Chapter 9 #2
She could cry at the sight of him. Except . . . oh, she’d done exactly what she’d promised not to do.
“Get away from him, Chloe,” Skeet said, advancing.
Volkov scrambled for his gun, lost on the deck, but Lynx was already moving. Her kick sent the gun spinning into the river.
Volkov grabbed the briefcase, turned, and fled down the shoreline, into the darkness.
What? “The briefcase!” Chloe shouted. “Don’t let him—”
Even as she shouted it, Lynx took off after him.
And yeah, she was an idiot, because she did too. Except, Skeet caught up to her, grabbed her arm, pulled her around to himself.
“Volkov—”
“I know.”
She shot a look down the wharf. Volkov was already disappearing into the maze of loading equipment and container stacks that lined the river. The woman sprinted after him, both figures swallowed by shadow.
She looked at Skeet.
Oh, he was mad, his jaw so tight he could crack teeth, fury radiating off him.
And not just mad.
Disappointed. Betrayed.
Heartbroken.
His expression emptied her, left her hollow and broken and . . .
He’d followed her into her crazy, and now she’d destroyed everything. Including his trust.
“Skeet—”
“We’ll talk about this later,” he said quietly. “Stay here.”
Then he turned, grabbed his radio, and took off after Volkov, his boots echoing against concrete as he disappeared into the murky night.
Skeet’s lungs burned as he sprinted through the warehouse maze, a good match for the storm tearing through his chest.
She’d promised. Looked him straight in the eye and promised.
And then broke that promise without a blink.
The industrial district turned ghoulish as he ran. Lights cast sickly yellow pools between towering cargo containers that created walls thirty feet high. The air reeked of diesel fuel, and in the distance, a ship’s horn moaned across the Chao Phraya River like a funeral dirge.
Behind every corner, Volkov could be waiting to ambush him. “Still in pursuit,” he barked into his comms.
“Stay with him. We’re on our way.” Ham said.
The guy he could trust to keep his word.
The woman—Lynx—had disappeared. Maybe she’d given up the chase.
Chloe had nearly been killed.
I’ll stay back. Those words had come out of her mouth.
The whole thing didn’t make sense, but he shoved it from his brain as he spotted Volkov dodging the loading cranes.
The blow hit him from behind—a tackle, full out, from his flank that knocked him off-balance.
He hit the ground. Rolled.
Lynx. She stood above him, breathing hard.
“Leave him to me.”
What—?
Then she took off. Now there was the panther, sleek and fast and leaving him behind. Except no, he wasn’t about to give up the chase.
But she’d gotten the drop on him and it had slowed him down, and now, as he watched, she caught up to Volkov.
Tackled him too.
They rolled together for a second near the wharf’s edge, then Volkov broke free, held up the briefcase like a shield. “You don’t want to do this.” He was backing away from her down a pier. “This is worth millions.”
“I’m not a buyer,” Lynx said. “I’m just the messenger.”
Skeet caught up just as Lynx moved in some sort of fluid motion that launched Volkov from the pier. Airborne before splashing into Chao Phraya’s murky water.
The briefcase followed him into the dark.
Skeet skidded to a halt, his weapon out, searching for Volkov. He rounded on Lynx. “What have you done?”
Gone. All of it. The evidence of Volkov’s network, the proof that could prevent whatever attack he had planned.
Lynx turned toward Skeet, and for a split second their eyes met.
Then she fled, melting back into the shadows between containers.
“Skeet!”
Ham’s voice cut through the night in comms as Skeet spotted his team leader at the far end of the wharf, North and West flanking him, running hard.
“Status?”
“Volkov is in the river. Briefcase too.” The words came out hard, professional, but inside his chest, something was imploding. “Intel’s gone.”
Ham blew out a breath. Then, “Chloe?”
“Chloe’s fine.” But bile filled his throat.
Ham caught up to him then, glanced at the dark water, back at Skeet. “Okay, let’s go.”
Emergency vehicles wailed in the distance—probably Thai police responding to reports of explosions and gunfire in the warehouse district. Soon this place would be crawling with investigators and forensics teams.
They needed to get moving.
Chloe sat in the passenger seat of Ham’s SUV, her camera clutched in her lap, the window down. She looked up when Skeet approached, something that looked like desperation flickering in her blue eyes.
“Are you okay?” she started.
He walked past without stopping, sliding into the back seat beside North.
The silence that followed was thick enough to cut.
“Everyone accounted for?” Ham asked, checking his tactical watch.
“West’s doing final sweep,” North replied. “Making sure we didn’t leave any American fingerprints behind.”
They had worn masks and no one had died—just a handful of people zip-tied and waiting for the police like a gift. But they needed to bug out of Thailand ASAP.
The drive back to the Airbnb could have chilled the dead. Chloe sat silent in the front seat. Skeet looked out the window, so many words in his head he didn’t know where to start.
Finally she asked, “What did you guys see in there?”
