CHAPTER 23
DAMIáN
The smell of burning wood and dirt is thick enough to make me choke. My head hurts, my arm is bleeding, and I’m pretty sure I broke a rib.
I turn a corner, and a man attacks me with a knife. I duck, and—ouch!
Okay… I broke two ribs.
I kick back, sweeping his legs out from under him. He hits the floor. I bring my boot down on his chest and fire a single round.
“Second bar area, cleared,” says Knox over the comms.
“I’m halfway done with the eastern entrance. Anyone close to the main gate?”
“I am, boss,” Leif responds, and I can barely hear him over all the shooting in the background. “Careful getting near the fountain. There is a secondary machine gun on the third floor. It almost blew my arm off.”
“Thanks for the heads up. I’m on my way there.” I reload my assault rifle and take the path on the left. “What side of the fountain is the—Whoa!” A man charges out from a side garden, swinging a machete.
I raise my assault rifle to his chest and squeeze the trigger twice. He slumps against the pine wall and falls to the ground.
“Damián, are you okay? I can’t see you on the monitors.”
“All good, Alexios. A guy with a machete ran out of nowhere.”
“What type of machete?” Bjorn asks… because, of course, he would.
“I don’t know…” I lean closer to the man on the floor and check the weapon. “It’s a billhook.”
“Ahh, Dami…”
“No, Bjorn! I’m not a vulture.”
“Pretty please! You know how hard it is to find a good-quality billhook outside Europe?” he begs.
But I don’t relent; I keep walking.
“I’ll owe you a wish!” Bjorn offers.
“Deal!” I immediately jog back to get the billhook, because owning a wish from my crazy Viking is like having a green mushroom in Super Mario. You’ll never know when you’ll need it, but it’s always good to have one.
“Arrghhh!” Tae screams on the comms, and I freeze.
“Tae? Are you okay?” I ask, but Tae doesn’t answer. I look around, but with all the smoke, I can’t see a thing beyond ten yards. “Tae?! Does anyone have eyes on Tae?”
“I spotted him heading toward the pool area, about five minutes ago.”
I change direction and run. “Do you have any visual now, Law?”
“I don’t.”
“Alexios?” I ask, jumping over a fallen tree.
“There’s too much smoke. I have no vision beyond the western fountain.”
Fuck…
Fuck!
“On route to the pool,” Logan says. “Forty yards out.”
I rush down the stone steps into the back garden, pushing my body to its absolute limit as I race toward the pool area, praying to find Tae.
Across the lawn, a man pops out from behind a row of hedges, raising his pistol.
I dive into a slide across the grass, tracking the guy as I move. Halfway through the slide, I plant my hand, flipping my weight around to reverse my momentum, and fire a headshot.
I push up off the grass and bounce right back into a sprint, pushing my body as fast as it can go, but two seconds later, another guy charges out from behind a stone gazebo, his rifle already aimed right at my head.
THWACK!
The man falls to the floor.
“Down. You’re good to go, mate.”
“Thanks, Law.”
Seconds later, I reach the pool area, but there is nothing but bodies, broken glass, and smoke.
“Tae!” a voice screams somewhere behind me, and the air instantly leaves my lungs because I recognize that voice.
It’s Oliver.
I spin around, my vision tunneling as sheer panic sets in, and that’s when I see them. Tae is on the floor next to Oliver, who is crouching to help him get up.
“Oliver, move!” Tae screams, shoving his hand against Ollie’s chest to push him backward.
And that’s when I see him… just a few feet away, one of Rafael’s men steps out from behind a stone pillar, raising a knife and aiming it directly at Oliver’s head.
No!
Panic floods my entire body.
I lift my gun, trying to get a clean line of sight on the attacker, but another man blindsides me from the side. He tackles me, pinning my arms down as we crash into a glass garden table.
Fuck! I don’t have time for this.
Using the momentum of the crash, I slam the back of my head into the guy’s nose, shattering it, and as he stumbles back, howling in pain, I grab a jagged piece of broken glass from the shattered table, take him down, and spin around as I raise my assault rifle.
I lock my eyes onto the man across the pool, who is just about to stab Oliver, and shoot.
THUD!
The man drops. I get up, sprinting toward them.
“I have Oliver and Tae,” I tell the rest of the team. “They are alive.”
“Oliver? I thought you locked him up.”
“I did, Knox,” I say, jumping over the debris of a broken pillar. “Leif, you have to figure out how the fuck that happened.”
“Will do.”
The moment I reach them, I can finally breathe.
“Damián!” Oliver gasps, but the surprise is cut short as I crash into him and pull him into a kiss.
I pull back just enough to check him over, making sure he isn’t hurt, and then glare at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I came to help.”
“Help?! You almost died!” I point toward the west wing. “Alexios is that way. Get out of here.”
