Sniper

by Lagomarsino, Giulia

  ✯✯✯✯✯

  “Rocco, how are Alec and Florrie?”

  We were all gathered in the conference room, making our plans for The Broker. Chance was sitting in the corner of the room, slumped in his chair. He had seemed okay when they first got back, but as time went on, I could see the reality of everything hitting him.

  “Concussions, but they’re both okay. Just resting for now.”

  “Good. Becky, what have you found out from the police department?”

  “They have no idea who set the fire, but it’s been determined it was arson.”

  “I think we all figured that out by the boards over my fucking windows,” Chance muttered from the corner.

  “Um…there is one other thing that the fire investigator has said about the fire,” Becky said hesitantly.

  “What’s that?”

  “As of right now, there are no signs of a body.”

  Chance stood up in the corner, stalking over to the table. “What the fuck do you mean there’s no sign of a body? And why are you just telling us this now?”

  “He still has a lot of his investigation left, but as of right now, he’s not seeing a body. I didn’t want to say anything until I had something more concrete.”

  Chance’s gaze whipped to mine, a tiny bit of hope sparking in his eyes.

  “Did they look in the panic room?” Florrie asked, stepping into the room with a sling around her arm.

  “I never showed her the panic room,” Chance said.

  “I did. It’s possible she saw me enter the code.”

  “You mean that she could still be in that fucking room?” Chance exploded, running out of the room and down the hall. I chased after him, snagging him by the arm before he got a chance to get to a vehicle and storm out of here.

  “You have to wait. You can’t just show your face out there. If Wes is still watching, he’ll see you out there and take his shot at you.”

  “I need to see. She could be alive!”

  “I know, but let me have Sean look into it. He decided to stay behind and he’s been at the scene. I’ll see what he knows.”

  Chance nodded reluctantly and followed me back to the conference room. I pulled out the sat phone and put it on speakerphone, dialing Sean’s number.

  “You guys okay over there?”

  “Everyone is here and safe. We have a favor to ask of you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “We need you to check the panic room at Chance’s house.” I glanced up at Chance, his face anxious and his body strung tight. “There’s a chance Morgan is in there.”

  “I’m at the house now. Do you have a code for me?”

  Chance stepped over to the phone. “Sean, it’s Chance. You have to bypass the system. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  A few minutes later, Sean was there, ready to get into the panic room.

  “Okay, you have to press and hold zero and one at the same time for five seconds. Then release and press 8637.”

  “Doing that now.” We waited for what felt like an eternity while he entered the code. “Okay, I’ve got a blinking green light.”

  “Good. The code is 7835490 and then the pound sign.”

  “Got it. Opening now.” I heard him walking and then a switch. “What the fuck?”

  “What? What is it?”

  “Why are there so many fucking beds in here?”

  All of us looked to Chance, but he just glared at me. “You really want to talk about this right now?” I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it at all. “Sean, in the back of the room is a short hallway and a few small rooms. Check to see if she’s there.”

  Doors opened and closed and Chance’s face fell with every door that shut. “She’s not here.”

  “Thanks, Sean.”

  I looked up at Chance, trying to read what he was thinking.

  “If she’s not there, that means she’s alive. We have to find her. She’s out there with that maniac.”

  “We will,” I said confidently.

  Becky was already searching on her computer, different pages appearing on the screen on the wall as she checked different sites, and reports on Weston Hughes were flying across the screen.

  “He has a flight scheduled for takeoff in two hours. It’s his private jet. His flight plan is for London.”

  “We need to go now,” Chance said, heading for the door.

  “Chance, wait! We need a plan.”

  But he wasn’t listening. He was already headed for the elevator. I ran toward him, but just as the elevator doors opened, men in black tactical gear stepped off, weapons raised. They definitely weren’t ours. There were only two people that weren’t accounted for and they were on their way here now.

  Chance didn’t have even a second to draw his weapon. The butt of the gun came down like a sledgehammer on his head and he slumped to the ground, unmoving.

  “Code Black!” I shouted as I drew my gun out of the small of my back. I fired several shots, hitting a few men, but suddenly, men were converging from all different areas of the floor. The cold steel of a gun was pressed against my head just a second later. The conference room was packed with men, leaving us nowhere to go. We didn’t have enough weapons and we would all be dead by the time one of us was able to get to the reserves.

  “Listen up!” one of them shouted. “If you don’t want to die, you’ll do as we say!” I gritted my teeth, not wanting to yield to this asshole, but not really having any other choice. We weren’t going down though. None of us would ever give in to assholes like this. It might kill me, but I would find a way to get us in the position we needed to fight back.

  I glanced back at the guys in the conference room giving a slight nod to them to stand down. They all placed their weapons on the table, at least the ones in their hands. I saw Becky set down her computer and press two buttons, the buttons that would save our lives right now. We had all come up with several hand signals after the last attack on Reed Security so that we would always have a way to communicate with each other in the event that our building was under siege.

