Her Rogue Alpha (X-Ops Book 5)

by Paige Tyler

  At his words, everyone at the table stood up a little straighter. Jayson was stunned at the trust and belief in their eyes—Layla’s as much as any of the others. He only hoped he was able to live up to that kind of trust. They might have survived the short raid on the RSA building, but his previous attempt at leading a combat mission had ended in disaster.

  “All right, let’s get moving.” He rolled up the map Layla and Olek had made. “It’s going to take us a while to get out there, and I need time to check the place out in person before we go in.”

  The teens immediately headed for the stairs, but Layla hung back with him. Jayson clicked off the flashlight, plunging the old library into darkness. Layla could still see of course, and she reached out to take his hand.

  “We’re going to do this,” she whispered softly. “Together.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Together.”

  Chapter 12

  Dreya had always thought that the apartment she maintained over in Columbia Heights was a tremendous waste of money. Not only did she already have a beautiful place in Foggy Bottom, but Rory had insisted she keep the lease paid up a year in advance—in cash. He’d been of the opinion she needed to have a place to hide out that was completely off the radar and where everything was under a fake name. According to him, cash made all that easier.

  She’d humored him because, well…Rory knew a lot more about this business than she did. At the same time, she hated the idea of spending that kind of money on a place she rarely ever slept in. Of course, with so many of her fellow thieves showing up dead all over town, she’d changed her mind on the subject completely. As far as she was concerned now, Rory had been brilliant beyond belief.

  The only problem was that she hadn’t kept the place stocked with food. If Rory were there, he would have been pissed. If he were there, she also liked to think he would have been proud to know she was taking his advice. Not that she had much of a choice.

  With all the groceries she had in the trunk of the hatchback she’d borrowed from Zipcar, she’d be set for at least a week, maybe more. She’d hide out for a while, eat Cap’n Crunch out of the box while reading a few romance books and let things cool down. By then, hopefully she would figure out a way of getting Thorn’s crap back to him in manner that didn’t equal her ending up dead.

  She parked the car along the curb four blocks down and two blocks over from her apartment complex. She didn’t know for sure, but she’d hazard a guess that Zipcar had GPS chips in their cars, and while the apartment was listed under a false name, her Zipcar account wasn’t. She didn’t want anyone tracing the car to her safe house.

  She went around to the back of the car and opened the trunk, reaching in to pull out the first half-dozen bags. Crap, it was going to take her at least two trips to get all this food into the apartment. What a pain in the butt.

  Fortunately, it wouldn’t be physically strenuous. Yet another fringe benefit of her freaky side. She could have carried all the bags at one time, but a woman her size doing that would have attracted a load of attention. That was something she definitely didn’t want.

  Dreya had just turned and was walking down the sidewalk when she felt a strange prickling sensation run up her back. Dropping her bags, she spun around, her claws extending as she prepared to defend herself. Instead of someone charging at her with a butcher knife, a roaring chain saw or even a machine gun, the street was empty. Well, not exactly empty. There were a few cars passing by on the street, and a little farther away, there was a tiny, old lady walking her pug. The pug might have been eyeballing Dreya with an expression of major confusion, but there was definitely nothing around that looked threatening.

  She glanced up at the nearby apartment windows and balconies, but there was nothing there either. The skin at the base of her neck was still tingling like mad, though. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong.

  Dreya was used to her freaky side telling her things. Like when cars got too close to her motorcycle. Weird crap like that had been happening to her for over a decade now. But this was different. This felt like her head was sitting right in the middle of a sniper’s crosshairs.

  She doubted that was the case, but she couldn’t stand out there in the street all day, her groceries lying at her feet like she had lost her marbles. She looked around one more time. She was probably just freaking out because she’d been under so much stress. With her only real friend in the world dead, a multimillion-dollar diamond hidden in her apartment, and Thorn’s goons ready to beat her to a pulp the moment they caught her, how could she not be stressed out?

  Dreya collected her bags and hurried down the sidewalk toward her apartment again. The prickling sensation immediately began to fade, but she still ducked down a side street that ran along the back of the nearest apartment complex anyway. Instinct told her to get off the main street and out of sight. With no one watching, she was able to pick up her pace without worrying about someone wondering how she was able to jog while carrying six heavy grocery bags.

  She ran for three blocks, staying behind the long line of multifloor apartments, figuring she’d turn left at the next alley, then cross over Fourteenth Street. Then it would just be a short run up the stairs and she’d be in her apartment. Maybe she’d hang out there for a couple hours before she came down for the rest of her stuff.

  But as she approached the alley, the feeling of dread she’d been experiencing earlier subsided almost to the point that she wasn’t sure if it had ever been there. Maybe she was just losing her freaky mind.

  She turned and was halfway down the alley when she saw the black SUV turned sideways across it. The tingling sensation lit a fire along her back again, even hotter than before.

  Dreya dropped her bags, her claws and fangs coming out this time as she focused on the heavily tinted windows of the vehicle blocking her path. There was no way in hell that thing parked there was a coincidence. Someone had been watching her out on the main street earlier. They’d somehow figured out where she was heading and had gotten in front of her.

