Chapter 10
10
V ince’s head snaps up, his expression shifting from lecherous to alert in an instant. “What was that?”
Another pop, closer this time. Then several in rapid succession.
The nearest guard’s radio crackles to life. “Security breach in sector three. Multiple hostiles. Request backup immediately.”
Vince stiffens as understanding dawns.
“Don’t,” Raphael warns.
But Vince doesn’t listen as he turns toward his guards, mouth opening to shout orders.
Everything happens in a fluid series of movements honed by years of practice. Raphael’s hand slides down my thigh, fingers wrapping around the grip of my pistol and drawing it from the holster. At the same time, I reach into his jacket, extracting the Glock from his shoulder holster in one practiced motion.
We move in perfect synchronization, muscle memory from countless operations together overriding the years of separation and hurt. Raphael pivots right, my gun already extending toward the guard stationed at the opposite end of the room. I spin left, Raphael’s weapon heavier than mine but familiar in my grip as I aim at the guard nearest the door.
Two shots crack the air in rapid succession, one from Raphael’s hand, one from mine. The guard to my left drops, a neat hole appearing in the center of his forehead as a spray of blood and tissue erupts behind him to paint the wall.
Raphael’s target drops a beat later, clutching his chest as blood soaks his shirt.
Adrenaline hits like lightning. I fire again, Raphael’s Glock bucking in my grip, and another guard crumples in a burst of red. It’s not my weapon—heavier, more recoil—but my body remembers how to adjust, how to fight beside him.
My finger moves instinctively, each shot clean. Five years vanish in gunfire, and we’re back where we began. Just Raphael and me, two halves of the same predator.
In the heartbeats between shots, Vince runs for the service door at the back of the room, using his falling guards as cover. Raphael shifts his aim long enough to wing him in the leg, and Vince screams as the bullet tears through his calf muscle, slowing him down.
The last guard still fumbles with his weapon as I squeeze the trigger again. He jerks backward as my bullet finds his shoulder with a disabling shot rather than a kill. He drops his weapon, clutching the wound as he slides down the wall.
More gunfire erupts outside the room as our team engages the club’s security forces. The captive Omegas press themselves against the walls, some dropping to the floor in defensive postures, others frozen in shock.
“Stay down!” I gesture with my free hand. “Help is coming!”
Understanding flickers across some of their faces, confusion and fear on others. The auburn-haired woman I spoke with earlier herds the others toward the far corner of the room, away from the line of fire.
Raphael moves toward the guard I wounded, kicking his weapon away before pressing the barrel of my pistol to his forehead. “How many more guards are in the service hall?”
The man spits blood, defiant even with a bullet in his shoulder. “Fuck you.”
Raphael shifts his aim and fires. The guard’s kneecap explodes in a spray of bone and tissue, and his scream echoes off the walls, high and agonized.
God, I love that man.
“Let’s try again.” Raphael points the weapon at his other kneecap. “How many guards?”
“Eight!” the man gasps, his breath shallow, face drained of color as he clutches his wound. “Eight on this floor. More upstairs.”
Raphael puts a bullet in the man’s head, and I shiver at the clinical efficiency of it. This Alpha was made for violence, just like me.
More gunfire sounds from the corridor outside, closer now, our teams advancing, clearing the club room by room.
I turn toward our target, but he managed to crawl his way out of the room, leaving a trail of blood across the polished floor. “Dammit. Vince is on the move.”
Raphael pauses beside the first guard he shot, whose chest still rises and falls in shallow, wet gasps. Without hesitation, he puts another bullet in the man’s head, ensuring he won’t be a threat at our backs.
“Go.” He gestures toward Vince. “I’ll secure the room and signal the extraction team for the Omegas.”
I don’t wait for further instruction, already in pursuit of Vince.
Behind me, Raphael speaks in terse commands, directing the captive Omegas, contacting our support teams through his concealed comms unit to ensure our extraction plan proceeds smoothly. Always the strategist, the commander. Some things never change.
Then I’m out in the service hall, and I spot Vince up ahead, dragging his bleeding leg across the polished floor, leaving a trail so obvious a child could follow it.