  I pulled on my right earlobe for just a second as I turned back, giving the signal that they all needed to take cover. The man in front of me grinned and I grinned back just before I lifted my boot and slammed it into the side of his knee, breaking it and making him fall to the floor. I grabbed the weapon in his hand just as a bullet tore through my shoulder. I gritted my teeth and ignored the fire burning through me. I chose my shots carefully, taking aim at those that wouldn’t be affected by the blast as much.

  Spinning around, I saw that everyone was fighting, some using hand to hand combat and others using their guns. It was tight quarters and anyone could get killed in a situation like this. We had to spread this out and move the fight out of here, but not until our diversion went off. Just a few more seconds.

  I was tackled to the floor, falling on my side, my gun jammed between my side and the floor. I threw my elbow back, nailing the guy in the face and then rolling to pull my gun up.

  Before I could fire, the IT room blew up, the explosion blowing the walls into little bits of plaster and sending a thick cloud of white throughout the room. The rest of the building burned, the flames thick and fast moving, just as planned. We had to get out of here.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lola

  LOLA

  “Shit!” I yelled as the wall of Reed Security exploded outward, flames licking at the sky and the rest of the building.

  “Back entrance,” Knight yelled beside me. I drove around to the back of the building and squealed to a stop by the underground entrance. Knight and I raced up the stairs, stalled by every door we had to enter codes through and do the facial scans. Every minute that we were stalled, more of our teammates were being killed. I thought about Derek and Hunter, wishing I had never left the team and I was there fighting right alongside them right now.

  “Follow me,” Knight commanded. I wanted to yell at him for telling me what to do, b
ut I bit my tongue and followed him. He led me up some stairs, one floor above the level the conference room was on. I had never been here before, didn’t even know it existed. Knight opened a hatch and hopped inside, flicking on a light and illuminating a small room and then doors that led out into other hallways.

  “What the hell is this place?”

  “This is my backup plan. I had Cap do some updates after hours over the past two years. It was just completed a few months ago,” he said as we loaded weapons that he had just pulled out of a gun closet. He had a fucking arsenal in here. “There’s a hallway that leads around to the other side of the building, near Derek’s office. You head that way and I’ll head through this other door. Keep moving. Don’t give them the opportunity to get a shot off at you.”

  He took off before I could ask anything else, so I grabbed my weapons and started running down the hallway, checking for the best position. When I had it, I laid my guns against the wall and got into position, looking through my scope for my target.

  There were too many of them to count, so I just started firing, taking out whoever I could, but then I saw Ice lying on the ground, blood pooling under his body and Chris fighting to get over to him. I repositioned and took out the man that Chris was fighting. He was over to Ice seconds later, pressing against the wound in Ice’s stomach, but Ice didn’t even flinch.

  I kept moving, just like Knight told me to and found another position. There was so much blood all over the room. It wasn’t confined to the conference room where it appeared to have started. Men were fighting all over and I now understood why Knight told me to keep moving. I picked up and ran, finding anyone else that I could, taking shot after shot, only hearing the steady beat of my heart as I found a rhythm and fired, taking out the assholes that were here to kill us.

  “Fuck!”

  My head snapped to the side. I moved quickly to a new position. Burg was fighting two men, one that had his arm wrapped around his throat and another that was slamming a new magazine into his gun. Following my sights, I fired, taking out the man that was about to shoot Burg, but as I swung my gun to take out the second man, I realized that I was just seconds late. Burg had a knife embedded in his leg. The second man was just about to snap Burg’s neck and I didn’t have a shot. With Burg still struggling, there was only one thing I could do. I lined up the shot and fired, hitting Burg in the same leg, making his leg collapse from under him. I swiftly shifted positions and shot the other man in the head, making him drop to the ground dead.

  “No!” That was Knight. I looked up, trying to find out where his shout was coming from, but there was too much going on. I stood and raced through the hallways, trying to find Knight. He would only yell out like that for one person. The one person that had stood by me through years of nightmares and torment. My pulse skyrocketed as I skidded to a stop around the corner of the hallway and saw Knight racing across the room below. I followed the path he was running and saw Hunter on his knees, his hand pressed to the side of his neck as blood dripped between his fingers. His hand fell from his neck just seconds later as his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground. I ran until I found a door that would allow me to jump down to the floor below and jumped through.

  Racing to Hunter’s side, he was pale and his eyes were closed. Knight was pressing hard against his neck and swearing at him, telling him to hold on. There was so much blood and when I felt for his pulse, it was thready and slow.

  “Rocco!” I started running through the chaos looking for Rocco and when I found him, he was patching up Gabe, who had a wound on his head, but he was still conscious and Hunter wouldn’t be alive in a minute. “You have to come with me. Hunter’s been hit in the neck. He’s bleeding out.”

  “Go,” Gabe yelled.

