She groaned but bent to retrieve it. He held it while she took her shirt off and managed not to get caught up in the glory of her tits.
“Wish I had more time to massage your sore muscles.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “My breasts aren’t sore.”
“They wouldn’t be after I massaged them with my cock, no?”
Her breath caught as he tightened the vest and then helped her back into her shirt. Julian came over with the cameras.
“What are you two up to? Looking flushed and guilty.” Julian winked and then tested the video feed from his comm. Now that they were live, no more talk of coming on tits.
But it remained lodged in his gut and gave him a few ideas for later, where there’d be no cameras. Just the three of them. Naked.
“We’re a go. You all right?” Julian took her hands and looked at her features carefully.
“As all right as I’m probably ever going to be.” She nodded.
“Follow Julian. He’s point and you remember what that means. If any of us gives you an order, obey it immediately. No matter what.” Vincenz checked her weapon, which Julian had been giving her lessons with. “Weapons hot and live.” Sort of like she was. “Kill them if you have to. Do you understand?”
This time her eyes were not wide, they had narrowed. When she nodded, it was from utter surety. And he liked that. In the us-versus-them arena, he was always okay with them instead of the us. Especially with what his father’s people had done to all the people he cared about.
Sweat trickled down her spine as they paused. The stench of the smoke rising from the stacks at the nearby plant made her gorge rise. It wasn’t helped by her general discomfort. She would overcome the fear, damn it.
Piper reached out and squeezed Hannah’s hand. “You’re here. That’s your revenge.”
Tears pricked the back of Hannah’s eyes as she swallowed back the lump of emotion in her throat. She nodded her thanks before Piper and Andrei disappeared to their west to get about their own business.
If Piper could survive to get her revenge after these people had killed her brother on the last mission like this, Hannah could make it as well. Use her intelligence to help take Ciro Fardelle down once and for all.
She squared her shoulders and continued to inch along as quietly as she could, behind Julian.
Julian, who looked every inch the lethal weapon he was. Weapons strapped to his body, snug uniform pants, shirt stretched over his upper body like a caress. He moved so silently and gracefully it left her a little faint to watch.
As if he knew she’d been fantasizing about licking him, he turned and sent her a smile, tipping his head to indicate they head toward a small access door they’d identified as the best way to enter the plant.
She paused, riffling through their internal systems via her comm. “Wait.” She remembered the hand sign and Vincenz clicked his mic to get Julian’s attention without speaking.
“What’s going on?” Vincenz asked her in very quiet tones. His gaze flitted around the area, always moving, always hyper-aware. His weapon had been drawn, at the ready. Her fear eased at how alert he was, even as she found herself fascinated by this side of him.
“There’s a secondary camera back up in the system. There may be one near the door. Let me disable it first.”
Julian led them to a more secluded spot, or as secluded as it got out there, while she made her way to the protocols buried in the maintenance programming.
She examined it as her finger hung above the button to execute the command. And shook her head.
“Get them back and away from the inner perimeter.”
Julian didn’t ask for more details, he just made that quick order in his headset and turned back to her.
“What is it?”
“There’s a secondary system here for maintenance. Waste disposal, the incineration of medical waste, that sort of thing. And piggybacking that is this code here.” She pointed at it and Vincenz hummed.
“Someone was smarter than I gave them credit for.”
“Most likely it wasn’t even meant to be used as a secret backup for security.” But it would set off a full lockdown of the facility, which they didn’t need.
“Can you disable it?” Julian asked.
Vincenz snorted and she grinned while she worked with him.
“Wait.” She moved past Vincenz’s coding and unraveled one last command. “We’re all right now.”
“Are you ready?” Vincenz asked, his lips to her ear.
It was too late to be anything else, so she nodded and straightened, ready to go.
On the other side of the complex, Julian knew Andrei and Piper had entered, so far catching no opposition.
It would come though. And so he let everything but the job go. The job that’d honed the boy who’d been quick with his fists and his anger into a highly trained weapon. As it did every time, he accepted it, accepted the low thrum of danger and the undeniable pleasure he found in that. More so that he was good at something so few could do. That sense of pride and fidelity to his people. The boy never could have imagined such a thing being important.
But the man knew honor was everything.
His focus shifted, deepened as he began to work through every possible outcome of every choice he made. Vincenz dealt with technology pathways, but Julian tossed himself into the percentages of human behavior.
He had a sense about people. About what choices they’d make. And he was almost always right. But he had to get a sense of who the people who ran this facility were and defeat them. The only way to do it was to go forward.
He took a deep breath, standing at the door a moment before opening it, sweeping his weapon and finding the inner hallway on the other side clear. He waved them into the building and closed the door. No interior security that he could detect. Sloppy.
“One level up.” He indicated the stairwell with a tip of his chin.
The first level was storage, but according to the internal map Vincenz had uplinked to their comms, they needed to go to the far east corner to use another stairwell.
