Chapter 1 #2
"Stay here," I tell her, already turning back toward the building. I spit out the cigar and yank my tactical scarf up over my nose and mouth. "Lock the doors. If I'm not back in a few minutes, drive. Safe house address is programmed in the GPS."
"Wait—"
But I'm 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 just became a reason to survive.
The heat hits me the moment I'm through the door—a physical wall that steals the air from my lungs. Smoke thick enough to choke on, visibility down to almost nothing.
The tactical scarf over my nose and mouth barely helps. Chemical smoke burns differently than wood or fabric. This shit gets in your lungs and stays there.
The second floor stairs are a death trap waiting to happen. They're still standing, but barely. The metal treads have warped from heat, some missing entirely where explosions tore through the structure. I test the first step. It holds.
Northwest corner—her office.
Taking the steps two at a time, I keep low, breathing shallow through the scarf. The second floor is worse—flames eating through walls, ceiling sagging in places where support's failed.
The air shimmers with heat. Sweat pours down my back, soaking through my tactical gear. My skin tightens, the first stage of burns if I stay much longer.
A section of ceiling collapses behind me, sending up a shower of sparks and burning insulation. The fire's accelerating, feeding on chemicals and oxygen in ways that don't follow normal patterns.
Her office door hangs open, half-melted from heat. Inside, a desk, filing cabinets, scattered papers. I scan the room—there. A leather messenger bag on the floor beside the desk, half-hidden under fallen debris.
Grabbing it, I turn to leave and freeze.
A device mounted to the support beam. Military-grade charge, but the construction's wrong—too much accelerant for a clean detonation, overlapping blast caps that'll create a chain reaction instead of a controlled burn.
The signature screams professional training but rushed execution. The timer shows less than a minute.
My stomach drops.
This isn't the Iron Choir's work. They're precise, clinical. The mercs downstairs might be on their payroll, but this charge? Too sloppy for their standards.
And the timing's too perfect—placed after I arrived, pointing to someone who knows exactly how I work.
Only a handful of people on the continent have demolitions expertise that matches mine. Factor in who'd have motivation to track a Cerberus operation, who'd know my methods well enough to predict my movements, who'd want me buried under a building instead of just dead...
One name.
Putain. Lazarev.
Grigor Lazarev. A Russian demolitions expert I faced off with in Afghanistan.
The bastard who blamed me when his intelligence failure in Yemen got civilians killed.
The one who swore he'd make me pay for the commendation I got while he got dishonorably discharged—because I told the truth in my after-action report.
He's here. In Prague. Hunting the same target.
And he just rigged the building to come down on top of me.
The floor shudders beneath my feet. Structural failure imminent. The window is my only option—second story drop, but better than being buried in rubble.
Running for the nearest window, I sling the bag's strap across my chest and don't slow down. Glass explodes around me as I dive through, arms protecting my head. Gravity takes over. The ground rushes up fast.
I hit the pavement hard. The shoulder roll distributes the impact, but concrete doesn't give. Something cracks in my ribs—not broken, but close. Pain explodes through my shoulder, white-hot and immediate. The messenger bag digs into my chest, bruising. My vision blurs for a second.
Get up. Move.
My body screams in protest but I force myself to my feet, stumbling forward. Every breath feels like broken glass. Behind me, the building groans—a sound like a dying animal, metal shrieking against metal.
The charge detonates.
The blast wave hits me from behind, a physical force that shoves me forward. I throw myself into a sprint, ignoring the pain, ignoring everything except distance. The support beam fails with a sound like a gunshot. Then another. Then a dozen more as the structure comes apart.
The building collapses in on itself with a roar that shakes the ground beneath my boots. Debris rains down—chunks of concrete, twisted metal, burning insulation. Something hot grazes my shoulder. The air fills with dust and smoke and the chemical stench of burning plastic.
Heat washes over me in waves, superheated air that sears my lungs even through the scarf. The percussion rattles my teeth, drowns out everything else.