  The seconds ticked by, but no one in the SUV moved. She was about to abandon her groceries altogether and sprint past the vehicle, but the electric tingles along her spine were so painful now she wanted to scream.

  She spun around and saw two big men in dark suits wearing sunglasses standing in the middle of the alley behind her, cutting off her escape in that direction. Her first instinct was to turn and run. She knew for a fact that there was no one on the planet who could keep up with her when she really cut loose and ran hard.

  Then she saw the weapons both men held. She knew nothing about guns, but the things they were holding didn’t look like any revolver or automatic she’d ever seen. Instead of the typical gun barrel, the front of the weapons were closed off with a bright-green square of plastic. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were toys. She knew she wasn’t that lucky.

  The two men smiled menacingly at her, their eyes hidden behind their dark glasses as they shifted their weapons just enough so that they were pointed straight at her. She might be fast, but something told her she couldn’t outrun whatever was going to come out the end of those guns, though.

  Time froze for a moment as she tensed, ready to spring to the side the second it seemed like the two men were about to fire. The grins on their faces broadened, as if they knew exactly what she was going to do and that it wouldn’t help.

  Suddenly, a roar so loud filled the air it seemed to shake the walls of the buildings on either side of the alley and vibrate through her chest like thunder. Dreya barely caught movement out of the corner of her eye before a blur slammed into both gunmen. The two guys who’d been about to shoot her were big, but this new guy completely dwarfed them, and when he slammed into them, they both went flying. One hit the far wall of the alley and crumpled to the ground, unmoving. The other hit the ground and rolled, somehow coming up with his we
apon pointed in the general direction of her savior.

  There was a pop, then a zipping sound. Dreya’s eyes widened as they followed the movement of the multiple electrode wires that sprang from the gun and closed the distance between the man on the ground and his attacker. Two electrodes struck the big bull of a man in the chest, and the air was suddenly alive with the sizzle and ozone stench of electricity. Crap. Those weapons were some kind of Taser guns.

  Dreya expected the big man to fall to the ground and start flopping—like they did in the movies. But the guy just stood there with a pissed-off look on his face as he casually ripped the wires away from his chest. Then he roared again and charged. If Dreya thought he moved fast before, it was nothing compared to how quick he was now.

  The shooter’s eyes widened as he tried to get out of the way, but it was too late. The big man grabbed him off the ground and tossed him across the alley, slamming him into the same wall his partner had just bounced off. The man in the dark suit and sunglasses who’d likely been planning to torture and kill her flopped boneless to the ground. Dreya was pretty sure he wasn’t ever getting up. That was okay with her.

  The huge man turned and looked at Dreya with eyes that were glowing the brightest green she’d ever seen. Gaze locked on her, he took a step in her direction.

  That was enough for her. She knew he’d just saved her life, but she was scared and he was freaking terrifying. She turned and took off running, her feet barely hitting the hood of the black SUV blocking the alley as she hurtled over the top of it.

  Dreya knew it was stupid to go back to her apartment instead of the safe house, but she had to get a few things, including her emergency stash of cash and Thorn’s diamond. Then she was getting the hell out of town.

  * * *

  The thunder of artillery fire rumbled in the distance, accompanied by dim flashes of light that filtered through the low cloud cover like fireworks on a rainy Fourth of July. Layla had only been in Donetsk a few days, but already the thump and crack of exploding artillery and rocket shells was becoming like background noise for her.

  Background noise or not, the ominous rumbling sound combined with the misting rain that had started a short time ago seemed to cast a subduing blanket over all of them, most especially the three teens. Dylan and his friends had grown quieter the closer they’d gotten to Zolnerov’s estate as the weight of what they were about to do began to bear down on them. Now that they were there outside the huge house, the three teens silently regarded the dwelling with somber expressions. Layla couldn’t miss the anxiety that sped up their heart rates and made them as tense as bow strings. She wanted to tell them that everything was going to be okay, and that everyone was going to make it out of this okay. But she knew she couldn’t because there was a good chance she’d be wrong.

  “I didn’t think the place would be so big,” Dylan said softly.

  Even though it was dark, the teens hung back in the trees as if they were worried that one of the many guards roaming the property would see them.

  “Dylan’s right. How are you two ever going to find Anya in that place?” Mikhail asked. “It’s huge. And creepy.”

  The Russian kid was right. In the darkness, the brick home that she and Jayson had first seen in Victor’s photo now looked more like something out of a Dracula movie. Layla couldn’t begin to imagine how many rooms there were. There had to be forty at least, and that wasn’t counting the equally large outbuildings. Some of those looked big enough by themselves to hide a hundred kidnapped girls. If she and Jayson had been planning to search this whole place room by room, Dylan and his friends would have been right to worry. Thankfully, they didn’t have to do that. They just had to follow her nose.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Jayson said to the Russian teen. “The three of you need to be focused on pulling off the distraction we talked about. You do that, and Layla and I will find Anya.”