Ham glanced at her. “Modified HVAC equipment. And plants—rows and rows of drying plants.”
“What kind of plants?”
“Purple flowers with dark berries,” North said. “They were hanging from wooden frames. And the air was sort of sickly sweet. Big fans circulating the air. I think to dry the plants.”
“There was grinding equipment too. Massive steel cylinders.”
“Grinding it,” Chloe said. “Do you think they were trying to make a powder?”
Ham glanced at her, and suddenly Skeet stopped thinking about her broken promise. He leaned up. “So it could be ingested.”
Silence.
“The local authorities are en route,” Ham said. “But we got what we came for.”
“You did?” Chloe said.
“Yeah, West grabbed samples of the nightshade compound. And he snapped some shots of the plants.”
“What about ICONSIAM?”
“We’ll give the intel to my buddy Director Logan Thorne of the Caleb Group. He has the right government channels to get it to the Thai government.”
She nodded. “So it’s over.”
Ham looked at her. “You might want to wait until the Thai government has a cap on this before letting anyone know they could get poisoned by just going to the mall.”
“Who was that woman?” North asked. “The one who threw Volkov into the river?”
Ham was quiet for a long moment. “Coco says she’s a Black Swan. Off-the-books operatives who work for whoever pays best. Thieves, spies, fixers—they handle problems that governments can’t officially acknowledge.”
“She was after Volkov specifically?”
“Or the research. Could be she was hired to steal the formulas, or destroy them.” Ham pulled into their gated complex and showed the temporary ID. The guard said nothing about their garb.
He drove through. “I’ll do some digging, find out why the Swans are involved.”
The Airbnb felt like a tomb when they returned. Skeet shed his gear, then headed upstairs to his room. Took a shower, standing under the hot spray, hoping it might sluice off the anger. Or the dread, really.
Because this wouldn’t be the last time she ran into trouble.
And he couldn’t protect her if he couldn’t trust her.
He came down, hair wet, wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and his bamboo flip-flops. North was in the kitchen, scrambling a batch of post-op eggs.
Chloe sat at the table, scrolling through the shots on her camera. “I got a good picture of Volkov,” she said to everyone and no one.
Skeet glanced at her, his jaw tight.
She saw it. “What? I was doing my job.”
“Your job?” His laugh held no humor. “Your job was to stay behind cover and let us handle the tactical situation.”
“My job is to expose the truth.” She set the camera down.
“At the cost of your life?” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but frankly, he didn’t care.
She drew in a breath.
And he simply couldn’t stop. “You promised.” He hung a hand behind his neck. Softened his tone. “You looked me in the eye and promised you’d stay back.”
She flinched, but her jaw tightened. “The situation changed.”
“The situation was exactly what we planned for. You just decided your story was more important than your word.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” Something snapped inside his chest. “You want to know what’s not fair? Having someone you trust break their promise the second something more interesting comes along.”
“I was trying to save lives!”
“You were trying to get your story.”
She rose. “I’m a journalist.”
You’re dangerous.
And even he knew it was over the line. That his words cut her. But he stood there, openly bleeding too. Chest wound. “I can’t trust you.”
“I was doing my job!”
He gestured toward her camera. “You gave me your word, then threw it away the second your story took over.”
She flinched.
And he sighed. Took a breath. “I get it. I do. I just . . . I just wish it had turned out differently this time.”
The words hung between them like smoke from an explosion.
“Skeet—”
“We’re too different,” he said, stepping back to put physical distance between them. “Too many goals pulling us in opposite directions. I can’t change you, and you shouldn’t have to change for me.”
“So that’s it?” Her voice cracked on the words. “One mistake and we’re done?”
“One broken promise,” he corrected. “But yeah. That’s it.”
“Fine.” She lifted her chin. “Just stay out of my way.”
“You got me into this mess.” The unfairness of the accusation stung, but he was past caring. “You make reckless choices that hurt people who care about you.”
Her mouth opened. “I make the choices I have to—”
“Yeah, well, I’m done.”
Her eyes filled.
He looked away.
“Right.” She picked up her camera. “I guess I should have expected this. I’m the fool here.”
“Clearly we both are.”
Her footsteps echoed as she ascended the stairs, followed by the sharp slam of a door.
Skeet stood alone in the room, staring out into the night.
“Dude.”
West’s voice came from the top of the stairs, where he and Ham stood watching Skeet like he’d lost his mind.
Maybe he had.
“You want to tell us what just happened?” Ham asked as he came downstairs.
Skeet looked at the men who’d become his brothers, who’d watched him fall apart over a woman who’d never really been his to begin with.
“I need some air.”
He walked past them toward the front door, ignoring their concerned voices, their offers to talk, their suggestions that maybe he was overreacting.
The Bangkok night hit him like a sauna. He started walking with no destination in mind, letting his feet carry him away from the Airbnb and the thousands of shards of his stupid heart, bloody on the floor.
His phone buzzed with texts from the team, but he ignored them all.
He just started to run.
And refused to look back.