“Where’d you get that?” Nick asked.
“Best Buy,” Julian answered flatly.
Nick gave him a sideways glance, but Julian was frowning at the screen.
“Take this next left, then gun it,” Julian told Preston. “We can cut them off.”
Preston smirked as he weaved through traffic at breakneck speed. “Yes, sir.”
He took a hard left across the oncoming lanes that made even Nick want to cover his eyes, and then the Excursion screamed down a one-way street that was definitely not meant to be traveled in this direction.
Nick ducked his head. They roared past stunned drivers trying to get out of the way, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the road. It was like some sort of morbid dance, the way the man drove. Nick found himself wanting to geek out a little about it.
Preston yanked the emergency brake, turning the wheel smoothly as they took a hairpin turn onto another main thoroughfare, and Kelly tumbled across the bench seat into Nick. His ribs burned and he gasped, holding on to them.
“Sorry,” Kelly whispered.
Nick just shook his head, unable to speak though the pain.
“Dude!” Digger cried from the back.
“I think I’m going to yark,” Owen added pitifully.
Nick and Kelly both edged closer to the front, away from the backseat. They remembered the last time Owen had been in a helicopter a little too vividly.
They came up on an intersection, and Nick pointed ahead of them at the white, green, and yellow Miami-Dade police cruiser. “There they are.”
They were just in time to see a big, black Denali, with its reinforced grill guard, lumber through the intersection and plow into the front driver’s side of the cruiser.
“Welp,” Preston said as he slowed the Excursion.
The Denali sat there, crumpled and steaming, as the cruiser spun away and threatened to tip. Four more black SUVs were closing in on the intersection, and Nick fumbled for the door handle. “Stop those fucking cars from reaching that cruiser,” he ordered, and they all toppled out into the street.
The police cruiser rocked up on two wheels, creaking and groaning as it threatened to tip. Zane slid toward Ty until the seat belt stopped him, choking and cutting into him. He ducked his head and curled, but the handcuffs prevented either of them from shielding their heads or faces as the car rocked back and slammed onto its tires.
Ty gasped, fighting the seat belt, fighting his handcuffs. The two cops in the front of the car were both either unconscious or dead.
Zane coughed and gagged, struggling to right himself. “What happened?”
“Car rammed us,” Ty answered. He was short of breath, taking in the chaotic scene outside the window. He finally managed to hit the release with his elbow, and the seat belt popped free.
Zane’s arms were stuck in the mangled cavities behind the backseat meant to allow handcuffed prisoners room for their hands, and he had to fight out of it, ripping at the skin of his arms to get loose. He slid his hands under his ass and legs until they were in front of him. The key Ty had just managed to free from the synthetic skin on his arm was nowhere in sight.
Zane scooted closer to the window. The car that had hit them was a black Yukon Denali, and it was sitting like a wounded leviathan about fifty feet away, blocking the quiet intersection.
“Oh shit.”
“What?” Ty asked. He was still struggling to get out of his cuffs. “What is it?”
“It’s them.”
The driver of the Denali stumbled from the SUV. He turned, straightening and chuckling when he saw they were trapped.
Even if they got out of the handcuffs, they were still locked in the back of a police cruiser. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Unless of course the NIA wanted to question them first, in which case it would be like torturing fish in a barrel.
The driver stalked through the debris, heading for Zane’s side of the police cruiser. He pulled a gun from his jacket. Ty turned in his seat, lying flat and kicking at the window.
“Ty,” Zane gasped.
Ty didn’t stop. A tiny crack appeared under his heel.
“Ty, I love you,” Zane said quickly. “I love you. If we don’t get—”
“No!” Ty shouted. He kicked furiously at the window. Zane could see the impact jarring his ankles. “We’re not dying today, Zane, not like this.”
“Ty!” Zane cried when he looked back out his window.
“Not like this!”
Zane gripped Ty’s hair and yanked so he’d look out the window. The driver of the Denali was right there, the gun in his hand and a tattooed, bandaged arm wrapped around his neck. His face contorted as his body arched and flailed. He gritted his teeth, shouting and trying to point the gun behind his head, but then the arm around his neck jerked, breaking his neck and draining the life from him.
