Chapter 35
Greer
Outstretching my arm, I find the bed empty, which immediately sends my heart into overdrive. I sit up, scan the room, and try to let logic outweigh my racing thoughts.
Everything is too up in the air for Koen to be disappearing, and I'm going to tell him as much, too.
When I find him.
Recalling the other two men who're somewhere in the cabin, I slip pants over the boyshort panties I'm in, and a hoodie over my bare breasts.
One step into the hall tells me something's wrong.
The air is thick with tension, and I'm not sure I'm ready to face whatever's caused it.
"To your left." A gunshot sounds after the voice, the reverberation filtering down the hall from the surveillance room.
Rushing before thinking, I nearly trip. The room is as dark as usual, and the chair Koen typically sits in is across the room. Replacing Koen at the desk is Chase, a microphone before him as he clicks through camera feeds, and types faster than I thought humanly possible.
"Next door unlocked," Chase says, casting a glance over his shoulder at me.
"Clear." Koen's voice says through the com system, and I hear Chase sigh in relief.
"He's here. I tracked him here this morning, so keep alert."
"Brian is on perimeter?" Koen asks.
"Yeah. I've got nothing from him yet. Nothing but all clear messages from each sector."
I plop into the chair and roll closer to Chase, trying not to crowd him, but wanting to be as close as I can to the monitor where Koen moves through room after room, his head on a swivel.
I'm dying to know what's going on, but I don't want to become a distraction.
Torn between anger that Koen left me here asleep while he's out battling demons and worry for him, I bite the outside of my nail.
Chase flicks his eyes to me but doesn't keep them there long.
The acknowledgment is enough.
I'm not alone, and neither is he.
Though I'm sure he's used to working alone with what he does for Koen.
I have a feeling the reason Koen's remained safe over the years is the man sitting beside me, and it makes something settle in my chest before Koen turns a corner and another guard lifts his weapon.
Without hesitation, Koen lifts his weapon and shoots three times, the shots reverberating through my soul and reminding me who he is.
The guard falls.
Instead of continuing forward, Koen crouches, checks the dead man’s pockets for anything he can find, takes what looks to be a phone from the night vision camera, and stuffs it in his pocket.
"Chase, come in," another voice says over a radio I hadn’t noticed to Chase’s right.
"Go for Chase," Chase answers.
"I have a heat signature on the roof. Should I engage?" Brian asks.
"Heat signature. Roof. Do you want the target eliminated?" Chase asks Koen.
"No. If it's Helms, we need the girl's location before we make a move on him. Get me to the roof."
"Got it." Chase keys the mic on the radio. "Keep your eyes on the target, but do not engage.”
“10-4."
They're precise and planned.
They've done this before.
"Brian was in the service with you two, wasn't he?" I whisper.
Chase flicks his eyes toward me, giving me a stiff nod.
Chase walks Koen through how to reach the roof using the run-down building’s plans, and the entire time, I'm on edge.
He kills four more guards and takes their phones and IDs.
By the time he gets to the roof, there's a gnawing feeling in my stomach.
"It's not right. It feels staged," I tell Chase, gripping his arm tightly.
His gaze travels between the monitors and me.
"Sorry. I'll shut up."
"No. Intuition is a big thing in this line of work, and women have a keen sense of it. Never keep that shit to yourself."
"This might be a trap, K. Stay alert," Chase tells Koen, but the moment he steps out of the door onto the room, at least twenty men stand from where they'd been crouching down before, hidden from Brian's view on the ground.
"Drop your weapon!" one of them shouts, and Helms smirks.
"Finally, Koen Grady, on my turf. Now, we play by my rules," Helms says, and my heart nearly stops.
Koen steps closer to Helms, still holding the gun ready to shoot before him, fearless in how he approaches the man.
Then, the coms go dead, and the picture goes blank.
"What happened?" I gasp, standing.
The sound of the chair sliding back into something doesn't deter me from grabbing Chase's keyboard. "Get him back!"
"They must've had a jammer. It's not uncommon."
"Not uncommon?! Get him back, Chase!"
"Greer, listen to me," he angles toward me, "Koen is trained for this kind of situation. Brian’s on the ground, he's not alone."
"Chase." I sob, my breath and voice wavering.
"I know. I do. But I've seen that man get his ass out of tighter binds than this."
"I'm going after him. Give me whatever he had so you can get me through it."
"That's not a good idea. Koen will be fucking livid if I let you into the field."
"You don't let me do anything. I'm going in with or without you, so you choose what side of this you're on."
"Fine. Let's get you strapped up."
I park down the road from the warehouse, echoing Koen's every boot print through the woods as Chase tries to calm me in my ear.
"His tracker is still pinging to that location; either he's still there, or they found and removed it."
I nod, forgetting he can't see me. "Okay."
"Doing okay, G?" he asks.
"I'm fine,” I reply, breathlessly climbing over a fallen tree covered in moss.
