Unleashed (Blake Brier Thrillers Book 2)

by L. T. Ryan

  Haeli turned her head to find the smiling faces of Khat and Fezz staring back at her. Khat waved. Haeli laughed. Although the sound of it was drowned out, it was infectious.

  Blake had seen her face in his mind’s eye a thousand times in the last twelve hours. In his vision, she wore an expression of alarm. Despair. Now, she stood before him, her face glowing. Beaming from ear to ear. But it wouldn’t last long.

  The corners of her mouth turned down, pulling her smile with it. Her thin eyebrows pitched in toward the bridge of her nose. Her gaze left his and drifted off over his shoulder, and her mouth moved as if she was speaking.

  They’re here.

  Blake spun around to see the line of men approaching, no further than a football field away. He placed his hand on Haeli’s back and pushed her toward the Little Bird. Haeli broke into a run. Blake followed, watching as the muzzle flashes popped like a string of firecrackers in the distance.

  Khat hopped to the ground and sprayed a barrage of bullets downrange.

  Haeli threw herself inside and Blake stepped up on the personnel platform, pausing for long enough to empty his own magazine toward the advancing men. He hoped at least one round had found a victim.

  Blake hung on tight as the pitch of the engine cried out and the skids teetered.

  More rounds came, clinking and clattering off the Little Bird’s skin.

  Blake reloaded. Haeli, taking up Griff’s unused weapon, laid on her belly and scooted herself out onto the platform by Blake’s feet.

  They took turns sending full magazines raining down on their adversaries. Haeli, then Khat, then Blake. Fezz, one-handing his weapon around the A-pillar, fired haphazardly over the nose.

  They ascended smoothly. One hundred feet. Two hundred feet.

  The helicopter shuttered and bobbed, then spun a hundred eighty degrees.

  Blake feared the worst. They had hit a critical piece of the aircraft. It turned out not to be the case, exactly. But a round had hit the most critical component of the machine.

  The pilot.

  The bullet had torn through Griff’s left bicep. Blake had a clear view of Griff’s left side from the outside. He tried to assess the damage.

  The bullet passed straight through, high on the bicep, before being stopped by Griff’s vest. It missed the humerus and brachial artery. The absence of any arterial spurting was a promising sign.

  Blake leaned within an inch of Griff’s ear and hollered, “You’re lucky. It’s only a flesh wound. Can you get us out of here?”

  Griff nodded.

  Blake would have told him it was a flesh wound even if his arm had fallen off. Hundreds of feet in the air with the only guy who knows how to fly a helicopter wounded, was no time for honesty.

  The Little Bird spun, the nose dipped, and they were en route.

  As the black fatigues and muzzle flashes receded into the distance, Blake couldn’t help but think about what would happen now. For him. For Haeli. For all of them. He really didn’t know. But tomorrow was going to be a hell of a lot better than today.

  33

  Levi dabbed the handkerchief against his forehead. There was an adage in business, he thought. Never let them see you sweat. This was true about the people he was about to meet. The heads of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies practically fed on it.

  It crossed Levi’s mind that was the reason they had left him sitting by himself at the boardroom table for the last half hour. To make him sweat it. They knew that he would deliver bad news.

  For a while, Levi had considered lying. Buying himself some more time to make it right. But then he decided against it. They possessed the power to destroy him and his company. If Haeli could somehow continue eluding him, and the secret was to get out after they had paid him, it would be all over.

  No, he would put the deal off. Petition them for more time. It was in their best interest to let him fix the problem once and for all. Deadline be damned.

  Initially, he hoped things would still work out on schedule. Once he had escaped and made it to his jet at Fresno Yosemite International Airport, he received word that his men had tracked Haeli to the desert and were closing in on her. Levi learned the truth upon landing in New York yesterday morning. Haeli had been rescued. And he knew exactly by whom.

