Angel of Death (Broken Mercenaries Book 2)

by S. Massery

  I click around until I find the cameras. There are figures out there, moving slowly—camouflaged in the waning light. “These assholes are professional,” I mutter. “I don’t know who’s trying to kill me. But I do know they’re relentless. How are they tracking us?”

  He grunts. “Mason would be better to talk to about that. Phones?”

  I shake my head and turn away from the cameras, toward the large picture window that overlooks the front yard. “Hadley didn’t turn hers on until we got here. Those guys had already been following us.”

  “You said they got your info in New York?”

  “Yeah—but they had to figure something out before then. They lured me there.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Yeah. Listen, I gotta go. Things are about to get a little hot in here.”

  “What’s your plan?” For once, Zach sounds a little worried. It’s unusual that I’m in enough trouble to warrant concern. “How many of them are there?”

  “Can you get here? I told Hadley not to come out of the safe room, and I’m about to kill the cameras.”

  “Fuck,” Zach swears. “Yeah, let me make a call. I’ll get on a plane ASAP—but that’s still ten hours you have to hold them off, Griff.”

  “I know what’s at stake. Over and out,” I mutter, yanking the earpiece off and tossing it on the desk. I open the box and smile at the long-range firearm. Dalton would be pissed to know that I’m about to manhandle his baby, but...

  I don’t really have a choice. Sorry, D.

  We were all trained on each other’s specialties. The guys could tourniquet a limb just as well as I could set a detonator or shoot a variety of guns.

  With that in mind, I lift the gun, the box of ammo nestled under it, and head for the attic. There are windows on every side, so I slowly slide them open and start scouting. It only takes seconds to set up the gun and load in a cartridge. My heart rate is out of control as I look down the scope. I’m not the best shot—not as good as Dalton—but I’m hoping luck stays on our side.

  I spot one man on his belly, his own gun extended in front of him. I breathe, count my heartbeat, and pull the trigger.

  He falls to the side, his hand going to the top of his shoulder. I quickly sweep the area as I reload. This is one of the most sensitive rifles I’ve touched, and I’m not the best sniper to begin with. This is ridiculous. Shots spray out of the treeline. My crosshairs swing over to the propane tank next to the generator, and I contemplate for half a second before I shoot.

  I duck beneath the window as the explosion rattles the entire house.

  Talk about a lucky shot.

  I adjust my position and reload. The tactical team has come out of the woodwork. They stand out against the bright green of the woods around us, and I try to count as I aim.

  Shoot.

  Reload.

  Another man falls, and I can’t help but feel satisfaction. It’s also terrifying, this god-like power. I pick off three more before they get wise to my location, and then I’m off, running down the stairs to the second floor.

  The house is dark, but I’ve memorized every inch of this house. I get back to the office in one piece. There’s a gun safe in the corner of the room, and I spin the dial. The metal door opens on silent hinges, and I almost smile at what I find: everything needed to set a trap.

  I grab the backpack next to the safe and yank it open. I toss in boxes of ammo, a taser, and the makings for a bomb. Oh, and some grenades.

  Mother save me, I think. At the last second, I grab the bluetooth earpiece from the desk and put it back on my ear. In the waistband of my pants goes a handgun, and I lift the military-grade firearm that we used with Scorpion. It fits in my hands like it was made for me, and I silently exhale. This is my comfort zone.

  I’m armed to the teeth with the backpack full of explosives, the long-range rifle slung over my shoulder, the M4 Carabine in my hands, and the Beretta at the small of my back. At the last second, I buckle a holster with two knifes around my waist.

  My phone starts vibrating in my pocket as I creep through the house, clearing rooms that I already suspect are empty. This house has a strange design. The front door opens to a wide-open living room and kitchen. On one side, a hallway leads to a small bathroom, the basement, and the garage; on the other side of the living room, there’s a hallway that goes to the master bedroom and a staircase. Second floor has two bedrooms and the office, and the attic is above it. I’ve made it through the master bedroom and I stop in the hallway, facing the living room.

