Chapter 32
LIAM
The house sits several yards back at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac.
From what I learned, the other homes aren’t involved with the Baranovs at all.
They’re innocent, and I wonder what they’re going to think after what’s about to happen.
They’ve got to know nothing good is going on here though, not with the high walls around the property and the armed guards patrolling the exterior.
Finn watches the guards walk across the front, timing them a few times before nodding. “Thirty seconds between. Should be easy.”
“Hit hard and go?”
“That’s the plan.” He checks his watch and sends a text to the other team leaders. “Heard from Regan?”
“I won’t until it’s done.” I try not to think about my wife. This isn’t how I wanted this to go, but I knew sending her was the only way I’d get anyone important from the Baranov family to show up.
Cormac will keep her safe. If there’s anyone in the city who can protect her, it’s the Whelan ghostman. He’s a beast, truly a monster, and I have to trust that he’ll get her through.
I have my own part to play.
“Two minutes.” Finn puts his phone away, sitting still and quiet.
“How do you do it?” I ask, settling back against a tree. We’re fifty feet away, hiding along a ridgeline at the edge of a forested area.
“Do what? Maintain my skin despite my age?”
“No, I mean, Caroline, marriage, all that.”
“It’s hard, but it’s good.”
“That’s some Hallmark shit. Tell me the truth. How do you do it? How do you do all this… and still go home to be the man she needs you to be?”
He narrows his gaze. For a second I’m afraid I overstepped.
“Truth is, this never gets easier. She hates when I go on jobs like this. It happens less now that I’m taking on more of a leadership role, but it can’t be helped.
This is the life, right? She accepts it, we both do, but there’s always a chance it goes sideways. ”
“I keep thinking about a future with Regan, about fucking kids, all that, and I don’t know how I can do it. How do I keep my edge while driving my fucking children to soccer practice?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“And if I don’t?”
“We’ll find you an office job.” He checks his phone. “Thirty seconds.”
“Fucking hell.” I go over my gear one last time. Gun loaded, armor strapped. I’m oddly calm, despite what we’re about to do. “Do me a favor. If I ever ask you to sit at a desk, put a bullet in my head.”
“Don’t be dramatic. You’ll do it yourself after a month of clocking your time on a spreadsheet.” He stands abruptly. “Let’s move.”
I follow him across a quiet field. Moonlight brightens everything. We got unlucky with that—clouds were forecast, but they never materialized. I run hard at Finn’s back, angling for the wall, counting down in my head. Thirty seconds around—thirty to close the distance—
There’s shooting nearby. A shout, a scream of pain, and more gunfire.
“The other team,” Finn says, not hesitating as he reaches the wall. He throws a rope over the side and hauls until the grapple at the top catches the crenellation. “Fucking climb.”
I grab on and hoist myself up. The shooting intensifies, cracks in the night. Finn’s behind me the second I’m at the top. I slip over the side, landing hard, knees bending to take some of the force. He drops down beside me a moment later.
The interior of the compound is a smattering of trees and landscaped bushes. The grass is neatly mown and clearly loved.
Four men are running toward us.
I switch my rifle to automatic and spray them with bullets, breaking their bodies to bloody shreds, black in the starlight.
Grass glitters with their ruin. Finn runs on, hurrying over the corpses as more shouting comes from the house.
The alarm’s raised but that’s no surprise, given the mess we’re making.
Other shadows coalesce in the evening, groups of three and four, several of them pinned down by gunfire, others running in the same direction.
Everyone knows their job, they’re all prepared for what might happen, all of them know their families will be taken care of if they don’t come home, but for the first time in forever, I’m worried about them.
My thoughts pull in a dozen different directions: young Geno with his new baby, the Sarcone brothers and their ailing older mother, wild and stupid Ginger Colin with his six sisters.
What’ll happen once they’re gone? How much grief will ripple out from them, how much anger and rage, how much more death and blood?
Worthless thoughts in a firefight.
The sort of worries I never had before Regan. Now it’s like once I started making myself care, I can’t fucking stop it.
“Got to make this fast!” I shout over the clack and scream of bullets as we come to a staggering halt beside a low rock wall surrounding a pristine and beautiful pool. A man floats in the deep end, dark blood spreading around him in tendrils. “The longer we’re here, the higher the risk.”
Finn’s expression shines with excitement. He loves this almost as much as I used to. “What’s the plan then?”
I gesture toward a copse of decorative bushes. Inside, barely visible, are several tall tanks. “We blow those.”
His eyebrows raise before a grin slips over his face. “Devilish. I like it.”
“Can you make the shot?” I pull a grenade from my harness. Typically it’s not that deadly. We use them to clear tight spaces, like hallways or small rooms. Outdoors they’re barely more than firecrackers.
“Easily.” Finn unslings his rifle and sights it. He takes a steadying breath as more shots break out to our left. Six men pile from the back door, all of them wearing tactical gear. They move in a tight formation, clearly well trained and highly paid.
“Do it.”
Finn pulls the trigger twice. His gun bucks. I yank the pin and throw, the small grenade spinning in the air as it loops toward the tanks. I’m not sure if Finn’s shot hit, but I have to trust him.
Bullets rake across the wall, forcing us down. The six men from inside spotted us and are moving in our direction. I risk a glance up—
As an explosion rips the night into pieces.
Fire screams into the sky. Light blinds me.
Heat sears my face from thirty yards away.
The concussion hurts my ears. I’m blinking, trying to shake myself back into control, when Finn comes up beside me shooting.
I watch dimly as he mows down the six soldiers, only two of them still on their feet, the others knocked by the force of the blast. I have the awareness to help out, adding the strength of my gun, putting bullet to flesh and leaving corpses strewn beside the pool.
The house is on fire.
Half the structure is shattered. Seconds later, wood splinters rain down around us, pattering into the pool like hailstones. A nail gashes across my cheek, sharp and ugly, as I cover myself with my rifle and hunch down.
“Make it rain!” Finn says happily. “How are we looking?”
“If they weren’t sure we were coming, they sure as fuck are now.”
“You were right at least. Half the damn house soldiers are missing.”
“Only way we made it here.” I look grimly at the structure now once the debris stops dropping. “Pull the others back.”
“You think that’s good enough?”
“No, definitely not, but we can’t all go in there now. Place is burning.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Finish this.”
Finn grabs my arm roughly. “You can’t go in alone. Fire or not, we wait for everyone inside to rush out, and we kill them. Once it’s clear, we make sure the dossier burns with everything else.”
“If it doesn’t? And Baranov keeps it in a fireproof safe or some shit?” I shake free of him. “No other choice, Finn.”
“You’re not going in there alone.”
“And I’m not risking anyone else. I’ll be fine. Meet me back at the cars in ten.”
“We’re not leaving without you.” He says it fiercely and moves to push me back, but I leap over the wall. “Get your ass back here, damn it!”
“Cover me if you have to, but don’t wait long! Ten minutes tops!”
“Liam! Wait!”
I ignore my closest friend, my boss, the guy who probably saved my life, and storm toward the backdoor, toward a raging nightmare inferno, toward a high chance of death, all because I have to make sure we get those documents, or else the war will rage, more people will die, and Regan will never feel safe.