Chapter Thirteen Alejandro
Chapter Thirteen
Alejandro
Gunfire cracked behind me, closer this time. The window didn’t shatter. Reinforced glass.
I dropped low, scanning the tree line before bolting for the same back door Audrey had used a minute ago. My Glock was useless against trained snipers in broad daylight. No sense standing out there like a damn target.
“Where’s Chase?” I asked the second I spotted Ryder moving solo down the hallway. He had an M4 slung around his body and my rifle in hand, along with a radio.
“Trevor’s got Chase and the women moving to his safe room,” he said.
Thank God for Trevor’s paranoia.
I should have been more paranoid, never given in to her request for air. Should never have let Audrey step outside. She could’ve been clipped. Killed. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Sheriff and his deputies are holding the front with Reed on the first and second floors,” he continued. “Audrey’s house is also under fire. Beau said his guy parked out front never made it inside. Outnumbered and had to pull back.”
“He make it out?”
“Yeah, he’s safe.” Ryder handed me a radio already tuned to our frequency, along with my M4.
“Multiple targets. North and east flanks,” Reed reported over the radio, remaining calm. At least one of us was. I was a disaster, knowing Audrey and Chase were here.
Ryder started to issue orders but stopped when Trevor rounded the corner at a near run, shotgun gripped tight.
“I’ve got the safe room upstairs,” Trevor said without hesitation. “I’ll hold the hallway outside it myself.”
Ryder gave him a short nod, then turned to face me. “You take the back. I’ll cover the northeast.”
“Room 11 upstairs has the clearest angle of the back,” Trevor said, tossing me a set of keys.
I caught them midair and took off. “Any prisoners?” I called over my shoulder.
“We need one alive for questioning,” Ryder replied. “Everyone else goes down.”
I sprinted for the stairs.
Room 11 gave me exactly what I needed: an unobstructed line of sight across the trees.
I unlocked and opened the window. Cold mountain air hit my face as I spotted a figure repositioning behind the brush.
Muzzle out the window, I steadied, exhaled, and then fired.
“One down,” I said over the radio. “Two more visible inside the fence line on approach. One’s circling northeast.”
“On it,” Ryder answered.
I tracked the lead target as he sprinted toward the garage entry in tactical gear with a suppressed weapon.
One breath and one shot. He dropped fast. The moment the body hit the gravel, I saw another blur of movement through the trees.
Someone was cutting low around the ridge, slipping through the brush on the west side. Too close to the lodge for a clean shot—not with the way he was using cover.
“Contact on the west side. Impending breach,” I said into the radio, getting nothing but static.
Shit. Comms were jammed. Hopefully only temporarily. Knowing Reed, he’d pull back to handle that and turn the tables on our marks. Kill their feed instead. Rescue ours. In the meantime, we were flying blind.
I yanked the rifle back inside, slung it over my shoulder, and drew my Glock.
I hit the stairs hard, boots pounding, and crossed the first floor in seconds. As I neared the back exit, I heard metal skimming gravel, followed by a hiss and smoke.
Gray tendrils curled across the yard, thick and rising fast. Classic conceal-and-breach tactic we usually used ourselves. I wasn’t used to being on the other side of things like this. Always the attacker, rarely the attacked.
Multiple tangos would be advancing, and we’d be in the dark until it was too late. I had to do something.
“Ryder,” I barked into the radio again. “They’re pushing in.”
Still nothing.
I burst out the back door and collided head-on with the bastard I’d seen circling from above.
We hit the deck, crashing onto the boards. The world turned into a swirl of smoke and fists. I lost my pistol in the chaos; then I scrambled into top position in time to block the blade he drove at me.
We grappled, and I ripped the knife from his grip, turned it fast, and buried it in his side with a hard twist. His body went limp, but I didn’t stop there.
I retrieved my Glock from the deck, switched weapons, and put one final round through his head to be sure.
A shotgun blast echoed from inside the house. Trevor? The only reason he’d be shooting would be because there’d been a successful breach.
My radio crackled back to life. “Tango down,” Trevor reported.
“We’re back online,” Reed said, stating the obvious. Thank God for that man’s tech skills.
Ryder announced the good news: “Looks like they’re falling back and using the smoke as cover for their retreat.”
“Do we have anyone alive, though?” I asked, doubling back toward the rear door, my breath burning hot in my lungs.
One by one, voices came over the radio: “Negative.”
So, all clear, but no survivors. And no survivors meant no answers or leverage. We needed both if we were going to keep Audrey safe.
My hand froze on the doorknob; then I turned toward the woods. The smoke was thinning out but not gone.
At the far edge of the clearing, just visible through the last veil of haze, there was movement. Two shadows. Two targets. Two chances.
“I’m going out. Cover me,” I said, mind already made up, taking the steps off the deck at a run.
“Alex, dammit, stand down,” Ryder snapped over the radio. “Do you hear me? Do not risk—”
“I have to.” For her. For Chase. For the one thing I hadn’t let myself admit that I wanted: something that looked a hell of a lot like a future. “I’ve got this.” I dropped my voice to a hush, blending in with the breeze and dying smoke. “I’ll vanish. They won’t see me coming.”
The Houdini in the field. That’s what they used to call me downrange while in the army.
“Alex,” Ryder hissed. “So help me, brother, you better make your ass reappear—and damn soon, or I’m coming out there to find you.”