Chapter 27 #3
Footsteps approached from outside, controlled and fast, and a second later, Colt appeared at the doorway. For the smallest fraction of a second, Radar disappeared when he saw the little girl wrapped around Zorro.
Kelsey lifted her face. “Uncle Colt.”
Something moved across Colt’s expression before the operator slammed back into place. “Hey, Trouble. We’re getting you out of here.” His gaze dropped to the orange ball of fur wedged between Kelsey and Zorro’s plate carrier. “What the fuck?”
Kelsey immediately tightened her arm around the kitten.
“Not a word,” Zorro warned.
Colt’s mouth flattened. “Wasn’t gonna say shit.”
Lying bastard.
“Route?”
“Clear to the west. Grizzly wants us moving now.”
That was all Zorro needed. He came through the doorway with Kelsey locked against his chest and Radar taking the lead, and this time when his boots hit the ground outside, he didn’t look toward the house for Petrovic.
He didn’t give a fuck where the bastard was.
Kelsey was in his arms, and priority number one was to get her the fuck off this mountain.
Zorro kept Kelsey’s face tucked against his neck while they crossed the open ground because she didn’t need to see anything the team might be forced to leave behind.
She didn’t need to know whether someone was restrained near the house or dead in the dirt, and she sure as fuck didn’t need one more image added to whatever she already carried from France.
His job was to get her from this place to her mother with as little additional damage as possible.
They were partway across when suppressed gunfire cracked from the direction of the house. Kelsey jerked so violently in his arms that he felt it through his armor, and he immediately dropped his center of gravity while turning his body to put himself between her and the direction of the threat.
Colt was already covering. Comms came alive.
“Contact.”
Zorro didn’t turn toward the gunfire. Every instinct he had once possessed would have pulled him toward it because his chosen brothers were there, and part of him still wanted to know exactly what the fuck was happening.
Tonight, another instinct was stronger. The threat was behind them, and his job was to keep Kelsey away from it.
“Look at me, baby.”
She was crying now, her breathing coming too quickly. “Uncle Zorro.”
“Look at me.” Her eyes finally found his. “I’ve got you. Keep holding on.” Another burst of gunfire sounded from farther away, and Zorro heard Gunnar directing the others through his earpiece, but he didn’t need to insert himself into that fight unless Grizzly told him otherwise.
“Radar?”
Colt checked the route ahead and then looked back at him. “Clear.”
He kept going. He didn’t turn around looking for Petrovic or ask whether the bastard was still breathing. Right now, he had exactly what he’d come for.
“All stations, Grizzly. Targets eliminated. Petrovic confirmed. Midas, notify your Carabinieri contact. They can sweep the DBs once we’re clear.”
“Copy,” Midas answered.
Have fucking fun in hell, asshole.
They reached the vehicles, and Zorro climbed into the rear without attempting to put Kelsey down.
Years of operating with men he considered brothers had conditioned him to account for them, listen for them, and know whether they were all still standing, while every new instinct Kelsey had carved into him demanded he concentrate on the small body shaking against his chest. Both mattered, but for these few minutes, she mattered more.
He kept one part of his attention on her while they waited for the rest of the team, watching her breathing and staying alert for anything that suggested an injury serious enough to change the extraction priority.
He wanted her somewhere warm, with Glenna beside her before he did anything more than that.
Kelsey rested her cheek against his plate carrier.
His comm clicked in his ear. “Zorro, Grizzly.”
“Grizzly, Zorro. Go ahead, sir.”
“Vehicles are secure. We’re going out the way we came.”
“Copy.” Relief slammed into him. Their original extraction route was still clean, which meant there was no reason to put the helicopter in the air or expose Kelsey to another transfer. Grady could go home, and they could get moving toward La Spezia.
Zorro looked down at the little girl wrapped around him. “We’re going home, baby.”
Kelsey shifted against him. “Mommy?”
He tightened his arm around her. “Yeah, baby. We’re going home to Mommy.” He kept her tucked against his chest while voices came across comms, short and familiar as the rest of his team closed back on the vehicles.
Nemo.
Midas.
Mojo.
Lego and Zombie.
Grizzly.
With Colt in the driver’s seat of their truck, that was every fucking one of them.
Seven men and one K9 had come up this mountain to bring his little girl home, and seven men, one K9, and his Kelsey were leaving it.
Zorro closed his eyes for one second as the last knot in his chest finally gave enough to let him breathe.
Mission accomplished.