The gun fell from his hand, and his body dropped out of sight. Nick was standing behind him, breathing hard and sneering down at the dead man.
“Fuck, man, you have the best timing ever!” Ty shouted as he struggled to sit up again. He leaned over Zane’s lap, pressing both hands to the window.
Nick knocked on the glass. “You assholes can’t even get arrested right.”
“You beautiful fucking bastard,” Zane whispered.
“Get us the fuck out of here, Irish!”
Nick tried the door, but as Zane had expected, it was locked and probably jammed shut. Nick knocked the shards of glass remaining from the window of the front door and leaned through to check the driver’s pulse as he reached in for the car keys. “He’s dead,” he told them, then searched the man for the keys to the handcuffs.
“Come on, Irish, double-time it, man,” Ty urged.
Nick fit the handcuff keys through the wires so they could get themselves loose, then pushed the unlock button that should have released the back door. Nothing happened.
The squealing of tires drew Zane’s attention to two more black SUVs tearing up the sidewalk several blocks away. The traffic from the wreck and the crowded, chaotic streets were slowing them down, but they would be here in minutes. Gunfire went off somewhere, which meant Nick wasn’t here alone. They had a chance if they could get out.
“Come on, O’Flaherty!” Zane shouted. He banged on the glass.
Nick fumbled with the keys and came back to the door. Ty watched him, leaning over Zane’s lap. Zane caught sight of movement behind Nick and shouted at the same time as Ty banged a warning on the glass.
Nick turned and blocked the first slash of the man’s knife with his forearm. He swung with his left, wrapping the man up and kneeing him in the kidney. Then he pounded the man’s face. Nick’s gun clattered away from them, and they grappled until Nick finally got him in a choke hold. He held on long after the man had lost consciousness, ensuring he wouldn’t wake up.
Nick let him drop to the ground, then took one step toward the car before someone grabbed him from behind.
“No!” Ty cried. He banged on the glass, futilely pulling at the handle. “No!”
Nick’s body contorted and his mouth fell open as a knife drove into his side. The attacker twisted it, and Nick screamed.
Ty echoed the anguished cry and threw himself against the opposite window, slamming his fist into the already cracked glass over and over in a desperate bid to get free. He left the glass bloody, but couldn’t get out. He jostled Zane when he returned to his side, tears streaming. Nick was on his knees, head bowed, still being held around the neck by the man with the knife. His attacker yanked the knife out of Nick’s side and plunged it in again.
Nick screamed again, his back arching, his eyes tightly shut. But he reached into his boot as he arched his back, and came out with a dagger, flipping it in his palm and jamming it into the killer’s throat.
Blood spurted, and both of them fell to the ground.
“Jesus Christ,” Zane whispered.
He and Ty pressed closer to the glass. Nick was still on his knees, h
olding to the wounds at his side. The black SUVs were drawing near, full of more NIA agents with guns and knives who no doubt wanted to ask them some very pointed questions. Sidewinder was retreating under fire to a big red SUV in the middle of the street.
Nick began crawling for the cruiser, keeping low as the rattle of gunfire from further down the street got closer. His fingers reached the gun he had dropped during his tussle. He collapsed in the debris, holding to the handle of the knife in his side. He met Ty’s eyes through the glass, then reached out with a trembling, bloody hand and aimed the gun he’d taken off the first agent he’d killed.
Ty nodded hastily, grabbing Zane by the shoulder. “Get down, down!”
They shielded each other, flattening in the floorboard of the cruiser. The shot was deafening, and glass sprayed them as the window collapsed in a nearly solid sheet, freeing Ty and Zane from their impromptu prison.
Zane shoved at the remaining shards, and Ty crawled over him to get out of the car. He thumped gracelessly to the ground, then scrambled over to Nick, heedless of the debris shredding his hands and knees, favoring his shoulder as if the wreck had dislocated it. Zane hurried out of the cruiser.