  All of that aside, Levi remained confident that his firm had the resources to track her down. She was a loner. A wanderer. And while she had help now, that wouldn’t always be the case. One night, Haeli would return to her room at some roadside motel and he would be there to greet her.

  Levi checked his watch.

  Let’s get on with this already.

  He hadn’t heard the creak of the door behind him or the shuffling of feet, but he felt the blade of the knife pressed against his throat. A hand squeezed his collar bone.

  They were going to do him like this? Before he had time to explain?

  “Long time, Levi” the voice said.

  Levi recognized it. It wasn’t Big Pharma’s hitmen rubbing him out. This was personal.

  “Brier?”

  Blake applied more pressure, pressing straight in, not to the side. He didn’t want to draw blood, not here. He wanted to deliver a message.

  “What do you want?” Levi asked.

  “You know what I want.”

  “Haeli?”

  Blake brought his cheek in close to Levi’s head. “Haeli is dead. Gone. You no longer need to concern yourself with her. And that’s exactly what you are going to tell the men who come through that door. You will take your money. You will take your win. But you will never speak her name again.”

  “And if I don’t agree?”

  “You will. Because you know that if I can get to you here, I can get to you anywhere. You can’t hide from me. Tell me you know that.”

  Levi’s breathing quickened. “I do.”

  Blake pressed harder. “I should kill you right here.”

  “No, please,” Levi muttered.

  Blake tightened his grip on Levi’s shoulder. “You saved my life once. This is me saving yours.” Blake withdrew the knife from Levi’s neck and tucked it in his suit jacket. “Now we’re even.”

  Levi let out a sigh, rubbed his throat, and then looked down at his hand. He looked relieved. Relieved to be alive and relieved to have an excuse to accept the money. But, by doing so, Levi would be in a compromising position. And that’s exactly where Blake wanted him.

  A gaggle of suits poured into the room. Blake walked past them toward the exit as though he belonged.

  “My attorney,” Levi explained, “he has to excuse himself. Pressing matters, you know. But Gentlemen, I have good news…”

  Blake walked away, leaving Levi Farr to do the thing he did best. Lie through his teeth.

  34

  One point two seconds. The average time it takes to spot Fezz across a crowded bar. On this night, it might have been less. But instead of rushing over, Blake lingered for a moment, taking the scene in from afar. Fezz, Khat, Griff, and now Haeli, sharing a drink and a few laughs. They were rowdy, sure. But they were good people. The best people.

  Blake’s people.

  He watched as Haeli hopped off her stool, moved around Griff, and stole Khat’s ball cap off his head. She put it on and strutted around in what Blake decided was a good impression of Khat. The routine seemed to kill. At least, Fezz and Griff got a hardy laugh out of it. And Khat couldn’t seem to help but smile.

  Blake, standing there on the fringe, felt like he was standing out in the snow, looking in the window of a baker’s shop. Fire blazing, the smell of pies wafting through the air. It was inviting. So much warmer on the inside.

  Blake removed his jacket, draped it over his arm, and set off to join his merry band of misfits.

  Haeli was the first to notice him.

  “Mick, you’re back!”

  Blake had called to fill everyone in as soon as he left Levi. They were ecstatic it had worked. Levi had made his deal, and Haeli was free to live her
life as she saw fit. They planned the evening as a celebration of their victory.

  “Good to be back in Virginia.” Blake placed his hand on Griff’s good arm. The other was tied up in a sling. “How’s the arm?”

  “Hurts like hell,” Griff said.

  Blake laughed. “Hey, you wanted to be part of the action.”

  Haeli handed Blake a glass of whiskey. He didn’t need to ask what kind it was.

  “Gentlemen, and lady,” Blake said, his glass held at eye level, “a toast to my man Apollo. MVP.” The group offered a few hoots and hollers. Blake took a sip. “Seriously, I love you, brother. All of you. And I’d even extend that to Kook if he were here.”

  “Well, you’re in luck.” Khat motioned to the happy-go-lucky thatch of blonde hair emerging from the restroom. The California Dream himself.