“Where are you going, Vince?” I pass darkened rooms with closed doors. “I thought you wanted to play with me.”
He peers over his shoulder, the whites of his eyes showing in his panic, and he limps faster.
Then, doors open on either side as guards emerge ahead of him.
I shoot the one on the right before he can even focus on me.
Raphael appears at my side, shooting the one on the left, filling the hall with the scent of gunpowder and blood. “Extraction team is two minutes out. The others are secure.”
“Excellent.” Another guard steps into view, raising a sawed-off shotgun, but hesitates when he spots his boss standing in the way.
Raphael responds without hesitation, my smaller pistol extending in his hand as he fires twice in rapid succession. The guard crumples, his weapon discharging into the ceiling as he falls, but Raphael pulls me down, protecting me instinctively.
A scuff comes from behind us, and I pivot to fire over Raphael’s shoulder. The guard drops, choking on blood as it spills through his fingers. Another dives behind a doorframe, firing blindly, and plaster explodes beside my head.
Adrenaline floods through me, and everything sharpens. Raphael’s pheromones spike, blood stings the air, and gunpowder burns my throat. My ears pick up the panicked breath of the guard behind the wall, the distant shouts of our team, and the wet drag of Vince’s escape.
Another shot screams past as I duck and return fire in three quick bursts. All hit their mark. The guard gurgles once, then silence.
Raphael turns, still kneeling, flushed and breathless, eyes blazing with the same high running through me. Our gazes lock, just for a second, but it stretches forever. Then he grins, that old, feral smile I haven’t seen in years, the one he wore when we were deep in the chaos, bleeding and alive.
I grin back, sharp and unfiltered. No pretense. No walls. Just us. For a heartbeat, we’re exactly what we’ve always been.
Perfectly matched.
Perfectly lethal.
“Just like old times,” he says, the words muffled by the ringing in my ears.
I don’t acknowledge the comment, already pushing to my feet to continue the pursuit. But warmth unfurls in my chest, along with a dangerous longing.
We move forward in tandem, covering each other as we advance through the corridor. Two more guards appear from a side room. Raphael takes one while I take the other in perfect synchronicity.
I catch glimpses of Raphael in action from the corner of my eye, fluid and efficient, with no wasted movement. He’s always been beautiful when he fights, a contradiction of grace and brutality, causing my heart to race for reasons beyond fear or adrenaline.
It still does, traitorous organ that it is.
Ahead, Vince has reached a set of double doors, and he fumbles to punch in a code on the keypad beside the frame, his hand shaking so hard he errors out on the first try.
I move into a sprint, Raphael right behind me.
Vince checks our location, his face pale from blood loss, and frantically punches the code in again. If we put another bullet in him, he might die, and we still need him for questioning.
The doors begin to slide open, revealing a glimpse of what appears to be a larger warehouse space beyond.
Vince lurches through the narrow opening, then reaches for a lever on the other side. An emergency override.
I push myself faster, ignoring the burn in my thighs and my dress tangling around my legs.
“Avery, down!”
A lifetime of working together triggers an automatic response that overrules conscious thought, and I drop. A bullet whizzes through the space where my head was a split second earlier, fired by a guard I hadn’t noticed in an alcove to my left.
Raphael returns fire, three shots that find their target with devastating accuracy. The guard slides down the wall, leaving a smear of red in his wake.
Without waiting, I surge back to my feet, sprinting toward Vince as the doors begin to close with a pneumatic hiss. I dive forward, rolling through the narrowing gap just before they slam shut with a definitive click.
Raphael’s curses sound from the other side, followed by the beep of buttons being pressed in rapid sequence as he tries to override the lock.
I find myself in a cavernous space with dim lighting, filled with shipping containers arranged in neat rows. This must be where they store and transport their “merchandise.” The thought sends a fresh wave of rage through me.
Twenty yards ahead, Vince drags himself between two containers, trying to lose me in the labyrinth of metal boxes. But he leaves a trail of blood behind him for me to follow.
Glock held at the ready, I advance with caution.