"You're going to have to be tough. Tougher than is required in the library."
I scoff. "I survived him.”
Chase's sigh vibrates my eardrum. "Yeah, but deep down, he would've never killed you."
"How do you know?" I grunt out, nearly tripping over an upturned root covered by earth in my path.
"Be careful. Slow down. Remember what I said?"
"Fast gets you killed,” I mutter.
"And I know because I know him. Now's not the time to discuss his feelings for you, though."
My heart lurches in my chest at the idea that Koen has feelings for me, even though logically I know he does.
You wouldn't think it would matter whether they’re vocalized, but it does.
Confirmation would be nice, even if it's selfish of me to demand it.
I stop in my tracks when the trees thin out into a clearing and the old mill they lured Koen to comes into view.
"Steady," Chase reminds me, as if he can sense my urge to bolt forward and find Koen.
My legs are burning to run to him. To find him and wrap around him.
"Have we heard from Brian?" I ask, scanning the edges of the forest.
"Not since the transmission went down. Koen is our priority, though, remember?"
"I know." Pulling my gun, I ensure the safety is off and hold it as Koen taught me.
One foot in front of the other, I stalk toward the mill, my eyes constantly scanning, my body filled with so much adrenaline I might burst at the seams.
I enter the building, and Chase steers me upstairs and to the left, where I find the bodies of the security guards Koen dropped.
In a sick way, it's like being close to him.
I can feel his energy here. It's as if he’s the Grim Reaper, and he left behind echoes.
"Continue up," Chase commands as I approach another set of stairs.
The mill is dead silent, and my heartbeat is almost too loud in my ears, overpowering Chase’s signals.
A couple of times, he tells me to focus, thinking my mind is elsewhere, but that's not the case at all. I just can't fucking breathe.
I'm covered head to toe in tactical gear, and the cold metal of the gun in my hand is warming against my skin as if we're becoming one, and I don't like it.
But there's a reality bearing down on me, reminding me that this might be my life now. This will be my world if I stay with Koen. If I continue to love Koen.
I reach the rooftop door and pause, praying that what I find on the other side is something that I can handle.
"Open it," Chase orders, and his tone has deadened, like he, too, is having to steel himself for what comes next.
"Please, be alive," I whisper before pushing open the door.
What lies beyond has a scream curdling in my throat like scalding milk.
Running for Koen, I drop to my knees beside him.
His eyes fly open at the movement, but his hands remain at his side, his left side, where he maintains pressure at a gushing wound.
"I'm hit," he whispers.
"Chase! What do I do?" I sob, tears blinding me as I put the gun down beside him.
Brian is lying in a pool of blood beside Koen, and I can't look.
He's not my priority right now, I remind myself.
"Help him hold pressure. A lot of pressure. I've got someone en route."
Koen hisses when I press my hands over his.
His gloves are slick with blood, and I try to keep from dwelling on that fact.
"Are you hit anywhere else?" I ask him, eyeing the wound at the base of his bulletproof vest.
"No."
"Okay. Has Brian moved recently? Spoken?"
"He's gone, G." Typically, when he uses Allison's nickname for me, he sounds incredulous.
Now, his voice has a sympathetic note to it, like he hates having to tell me his friend is dead.
"I'm so sorry." Hot tears continue to fall, raining down on his Kevlar.
"It's the reality of this life we live. Shit, all three of us have survived well past our expiration date."
“That’s for fucking sure,” Chase says, having heard Koen on my open com.
"I can't lose you. I need you to fight." I press harder into his wound, and he groans.
"Rich, coming from you. You already tried to kill me once before."
"Now is not the time to bring that up."
"Now's the perfect time. You're trying to save me this time, poison. That mean you like me?"
I scoff, rolling my eyes with a sniffle. "Hardly."
He laughs, blood coating his teeth as the doors to the roof slam open and equally as menacing-looking men storm out.
A couple of them flip Brian over and check for a pulse, while two of them push me away from Koen and start working on him.
I stand in wait, chewing on my blood-covered finger as Koen's life hangs in the balance.
"Chase, we have to stop him," I whisper, feeling foolish for speaking into the comm with so many people surrounding me.
"We're going to. For good."
Hours later, Koen is resting in his bed, an IV drip pole beside him, and a man in a suit is speaking to Chase.
I've washed all the blood off me, but I can still smell it.
"He needs a full military funeral, "Chase tells the man.
"And he'll get it. But this needs to be cleared up beforehand."
Chase shares a look with me. "We'll get it done."
"Be sure that you do. And Director Raymond sends his regards for your loss, as well as the message that you don't need to worry about the death being tied back to you or Mr. Grady, per usual."
I hate the way he says per usual, but I remind myself that they live a different life than I do.
But looking over to where Koen moans in his sleep as he attempts to move, I decide maybe I don't live a life much different from them any longer.
And maybe that doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would.