  I answer the phone without looking at the caller ID, whispering, “Go.”

  “Heard you’re in a bit of a pickle,” Dalton says. I roll my eyes. The fact that Zach called him—and now he’s calling me—doesn’t even surprise me. They gossip like teenage girls with a dirty secret. “You find my gun?”

  “Picked off a few with it, thanks,” I murmur.

  “How many left?”

  “Six? That I could see.” Worry is a new sensation that makes my palms sweat. My mind flashes like a strobe back to Hadley. “Hadley’s locked in the panic room,” I tell him, “and I killed the cameras. I didn’t want her to see…”

  “Ah, preserving her innocence. How very noble of you.”

  “Shut up,” I grunt. “I’m going on a haphazard plan, here—that includes drawing them away from the house.”

  “You’re leaving her there?”

  “We tested that room ourselves. No one is getting in unless they know the code.”

  Dalton is rolling his eyes—I can just sense it. “Okay. We’ll be there before you know it.”

  “Fuck,” I whisper.

  “What?”

  A shadow passes by the window next to the front door.

  I flatten to the ground as it inches open and two men creep inside. They have similar tactical weapons as mine, but they’re equipped with belts holding magazines, bulletproof vests, and helmets. The M4 is my baby. It feels like coming home when I put them in my crosshairs. I aim for their throats—normally something I wouldn’t even consider, but we’re in tight quarters.

  I squeeze the trigger twice in succession. One down, then two. They crumble to the ground, wheezing through shredded tracheas. I’m really glad Hadley can’t see me.

  “Fuck, man,” Dalton says. “If you get yourself killed, I’m going to bring you back just to kick your ass and kill you myself.”

  I grin. My adrenaline is spiking, and I hop to my feet. Believe it or not, we’ve all said nearly the same thing to each other over the years. The words are comforting, if not a little morbid.

  “It’s nice that you care,” I comment. I make my way to the two downed men and grab one by the straps of his vest. I drag him into the hallway—the only cover I have—and start patting him down. He grabs my wrist, the blood on his hands making his skin slick. He’ll be dead in another fifteen seconds. The blood gushing from his artery is an unstoppable force.

  Still, I wait another half minute before I start forcibly removing his vest. I put it on and then take his weapons, the belt of ammunition, the radio with a long cord and earbud.

  “These guys are fucking organized,” I mutter. I yank out the earbud and turn the general volume down on the radio, unwilling to give up my other ear solely to different chatter. Hearing what’s around me is more important.

  There’s a creaking noise from the kitchen. I pull the dead guy’s gun and peek around the corner. A man is walking in a crouch, gun high and protecting himself. I double-tap him in the upper thigh, and he falls to the side.

  I check the handgun. Two cartridges left.

  “Report,” a voice through the radio says.

  I stride over to the downed man and kick the gun out of his hand. Anyone looking through a scope could see me through the windows, but if they had seen what just happened, they wouldn’t be asking for a fucking report. His hand is on the radio. “Do—”

  I kick the radio from his hand and press my boot against his wrist. “Tell me who you w
ork for, and I won’t crush your wrist.”

  The man starts laughing. “You’re a dead man walking.”

  I crouch down and slide one of my knives out, pushing it into his neck. His eyes widen, but I don’t stick around to watch the life fade from his eyes. Too much of that, anyway.

  “You blew out the cameras?” Dalton asks, almost conversationally.

  “I did when I shot the propane tank connected to the generator,” I say.

  He snorts. “Did that guy really call you a dead man walking? They clearly don’t know that death usually sides with you.”

  “He has so far, anyway.” I slip out the back door, keeping low, and sprint for the woods. A thrill rushes through me when I make it and slide straight down into the ravine that runs through the property. I hop the stream and scramble up the opposite bank. Years ago, this used to be a raging river that would flood every spring. It’s since dwindled due to damming and rerouting up-river.

  I take a moment to smear mud across my face and the back of my neck, my hands. Anything that might give me away.

