SEVENTEEN
The last time Rivers ignored his instincts, he’d been left to bleed out in the snow and two women had been kidnapped.
Those same instincts were screaming now, and growing steadily louder with every mile they drew closer to the warehouse.
Rome was behind the wheel of the black van with Cannon beside him, taking a call from Blackout Command. Rivers figured the orders had finally caught up with them, giving the official green light to an op already well underway.
The rest of the team rode in silence except for Caryssa, seated directly beside him. Every so often she would murmur under her breath as though running through the plan one more time.
Cannon ended the call and stared through the windshield. The headlights cut through the full dark, catching on black shapes of shrubbery along the road and the occasional glow of an animal’s eyes.
Caryssa muttered again, and this time Cannon picked it up. “Do you have something to share, Lane?”
She was silent for a beat and then spoke in a clear, clipped, professional tone.
“I want to go over the plan. We already know Bill owns the warehouse. We aren’t looking for the ownership tie.
What we need is the link to the person Bill answered to.
When we get in there, I’ll head straight for the office to search for ledgers and any connection to him, Echo or Antonio’s Ristorante. ”
His gut tightened with that same feeling. He didn’t want her going into that warehouse. Period.
The others might still see an FBI agent they weren’t sure they could trust. Rivers saw Caryssa. He trusted her without question.
And right now, he wanted her anywhere but here.
“It’s possible everything is already wiped clean by the time we get there. You need to be ready to walk out emptyhanded.”
“I know the odds.” Her jaw was set and she didn’t glance his way as she spoke, but he saw her fingers tighten on her thigh. “I realize it could be another dead end.”
Her finding nothing to hand the FBI on the case was the least of Rivers’s concerns.
“But my gut says there’s something,” she said with a little more force. “So far, Bill’s left digital and paper trails. I’d bet my career that there’s physical evidence in that building.”
And he’d give his life all over again to keep her from stepping foot in it.
His fingers twitched into fists on his knees in an effort to withstand the urge to pull out a stash of zip ties and secure Caryssa in the van. She’d be furious and might never speak to him again, but at least she’d be safe.
They sped through the night, and he tried to ground himself. Fact was, he knew Caryssa. She wasn’t going to stand down, which left him only one option—guard her.
He’d learned his lesson with Jolie and Stina. He wouldn’t let her out of his sight. A warehouse full of stolen weapons was certain to have guards.
Some part of him recognized too that she’d earned her right to see this through.
After all, he knew what it took to do a job.
He knew exactly how it felt to finish a thing that cost him everything.
He’d traded his whole life to see that threat on Philly eliminated, all the way through to the bitter end.
He couldn’t stop Caryssa from having the same closure.
“Approaching the target.” Rome’s ominous tone plucked at the tension inside Rivers and made Caryssa sit up even straighter, if such a thing was possible. The woman quivered with anticipation.
“Cut the headlights,” Cannon ordered.
They rolled along the final street in darkness.
When the large building came into view, Rivers was already scanning the perimeter.
An industrial building had corrugated siding, a chain-link fence on the east and a gravel lot on the west. One exterior light burned with a weak, greenish light over the side entrance.
Awaiting Cannon’s order to move, Rivers reached for the door handle. Suddenly, Caryssa’s warm fingers flexed around his forearm.
He turned his head. Her eyes glistened in the darkness, too bright. He covered her hand with his and gave it a light squeeze.
“Move!”
He released her and whipped open the door. The team piled out and quickly slipped into formation, spreading out along the perimeter of the gravel lot without a word needing to pass between them. Years of running ops together had worn every motion down to instinct.
Rorke peeled off toward the back of the building, disappearing into the tree line without a sound. Rome swept his weapon in a slow arc, covering the approach while Rivers pulled Caryssa in close behind him, one hand steady at the small of her back.
“Stay on me,” he murmured. “Every step.”
She nodded once, jaw set, already moving.
“No movement,” Rorke’s voice came over comms. “No vehicles in the side lot.”
“Copy,” Cannon responded. “Proceed with caution. Rorke, cover the back exit. Nobody slips out. Townie, Younger. Go!”
Townie and Younger rushed around the side of the building to secure the front entrance.
“O, Monk, take watch. Romey, you’re with me. Rivers and Lane.”
His heart squeezed at their names being linked.
“On three.”
