Savage Rising

by Katie Reus

  And Olivia’s ex had been watching her too closely—with barely disguised lust. Because who could blame the guy? Olivia was perfection. But it wasn’t just that.

  No, there was something else there. Anger. It was below the surface and Zac had only caught glimpses of it—but it had been there more than once. Angry men could be very dangerous. Especially an ex who felt spurned or some other bullshit.

  Zac didn’t like that Heath’s presence had been sprung on them at the last minute either. His appearance in this whole thing felt wrong. It could be a coincidence that Neely had asked him, since the man had worked with him before. But Olivia had been pretty insistent that Heath had been afraid of Neely too.

  He rolled his shoulders once against the cold metal wall of the hollowed-out van. If anyone looked into the cab from the driver’s side window they’d just see the doors and a bunch of computer equipment. Neely had hollowed out a small section of the back and input the same back doors over it. They didn’t open; they’d been welded in. But unless someone inspected it closely or realized something was off about the measurements of the interior, it was a solid way to sneak into this place.

  In fact, Zac had done something similar before but he’d been on the undercarriage of an M939 truck. And it had been a weapons dealer’s compound he’d infiltrated.

  As the van slowed, everyone went still. Enough time had passed that they should be at the final destination.

  Olivia’s voice was muffled but she didn’t sound stressed. And he only heard one other voice. Should be Maxwell. Good. When he looked over he realized Heath was watching him. Zac stared right back, wanting her ex to see exactly the type of man he was, what he was capable of—and how Zac would enjoy hurting him.

  The other man looked away.

  A second later the van started moving again. They all slightly swayed back and forth as they headed up a ramp of the parking garage.

  A few more minutes later, they stopped moving, the engine shut off, then there was the coded knock on the back door. Olivia’s knock.

  Neely opened it and they all jumped out. A total of three vehicles were in the parking lot that he could see, but the place appeared nearly deserted. According to Neely, it was supposed to be. Zac immediately tugged a black ski mask on. Even though the video feed was supposed to be on a loop for the next five minutes, he wasn’t taking the chance. Especially since Neely had burned him and Olivia before.

  Olivia gave Zac a tight smile before she did the same, tugging a mask over her face and hair. He hated the stress he saw there. Hated everything about this situation. If he could have done this without her, he would have. Hell, he’d wanted to call the whole thing off and just pull out with her when a chance opened up.

  But she’d said no. And so had Gage. And Skye. Because Olivia would never be free of Neely if they pulled out now. And even if he wanted to simply make Neely disappear, the man had blackmail on Olivia. There was no telling where it was or what would happen to it if Neely went missing.

  “Clock is ticking.” Neely’s voice was clipped, tight, as he put his own mask on. The others did the same. “Savage, you’re with me.”

  Every fiber of him wanted to go with Olivia, to protect her. But they had to stick to the plan. It wouldn’t make sense for Neely to kill her. He wouldn’t have brought her into this if that was the plan.

  Most likely after the job he planned to kill them, but Savage’s team would be waiting. So he had to let her go.

  Olivia gave him a small, reassuring smile before she turned and headed toward one of the east set of stairwells. He and Neely would be taking another set because it was a quicker path to where they needed to be.

  As his legs ate up the distance toward the metal door, he replayed that smile in his head. She’d been trying to reassure him. He didn’t think that had ever happened on an op. From anyone.

  This woman had snuck under his armor and she wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t want her to. Hell, he just hoped he hadn’t screwed up so badly that he didn’t have a chance with her. He’d tried to remember every word he’d said to Brooks this morning and it wasn’t pretty. No wonder she’d been so cold to him.

  “We’ll have to move fast, disabling the team in the security room,” Neely said as they jogged up the stairs. He’d already been over this a dozen times but Zac just nodded.

  When Neely’s radio buzzed he lifted it, spoke quickly into it. It was Maxwell telling them their time frame was getting shorter.

  Zac increased his pace as they hurried up the stairs. The overall plan was solid but he wanted to know what the hell was in the safe. And who Neely planned to sell the contents to.

  As they reached the tenth floor they both slowed and Neely withdrew a pistol. Zac tightened his jaw. He’d known Neely was bringing a weapon on this job but he didn’t like it.

  In the hallway Zac scanned for any signs of life, saw none. It looked like a typical high-rise building with offices. Each office they passed looked normal enough. Desks, laptops, bookcases and filing cabinets were in most of them. A few doors were closed. And all of them were dark. There were no typical signs of life indicating someone else might be working late. The only lights were from the city beyond. As they passed a conference room, Neely signaled with his hand.

  “First door,” he murmured.

  The last three doors led to the security rooms but the main hub was the second door from where they were. So they were going to enter through the first door and sneak into the main hub and take out the four men inside. At least that was the plan.

  Neely stepped back as if to let Zac go first but he shook his head and nodded at the weapon. If Neely wanted to bring a pistol, he could go first. No way was Zac giving this guy his back.

  Neely didn’t respond, just slid a keycard he’d gotten from who knew where across the black electronic pad. There was a soft snicking sound. Once inside Zac swept his gaze over the small break room.

