34. Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Four
An Aide drove the Hound and Apollo to Wilson’s location. This was one of the easiest missions he had been assigned to. No research, no waiting around—straight to it.
The Hound didn’t know the man, Wyatt Wilson. He wasn’t someone who watched the television or kept up with the news. Who the target was and what he did was irrelevant to the mission.
Beside him, Apollo sat with his hands resting on his thighs. Now and then, he gave the Hound a sidelong look, lingering as he frowned intently.
The attention created a band of discomfort deep in the Hound’s gut. Apollo was in charge, though, so he said nothing. Instead, he touched the various weapons he carried, reminding himself where they were.
He felt better once they were out of the vehicle.
Apollo recited the target location. “Eliminate any witnesses and enter via the north corner of the building.”
The Hound nodded and took off at a running lope.
The location was a warehouse bounded by a chain-link fence and mostly empty parking lots. It was open ground, and his instincts suggested not to approach directly. The adjoining lots were also warehouses, with one giving a commanding line of sight over the two main entrances. He climbed the side of the building to the roof, hearing a presence as he eased over the side.
The breathing was slow and steady, the figure unaware of his presence.
“This sucks,” the man muttered to himself.
The voice tickled something in the Hound’s memory, though he couldn’t pinpoint it.
The Hound heard the roar of vehicles as they pulled into the warehouse’s parking lot, the man tracking them in his rifle’s scope.
The Hound approached from behind, the man oblivious to his presence. His hand reached for his knife, then froze.
“Eliminate any witnesses,” Apollo had ordered.
“Are you jealous?” The Hound heard the whisper in a soft, feminine voice. “It’s okay to feel. It’s normal.”
The Hound chose not to use the knife, which would be quick. Instead, he looped his arm over the man’s throat, the other pressing down onto the man’s hip where he kept his weapon.
The man tried to fight. He was strong and trained, but not nearly so strong or well-trained as the Hound. All the things he did to break the Hound’s hold failed as the assassin continued to press down on the man’s windpipe, starving him of oxygen.
The Hound could feel the thrashing growing weaker even as the man clawed at his arm. He heard the stutter of the man’s heartbeat.
And then a voice, faint and tinny. Her voice. The one that told him it was okay to feel.
The Hound released the man, and he collapsed. The heartbeat stuttered again and then settled into a rhythm. The man was unconscious but not dead. The Hound pulled the earpiece free and slipped it into his ear. She stopped talking, but he could hear other voices.
None of it mattered, though. He heard her breathing in his ear like she was standing right next to him. Now, it was his heart that stuttered, speeding up. He pushed his hands into his pockets, and his fingers curled around something soft and feathered. Reflexively, he brought it to his nose and breathed in. He could detect the faint scent of coconut. He had a fleeting memory of dark brown hair swaying over him. It was irrelevant to his mission, so he put it out of his mind.
He moved to throw away the lock of hair, then paused. He couldn’t explain why he chose to put it back in his pocket; he just felt better about that choice.
The shift of heartbeats and loud voices echoed through his earpiece, and the Hound ran. He had a mission to complete.
Kathleen heard the doors open and the sound of a single gunshot. Shit. Peterson. She hadn’t counted on Wilson bringing someone else, and Petersen was just a guy doing his job.
“Friends of yours?” Wilson inquired, unruffled as he looked over.
“No,” Kathleen said. “Friends of yours. Or, to be precise, relatives of your former acquaintance.”
“My name is Liang,” Richard said as he strode closer, glaring at Wilson as he leveled a rifle at the politician’s face. “And I believe you are responsible for my brother’s death.”
Kathleen could see Baseball Bat and Knives flanking him, along with three more triad members. They were all carrying submachine guns. She became acutely aware that she was a complication—a witness. She needed to extricate herself—and fast. She rose, moving back a step.
Wilson threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, this is too perfect.”
“You haven’t got a thing to laugh about,” Liang snapped, waving his weapon threateningly.
Wilson was too confident, and Kathleen realized that the moment she became aware she couldn’t hear Gibson anymore. Shit, shit.
“Oh, I do have something to laugh about,” Wilson answered Liang.
He was looking rather pointedly at something behind her. Kathleen knew it was a bad idea, taking her eyes off him, but she felt compelled to turn…
…only to see the cold, emotionless gaze of Finn Kingsley as he leveled his gun at Liang and shot him point blank in the head. A split second later, the barrel of his weapon swung toward her.
The woman looked at him, and the Hound’s world shifted. His breath stuttered to a halt in his chest as her green eyes transfixed him. The emotion in them was almost too much, and he broke the contact, taking in the rest of her. Dark hair—that smelled of coconut, he somehow knew—expressive features and tanned skin that tasted divine. He could even picture the way she smiled, like a brilliant warmth.
The Hound wasn’t sure how he knew all those little details. She certainly wasn’t smiling at him right now.
“Finn?” she said, disbelieving.
The voice, the name she spoke, created an aching familiarity deep in his gut. Was he defective? Was this a test? He wanted to… he wanted…
“Hound,” Wyatt Wilson called his name. When the Hound looked at him, Wilson pointed at the woman. “Kill her.”
Her breath exhaled sharply, in person and through the intimate echo in his earpiece. The familiarity of it stayed his hand. Before he could determine how to proceed, movement in his peripheral made him spin away from her. He pulled the Ka-Bar from its sheath and threw it at the throat of one of the gunmen. Another fired at him. He saw movement in the shadows, and Apollo leaped forward, impossibly fast, slamming the gunman’s arm up so quickly he heard the snapping of bones. He got a fleeting glance of the man’s blue eyes and then he moved away to the next. The orders were clear.
Eliminate any witnesses.
The woman was lunging for one of the fallen rifles, but Finn was faster. He hauled her upward and slammed her into the wall.
“Finn,” she said.
The fluttering feeling that word stirred in him made him uneasy. Something was wrong. He couldn’t pinpoint it. He must be defective. He heard the faint sound of metal scraping against leather.
The click of a firing pin.
The roar of the gunshot.
The ticks between awareness were too little, too late. She took his gun. The bullet slammed through him as pain flared. Was it a coincidence that she knew the best angle to fire, just beneath the edge of his protective jacket? He slumped back, and she broke the grip he had on her.
The Hound could have held onto her, but he didn’t try. Let her go. For once, it wasn’t the Handler’s voice in his head. It sounded like his own.
“I’m sorry,” he heard her hoarse, broken apology.
For a second, she was looking at him, her green eyes full of a heated sentiment he didn’t have a name for. Then she turned and ran.
The remaining threats in the warehouse were down. Apollo had a hand on Wilson’s shoulder. The blond Agent’s gaze was hard, jaw tightening as his eyes ticked over the Hound. He knew the other Agent was injured despite the Hound’s attempt to conceal it.
“I said to kill her!” Wilson demanded.
“She is not the mission,” Apollo said, his eyes still on the Hound. “Secure the target, return to Command.”
“She is not the mission,” the Hound echoed distantly.
As if satisfied, Apollo steered Wilson toward the exit.
“Wait, no!” Wilson twisted, but to someone like him, Apollo's grip was nigh unbreakable.
He followed in their wake like the good Hound he was. All the while, he heard her breathless movement, her feet pounding through the stolen earpiece. The sound broke up, coming in fits and starts. He yearned to hear more.
But it fell to silence, leaving him alone with his thoughts.