Chapter 42
Rav
The terrace felt empty after Brooke vanished up the stairs. Around me, couples continued their evening—a woman in a red dress posing against the battlements while her boyfriend tried to find the right angle, an elderly couple sharing gelato on a bench, two teenagers sneaking kisses in the shadows.
Owen.
The name continued rattling around my brain.
How excited she’d seemed to see him. The way he’d wrapped himself around her, hands splayed possessively across her back. The way she’d walked up the stairs, past the guards, with him.
He’d done something with their research. The phoenix? The Greek Fire? And she was involved with their research?
I pulled out my phone and texted Percival: Who’s Owen?
They’d been working together for years. If anyone would know, it would be Percival.
The text came back: Lab partner - between GWOT and Pendragon
That didn’t explain anything. Unless she’d been playing us? Could Brooke have been the other mole inside Pendragon all along? Not a chance. She’d been furious when we couldn’t figure out what role the robot dog had played.
Percival texted again: He there?
I started typing a confirmation, but deleted the text.
Why would he ask that?
I wandered farther from the guards, so they wouldn’t hear me. I touched my earpiece, switching the microphone from the Reynolds channel to Pendragon’s frequency. “This is Rav. Percy, who the fuck is Owen?”
“We found some evidence that he was at Martinelli’s lab,” he said.
Calisse de fucking tabarnak! “She just left with him.”
Bobcat cut in, “She what?”
“Is there any,” I growled, “and I mean any, chance she’s working with them?”
How was I asking that question? Because you work with a crew who say one thing and mean another for a fucking living.
She’d said she loved me. And she’d mouthed it to me while she left with him.
“Percy?” I said.
“We’re on foot, but we’re still five minutes out,” he said. “She’s buying us time.”
I glanced at my phone, still attached to my forearm. It had been thirty minutes since we’d entered the castle and had heard they were launching the fireworks in precisely that much time. No fireworks were flying yet, so she’d managed to slow them down.
How could I have doubted her?
A cry cut through the night air, from somewhere above us. Sharp. Pained. Beyond the stairs.
Brooke.
Every other thought evaporated. Whatever game she might be playing, whatever history she had with Owen, she was in trouble.
My woman was in danger.
Nothing else mattered.
“I’m going up,” I said, already moving. “Get to the Castel dell’Ovo rooftop as fast as you can.”
“Wait for us!” Bobcat said. “We’ll be there in five, maybe four if—”
“Brooke may not have four minutes.”
The two guards at the stairs hadn’t moved and still blocked the narrow passage. They were watching the terrace, not me—big mistake.
I crossed the distance at a run. The first guard started to turn as I reached him, his mouth opening to challenge me. My fist connected with his solar plexus, folding him forward. As his head came down, my knee came up, catching him below the chin. The crack was audible. He went down hard.
The second guard was faster, his hand already moving to his weapon.
I grabbed his wrist with my left hand, yanking him off balance while driving my right elbow into his jaw.
He stumbled but didn’t drop. I swept his legs, putting him on the stone, then brought my boot down on his closest arm. It cracked as loudly as Enzo’s had.
And this time, he stayed down.
“Mio dio,” someone gasped behind me.
I shot a look over my shoulder, ensuring no one was coming for me, and acted fast. The guards both had zip-ties on their belts, and after another kick to the first guard, I had them secure in seconds. Their weapons—Glock 19s—went to me. I press-checked both chambers. Loaded. Magazines full.
One went into my waistband at the small of my back. The other stayed in my hand.
The stupid polyester cape came off, the silk mask too. No point in disguises now.
Another cry from above, muffled but unmistakable. Brooke’s voice was threaded with pain.
I took the stairs three at a time until my eyes crested the terrace and muscle memory took over, slowing me. Work lights illuminated the scene, casting shadows for me to work in.
Eight operatives spread around the perimeter.
A massive golden phoenix sat on a short central platform—solid gold from the way it caught the light.
Mortar tubes were arranged around it, all wired to a control box where someone stood by a laptop.
And at the center, in front of the phoenix, was Brooke.
She’d been forced to her knees by two men who twisted her arms behind her back, and her incursion suit was unzipped to her mid-chest. What had they done to her? Had they touched her?
Rage burned hot in my chest, and I could have taken every one of them apart with my bare hands. First would be the silver-haired man in the suit, who was obviously Stefano Martinelli. Next would come Owen, who stared at her as though he were in love.