Julian approved of the construction choice. Exterior doors were always a problem. Traffic from the outside can breach your security on a regular basis. Directing traffic across the entire width of this second floor would give security enough time to determine if the trespasser was a threat or not.
Of course, he nearly sneered as he ran a scan of the area, that would have been a possibility only if any security at all was in place.
He held them up as they cleared the last long hallway. Three soldiers were at the stairwell they needed. Vincenz moved into position and Julian moved to Hannah, turned her around to face the hall where they’d come from and got back into place, checking his weapon and aiming.
His and Vincenz’s breathing slowed as they targeted and without even looking at one another, they shot and then once more to get the last soldier before he could call for help.
Not that their internal comm system was working since Hannah had torn a hole in their security walls and Vincenz had planted the quit command.
He looked back to where she’d remained facing the hallway and took her hand. He’d expected upset, but what he saw was resolve. He squeezed her hand before moving again toward the bodies.
Vincenz had already dragged one of them into a nearby office. Hannah took watch, just as he’d shown her to, and he helped get the other two taken care of.
They moved up, quietly, carefully. He heard people speaking up ahead, just on the other side of the door to the next floor. And hardened his heart. Everyone there was working to make a machine that could, and had, caused death and destruction. They started this war and Julian was only too content to end it.
She clicked the mic and he turned. Four fingers.
Clever. She’d honed her senses while she’d been in that lab and if she heard four people, there were four people. Could be more though, who weren’t talking, so they’d deal with that if it came up. The map
of the floor had shown this as a processing area. They needed to gather some samples before blowing the place up and that was the next task.
But first.
He opened the door carefully and noted that yes, there were four workers standing near a large bin. He and Vincenz had taken out two of them before they’d noticed the intruders. Instinct took over as he moved, dodging some return fire as he took care of the last man standing.
She’d huddled behind a nearby table, smart woman. Even better, as he and Vincenz began to sweep through the area, she moved to a comm console and began to work, just as she and Vincenz had planned on the transport on the way.
Three more men came at him, slamming a door open and yelling.
Vincenz waded in, took care of one of them while Julian dealt with the other two. In his headset, he heard Andrei’s report that the first level had been set for charges and they were moving upward and had taken out two more soldiers on the fourth floor.
Vincenz loaded the sample into his pack and headed to Hannah at the terminal.
“I’ve stripped the data.” She spoke without looking up, her gaze intent on the screen. “The security is better than I thought it would be.”
He moved to a terminal nearby. “I’ll link in.”
He was doing something real. Even as he stood there and aided Hannah in ripping through the Imperialist security wall, he was finally there casting a blow against his father. After all those years fighting on the other side of the line he was there doing what he was meant to.
No one was better to take Ciro Fardelle out but his son. He would avenge the deaths of all those people in the Federation, including those he knew and loved, like Marame.
In tandem, she moved through the data and he came in behind her, dismantling the security. And then once he was satisfied, he unleashed some code of his own and watched it spread out and take root. He’d issue the final command when they’d cleared the plant and knew there was no more data to find.
“Let’s go. Three more floors.”
And so they climbed again. Met some resistance, but continued to move. Continued to take data when they found it.
And then they got to the top floor.
She’d been so focused on making sure no one was trying to kill her in the hallway behind them that she didn’t notice her surroundings fully at first.
It was the smell that snagged her attention. She halted in the doorway as if someone had jerked her backward. And then she looked around to see just exactly where she was.
A lab.
She took a deep breath. She’d been in labs of one sort or another since she could barely walk. This was no different. Or so she told herself as she put one foot in front of the other and continued into the room and headed toward the nearest comm station.
Vincenz looked her over carefully, but said nothing, letting her do her work. Trusting her not to fall apart, and it gave her the energy to continue moving. Continue with her hands on the keypad as she hit the first wall of security.
“Are you getting this?” Julian spoke into his mic, addressing, she assumed, the people watching wherever it was they were.
“This level of security is not present anywhere else we’ve been so far.” Vincenz mumbled this as he continued working. “Too bad for them they had no idea Hannah would be here. Go on, Ms. Black. Rip it open for me.”
Fear swamped her but she shoved it away. She would not fail them. She would help them and do her job.
Still, her hands shook a little as she hit wall after wall and then, finally, found a little, tiny flaw. Probably inconsequential to whoever did the coding given how tight it had been everywhere else. But it gave her a place to grasp so she could unravel the data.
Which she did with a growl of success.
It was only the camera in the bill of the hat that kept her from pulling it off and mopping her brow. And now that she’d finished her part of the job and Vincenz had taken over, she moved to get the data sticks in the other comm units to collect the contents as Julian prowled around the floor, keeping them safe.
Though he did look toward her from time to time, and she would be damned to all seven hells if she did anything that shook his faith in her, or undermined his job and the safety of the others.
At last Vincenz stepped back. “Done. This system is on a completely different network. Interesting, isn’t it?”
