Chapter 20 #2
We dress fast, gathering gear and weapons with the synchronized efficiency of partners who know exactly how the other moves. Her shoulder must be protesting the tactical vest's weight, but she doesn't complain. Just checks her weapons with the same professional focus I use.
Minutes later we're in the car heading toward Opus Noir, weapons secured, tactical vests in place. I drive with focused precision while she runs through mental checklists of what we might need for Prague.
I reach across the console and lace my fingers through hers.
Prague. Nitro. Whatever situation requires backup from both of us.
The mission never stops. But now I'm not facing it alone.
She squeezes my hand, and I glance at her. The certainty in her eyes matches what I feel.
We're going to be fine. Better than fine.
We're going to be unstoppable.
REMY
The chemical plant reeks of sulfur and bad decisions.
I press my back against the corrugated metal wall, breathing shallow through my nose while my gloved fingers trace the brick of C-4 strapped to my chest. Old habit. Comfort check. The weight's familiar, grounding—like rosary beads for a man who stopped praying years ago.
Across the warehouse floor, three mercs in tactical gear sweep the space with mounted flashlights, their boots echoing off concrete. Professional. Disciplined. The kind of hired muscle that doesn't come cheap.
Which means whoever's bankrolling this operation has resources.
"Nitro." Fitz's voice crackles through my earpiece, calm as Sunday mass despite the situation. "Target is on the move. Second floor, northwest corner."
I key my mic twice. Acknowledgment without words. Twenty years in explosives taught me when to stay quiet.
The target—Dr. Isabella Durand, French chemist who decided growing a conscience was worth dying for—is somewhere in this industrial graveyard. My job: extract her before the syndicate finds her. Before they decide a dead scientist can't testify about weaponized delivery systems.
Before I have to scrape another civilian off the pavement because someone else's intel was shit.
My jaw clenches. Yemen floods back—the compound, the fire, the screaming. Orders followed. Collateral accepted. The kind of math that keeps you up at night wondering if you're still human or just pretending.
I shake it off. Focus on the job.
Movement on the catwalk above. A figure—slender, feminine, moving too fast to be careful. Lab coat flapping. She stumbles, catches herself on the railing.
Found her.
The mercs spot her half a second after I do. Weapons swing up, red laser dots painting the catwalk.
"Contact!" one of them shouts.
I'm already moving.
The remote detonator in my pocket triggers charges I placed thirty minutes ago—strategic positions calculated to cause maximum chaos, minimum casualties.
Old factory equipment explodes in sequence: north wall, then south, then the ventilation system.
Smoke and fire and the beautiful percussion of controlled destruction.
The mercs scatter. Confusion is my oldest friend.
I hit the catwalk stairs at a run, taking them three at a time. Above me, Dr. Durand is still moving—smart girl, didn't freeze—but she's heading toward a dead end.
"East exit," I call up in French, my Cajun accent butchering the pronunciation. "Move!"
She spins, and I catch my first real look at her face in the firelight. Elegant features. Green eyes wide with terror but sharp with intelligence. The kind of beautiful that makes men stupid.
I make a lot of stupid decisions. This won't be one of them.
"Who are you?" she demands, voice steady despite the chaos. Controlled. That takes spine.
"Your ride." I reach the catwalk level and extend my hand. "Remy Pascal. Cerberus. We need to go. Now."
She hesitates. Behind us, the mercs are regrouping, voices shouting in German and English. Below, my charges have created a wall of flame between us and them—but fire's temporary. Chemistry's unforgiving.
"You're American military," she says, reading me in seconds. The accent, the bearing, the controlled violence I carry like a second skin. "Special operations."
"Used to be." I keep my hand extended. "Right now I'm the man between you and a bullet. Your choice, doc."
Another explosion—this one not mine. Someone else is playing with fire in this warehouse.
Her eyes narrow. "That wasn't you."
"No." My gut goes cold. "That's someone who knows what I know."
And if someone's matching my demolitions expertise, that narrows the field to maybe three people on the continent. All of them dangerous. One of them with a personal score to settle.
Dr. Durand takes my hand.
Her grip is firm, steady, and the contact sends an electric jolt up my arm that I absolutely don't have time to analyze. I pull her close as another charge detonates below—someone else's work, sloppy and reckless—and press her against the catwalk railing.
"Stay low," I order. "Follow my lead. Don't argue. Clear?"
"Crystal." But there's fire in her eyes that says this woman doesn't take orders easily.
Good. Broken spirits don't survive what's coming.
We move through smoke and chaos, her hand locked in mine, and somewhere in the chemical haze and adrenaline, I make a tactical error: I look at her face again.
At the determination cutting through her fear.
At the way she's cataloging the explosion patterns while we run—scientific mind working even in crisis.
She's not just cargo to protect. She's something else entirely.
And that's the most dangerous realization I've had since Yemen.
We hit the east exit as the warehouse groans behind us, metal shrieking as support beams fail. My truck is waiting, engine running—never turn off a getaway vehicle.
I pull her toward it, but she digs her heels in at the passenger door.
"The data," she says. "I have evidence. In my bag. I left it—"
"Forget it." I open the door, ready to physically place her inside if necessary.
"No." She pulls back, stronger than she looks. "That data proves what they're building. Who's funding it. Without it, this is pointless."
"Without you alive, the data's worthless." My voice drops to command register, the tone that made SEALs fall in line. "Get. In. The. Truck."
She meets my eyes, and something shifts. Recognition. She sees what I am—what I do—and instead of fear, I see calculation.
"They'll kill more people," she says quietly. "The delivery system I designed can be weaponized for chemical or biological agents. Aerosolized. Dispersed over populations. The data proves they're planning to sell it to the highest bidder."
Her words hit like shrapnel.
How many people, I want to ask. How many innocents are we weighing against your life right now?
But I already know the math. It's always the same math.
"Where's the bag?" I ask.
She points to a second-floor window. "My office. Northwest corner."
Of course it is.
I look at the warehouse—fully engulfed now, flames licking through broken windows. Look at her—determined, terrified, refusing to leave without finishing what she started.
Look at my truck—fifteen seconds to safety.
"Stay here," I order, already moving back toward the building. "Lock the doors. If I'm not back in three minutes, drive. There's a safehouse address programmed in the GPS."
"Wait—"
But I'm already running, because this is what I do. I blow things up and walk into fire and make impossible choices about acceptable losses.
Dr. Isabella Durand just became more than an extraction target.
She became a reason to survive.
And that's either going to save us both or kill us trying.
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I was hired to save lives.
Instead, I helped build a weapon.
When I uncover the truth, I steal the evidence and run—straight into a war. A powerful syndicate wants me silenced, and every escape becomes another trap.
That’s when Remy Pascal finds me.
Code name: Nitro.
Explosives expert. Cerberus enforcer. Pure control wrapped in danger.
He handles fire for a living and looks at me like he’s already claimed me. I don’t trust him. I shouldn’t want him. But every time the world detonates, he’s the one pulling me out, steady hands, dark commands, unbreakable focus.
Someone is hunting us. Someone who knows his past and how to destroy him.
As we run from city to city, pretending to be lovers turns into something real. His touch lingers. His control tightens. And when the heat finally ignites, it’s consuming, possessive, and impossible to resist.
They want my invention.
They want my silence.
They want me dead.
Nitro wants me alive.
And if I give him everything, I may not survive the fire but I won’t face it alone.