  Rocco and I ran back to Hunter, where Knight was still trying to patch him up. Rocco shoved his way in and yanked open his bag, pulling out a shit load of medical supplies. I couldn’t do anything but grip Hunter’s hand and stare at him, praying that he didn’t die. I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t lose any of them. I looked around vaguely at the chaos. Blood was everywhere. Men were lying all over the floor, some enemies and some of ours. I didn’t know if anyone was dead, but I knew that things would never be the same after this.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement over by the elevators. It was Chance, he was being dragged off by two men that were struggling to stay on their feet. I dropped Hunter’s hand and pulled out my gun, firing until I emptied my clip, but I was too late. They were already on the elevator and there was no way to get to him before they dragged him out of here. Still I had to try.

  I took off for the back stairs, being stalled at every door to enter codes and complete scans. The blood on my hands had me redoing the scans over and over again. I didn’t have my keys for my truck on me. I had dropped them somewhere and now had to run around the building. By the time I got to the front of the building, their vehicle was peeling through the gates. I pulled a second gun from my ankle and fired, hoping to hit them and at least slow them down, but every bullet pinged off the vehicle and soon I was out of range. They were gone, and our guys were too hurt to go after Chance right now. I didn’t even know who was still standing at this point. Hopefully Becky was still alive and could track down the vehicle. If not, Chance would be lost to us and could be dead by the time we found him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Morgan

  I WATCHED THE live feed outside the house as Chance struggled past his friends to get into his house. He thought I was in there and would probably blame himself for my death for the rest of his life. I couldn’t decide which was worse, him thinking that he got me killed, or him looking for me for the rest of his life. Either one wasn’t worth his time.

  I had made my choice and it would always be my daughter. I didn’t want to betray Chance and all his friends, but Wes was offering me my daughter. Yes, it had a time limit on it, but maybe in that time I could figure out a way to escape. It wasn’t very likely, but I would rather take a few years with her over a lifetime without her. And living with him had to be better than wherever she was right now. With him, she would have luxuries that would never be offered to her otherwise. Not that it mattered, but at least it wasn’t a cell. At least, I hoped not.

  Still, watching Chance fall to his knees and his friends trying to console him was heartbreaking. We had grown to have something between us. I wanted to say love, but I wasn’t sure he felt that way. But when he begged me to do what he needed, I could have sworn that his feelings were more than both of us ever thought possible. Now, I had betrayed him, the one man that swore to search for my daughter until he found her. The man that would have done anything to protect both of us. I knew I had to do what was best for Payton, but I couldn’t help wishing this had turned out differently.

  I shivered as a strong hand landed on my shoulder. “This is just the beginning. I’m going to tear them down. Every single one of those men is going to know what happens when they fuck with me.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I whispered. “I already told you what I know.”

  “Yes, and it’s been very helpful. I have my best people working on the facial scans. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but I’m pretty sure we’ll have everything we need in a few hours.”

  I wished I had burned the house down before he had gotten any of Chance’s fingerprints or DNA. If I had done that, maybe I could have prevented Wes from getting as far as he had. I hadn’t given them everything though. There were the codes and I had noticed Chance entered several codes for different locations. As far as the facial scans, I just didn’t think that was possible.

  “What now?” I asked painfully.

  “Now, we get on our plane and go home,” he smiled. “Your new home.”

  I choked on my sobs, forcing them to stay hidden from him. He didn’t deserve my tears. “And my daughter?”

  “She’ll be with you soon enough.”

  He took my
hand, wrapping it through his arm, and walked out of his hotel room and down to a waiting car. Every step felt like a death sentence, which I already knew it was. But since I didn’t have my daughter yet, I couldn’t help but feel that I had made the wrong choice.

  We boarded the plane and were seated in what could only be described as a luxury hotel in the sky. The champagne that was brought out and the fruits that were set on the table in front of me weren’t something I squealed in delight over. Instead, I looked at them with disdain and immediately regretted it when Wes’s disapproval showed. I forced myself to eat the fruit and hated that it was probably the best fruit I had ever tasted.

  A few hours into the flight, Wes started fiddling with a tablet, but I ignored him, not caring what he was doing. I didn’t want to be involved in his life in any way. I wanted my daughter and everything else was irrelevant.

  “Ah, here it is. We’re just in time for the show.”

  “What show?”

  He handed the tablet over to me and I gasped when I saw what he was talking about. I recognized the room as the conference room in the Reed Security building. Men were lying all over the place, blood pooling around them. I watched in horror as men were shot, including some of Chance’s friends. I didn’t understand. How had they gotten in there so fast? I hadn’t given them codes and they still needed DNA and facial recognition, among several other things that I hadn’t told them.

  The screen zeroed in on one man in particular that was lying by the elevator. Someone wanted me to see exactly what was happening. I watched as two men grabbed his arms and started dragging him. I recognized him once they lifted him off the ground. It was Chance, and either he was unconscious or he was dead.

  A new ache filled my chest, one that I thought I would never feel. As he disappeared into the elevator, it finally sank in that I had made the worst choice possible. I swiped at the tears that fell from my eyes and looked at Wes. “Is he dead?”