“No. I want to help.”
“You can’t! You’ll get hurt.” I snap, then turn my head and look at Tae. “Tae, back me up here.”
“Don’t look at me.” He brushes the dust off his pants with the palms of his hands and picks up his medic bag. “Him coming here saved my life, so I’m not commenting on this one.”
I spin and glare at my stubborn boyfriend. “Leave. Now!”
“I’m staying. I didn’t escape your damn HQ just to come say hi.”
“Oliver…”
“Damián…” He glares right back at me, and I instantly know there is no way I’m winning this argument. He isn’t leaving.
Fuck!
I shove my assault rifle into Tae’s hands and start ripping open the Velcro on my Kevlar vest.
“What are you doing?” Oliver asks, his voice sounding nervous.
“If you’re going to stay, I’m at least making sure you’re protected,” I tell him, forcing the vest over his head and strapping it down tight.
“Absolutely not.” He tries to wiggle away, but he is no match for my strength. “Damián, stop! You can’t stay out here without a vest.”
“And you can?” I growl, and that shuts him up.
“I’ll just take one of theirs,” I add, nodding toward the dead cartel soldiers scattered around us.
Oliver looks at the bodies, noticing that at least three of them are wearing Kevlar vests. “Then why couldn’t I just take one of theirs?”
“Because ours are bigger and better. Now shut up, I’m mad at you.”
Tae bites his lower lip, preventing a laugh, and Oliver stays quiet as I pull a vest from one of Rafael’s men and put it on.
“Wow, Dami… that vest is so sexy,” Bjorn teases as he arrives at the pool.
“Stay focused, Bjorn,” Logan says, taking a shot at a man who comes out of the house. “Tae, Oliver, are you okay?”
“Yes, boss,” Tae replies, and Oliver nods.
“Oliver, we are having trouble locating Rafael. Is there a room we could’ve missed?”
“Have you checked the cellar?” he asks, and Logan nods. “The library also has an exit tunnel.”
“Had. I already blew it up,” Bjorn smiles, looking completely proud of himself as he gestures to the black smoke inside the house.
“…Have you checked the hidden room behind the double-sided mirror?” Oliver asks, looking at Logan.
“Not me.” Logan taps his earpiece, calling into the comms. “Anyone cleared a room with a double-sided mirror?”
The line is quiet for a second before the Harknetts answer in the negative.
“Where is it, cielo?”
“It’s hidden right behind the small chimney room on the first floor. There’s no exit out of it, but it’s huge. It has dozens of hiding spots, and my father used to keep half of his cargo and guns stored there.”
“Get ready, then.” Logan’s blue eyes narrow as he reloads his pistol. “Harknetts, meeting point at the chimney room on the east wing. The target is most likely inside a hidden storage vault.”
Tae straps his medic bag on and takes two guns from the ground.
“Bjorn,” I call out. He spins around, and I toss him the billhook I grabbed for him. “You owe me a wish.”
“Oh, my Gods! It even has a sawback and an anti-slip grip.” His face beams with pure happiness as he catches the weapon and studies the blade. “Thank you, Dami!”
“Oliver?” Logan asks my boyfriend, and he leads the way back toward the main house.
The more Oliver guides us through the estate, the more I understand why Rafael and everyone ran here the moment he killed Elijah. This place is a fucking maze, with bombs and machine guns hidden in every room.
We are halfway through a dining room when three men burst through the remains of a shattered French door and start shooting.
I step in front of Oliver to cover him, raising my weapon and dropping one of the shooters. To my left, Bjorn puts his new billhook to work, and takes care of the remaining two.
He grins at me, and I glance over at Logan.
“We should really do another psychological evaluation at Harknett,” I tease, and Logan laughs.
We keep moving, pushing into the house, but the stupid mansion is crawling with reinforcements. As we cross the grand hallway, another pair of shooters blindsides us from the top of the stairs.
Logan takes a knee and fires two shots that make both men tumble over the banister.
“Clear!” he says.
Beside him, Tae draws his sidearm and eliminates a guy trying to flank us from a corridor. “Clear!”
Every step toward the chimney room is a damn fight against men with guns, machetes, and grenades… but what worries me the most is not what we’ll find on our way there, but what needs to happen when we get there.
Rafael is a fucking monster, and he needs to be stopped, but he is also Oliver’s brother, and we all know how this will end.
Either he dies, or we do.
Will Oliver be strong enough to see this?
Fuck… I hope so.
I don’t want him to carry any more pain or any more trauma.
I stare at him, completely overwhelmed by how incredible this man is. He isn’t trained like the rest of us… hell, he’s practically swimming in my vest, and can barely handle the kick of his gun, and yet, here he is.
Guiding us right through the fire.
We finally arrive at the chimney room, and it’s covered in smoke, debris, and bullet holes.