washcloth into his hands. Micah took it and pressed it to his face.

  He crouched, hovering there for a long time, at a loss.

  “We should head back, Mom will be worried,” Micah whispered and lowered the rag.

  Alex held the man’s gaze. “She will, but she’ll understand.” He drew Micah up from the bed and closer by way of a firm hand at the back of the man’s neck.

  “Was she awake?” Micah took a deep breath.

  “I woke her. I didn’t want her waking up and finding us gone.”

  “Good.” Micah took a few steps toward the door and then turned back, reaching for his hand.

  Alex swallowed, took his hand, and squeezed it tightly.

  “What do you want to do with the house?” he murmured.

  “I don’t know,” Micah whispered.

  “We don’t need to decide yet.”

  Micah nodded.

  He pulled open the front door and waited as Micah took one last final look.

  Alex

  Standing on his mother’s back porch, he gazed out over the backyard, but didn’t really see the landscaping.

  From inside the house, Micah and his mother’s discussion drifted out through the screen door. They were trying to decide what to do with the leftovers of the food his mother had cooked.

  He and Micah had just returned from combing the Oregon woods with the unit. After that, they had flown down to double check Texas. Next, they were set to fly back to Alaska and continue the search.

  Like Micah, he wasn’t taking a suspect’s words that Mez had killed Caleb in Oregon.

  Things didn’t add up and it was bugging the shit out of him.

  He drew in a deep breath and for the third time in as many weeks, he called Wolf.

  Wolf hadn’t answered him the first two tries. That wasn’t unusual for the warrior, sometimes Wolf went off the grid for months. One time, the man had disappeared for a whole year. Still, though, it wasn’t going to stop him from giving his friend shit about it. Finally, instead of his voice mail, the man himself answered the phone.

  “Wolf,” the man growled.

  “What the hell?” he grumbled.

  “What?” Wolf returned dryly.

  Someone in the room where Wolf was at said, “I’ll come back later, sir.”

  A sudden thought occurred. “Son of a bitch,” he breathed.

  “What?” Wolf growled.

  �
��You’re still active military,” he accused. The silence on the phone was deafening. It grew and grew so long, he finally said, “Talk to me.”

  “Let’s not.”

  “That leads me to believe it’s still the unit we served in together.”

  Silence again.

  “You of all people know how this works,” Wolf said quietly.

  And he did. He knew exactly how it worked. A covert unit was typically black ops; special forces that nobody outside of the military knew about. Alex had served with Wolf in one of those units. He’d bet money that Wolf was still with Infinity. Alex wouldn’t even breathe the name aloud.

  “You’re right. You just surprised me,” he said quietly.

  “I wish I could say more,” his friend returned.

  “No, don’t risk it. But I’ve got to say… with the resources you probably have access to, I’m fucking glad.”

  Wolf grunted, “So why’d you call?”

  “I …” Suddenly, he couldn’t speak.

  The silent stretched, and then Wolf sucked in a quick breath.

  “You found him,” Wolf stated flatly, his voice devoid of all emotion.

  “No,” he rasped. “But one of the guys we arrested three weeks ago had Caleb’s picture in his pocket.” Alex took a deep breath. “The man said that Mez killed Caleb in Oregon.”

  There was an abrupt silence and for a moment, he thought Wolf had hung up.

  “That makes no fucking sense,” Wolf growled.

  “It doesn’t, does it,” he said. “Mez showed up after the Oregon raid. So how could he have killed Caleb in Oregon?”

  “He couldn’t have,” Wolf said.

  “You know what else I don’t get?”

  “What?

  “Why would Vladimir go after Roscoe’s family if he already had Caleb as a bargaining chip?” he asked roughly. “Which makes me believe he hit Roscoe’s family after he lost Caleb.”

  “I’d bet money you’re right,” Wolf agreed.

  “Now, answer me this, why would someone carry around a picture of a missing person?” Alex said.

  “Because they don’t fucking have him.”