Chapter One Hundred and Two
Blade
H er cell and my burner rang a split second before the perimeter alarm went off. Then my AES cell rang.
I was already fucking moving.
Grabbing her purse, snaking an arm around her waist, I palmed my Sig and ushered her toward the pantry.
“Blade?” Fear hit her voice, and her steps faltered. “What’s going on?”
“Someone’s here.” Accessing the hidden panel at the back of the pantry, I entered the security code. The false wall opened to the reinforced room, and I shoved her forward. “Inside.”
“ Oh my God . What is this place? And who’s here? You’re scaring me.”
I locked us in. “Panic room. Don’t know. You’re safe.” Waking up the monitors on my air-gapped system, I tossed my burner on the desk, then grabbed her cell from her bag before fishing my AES cell from my pocket.
“How do you know we’re safe?”
“Steel reinforced walls, door and ceiling, three-foot concrete slab underneath us. Trust me, you’re safe.” Glancing at her screen first, seeing a number I recognized, I tossed her cell down and answered mine. “What the fuck is going on, November?” My computer screens populated with the security cam feeds.
“You’ve got company.”
Lioness looked over my shoulder and gasped.
“No fucking shit.” I was watching them on my security cams as they drove up. “Download,” I ordered, shoving my feet into a pair of boots, and grabbing a shirt from the supplies I kept in here for this exact scenario.
“Oh my God, that’s Reena’s number.” Lioness reached for her cell.
I caught her wrist. “Don’t answer.”
“No copy,” November replied. “Repeat.”
My woman looked stricken. “But she hasn’t called in two years, and I missed her at Del Cielo’s.”
“Not you, November. Hold.” I spared Lioness a glance. “It’s not her. Take a seat. Couch behind you.” Her cell stopped ringing, then started up again as I looked back at the monitors. Black SUV. Tinted windows. “November, go.” My burner stopped ringing.
“I don’t have much. I only picked up the vehicle once it turned onto your property.”
I glanced at the clock on the wall. “There’s no sat imagery over me this time of day. How the fuck did you see them?”
“There is from one of Ghost’s satellites.”
I reangled a security camera as the SUV slowed on approach. “You spend your days watching sat feeds of my place?”
“No. I have a software program running for all our locations. It alerts when unrecognized vehicles approach or there’s a breach. You both got simultaneous calls to your cells. Your call pinged from a location on your land.”
The fucking SUV. “And hers?”
“It’s bouncing all over.”
“Untraceable.”
“Affirmative.”
Fuck. “I’m asking one last time.” The SUV pulled up to the front of the cabin and idled. “Who the hell is Phoenix?”
“I think you’re about to find out.”
“Don’t fuck with me, November. Think isn’t in your vocabulary. I’ve got a civilian and no backup. That SUV could be full of tangoes. I’m either gonna light it up or pick off every motherfucker that steps out of that vehicle. If you know something I don’t, now’s the time to tell me.”
“There’re only two heat signatures, and I’m still trying to trace the other call. Other than that—wait. The satellite feed just went dark.”
“Dark how? Offline or it cut out of range?”
“My access was dis—”
The line went dead, and the two front doors of the SUV opened.
Then my screens went dark, my network shut down, and my emergency backup system failed to kick in.
My burner rang.
Grabbing my MK 12, I unlocked the panic room door, then answered. “You have two fucking seconds to tell me who the hell you are before a five-five-six round pierces your skull.”
The same asshole who’d called me that day in the garage at AES, the same motherfucker I’d killed for, he replied in the same damn monotone. “Approaching unarmed.”
“Bullshit.”
“Sight on us if you want. But don’t pull the trigger until you see who I brought with me. You’re going to want to talk to him. We’re outside your front door.” He hung up.
I cursed.
“Blade?”
I glanced at her. “I’ll be right back.” I handed over my burner. “If I’m not, call AES, only AES, and ask for November. Tell him you need assistance, then wait for him. Don’t open the door for anyone but him.”
My Lioness begged. “Please, please don’t go out there.” Tears fell down her face. “I don’t want you to get killed.”
If I did, I wasn’t going down alone. “This is what I do, woman. Lock the door behind me.”
“Blade—”
“Lock the door.” Sighting with my sniper rifle, I was Oscar Tango Mike.