  Blake offered his hand as Grant approached. Grant skipped the handshake and went straight for the hug.

  “This is a surprise,” Blake said. “What are you doing in these parts?”

  “I heard there was a celebration happening and, seeing as though I was instrumental in the mission’s success, I figured you’d need me here to sing my praises.” He slapped Blake on the shoulder. “And it’s been a while since I’d been back. I figured I’d visit my sister while I’m here.”

  “Glad you’re here,” Blake said.

  Khat removed his cap from Haeli’s head, then reseated it onto his own. “I wish I was there to see the look on that cretin’s face when you showed up.”

  Blake laughed. “Let’s just say, he may have needed to change his skivvies afterward.”

  “What irks me is Levi got exactly what he wanted.” Fezz lamented.

  “You’d hope he’d learned his lesson,” Griff said. “Use that money to do something worth doing.”

  “I wouldn’t count on Levi to learn anything,” Blake said. “But as long as Haeli’s safe and we never have to see his smug face again, I’m good.”

  Fezz pointed at Blake. “That’s the part I wouldn’t count on. I just have this feeling Levi’s not going away.”

  “Time will tell,” Blake offered. “What else did I miss in the last day?”

  “Not much,” Fezz said. “Once we left you, we got Haeli and Roberts squared away at the airport, arranged a flight for ourselves out of Henderson, got the equipment back, and set up Haeli in a safe house nearby for a few days so she can get situated. Guess we did quite a bit. Oh, and Griff had surgery.”

  “Thanks for remembering,” Griff said.

  “What happened to Roberts?” Blake asked.

  “Illinois,” Haeli responded. “He said that’s where he was from. I sat down with him for a couple of hours at the airport. Asked him a million questions.”

  “And? How are you feeling?”

  A word formed on her lips but receded before it could escape. Her bottom lip quivered. She gained control of it by pursing her lips and forcing a breath of air through them. “I don’t know. Hasn’t set in yet, I suppose. What really sucks is that I won’t know what happened to my father’s body.”

  Blake wrapped his arms around Haeli. She nestled her face into his shoulder and spoke into his chest.

  “I still really haven’t come to terms with what I am. Who I am. Or what I’m going to do now. I’m a little screwed up in the head.” She lifted her cheek from Blake’s chest. “And I’m pretty sure there aren’t any shrinks who specialize in treating ex-science experiments.”

  Blake chuckled. “Probably not. But at least you seem to have conquered your heights thing.”

  “Yeah, don’t remind me.” Haeli’s cheery smile relaxed again into contemplation. She reached out, placed her hand along the side of Blake’s face and stroked her thumb against his cheek. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll work through it. I’ll find my purpose.”

  “That reminds me of something a wise Sherpa once told me.” Blake paused at Haeli’s distrusting expression, as if she were already waiting for the punchline. “No joke, he’s a real guy. His name was Tashi. A Buddhist monk believe it or not. He told me, ‘Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it.’”

  Haeli squinted, processing the ancient wisdom. “No idea what that means.”

  Blake laughed. “You will in a minute.” He shifted to face the entire group. “Listen up. Since we’re all here, let me float something by you all. I know we’ve joked about it in the past, but I’m being serious right now. Hear me out for a minute.”

  He had their attention.

  “What if we worked together again?”

  “You wanna come back?” Fezz asked.

  “No, definitely not. I mean the other way around. What if we went private? Small scale, completely off the radar. I know you’d be leaving pension money on the table by quitting the Agency, but do you want to stay until you’re fifty? Financially, jumping over to the private sector is a sound move. Look at Kook. Look at me. We’d be doing what we do best. And money aside, we can make a difference.”

  “How would that work?” Fezz asked.

  “Word of mouth, mostly. Connections. It would be slow at first. But we can do things the government can’t, which makes us valuable.”

  Grant bobbed his head. “Right, like vigilantes.”