I don't stop running until I clear the parking lot, putting the truck between me and the collapsing warehouse.
Isabella's out of the truck, standing beside it with her hands pressed to her mouth. When she sees me, relief floods her features—raw and unguarded for just a second before control slams back down.
"You got it," she says as I reach her.
"Get in." I yank the bag's strap over my head and thrust it at her, then move around to the driver's side. "Now."
This time she doesn't argue. We're in the truck and moving as the burning wreckage sends a plume of smoke and debris into the night sky.
I take the first corner hard, tires screaming against cobblestone. My ribs protest every gear shift, every turn of the wheel. The adrenaline's wearing off and the pain's getting sharper, more insistent. I taste blood—bit my tongue during the landing.
Check the rearview mirror. The warehouse burns like a funeral pyre, black smoke billowing into the night sky. No pursuit yet, but they'll come. The Iron Choir doesn't abandon operations just because things get messy.
I check again—figures moving in the firelight. Mercs regrouping around their vehicles. And somewhere in that chaos, if my gut's right, Lazarev is watching. Calculating. Planning his next move.
This extraction just became personal.
Beside me, Isabella clutches her bag to her chest like a shield. Her breathing's hard, fast, but controlled. Not hyperventilating. Not panicking. Her eyes stay locked on the burning building receding behind us, watching it shrink in the side mirror.
Her hands are steady despite the adrenaline. Despite nearly dying. Despite watching me dive through a second-story window and barely survive the collapse.
Most people would be shaking. Most people would be crying or screaming or demanding explanations, flooding me with questions I don't have time to answer.
She's silent. Thinking. Processing.
Smart.
I navigate through Prague's narrow streets with tactical precision.
Hard right onto a one-way street going the wrong direction—force any tail to make a choice, slow them down.
Doubling back through an alley barely wide enough for the truck, mirrors scraping brick.
Left turn that's really a U-turn, using parked cars as cover.
Through a plaza where late-night foot traffic makes speed impossible, blending with civilian vehicles.
The truck's handling well enough, responsive despite the bulk. But it's not built for this kind of evasion. It's built for transport, for looking normal, for not attracting attention.
Right now we're anything but normal.
My shoulder's on fire. Every breath sends pain lancing through my ribs. The scarf around my neck is damp with sweat and probably blood. I can feel the beginning of burns on my exposed skin—nothing serious, but enough to know I got too close.
I take another turn, this one onto a main boulevard. Headlights, traffic, witnesses. Harder to make a move in public. The Iron Choir operates in shadows, not spotlights.
"Thank you," she says finally. "For going back."
"Don't thank me yet." My hands tighten on the wheel. "Fire wasn't the worst thing in that building."
She turns to look at me. "What do you mean?"
"The explosives I didn't set?" Meeting her gaze briefly before returning attention to the road. "Military-grade charges with a signature I recognize. Structural collapse pattern, overlapping detonation sequence. Only a few people work like that."
"Who?"
"If I'm right?" Truth tastes bitter. "Grigor Lazarev.
Russian demolitions expert - we have history from a mission in Yemen that went wrong.
He blames me, wants me dead, and doesn't care who gets caught in the crossfire.
The Iron Choir wants you for what you know.
Lazarev wants me, and you're collateral damage. "
Her face pales in the dashboard lights. "You're saying we have two problems now."
"We always had two problems, Chère." The endearment slips out, habit from home. "Now we're caught between two threats, and they both know we're in Prague."
I accelerate through another turn. In the mirror, the warehouse fire lights up the night sky, orange and angry against the darkness.
Beside me, Isabella stays silent. No panic. No hysteria. No flood of questions. Just controlled breathing and that focused stare out the window.
I'm already calculating Lazarev's next move. Where he'll rig his next trap. What routes he'll anticipate. He knows how I think, how I operate.
My ribs scream with every breath. The burns on my shoulder are starting to sting. And somewhere behind us, two different enemies are hunting the same target.
Going to be a long night.