  “Why are you asking about the cameras?” I ask Dalton.

  “Mason’s trying to hack it,” he answers. “Can’t get in, obviously.”

  “You called Mason?”

  “It’s all hands on deck for you, Griff.”

  I set down the weapons and backpack. “This would be easier if you guys were here,” I mutter. “I’m half-ass setting a trap for these assholes, and my bomb skills are rusty.”

  “You want me to get Zach on the line?”

  “He’s trying to get a plane chartered, isn’t he?”

  “I don’t know, I think that new friend of his is going to fly us.”

  “Us?” I perk up. Dalton rarely crosses the Atlantic. Him getting on a plane for Jackson last fall was monumental. Jackson didn’t know—still doesn’t—that Dalton developed a fear of planes. It started after we got back, when he flew down to Miami. His new business partner went up with him in a sightseeing plane, and it crash landed in the ocean. Dalton and the pilot survived, but his friend didn’t.

  “For you?” Dalton scoffs. “No question. Where are you now?”

  “Trying to get a better vantage point,” I say. Movement to my left has me ducking, and I hold my breath as branches snap beneath someone’s weight a mere twenty yards away.

  I pick up the handgun again and shift around the tree. The man’s focus is solely on the house.

  “Where there’s one, there’s more,” Dalton says in a low voice.

  I don’t answer.

  “He’s not in here!” the radio squawks from my feet. The man spins toward me, the spray of bullets loud in the near-silent forest. The tree saves me, and I get low to the ground before I return fire. He lets out a yell as I hit him.

  “My ruse is up,” I tell Dalton. “You and Zach have to get Hadley out. Okay?”

  “What are you going to do, Griff?”

  I put the backpack back on, then Dalton’s rifle and my own rifle. After I disassemble the weapon on the dead man, flinging the firing pin away from us. And then I do something I probably shouldn’t…

  I lift the radio to my mouth and say, “Hey assholes. You want me? Come and get me.”

  “Fucking hell, Griffin,” Dalton groans. “You want to get yourself killed?”

  “Not particularly.” I take off through the woods. Fallen branches crack under my feet. There’s a hiking trail around here—Wyatt and I used to walk it—that will take me to a neighboring cabin.

  Everything out here is remote. It’s a lost paradise in the middle of a busy country, outside of a crowded city. It’s maybe a half-mile to the next house, and another quarter-mile beyond that is another. There’s a yell, and I have a split second to veer behind a tree before the ground on either side of me is destroyed.

  I double check my Carabine and peek around the tree. “Three men and closing,” I say, more to myself than Dalton.

  “This is like watching a train wreck,” Dalton mutters. “Except I can’t see anything. Fuck. Narrate better.” He’s silent for a moment as I take down two of the three men. The third raises his gun, and I drop to my stomach and manage to hit him, too. “What’s happening?”

  “Three down,” I say. “I’m moving east.”

  I finally find the damn hiking trail, and off I go.

  “What’s happening?” Dalton asks again.

  “I’m going to hang up on you if you keep asking that,” I pant.

  “This is probably how Mason feels,” Dalton muses. “I’m packing, by the way. How many guns is too many guns?”

  “You’re asking me that question?”

  The trail slopes downward, and I almost wipe out on a bit of loose rock. Once I’m steady again, I glance behind me. Men are chasing after me—two of them. There are three more to my left.

  “I have an idea,” I say. “But it involves more of my concentration.”

  Dalton grunts. “You’re hanging up on me?”

  “Yep. Tell Zach to hurry up.”

  “Planes can only fly so fast,” he mutters. “Anyway. Stay alive for the next few hours—and quit running, would you? You know how these guys operate. See you soon.”

  I laugh as the phone clicks, and then I swerve off the trail. It’s only a matter of time before their backup arrives—they’ll probably get here before Zach and Dalton.

  Dalton is right: It’s time to stop running. I’ve got hunting to do.

  7

  HADLEY

  I wake up in a pool of my own blood.