  “Not exactly.” Blake paused. “Look, I don’t want to get cheesy, but think about it. The thing we all have in common, besides our skill, our training, our experience and all of that, is we see something that’s wrong and we make it right. Haeli, what Tashi said about purpose. This is our purpose. Every single one of us. Am I wrong about that?”

  The group looked around at each other’s faces. No one seemed to disagree.

  “We’d be losing the resources we currently have,” Griff said. “Apart from a favor here and there. It would take a pretty good chunk of change to get up and running.”

  “I’ve got a few bucks stashed away,” Grant said.

  “I’d be willing to fund it myself,” Blake said. “But I don’t think it will be necessary. I know a guy. Greyson Whitby’s his name. Filthy rich. Terrible climber. Got a feeling he’d be willing to bankroll us for a percentage. And he owes me a favor.”

  “There’s something else to consider,” Khat said. “I know we’ve gotten away with a lot, but we have to remember we aren’t above the law. The last few days, we’ve really pushed our luck. You especially, Mick. That stunt above the Palazzo. It’s a matter of time before we all find ourselves in jail. You really wanna risk it?”

  Blake agreed. He had looked over his shoulder, wondering if his sins would finally catch up to him. But it was about more than self-preservation. Like Haeli, he faced an existential crisis of his own. It forced him to ask himself the hard questions. What separated him from a common criminal? Was he becoming a monster? He had taken lives. Men who were guilty only by association. He had done bad things for good reasons, or so he told himself, but he wondered if the scales balanced out.

  “You are one hundred percent right, Khat. If we do this, we do it by the book. We hold ourselves accountable.”

  “This is a big ask, Mick,” Fezz said.

  “I know. I’m not looking for anyone to decide tonight. Just think about it. That’s all.”

  “Well, I’m in.” Haeli broke the tension. “But only if I get an ultra-cool nickname like the rest of you.”

  Blake wrapped his arm around her. “How about Pegasus?”

  “Gross.”

  Blake chuckled. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

  “Bartender,” Khat announced in an inexplicable and inaccurate British accent. “Libations all around.”

  The oddest family that ever existed drank and laughed and hurled their best insults at one another. But Blake noticed the subtle change in the mood, each of them trailing off from the conversation to lose themselves in thought. A few seconds here, a few seconds there. His proposal had already burrowed deep in their brains. The seed had sprouted, and it would continue to grow. Like the pre-dawn glow over the
distant mountains of Nevada, it took the tiniest bit of light to open one’s perspective.

  “Mick, come here,” Haeli said. She pressed against him. Her plush lips brushed against his ear. “You wanna go someplace else?”

  He smiled.

  “Gentlemen, it’s been fun, but I’ll leave you to it. Haeli and I have a lot to talk about.”

  The expected childish heckling gave way to handshakes and a couple of gruff embraces.

  As Blake and Haeli departed, he stopped. He took two hurried steps back and then rapped his knuckles against the hardwood bar top.

  For luck.

  Because, well, it never hurts.

  ***

  Blake Brier returns in Uncharted, available for pre-order now!

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RRZ2YKP/

  Turn the page to read a sample of Uncharted.

  Uncharted

  Blake Brier Book Three

  by L.T. Ryan & Gregory Scott

  Copyright © 2020 by L.T. Ryan, Liquid Mind Media, LLC, & Gregory Scott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

  Uncharted Chapter 1

  Saturday, May 29th. Afternoon.

  Jason wiped the sunscreen-laced bead of sweat from the corner of his eye before it had the chance to infiltrate under the lid. He opened his eyes as much as the beating afternoon sun would allow. Satisfied that he thwarted the eyeball-stinging scourge of the SPF 15, he closed his eyes and sunk back into his thoughts.

  Stretched out across the V-shaped cushions of his parent’s twenty-two-foot bowrider, Jason had but one concern. Properly maintaining his tan.

  “That’s a hot look,” Brian said over the cracking of another can of Miller Lite.