Martinelli held what looked like a firing switch, a thin tube with a single red button, connected by a long wire.
They were all inside the circle of light, and they hadn’t even heard me.
I raised the Glock smoothly, years of training guiding my aim. I squeezed the trigger twice, sending two rounds into the phoenix’s right wing. Solid gold or not, 9mm rounds packed enough punch to matter. The wing flew off the statue, ringing as it hit the stone.
“No!” Martinelli pointed at one of the men surrounding him. “The phoenix must be whole! The ritual—”
“Fuck your ritual,” I yelled.
The operatives reached for weapons, but their movements were wrong—fumbling, uncertain, looking to their leader instead of engaging. They were true believers, not soldiers like the men below. I moved while they hesitated.
I shifted aim and fired at Martinelli’s hand. He screamed as blood flew from his hand, and he dropped the firing switch. It skittered across the stones while he fell to his knees next to Brooke.
She twisted hard against her captors’ grip, using their moment of surprise.
She broke free from one, then the other, and sprinted straight for the control box that connected all the fireworks.
She ripped it from the table, raised it over her head, and threw it to the ground.
The plastic casing shattered, circuits and wires spilling out.
“Stop them!” Martinelli screamed, cradling his hand against his body.
Two operatives rushed me. The first one telegraphed his swing, allowing me to step inside his reach, bringing the Glock’s grip into his nose. He spun and dropped, blood gushing from his face.
The second tried to grapple, going for my weapon. I let him have it—or thought he had it—then reversed, using his momentum to drive him face-first into the stone wall. He slid down, leaving a red streak.
Movement to my left. Martinelli was pulling something out of his pocket. A silver lighter.
“Manual launch!” he shouted to his men. “Light them manually!”
“Rav!” Brooke screamed. “The Greek Fire’s in the fireworks!”
“She’s safe,” I yelled into my comms, “but they’re about to light the sky up.”
Martinelli flicked the lighter, the flame dancing in the wind, and touched it to the nearest mortar’s backup fuse. The wick caught instantly, sparking toward the launch charge.
“No!” Brooke was already moving.
She didn’t try to stop the fuse—too late for that. Instead, she hit the mortar tube with her full body weight, knocking it sideways just before it fired.
The mortar was launched horizontally rather than vertically. It streaked across the rooftop and slammed into the low stone wall less than ten feet from where they’d stood.
The mortar casing ruptured on impact, and instead of dispersing at altitude, it exploded in front of us; the boom reminding me of an RPG.
Burning grit and fragments sprayed across the rooftop—shards of casing, pyrotechnic stars, glowing debris—some of it sticking where it landed, some of it bouncing and dying on the stone.
The scream that tore from Brooke’s throat stopped my heart.
She was clawing at her chest, at the tactical suit that was supposed to protect her.
Martinelli was screaming, too, and his men forgot about me to help him.
I rushed to Brooke, dropping to my knees beside her. The burning debris had found her unprotected neck and chest. Some of it had fizzled out on impact, but some was actively burning. “I’m here, Brooke.”
Memories of her briefings in Afghanistan echoed in my brain: keep your gloves on; don’t touch anything else once you’ve made contact; and depending on the chemical, either use water or the neutralizer immediately.
“Gloves!” she screeched.
“They’re on, sweetheart. Just try to breathe.
I’m here.” My hands went to the zipper, trying to open it further, to get the contaminated material away from her skin.
But the zipper teeth were warped and jammed, heat-scorched and fouled with blackened residue.
It was locked solid, no matter how hard I pulled.
I’d made contact now, so no touching anything else. Not her face. Not my gear. Nothing.
“Pack,” she gasped. “RSDL—”
I hauled off her gloves, which were also contaminated now, then pinned her hands above her head with one leg. “Don’t touch anything, Brooke. You know the rules of contact.”
She fought against me for a second, but switched to bowing her back away from the ground. “Please, Rav, please! It’s alive!”
“I got you.” I stripped my gloves, turned them inside out, and tossed them aside. I shrugged off my backpack, yanking out the decontamination kit and a fresh pair of nitrile gloves. I couldn’t move fast enough.
There were too many fucking steps. But I couldn’t risk hurting her more.
I ripped one pack open and pressed it against her chest.