Chapter 27 #2
He was beginning to wonder whether Petrovic had done nothing more suspicious than check whatever illegal shit he stored inside when Talon’s voice came through his earpiece.
“Grizzly, Lego.”
“Lego, Grizzly.” Gunnar whispered, “Send it.”
“Zombie’s picked up on something. I’ve got sound, too.”
Zorro’s heart slammed hard enough against his ribs that for a second he could feel the fucking thing beneath his plates.
“What kind?”
“Can’t make it out yet. Holding him.”
Not enough.
It’s not fucking enough.
Silence stretched across the net while Talon waited and listened so he could give them intel. “Grizzly, Lego.”
“Go ahead, Lego.”
“Grizzly, I’ve got a cat. Definitely a cat inside the outbuilding.”
Every thought in Zorro’s head stopped as, in his mind, he saw orange fur beneath a gate and his little girl figuring out which button she could press to open the gate.
Is that confirmation that the kitten was taken with her?
He looked at Gunnar and found Grizzly already watching him. He knew that Lego hearing a cat didn’t prove Kelsey was inside that building. But with the bastard, Petrovic, going out there, going in to turn off a light and locking it behind him, that was a coincidence too fucking large to ignore.
Gunnar touched his comm. “All stations, Grizzly. We have a probable on the outbuilding. Mission remains recovery, and nobody gets ahead of me.”
Zorro knew exactly who the last part was meant for—him.
He clicked his comms to acknowledge he understood the order.
He meant it because Gunnar wasn’t keeping him from Kelsey.
His boss was making sure they reached her alive, and there was no fucking point getting through that door if Zorro’s impatience brought half the property down on top of them.
Gunnar shifted the team without turning the discovery into an excuse to abandon everything they had already established. The main house remained occupied, which meant Petrovic and whoever else was inside still had to be accounted for while they approached the structure where Kelsey might be held.
Once the positions were adjusted, Gunnar sent Midas wider with Nemo to keep another angle on the main house while Mojo shifted to cover the ground between the house, garage, and their extraction route.
Lego held Zombie where the dog could work without putting him in front of an unknown doorway with a child potentially on the other side, and the rest of them worked toward the outbuilding.
If the extraction changed, Horizon was already standing by to bring the bird.
Please let her be there.
Zorro followed Gunnar’s lead toward the outbuilding because tonight he trusted Grizzly with the thing that mattered most to him in the fucking world.
By the time he reached the structure, every nerve in his body felt stripped raw.
Up close, it looked even less remarkable than it had through the optics.
Nothing about it announced that a six-year-old child might be on the other side.
He stared at the lock while Gunnar positioned the men where he wanted them before meeting his gaze and giving him the silent order to wait.
More fucking hurry up and wait.
Damn it.
Movement from the direction of the house stopped all of them.
The door opened and a man emerged, not Petrovic, and Zorro tracked him as he crossed toward the garage. For one ugly second, it looked as though he might turn toward the outbuilding, but instead he entered the garage and disappeared from view.
Nobody moved immediately. Gunnar gave it several more seconds before signaling them forward.
They dealt with the lock and controlled the door rather than throwing it wide and advertising their position across the property.
Talon kept Zombie outside and off the threshold while they cleared the immediate space, because sending a driven Malinois into a dark agricultural building containing an unknown number of people, a frightened six-year-old, and at least one cat, would have been fucking stupid.
Darkness waited beyond the opening, and Zorro listened while the men around him did exactly what they had come there to do.
Then he heard it. A tiny, plaintive mew from somewhere inside. A second sound followed, so faint he almost convinced himself he’d imagined it.
Is that Kelsey crying?
Every part of him went cold.
“Kelsey?” He barely put any volume behind her name, but the darkness inside the outbuilding seemed to swallow it whole. For one terrible second, nothing answered, and his heart hammered hard enough beneath his plates that he could hear the fucking thing.
Then came the smallest, shakiest voice from somewhere beyond the crates. “Uncle Zorro?”