Ty grabbed Nick to help him up. Nick tried to get to his feet, but he collapsed in Ty’s arms; and Ty fell to his knees again, holding Nick to him. Zane cast around for the gun Nick had dropped.
Nick stared up at the sky, taking shallow, quick breaths. Tears trailed from both his eyes. He focused on Ty and nodded. “Okay.”
“It’s okay,” Ty whispered. His fingers tightened in Nick’s shirt, cradling him in his lap. “We’ll get you all patched up and you’ll be fine. Zane, help me!”
Zane knelt at Nick’s other side, shaking his head as he placed a palm over Nick’s chest. He was alarmingly cold. Even his clothes were cold. The gunfire was closer, and Ty hunched defensively.
“Run, Ty,” Nick murmured.
“We’re not leaving you here.”
Nick’s mouth barely moved when he spoke. “I’m already dead, babe. Go.”
“No!”
Nick closed his eyes. “See you on the other side, brother.”
“No,” Ty hissed. He shook his head, wrapping Nick’s arm over his neck so he could deadlift him into a fireman’s carry.
Zane gripped Ty’s shoulder to halt him. His hand was covered in Nick’s blood. “Ty, you can’t move him, it’ll kill him!”
Nick had gone limp, and his weight seemed to be too much for Ty’s injured arm. He couldn’t lift his friend. He sank back down, holding tighter to Nick as he laid him on the hard asphalt.
Zane watched, speechless, trying to decide what to do. Ty shook his head again, fighting back tears.
“We have to leave him, Ty,” Zane urged brokenly.
Tires screeched as a set of black SUVs trapped the red one in the intersection. The driver gunned the red Excursion, and it plowed through the smaller vehicles, disappearing out of sight. Sidewinder had been forced to retreat. Ty and Zane were on their own.
“They’re coming, Ty.”
Ty gripped Nick’s hair and hugged him to his chest, tears falling against his forehead. “I’m not leaving him here.”
“He’s dead if you move him and so are we!” Zane tugged urgently at Ty’s uninjured shoulder as he struggled to get him up.
“I can’t leave him here,” Ty said, almost panicked as Zane pried him away.
“Look at that knife, Ty! You’ll kill him!”
Nick lay in a slowly spreading pool of blood, his green eyes closed to the brilliant blue sky, his skin unnaturally pale and cool. Ty struggled as Zane wrapped him up and pulled him to his feet.
“Don’t make me leave him here!” Ty sobbed.
It broke Zane’s heart, but he wasn’t going to lose Ty on this street. “We have to go. He died for us, Ty, we have to go now!”
“He’s not dead! I can’t leave him like this. I can’t leave him like this! Please!”
“We’ll come back for him.” Ty didn’t take his eyes off Nick or stop struggling as Zane dragged him toward a little, blue Prius that had been abandoned by its owner in the chaos. “I promise,” Zane tried again breathlessly. “I promise! But we have to go!”
Ty sat on the couch and rocked, unblinking. Zane watched him, worrying, mourning for him and the others, who were all sitting quietly with much the same distant expressions on their faces.
Zane met Julian’s eyes across the room. It was hard to judge the man, but he seemed sad as well. Even Liam, who’d done his best to drag Nick and the rest of Sidewinder into his own brand of Hell, was sitting with his head lowered and his eyes closed.
Zane had managed to get out of the chaos and find his way to the safe house by his memory of the city’s streets alone. Ty had held his head in his hands the entire way. When they’d gotten out of the car without Nick, Owen and Digger had been forced to drag Kelly away to prevent him from tearing off into the city alone.
An hour after leaving Nick’s body in the street, Preston was the only one still up and moving, reloading all their weapons and laying them out on the cracked laminate countertop. Zane had contacted Clancy and her crew to update them. They were on their way here, but Zane wasn’t sure if it mattered. Sidewinder was broken.
“He could have made it,” Kelly said suddenly from where he was crouched against the wall, curled into a ball under the window. “Someone on the scene could have gotten him help, right? He could still make it. Right?”
No one answered him. No one even looked at him. Zane ran a hand through his hair, watching Kelly with heaviness in his heart he wasn’t sure he could shake. “Yeah, Doc,” he whispered. “Yeah, he could have made it.”