  Neely had been right. The security team had their own break area, separate from the rest of the building. These guys really stayed contained. Smart.

  As they stepped inside, a side door opened and he froze as a man holding a Glock 19 at full extension moved into view. The weapon was trained right at Zac.

  Neely raised his own weapon—at Zac’s head.

  Fuck.

  “Are the others contained?” Neely’s voice was low, the question not aimed at Zac.

  “Yes. Everyone’s contained and the system is now offline.”

  What the hell did that mean? Neely had told Zac and the others that they’d have to take over the control room.

  The man with the Glock had a faint accent and wasn’t bothering to cover his face. Square jaw, five feet ten give or take an inch, dark brown hair, blue eyes. And the accent wasn’t pronounced enough for Zac to pinpoint an exact origin. But if he had to guess, Zac was going with Russian.

  Without warning Neely smashed Zac in the temple with the butt of his weapon. “Keep this one alive for now in case I need to use him later.”

  Zac crumpled to the floor, feigning that he was more affected by the blow than he was. His head throbbed as the door shut behind Neely.

  Right about now he had a shitload of questions, but unfortunately for him Neely wasn’t an evil movie villain willing to give him a monologue. So the only thing he knew: he had to take out this current threat and get to Olivia.

  “Get up slowly.” The man moved closer.

  Zac groaned and pushed onto his knees but held his head.

  “Don’t make me ask again.” He strode across the room, past the small round table and chairs as Zac stood, still bent over at the waist. The man muttered something under his breath but Zac tuned it out when the man was within striking distance.

  He popped up, grabbing onto the wrist of the gun-wielding hand, and struck out with his other hand, wrapping it around the man’s arm and yanking up. Hard. It was a move he’d done more times than he wanted to remember.

  The weapon went off as the man’s wrist br
oke.

  Crying out, the man pulled Zac close with his good hand and lifted his knee, jabbing it into his thigh.

  Adrenaline pumping through him, he barely felt the blow. Instead of trying to pull away, he jabbed at the man’s ribs with his fist.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Groaning, now the dark-haired man tried to pull away. Zac twisted and slammed his elbow across the man’s face. His head snapped back.

  The man slammed his foot on Zac’s instep. Pain ricocheted through him. Cursing, Zac crushed the man’s nose. No holding back. They pummeled each other, back and forth until the man fell onto his back.

  Zac went to stomp on his throat. The man rolled to his front and Zac pounced, using the full weight of his body to hold him down.

  Even as the man thrashed underneath him, he wrapped his forearm around the guy’s neck, and using his other arm as leverage, broke his neck.

  Shoving to his feet, he quickly palmed the fallen Glock and tucked it into the back of his pants. Then he checked the dead man for any ID. Found none. But he took the key card hooked to the man’s belt.

  “Olivia, can you hear me?” They had the upper hand on the others because of their comm system. But she didn’t respond.

  She’d told him that she’d have to take her earbud out when cracking the safe because she needed to use the stethoscope. Heart pounding, he shoved back the fear that wanted to overtake him.

  He’d been trained for situations like this. The government had spent a shit-ton of money making sure he was a killing machine. But nothing could have prepared him for Olivia. For how it would feel to know she was in the same building with a man who would definitely kill her once she’d lost her usefulness.

  Screw that.

  She’d told him it would take less time than Neely had given her to open the safe and he’d only been here maybe six minutes. Even if it felt like a lifetime. Combined with the five minutes it had taken to get up to this floor, the clock was ticking down. He had to get to her.

  Neely must have lied about more.

  Stepping over the dead body—and trying to ignore the pain in his foot—he moved toward the door the other man had come out of.

  “What’s going on, Savage?” Gage’s voice came over the comm.

  “Neely was working with someone on the inside,” he murmured. “And no one came out of the security room while we were fighting to the death. I’m moving in now.” He tried the door. Locked. Then he waved the card over the black panel.

  Snick.

  He pulled the door open—and found four men with their hands tied behind their backs, feet bound and hoods over all their heads. They were still enough as they lay on their sides but all of them were breathing. And he couldn’t see any blood or wounds anywhere.

  “He’s disabled all the security. And…” Zac moved to the security panel and realized that the entire system had been shut down. “System’s shut down completely.”

  “If there’s a failsafe in place, someone in the company will receive an alert. At least they should,” Gage said. “And with a company this size, there will definitely be a failsafe.”

  Neely had already lied to them. What if he was wrong about this too and an alert had gone out to local law enforcement?

  He moved to the nearest bound man, tapped the guy’s leg with his boot. “Did any of you trigger an alarm?”

  “No.” The man he’d tapped answered.

  “You sure about that?” He crouched down and pressed the Glock to the man’s temple, then chambered a round. He wouldn’t use it. But the security guard wouldn’t know that.

  A pause. “I have three kids.”

  “Then tell me what I want to know.”

  “The system was undergoing a reboot tonight. A security protocol where everything goes offline. Standard. Happens every three months like clockwork. When it comes back on if the security system doesn’t link up, an alert goes out to the CEO—and the police.”