With his hand on Caryssa’s hip, he rushed her to the side door. Rivers angled his shoulder to break down the door, but something in him told him to try the handle first.
It turned easily, already unlocked.
He caught Cannon’s eye and then Rome’s. All of them registered the same wrongness.
Nobody left a warehouse unsecured, especially not one possibly filled with stolen arms.
The door swung open a sliver. Then he smelled it.
“Smoke!” Caryssa hissed.
Chemical and acrid smoke stuck in the back of his throat. His stomach bottomed out.
“Building’s on fire along the east wall! Someone got here first.” The words blasted out of him.
“Proceed with caution,” was Cannon’s command, and he heeded it.
Rivers pushed the door open the rest of the way and smoke rolled out to meet them, thick and gray. An orange glow came from deep inside.
“No!” Caryssa tried to break past him, and he grasped her arm, holding her back. She whipped to face him, eyes wild. “The evidence—”
“Might already be gone.”
She wrenched in his grip, but he held on.
“Ryss, listen to me!”
“I need to get in there!” Her voice split with a raw desperation. He knew where her mind had gone. The whole case came down to one dangling thread, and it was burning to ash right in front of them.
“Cannon, make the call,” he said grimly, gaze locked on the woman who wouldn’t be satisfied until she had that evidence.
“Rome, Rivers, Lane. Go in fast. You’ve got two minutes. Stick together. The second I say, you’re out. Got it?”
“Copy, Sierra One.” Rivers stared down at Caryssa, waiting for her agreement.
She nodded once, then he pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth and moved. She did the same, planting herself at his side.
The interior was worse than he anticipated. Flames already licked along one wall of stacked crates, climbing higher by the second, feeding off the contents. Smoke pooled thick near the ceiling and rolled through the wide-open area, dropping visibility to almost nothing beyond arm’s length.
“Office!” Caryssa gasped into the comms. She pointed through the haze to the back.
“One minute, Sierra Four,” Cannon counted down.
“Copy,” Rivers responded to the warning.
They pushed forward together. Rome flanked them, sweeping his weapon in slow arcs though it was unlikely anyone would leap out of the billowing smoke to attack them.
Rivers kept one hand locked on Caryssa’s arm, refusing to allow even a foot of distance between them. The deeper they went into the building, the higher the terror licked up his spine.
She turned and ran toward the crates that weren’t on fire.
“Ryss, we don’t have time for a full search!”
“I know.” She tore open wooden crates like a madwoman, yanking out the contents and piling items in her arm.
“Forty seconds, Sierra Four.”
He looked around for anything to grab before their time ran out.
Above them, something groaned, a long, low sound that vibrated in Rivers’s teeth.
He and Rome looked up to see the support beam sag and the ceiling tiles around it starting to buckle, bowing into rippling bubbles.
“Roof’s compromised,” he barked. “Ryss, now!”
“One more—”
“Now!” He grabbed her by the waist and hauled her back. The items bundled against her chest slipped to the floor, scattering. She jerked to grab them, but he half carried, half dragged her out as the groan overhead turned into a splitting crack.
“Leave them!” he bellowed, forcing her along.
Rome was one step ahead of them, his blistering cough exploding through the comms. They cleared the office doorway three heartbeats before the beam gave and the roof on the east collapsed in a shower of sparks and burning debris.
Caryssa screamed. Rivers didn’t slow down, didn’t let go of her. He propelled them fast through the main warehouse and the fog of smoke toward the door they’d entered through, with heat chasing them the whole way.
“Sierra Four, status!”
Cannon’s command seeped into his brain, but he couldn’t speak as he forced Caryssa to the exit.
They burst out into the cold night air, all of them hunching forward as coughs racked them.
Rome ran and Rivers followed hard on his heels, not stopping until he’d put twenty yards between them and the building.
Caryssa’s knees hit the gravel and she tipped forward, hands on the ground, chest heaving. He dropped beside her, lungs burning. He ignored it and checked her over, his hands shaking.
Shouts of “they’re out, they’re out!” filled his ear, but his focus was on the woman he loved.
She twisted her face to him, eyes dark and wild as she gulped for clean air.
Just then, the sound of gunfire burst from the darkness. Time seemed to slow for Rivers. It took minutes to swing around. Longer to lift his weapon.
Muzzle flashes lit the line beyond the fence—two, three, then a fourth, masked figures broke from cover and opened up on the team’s position.