CHAPTER 21
LEON P.O.V.
I straightened my left French cuff, feeling the dampness of the room clinging to the cotton.
The air in the cleared safe room smelled like pulverized drywall, ozone, and the slick, heavy scent of the sex we just had in the middle of a fucking warzone.
My blood was still rushing, a vicious, erratic hum under my skin, but I forced my heart rate down.
I watched Alessia. She was checking the weight of her magazine, slamming it back into the grip of her Glock with a sharp, metallic crack.
Her face was a mask of sweating, lethal focus.
I didn't see the panicked FBI agent I’d dragged into my penthouse three weeks ago.
I saw a survivor with a white-knuckled hunger for the next target.
I stepped closer, closing the distance between us, and reached out.
My thumb caught a smudge of black soot high on her cheekbone, smearing it against her pale skin.
I let my hand linger there a second too long, feeling the heat radiating off her jaw.
"Focus, Alessia," I said, my voice low enough to barely scratch the silence.
She didn't pull away. Her dark eyes locked onto mine, dilated and feral. "I'm focused."
"The adrenaline is a liar," I told her, dragging my thumb down to the corner of her mouth.
"Don't let it cloud your hands. We aren't done yet.
" I stepped back, adjusting the lapels of my suit jacket.
The copper stench of blood drifting from the hallway was starting to overpower her scent, and it pissed me off.
"You look better with a weapon than a badge. "
"Almost finished," she breathed, her grip tightening on the gun.
We moved out of the safe room and into the haze of the corridor.
The distant, rhythmic thud of a flashbang echoed off the concrete walls somewhere on the east wing, vibrating through the building’s ventilation system.
I took the point, pressing my back against the cold concrete, moving like a predator through the shadows.
Alessia tucked herself perfectly into my shadow, muzzle-scanning the ceiling and the blind corners.
We moved in a silent, practiced dance, our boots crunching on shattered glass from the blown-out light fixtures overhead.
The silence in this part of the compound was more oppressive than the gunfire downstairs.
The anticipation of Vane's location was a suffocating weight in the air, a sick kind of waiting.
I felt her right behind me, an extension of my own nervous system.
She tapped my shoulder twice—the tactical signal for all clear—but her fingers lingered on my blade-shoulder for a heartbeat longer than necessary.
"Left corner clear," she whispered.
"Stay on my six," I replied, not looking back. "Don't breathe until I tell you. He’s in the office."
I marveled at her silence. Most federal agents talk too fucking much.
They rely on their radios, their backup, their goddamn rules of engagement.
Alessia was learning that noise was a death sentence.
We reached a junction in the hallway, the corridor splitting into a T-intersection.
I deliberately stepped out, turning my back to her completely as I checked a side door.
Her barrel was mere inches from my spine.
I knew the weapon was loaded. I handed her the goddamn rounds myself.
I was essentially offering her my life on a silver platter, playing a sick game of Russian Roulette with her loyalty to see if she had the resolve to keep my life or the desire to end it.
I paused at the junction, letting the silence stretch until it was practically screaming, waiting to see if she’d flinch or lower the weapon.
"I’m giving you my back, Alessia," I said quietly, staring into the dark adjoining hall. "Don't miss."
"Shut up, Leon."
"One pull of that trigger and you can walk out of here. The FBI would call you a hero if you killed me now. Make your choice."
I felt the heavy weight of my tailored wool coat settling against my shoulders, the metallic taste of my own anticipation pooling under my tongue. The risk was a profound, erotic spike in my chest. If she killed me right now, it would be the only ending I’d accept.
Before she could answer, two shadows detached themselves from the darkness on the stairwell landing above us.
I spotted the movement in my peripheral vision, but before I could even raise my weapon, Alessia was already pivoting.
Her Glock barked twice. The sharp, suppressed crack-crack was clinical and terrifyingly fast. The two stragglers didn't even have time to scream.
They tumbled down the metal stairs with a heavy, wet series of thuds, collapsing in a tangled heap of limbs and cheap tactical gear at the bottom of the landing.
Alessia didn't wait for a command. She stepped forward and kicked a discarded shell casing out of her way with a sharp, impatient click of her boot.
"Targets down," she said, her voice completely dead. "Moving."