My fucking heart.
“Yeah, baby. It’s me. I’m here.”
He wanted to go straight to her. Christ, he wanted to cross that space so badly it physically hurt, but finding Kelsey wasn’t the same as getting her home, and he refused to let relief make him careless now.
He forced himself to finish what needed finishing, confirming the space and making sure there wasn’t another threat waiting in the darkness, because the terrified father inside him could scream as loudly as he fucking wanted, but Zorro was the one who was going to get his little girl out of there alive.
When he saw her, she was huddled behind a stack of wooden crates with her knees drawn against her chest, her face streaked with tears and dirt, and the orange kitten clutched so tightly against the front of her sweatshirt that Zorro had no fucking idea how the little thing was still breathing.
“All—All Stations, Zorro. I have eyes on the package.”
The relief that tore through him was so violent he stumbled over his words.
She was right fucking there, alive, and for one dangerous second, every piece of training that had carried him through the door threatened to disappear beneath the need to snatch her off the floor and hold on until the world stopped spinning.
Somehow, he got control of himself long enough to reach her.
Kelsey didn’t give him the opportunity to do anything else.
The instant he dropped low enough, she launched herself at him.
Zorro caught her against his armor, shoving his rifle aside as one arm wrapped around her back and the other went beneath her.
Her entire body shook against him while her fingers clawed for purchase anywhere she could find it, and he closed his eyes as her curls hit his face.
“I got you, baby. Uncle Zorro’s got you.”
“Uncle Zorro.”
“I know. I got you.”
She buried her face against his neck, and the kitten remained trapped between them before releasing an outraged squeak at being compressed between a terrified six-year-old and his plate carrier. Under any other circumstances, he might have laughed, but right then the sound nearly broke him.
He allowed himself one breath with his face buried against Kelsey’s hair, long enough to feel her breathing and know she was alive.
“All Stations, package secured.”
“Zorro, TOC.” Remi immediately responded, “Say again.”
“Package secure.” he shifted Kelsey higher against his chest. “TOC, get me a route out of this shithole, STAT.” The medic in him was already cataloging what he could without wasting a fucking second.
She was conscious, breathing, talking, holding on to him under her own power, and he couldn’t see or feel any catastrophic bleed where his hands had landed.
Good enough. Anything beyond that could wait until they were somewhere people weren’t actively trying to kill them.
“Kels, anything hurt bad enough you can’t hold on to me?” She shook her head hard against his neck. “Good. Arms around me and don’t let go.” Her grip tightened immediately as one arm locked around his neck while the other somehow kept the orange kitten pinned between them.
His comms clicked.
“Zorro, Grizzly. Hold.”
Zorro froze before he’d taken more than a step, every muscle in his body fighting the order even while the operator in him obeyed it.
“Main house just changed,” Gunnar continued. “Radar’s moving to you. Stand by.”
Fuck.
He shifted behind the nearest solid cover with Kelsey tucked against him, putting his body and plates between her and the open doorway. Finding her didn’t mean shit if he got impatient now and carried her straight into somebody’s line of fire.
“Kels.” He put his mouth close to her ear. “I need you quiet for me, baby. Can you do that?” She nodded against his neck. “Good girl.”
The kitten chose that exact moment to let out a tiny, indignant meow. Kelsey’s hand immediately closed over its head as if she could somehow convince the little fucker to understand operational security. Even now, Zorro nearly smiled.
That fucking cat is coming home.
The net stayed quiet except for the clicks and short transmissions of men shifting where Grizzly needed them.
Radar moved. Lego and Zombie repositioned.
Nemo, Midas, and Mojo held the angles Gunnar had assigned them.
Zorro listened and waited because the fastest way out wasn’t always the first fucking doorway available, and Grizzly was making sure the route between Kelsey and freedom wasn’t going to turn into a shooting gallery.
Then Gunnar came back over comms. “Zorro, Grizzly. West side is opening. Radar inbound to you.”
“Copy.”