  Okay, it’s not that dramatic. I lift my head off of the tiles, and in a circle the size of my head is a ring of drying blood. I touch my nose, the source, and grimace. There’s a lump forming on my head from where I hit the ground, too.

  I pick myself up onto my hands and knees. When I try to rise above that, the room swims around me. I crawl toward the small bathroom in the back of the room and use the sink to pull myself up.

  Yikes.

  The lights have dimmed, whether automatically due to whatever time it is, or because of the booming explosion earlier.

  Still, the single bulb casts eerie shadows over my face and neck. My arms, where Griffin pulled me, where the man grabbed me, are black and blue. My whole body hurts.

  This is the cancer, you idiot. I shake my head and probe the lump just above and behind my ear with my fingers. It hurts to touch, but at least I’m not bleeding anymore. I stoop closer to the sink and attempt to wash away the crusted blood from my nose, cheek, and neck. It’s even in my hair.

  This isn’t unusual. I used to get nosebleeds, but I was usually around someone who called for help. In the past two months, I’d probably had a dozen nosebleeds. Never like this, though.

  Never alone.

  For the first time since I woke up, I shiver. It’s cool in the room, and the blood loss just makes it seem colder. I decide to crawl back into the main room. Shame stings like the slap of a whip on my back, but it’s easier to stomach when I don’t have an audience. I can wallow in private. I can suffer alone.

  That’s not why you came here.

  No shit, brain. I came here to get away from the cancer—to run until my body couldn’t run anymore. I’m not even sure if I could survive treatment. I saw my grandmother go through pancreatic cancer. In the end, she was hooked up to machines that kept her body alive—but not her mind.

  Months before that, when she was still living in her home, she grabbed my hand and said, “Hadley Quinn, do not let me go out like that. Do not draw out my death. Let it be quick. I’m ready.”

  Her death was traumatizing in ways I didn’t expect. I was with her every day—or almost every day—for months. She was hooked up to machines, went through various treatments and surgeries, only for her to die in the exact opposite way she wanted. I didn’t have a say in how my parents decided on her care. But I have a say in my own.

  I exhale when I finally make it to the shelving and pull myself up again. I grab some canned fruit and one
of the blankets, sitting heavily while I struggle to open the pull-tab. Once it’s open, I dig my fingers into the sugary syrup. The sliced peach tastes like heaven on my tongue, and I nearly groan at the pleasure of it. I eat three more slices before I set the can aside and open a bottle of water.

  Something bangs against the door from the outside.

  Get used to this, Hadley, I tell myself. I’m envisioning an army outside the door with battering rams. At least I’m in here, instead of out there. Shot or with a gun to my head.

  It comes again, but other than that, I can’t hear anything. I stand, sway, and then make my way to the desk. The chair is tipped over—Ah, I remember now. I was sitting here when the nosebleed started, and I think I fell out of the chair when I tried to get up. The blood came fast and heavy.

  I right it and sit, hitting a key to wake up the computer. The cameras are all blank except for one. I click on it to enlarge it, and it fills the whole screen. It’s a shot of the panic room door. There are three men out there. One has a battering ram. All of them wear black, with helmets and thick vests over their long-sleeved pants and shirts.

  I start to tremble as they wind up and hit the door again.

  Bang.

  I stare at the screen as the men pull back and start talking. They argue, and one pulls a gun and extends his arm toward the door. He doesn’t even look as he fires his gun, over and over, into the door.

  The noise ricochets around the room. I bury my head in my knees, covering my ears, and try not to scream. There’s another gunshot, then two more, and suddenly the door beeps. I shoot up in the chair and scramble—where I think I can go, I’m not sure. The door swings open, and a huge man fills the doorway.

  He isn’t wearing black, though. His pants are a sandy brown, and his t-shirt is dark blue. He looks… normal. For a giant.

  “Hadley!” he says.

  I press myself against the wall.

  “I’m Zach,” he says. “Griff’s friend.”

  “How do I know that’s true?”