Kelly bowed his head, tears falling onto his folded arms.
“I am truly sorry for your loss,” Julian said. He let out a slow breath, squaring his shoulders. “But I need to know if this mission is still viable. My favors only extend so far past their expiration date.”
Ty’s eyes snapped to Julian with the sudden light of murderous intent. Zane lunged to his feet, getting between them before Ty could launch himself at the man.
“Expiration date?” Ty shoved at Zane, heedless of his dislocated shoulder or any of the bumps, scrapes, and bruises they shared. “Son of a bitch!”
Julian put both hands up. “I had the greatest respect for Detective O’Flaherty. I am simply asking if the rest of you intend to sacrifice yourselves on this altar as well.”
Ty trembled in Zane’s arms, his breaths shaky. “Yeah, I do.”
Zane nodded in a silent show of support. He and Ty had no choice. This was their altar to bleed on. Nick had thrown himself in their path, maybe slowed down the knife. But it was still coming. His death meant nothing. Not yet.
“Very well, then,” Julian said quietly.
Preston accentuated Julian’s statement by slamming a magazine home.
“What’s our play, Six?” Owen asked. He’d been crying, and he hadn’t made any effort to hide it. His eyes glistened and his voice shook, but he looked angry and determined.
Ty was still shaking, anger and grief warring in his eyes. “We can’t take on the NIA, not the eight of us.”
“Fortunately,” Preston drawled as he screwed a large suppressor onto the end of a sniper rifle. “They overplayed their hand out there, showed willingness to assassinate not only US citizens like dogs in the street, but also officers of the law. Let’s just say the Central Intelligence Agency is now highly perturbed.”
“Will they help us?” Zane asked.
Preston shook his head, jaw tight. “They still expect you to uphold your end.”
“Which we can’t do for another two weeks,” Zane said. “We’ll all be dead by then.”
Ty nodded. “That leaves the Vega cartel.”
“Is this revenge now, Tyler?” Julian asked.
Ty gritted his teeth, breathing hard. “With the cartel still out there, Zane and I are dead men even if we do get cleared. Anyone who wants out is free to walk
, but we’re going. With or without help.”
“And what, pray tell, do you intend to do with them?” Liam asked. For the first time, Zane thought the man sounded defeated.
Ty met Zane’s eyes, and he nodded minutely. They couldn’t blame everything that’d happened on the cartel. They couldn’t even say that Nick—their friend, their brother—had died because of the cartel. No, that blame rested solely on Richard Burns’s shoulders. Ty would have the rest of his life to mourn that loss, and no one left to seek revenge on. Zane could feel the pain flickering on the edges of his own consciousness like a forest fire bearing down on him. He could imagine what the other men were feeling. He could see in their eyes, too; they wanted revenge.
The cartel had come after them. Burned down their bookstore, tried to take them all out with it. But they’d risen from the ashes with vengeance and mourning in their hearts. And someone had to pay. For them. For Nick. Someone had to pay.
Zane smiled slowly, nodding at his husband. “We burn them. We burn everything.”
Ty crouched at the perimeter of the Tuscan-style villa nestled on Star Island. The sand on this fucking island was probably worth more than gold.
They’d performed a solid day of recon, complete with having Zane and Owen track down digital blueprints from the architect and Kelly finding the hours of the moon and the tides. They’d set charges in all the possible places on the island they could reach without tipping their hand, and Preston’s sole job during the attack would be to litter more of them throughout the compound.
One press of a button at the end of this, and the Vega cartel was going to become intimately acquainted with the meaning of crash and burn.
Zane had dubbed their plan Wile E. Coyote Phase 4. They were doing everything but painting a getaway tunnel on the side of the house.
Ty shielded his wristwatch with his hand and lifted the cover to check the glowing dial. It was time.
“Go,” he whispered, the word sharp in the humid night. His men broke the perimeter. Within two seconds, a siren began to wail. Searchlights clanked on, probing the shadows of the vast estate. Dogs bayed and barked from somewhere uncomfortably close.