A crash sounds from behind me as Raphael decides that finesse was taking too long. The doors burst open, the frame bent where he applied some form of breach charge from his tactical kit. He steps through the smoke, my pistol raised and ready, scanning for threats.
“Seven containers to your right,” I call to him, not taking my focus off Vince’s blood trail. “I’m following him in.”
“Wait for backup.” Raphael moves to join me. “Could be a trap.”
“If we wait, he might call in reinforcements,” I counter, advancing between the containers. “Or he could destroy evidence. Or alert other cells.”
With a frustrated sound, Raphael falls in beside me, covering my blind spots as we track Vince through the maze of shipping containers. Some are standard cargo units, but others have been modified, with windows cut into the sides and ventilation systems attached. Makeshift transport cells for human cargo. My stomach turns at the thought.
“There.” Raphael gestures toward a gap between two containers where a fresh smear of blood glistens under the harsh fluorescent lights.
We approach from opposite sides, a pincer movement that used to be one of our signature tactics. I signal a silent three-count, then dive around the corner, weapon raised.
Vince sits propped up on a container, phone in hand, stabbing at the screen. His complexion is ashen, his wounded leg stretched out before him in a growing puddle of red. When he spots me, fear twists his features, and satisfaction rushes through me.
“Drop the phone,” I command, Raphael’s Glock trained on Vince’s forehead.
Vince’s hand tightens around the device. “One tap and I send an alert to my entire network. Your operation gets burned. Every Omega in our possession gets relocated.”
Including Jade. My finger tightens on the trigger, the temptation to end him warring with the need for information.
“Put the phone down.” Raphael comes up behind me. “Or I’ll let my partner put a bullet through each of your joints, starting with the good knee.”
Vince hesitates, calculating his odds, frantically searching for leverage or a way out.
“Three seconds.” I step closer. “One.”
His eyes dart between us, searching for weakness and finding none.
“Two.”
Vince’s thumb moves, pressing down on the screen.
I lunge forward, covering the distance between us in two quick strides. My heel connects with his wrist, sending the phone flying. In the same fluid motion, I drop to one knee, driving it into his wounded leg, and his scream echoes off the metal containers around us.
“Wrong choice.” I press the barrel of the Glock under his chin, forcing his head up.
Raphael moves to retrieve the phone, checking the screen before pocketing it. “Message didn’t send. But he was trying to activate a protocol called ‘Scorched Earth’.”
“Sounds fun.” I don’t take my focus off of Vince. “What does that entail?”
Vince’s face contorts with pain and fury. “Fucking Omega bitch. Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?”
I press the barrel of the gun to his temple, a cold sense of satisfaction flooding me as the stink of fear fills my nose. “The real question is whether you understand who you’re dealing with.”
I lean closer. “That man behind me? Someone in your organization kidnapped one of his family. So, I’m going to peel you like an onion until I’ve exposed everything about the people running this Omega trafficking ring.”
“You’re dead,” Vince hisses, though a tremor betrays his attempt at bravado. “All of you. When my associates find out?—”
“Your associates will be too busy trying to save their own asses to worry about revenge.” I press the gun harder against his skull. “Now, I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them. If you lie, I’ll start removing pieces of you, starting with your toes and working my way up. Understand?”
Fear flashes across his face. “Go to hell.”
Raphael’s expression hardens. “I’d answer if I were you. My mate isn’t known for his patience.”
Mate. The word sends a thrill through me.
“Where do they keep the Omegas who fight?” I demand.
Vince recoils, lips trembling as he stammers, “I… I can’t. They’ll kill me.”
“I’m going to kill you.” I cock my head to the side. “It’s just a matter of how it happens. Cooperate, and I’ll end it quickly with a bullet to the head. Force me to work for it, and I’ll take you apart piece by piece. You’d be surprised how much of your body you can lose and still be alive.”
Bone-deep terror fills his face as he finally understands who he’s dealing with. Not just some Omega playing at power, but someone who’s built an empire on the bones of men like him. Someone who can dismantle his world.
And suddenly, Vince can’t wait to answer all of our questions.
By the time the extraction team reaches us, Raphael and I have our next target.