Blade (The Alpha Elite #11)

Chapter Forty-Three

Blade

T he burner vibrated.

Glancing from the fucking porno I’d been witnessing through my scope to the cell, I read the new text.

Crazy Chick: Guess who? Again. *Sigh* Do you think I have a problem?

Checking the wind and shifting my sights, I did a quick recalc and wondered why the fuck I was doing this.

Church. That’s why.

That motherfucker.

He’d been a problem since he was old enough to say shit . It’d been downhill since. But I’d made our mother a promise before she’d told cancer to go fuck itself, and eaten a handful of fentanyl. I didn’t blame her for going out on her terms, but I fucking hated myself for not being around to push her to fight harder.

Or give her the fucking overdose myself.

She never should’ve had to do that shit alone. But same as every other time she’d needed me, I wasn’t fucking present.

When my miserable prick of a father hadn’t made it home from his last deployment, I’d been thousands of miles away at military academy. When my youngest brother, Geir, passed BUD/S, then fell asleep at the wheel before making it to SQT, I’d been three months deep into a covert Spec Ops recon mission. When Mom had gotten the diagnosis, I’d been in the middle of the fucking Indian Ocean, relaying intel to a carrier strike group.

Her last call, I was in the Sandbox.

She told me she was worried about Church. I’d brushed her off. Reminded her that same as me, same as our old man, same as his father, Church had earned his Trident. He could take care of himself. And if he didn’t? Hooyah. Till Valhalla.

Three generations of SEALs, we were battle born.

All of us.

Including her.

It was our legacy. Or so I’d thought.

A week later, I was at her funeral.

Eleven months after that, I was carrying a fucking box off a transport with the dismembered remains of Church.

Some fucking legacy.

Exhaling, I focused up, and the burner vibrated again.

The target in my sights, muscle memory kicking at my trigger finger, I ignored the phone. Not because I was about to commit premeditated murder. I didn’t give a fuck about taking out this piece of shit who’d chained up three women. He probably had a laundry list of crimes a hell of a lot worse. Pulling the trigger on the Teams, doing it now for some anonymous asshole, the HVTs I’d eliminated working for AES—it all fucking blurred.

A kill shot was a kill shot.

None of them mattered to me anymore.

Except this one might earn me intel on Church, and that I still gave a fuck about.

I also wanted the goddamn name of my brunette.

The target shoved the last woman standing to her knees, giving me my shot.

I breathed even.

Then I sent it.

The five-five-six hit. The back of the HVT’s head blew out, and his body dropped.

Rolling, I grabbed my borrowed Reece.

My burner vibrated.

Crazy Chick: Fine. Ignore me.

Crazy Chick: Whatever. I’m out.

Pocketing my shell casing, unscrewing my suppressor, I slammed the bipods back toward the rail and shoved the modified M16 into a rucksack.

A second later, I was swiping across the cell and dialing as I walked off the roof.