  “How much longer will it be offline?”

  “Maybe another hour. Give or take a few minutes.”

  “Okay. You four are going to remain here while my buddy keeps watch. Do anything stupid and…” He tapped the weapon against the man’s head.

  Then he left. Either they’d figure out there was no “buddy” watching them or they wouldn’t. But they were secured well. It would have to do.

  Now he had to find Olivia and get the hell out of there. Screw everything else. She was his only priority.

  Chapter 18

  —I don’t want a knight to save me. I want a man who fights by my side.—

  Olivia pushed out a long breath as the safe opened. It didn’t take remotely as long as it could have. She took the stethoscope out of her ears and stood, pulling the safe completely open.

  Heavy duty and basically immovable, the interior was filled with files. Some paper. There were also…passports. With a gloved hand she reached in and pulled one out. Then another. Huh. Same person but different names and countries for the passports. And there were stacks of cash.

  On the middle rack was a small velvet bag full of flash drives. A handful of them. She started to pull the radio out that Kyle had given all of them but decided to tell Savage first. As she put her earpiece back in, the sound of the office door opening had her heart flipping over—until she realized it was Heath. He had a black and gray duffel bag hooked over one shoulder.

  “What are you doing here?” She kept her voice low then glanced at the radio. Had hers malfunctioned? She’d thought he was supposed to be downstairs manning the lobby security desk.

  He stepped into the room. Aaaannd, that was when she saw the gun in his gloved hand. He held it up and pointed it directly at her, his blue eyes ice cold. “You’re even better than I remembered. That only took you half the time I expected.” Despite his words, bitterness laced his voice.

  “Why are you holding a gun on me?”

  “I’m coming,” Savage said into her ear. “Keep him talking.”

  Okay, she could hold on for however long it took him to get to her. She had no choice.

  “Step away from the safe.” His voice was low, but hard.

  For a split second she thought about slamming it shut but didn’t want to risk that he would shoot her. She did as he said, sliding sideways toward the panel of floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Keeping the gun trained on her—and he held the thing with way too much ease for her comfort—he covered the distance to the open safe in seconds. “You really are gifted,” he murmured.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Did Kyle tell you to kill me?” Maybe that had always been the plan. She’d figured Kyle would try to double-cross them. So had Zac. Which was why he and the Redemption Harbor team had a backup plan in place. But this… She hadn’t even expected her ex-husband to be here, much less pull a gun on her. For all his faults, he’d never been violent. Just self-involved.

  He snorted. “Neely’s not in charge. I am. I brought him into this, not the other way around.”

  “So you brought me into this, then?” She balled her hands into fists at her side. Heath had done this to her? To their daughter?

  He nodded, as if proud. “You never should have kept that blackmail on me.”

  Ice slid through her veins, sharp and cold. Was that why he’d pulled her into this? But to what end? “I had to and you know it.”

  “You really think I would have come after you later? The mother of my child.”

  Her jaw clenched once. He didn’t get to call Valencia his. He’d given up all parental rights when he walked away. Instead of telling him exactly what she thought she said, “Were you behind Martina’s kidnapping?”

  He lifted a shoulder, looking smug even as he reached into the safe and pulled out the bag of flash drives. “It was my idea but Neely took care of that. There was never any connection to me.”

  “So…you brought Neely into whatever this is?” She motioned to the safe. “To steal a bunch of information. Why involve me?”


  He reached in again, pulled out the stacks of cash and started dumping them into the duffel bag. “I needed the best.” He looked at the passports, frowned, then shoved them back into the safe. “And I needed blackmail on you. Now I have it. You ever go to the cops with what you have on me, I give them what I have on you.”

  Damn it. She gritted her teeth, willing the rage building inside her to tamp down. For now. Despite what he said, there was no way he’d come up with all this on his own. Unless he’d changed so drastically in the last six years that he’d become a criminal mastermind, someone else was behind this. “Who are you giving the flash drives to?”

  He faltered once before pulling out a stack of paper files and shoving them into the bag. “Why do you assume I am?”

  “You have to be selling them to someone or…” Oh, God. “You’re paying off a debt.” That made way more sense than anything else. The Heath she’d known had liked to live large and way out of his means. He’d thought he deserved it. He’d always liked to gamble too.

  His jaw tightened and she knew she’d nailed it. After a long moment, he said, “I got in deep with some Russians. In exchange for letting me live—and you and Valencia—I had to take something big for them.”

  She seriously doubted whoever these guys were had threatened her, especially since Heath had as much as admitted he wanted blackmail on her, but she was silent as he continued.

  “So I reached out to Neely and set this job up.”

  “And getting blackmail on me in the process was a bonus.”

  “You never should have had that shit on me in the first place,” he snarled, looking up from the safe now, all his focus on her.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the office door easing open and resisted the urge to look in that direction. Sweat dripped down her spine and her palms were beyond damp in her gloves.

  “What kind of wife does that?” He stepped toward her then, his duffel and the safe forgotten for the moment.