  Mikhail took a deep breath and nodded, like he was absorbing some of Jayson’s confidence. Layla could easily believe that was possible. Jayson was in his element out here, leading their small team into danger. There’d been no hesitation or doubt in anything he’d said or done during the drive out here in the truck Victor had loaned them, or after they’d parked and moved the rest of the way in on foot. Even though she was the only one who could see in the dark, it was Jayson who had confidently led them through the last mile of woodland as they approached Zolnerov’s estate. He’d moved through the forest as if he could see as well as she could, and the teens had followed his lead.

  Layla imagined this was what Jayson had been like back in the army, when he was doing things that were insanely dangerous and important. She understood now more than ever why it had been so devastating when his injuries had taken all of it away from him.

  The change she’d seen in him over the past few days was dramatic. It wasn’t that he was a different person or anything, but there was a calm fire in his eyes that hadn’t been there when he’d been sitting behind a desk at the DCO or even standing on the weapons range. That was because Jayson’s life finally had a purpose again. Layla knew she was a big part of that purpose, but being in the field and doing the work he loved was critical, too.

  Which was why Layla had spent almost as much time on the way out here worrying about their future in the DCO as she had wondering how they could possibly make it through this rescue mission alive and unhurt.

  Would Dick and everyone else at the DCO really let them stay together as partners? Once Dick realized he wasn’t going to get what he wanted out of Jayson anymore, the deputy director would probably break them up just for the fun of it. Heck, once everyone figured out that Jayson hadn’t picked up any obvious hybrid abilities, she wasn’t sure anyone at the DCO would let him go back into the field with or without her for a partner. She loved Jayson more than she could put into words and the thought of him losing something so important to him—again—was more than she was willing to accept.

  She was still thinking about that when a curious voice suddenly jarred her out of her scheming thoughts.

  “How do you even shoot this gun?”

  Layla turned her head to see Olek staring down at the Makarov in his hand, a confused look on his face. It was hard to believe that one simple question could carry so much weight, but with those few words, Olek reminded her once again how young these three guys were, and how much she and Jayson were asking of them.

  Crap.

  Layla was about to tell Jayson this was never going to work and that they needed to come up with a new plan, but before she could open her mouth, Jayson stepped forward and gently took the battered Russian pistol out of the kid’s hand. Then he dropped to one knee and motioned for them to join him.

  “Have any of you guys ever fired a weapon before?” he asked softly.

  Layla couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t a trace of concern in Jayson’s voice. How the hell did he do that? It was like he was asking them if they’d driven a car or kissed a girl.

  Dylan shook his head, but Mikhail nodded. “Yes, but not one like this. It was an old AK-47 that my father had. I’ve never fired anything but that.”

  Jayson shook his head in the dark. “No problem. You may not have known it, but you picked a good weapon for you three to use right out of the box.”

  “I did?” Mikhail asked, surprise clear in his voice.

  “Yeah,” Jayson told him. “The Makarov is a simple, rugged, fixed-barrel, blowback-operated automatic. It’s never going to win any marksmanship awards, but at short distances—which is the only distance I want you three shooting at—it’s as accurate as you need it to be.”

  “Is it hard to shoot?” Dylan asked.

  “Not once you get the hang of it.” Jayson held up the weapon so the glow coming from the lights outside the house shone on it a little. “Nothing fancy, though. I’ll just cover the stuff you have to know right now, okay
?”

  They all nodded.

  “First thing’s first. This is the safety.” He pointed at the flip switch on the rear of the slide. “Push it down to fire. Remember—down is dead. Say it.”

  “Down is dead,” the three teens said in unison.

  “Good.”

  Layla stood there and watched as Jayson showed them how to unload the weapon, slip bullets in the ammo clip, then reload the weapon and chamber a round. He talked slowly, letting them see what he was doing. Then he had them do it. Maybe it was the Special Forces training in him coming out, but in five minutes, he had them handling the 9mm pistols like they’d been doing it for years.

  “Nothing fancy with the shooting, either,” he added as they each chambered a round and put their weapons on safe. “If you have to do it, square up on your target, wrap both hands around the gun like I showed you, and shoot for the center of the chest, then get the hell out of there.”

  Dylan said something in reply, but Layla completely missed it as a very distracting scent suddenly wafted past her. Even as her head started shuffling through memories to identify it, she found herself instinctively spinning around, reaching behind her back to pull out her 9mm as she did.

  Jayson was at her side in a flash, his assault rifle on his shoulder and aimed into the deeper forest behind them. The teens were right there with him, chambering rounds in their weapons as they moved.

  Half a second later, her nose finally figured what the heck she was smelling—or whom to be more precise. She opened her mouth to tell Jayson and the kids that everything was fine when a gruff voice drifted to them through the forest. If she hadn’t known who it was, the disembodied growl coming out of the rain-misted forest would have been kind of freaky. Okay, even knowing who it was, it was still a little disconcerting.

  “Good to see they finally let you off the range, Jayson. Although I gotta say, the DCO must be getting desperate for field agents if they’re sending out kids now.”