She’d been thinking the same thing. What were they hiding up here that they weren’t already hiding with the Liberiam and the production of the portal-collapsing device?
She shook it off. Stupid to make her situation more than an anomaly. There was no reason to imagine this had any link to the lab where she’d been.
Still, the fear made her belly leaden. Her skin cold and clammy even as she sweated.
One foot and then another, she kept moving, kept following them as they grabbed the data sticks and headed out.
“We need to head across this floor to the far southern stairwell. Andrei and Piper are waiting on the roof.” Julian looked her over carefully but thankfully didn’t ask if she was all right.
Because she wasn’t and it was only sheer force of will that kept her upright and not hyperventilating.
Working quickly, everyone wanting to be done, she didn’t notice the soldier until he was on her, knocking her to the ground.
The fight-or-flight impulse took over and the fear broke through as she clawed at his face and kneed him in the balls. He tried to hit her with his weapon but she dodged and sank her teeth into his wrist. The animal who had lived in her for so long surfaced, snarling, snapping, fighting for its life.
She heard them nearby, knew somewhere that they were also fighting with soldiers and that she was on her own.
On her own. The memories of the helplessness came back, threatening to suck her under. But she held on, fighting.
Then she heard Wilhelm Ellis in her ear.
“His weapon should be on your right side, Hannah. Make sure the safety is off and end this. You can do it.”
Some part of her heard and registered, her fingers scrabbling through the blood to grab the weapon he’d dropped when she’d bitten him. It was him or her and it sure wasn’t going to be her.
Vincenz managed to toss the soldier off and snap his neck, his every thought on Hannah. Julian could handle himself, but …
He found her then, on her back, covered in blood with a man nearly twice her size beating at her with a closed fist.
He wasn’t even aware he had started growling until he’d propelled himself across the hallway and was nearly on them.
And then he heard weapon fire and time seemed to stop until she shoved the limp body of the soldier off, gasping and still kicking. Still caught in the nightmare.
He reached her then, on his knees, and pulled her to sit. “I’m here. It’s over. It’s over, beautiful Hannah.”
She blinked quickly and he used his shirtsleeve to wipe the blood off her face. “Are you hurt?”
She swallowed and shook all over. “We have to go.”
He helped her to her feet, keeping an arm around her waist until she took a shoring breath and straightened. “We have to go,” she repeated.
Julian stalked over to them both, looking her over carefully. Long enough that she got vexed and Vincenz felt a little better to see it on her face.
“Most of it isn’t my blood.”
Julian tightened his jaw until Vincenz heard the click.
“Let’s move.”
She nodded once and straightened her shirt.
At the opposite end of the hall lay their exit. And as Vincenz also noted with a snarl, more labs.
He thought quite seriously about picking her up, tossing her over his shoulder and getting her out of there.
In fact he’d already begun to turn around to do it when she saw him and read his intent and shook her head. “No. Not like last time.”
He was confused by her for long moments until Julian spoke. “Not like last time at all, Hannah
. Look behind you on the floor. He tried to hurt you but you fought back. You’re no one’s victim.”
The rage rolled from Julian in waves. Vincenz hadn’t seen him this bad since the early days after Marame had died. His chest heaved with the effort to stay under control and idly Vincenz wondered what they thought of this back on Ravena as they watched.
She shook her head as if to clear it and with a great deal of effort, made herself walk through the doorway of the lab.
Vincenz wanted to save her, but Julian had the right of it. She was no one’s victim, and if he carried her out, especially before he gave her the chance to do it herself, he’d be robbing her of the opportunity to rise above what happened to her.
Locked cells.
Julian stormed to each one and looked inside. “Nothing in here, baby. I promise.”
She continued to walk, her gaze on the door to the stairwell.
And then she stopped and moved to the comm station, pulling out the data stick and getting to work with hands so shaky it took her three tries to get it in.
Tears streamed down her face but she kept working. Vincenz realized then that the burning in his chest wasn’t just anger, but it was admiration and love.
Seven hells she undid him.
Her movements were jerky but she clamped her lips together and continued. Julian paced like a caged animal, keeping close to her.
Vincenz took up the station next to her, knowing she had to do this, hating that she did. Knowing his father made this happen.
And even so upset, her work was perfect. He followed her and did what he needed to, fighting the need to protect and comfort, knowing the quicker they finished, the quicker they could leave.
“There’s a lot of encrypted data here,” he murmured. So much he was sure they’d stumbled onto something important.
Her fingers weren’t as confident on the keys as they had been before, but she finally stepped back, her job completed.
Julian glanced at Vincenz before approaching her slowly. She jerked her attention to him, eyes wide.
Julian paused, not moving any further but to take her hand, which she allowed.
“Nearly done.” Vincenz ripped out the chip from inside the sheath of the comm unit. She’d already extracted the data from the system in there, but there was no harm in taking the chips, she’d argued back at their camp. He agreed.