I stared at her, genuinely caught off guard. "Christ, you're fast."
"Save some for me."
She was reloading a fresh magazine with a metallic clack, her eyes totally vacant of remorse or hesitation.
I looked down at the dead men bleeding out on the grated floor, then back at her.
I gave her a slow, approving nod. There was no 'Agent Heller' left in those dark brown eyes.
Just a woman who had finally accepted that the world was divided into predators and prey, and she was done being the prey.
I stepped over the pooling blood, inviting her to do the same, but I caught her arm as she passed me.
My fingers dug hard into her bicep, forcing her to stop and meet my gaze.
"No guilt?" I asked, searching her face.
She yanked her arm, but I held firm. "Let go."
"Look at them, Alessia," I demanded, tilting my chin toward the corpses. "They're just meat now. You’re doing well. Keep that coldness. You'll need it in the next room."
The sticky sound of our boots on the blood-slicked concrete followed us as we pushed up the stairs to the upper-level atrium.
She was crossing the line. I could feel the soul-fracture radiating off her in waves, and it was the most beautiful fucking thing I'd ever seen.
We reached the inner sanctum. The mahogany double doors were massive, reinforced, and expensive—a custom tomb for whoever was hiding inside.
I signaled for a hard stack against the gold-leafed molding of the doorframe.
I ran a hand along the edge of the wood, checking for the tell-tale shimmer of a tripwire, finding nothing.
The silence inside the office was too loud.
Vane was in there, waiting with his back to the wall like a cornered rat.
Alessia pressed her back against the wall next to me, her breathing turning shallow.
She wiped her palms on her tactical pants, a rare, sudden sign of nerves that I found incredibly endearing.
"This is it," I murmured.
"I know."
"On my signal. Ready?"
She nodded, jaw tight.
"Don't stop until the room is empty." I held up three fingers, keeping my eyes entirely locked on hers.
The countdown was silent. In the final second, I didn't bother looking at the door.
I wanted her face to be the last thing I saw before the chaos erupted.
I reached out and briefly squeezed her hand where it gripped her gun, a gesture of dark solidarity that made her eyes flare.
"See you on the other side," I whispered.
I dropped a finger. Three.
Another finger. Two.
"Go."
I kicked the door with a violent, deafening crack of splintering wood.
The heavy mahogany gave way, flying inward as we stormed the opulent office.
It was a massive cavern of dark wood, leather, and cigar smoke.
I pivoted right, my weapon tracking for movement in the deep shadows of the bookshelves, while Alessia flooded the room low, her muzzle rapidly sweeping the left quadrant.
A stray bullet from a blind-fire somewhere in the room clipped a crystal decanter on the massive desk, exploding it outward and showering me in jagged glass and expensive bourbon.
The stinging spray hit the side of my face.
"Clear left!" Alessia shouted.
"Contact!" I yelled back, tracking the source of the shot, but the room was full of heavy velvet curtains and oversized furniture. "Where is he?"
"Check the corners! Move, move!"
I moved fast toward the massive desk, immediately spotting the open wall safe behind it.
Scattered bearer bonds and a stack of passports lay discarded on the floor.
Vane was halfway through a disappearance act.
The desperation in the room was palpable, a pathetic, sour stench of sweat and expensive cologne.
"He’s still here," I barked, kicking a stack of hundred-dollar bills out of the way. My eyes scanned the plush carpet for footprints. "Safe is empty."
"Check the drapes," Alessia said, moving to check a private bathroom door with a tactical kick.
"Alessia, watch the wall."
I stepped into the center of the room, my boots crunching on broken crystal.
A mountain of a man clad in Kevlar burst from the shadows behind the velvet window treatments with a guttural roar.
He didn't even bother firing his weapon.
He tackled me with the force of a fucking freight train.
The impact knocked the breath out of my lungs and the gun from my hand.
It slid across the polished hardwood floor, spinning out of reach.
We hit the ground hard. My head cracked brutally against the sharp edge of the desk, sending a blinding bloom of red static through my vision.
"Fucker!" I grunted, shoving my forearms under his chest to keep his weight off me.
"Leon!" Alessia yelled, her footsteps rushing toward us.
"Stay back, Alessia!" I ordered, my vision swimming back into focus.