Gray had a feeling he knew what the last one was for. “We’re gonna torch the place, aren’t we?”
“Not yet, but eventually,” Willow responded. “We’re out of options, even though this might look like a pattern from past ops. Your prints and blood are all over the place.”
Yeah, there it was.
Looked like they were gonna get to use the C-4 after all.
Fatigue had set in to the point where Gray barely reacted to gunfire as they reentered the compound.
Two shots, with a few seconds in between.
“I’m gonna make a wild guess and say AJ and the other one probably aren’t breathing anymore,” Ryan drawled.
He was right. Just as they rounded the corner and reached the hallway where the back rooms were, Gray spotted River dragging a body out of one of the rooms and into another.
Was it over?
Gray stopped outside the room where he’d killed Alicia. Through the viewing window, he saw Alfred, Alicia, AJ, and Friedrich—all dead. River and Darius stood in the middle of the room and lit up cigarettes, and it was evident that Darius was in a lot of pain.
Their clothes were cut up in some places too, presumably from Lia examining them. Bandages held Darius’s pant leg together. The desert-colored long-sleeved tee was open across his shoulder where Lia had dressed the stab wound.
Everyone had cuts and scrapes from shattered glass.
Gray entered the room. “Darius.”
Darius turned instantly, maybe a little too fast, because he winced and rubbed his shoulder.
Gray hurried forward and slipped his shoulder under Darius’s arm. “You shouldn’t be on your feet, baby. Come on.” He threw the cigarette on the floor, stepped on it, then started ushering the man out of the room.
“You might be right.” Darius made a face and limped out. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. How did it go?”
“We released everyone.” As Gray helped Darius toward the lobby, he filled him in on everything that’d happened at the warehouse and storage unit. How they’d sent the survivors off with the trucks toward Barstow or whatever spot they could alert the authorities. No other instructions, no forbidding anyone to tell the police they’d been rescued by masked men, mainly to divert any suspicion aimed at the victims. Kinda like when they landed in Florida after being stranded—Darius had made himself the perpetrator in order to shield the guys from aimed guns and speculation.
Once in the lobby, Gray helped Darius down onto the floor so he could lean back against a wall and catch his breath.
“I have nothing left to teach you,” Darius said with a slight smile.
That couldn’t be further from the truth, and they both knew it. “We don’t have any more missions either.” Gray squatted down in front of him and cupped Darius’s jaw. He had stubble already. “It’s almost over, isn’t it?”
Darius nodded with a dip of his chin, then turned his head and kissed the inside of Gray’s hand. “Almost,” he confirmed quietly. Gray let his hand fall again. “Squeezy’s compiling all the addresses and intel she’s gathered—the buyers who got away, the locations AJ provided, evidence, credit card information, the encrypted chat server that gave Alicia and AJ away, and transcripts of the trackers. She’ll send it anonymously to the Feds in a few hours.”
Damn. It was gonna blow up, Gray was certain. Nationwide raids. No way the authorities could keep that hidden from the media completely.
“What’re we gonna do with the compound?” Gray murmured. “Just set it all on fire?”
“Pretty much. We don’t have another choice at this point.” Darius cleared his throat and shifted, which seemed to hurt. “We’re gonna wait, though. Willow’s drones are powered by solar, so she’s gonna keep them around. They’ll be our surveillance system for a few days. It’ll give us enough time to scatter. River and Reese are out of here in a few hours, and the rest will head out later today.” He paused. “That includes you.”
Was he fucking nuts?
“You’re not sending me home when you can barely walk, Darius,” Gray protested.
“I definitely am,” Darius replied firmly. “I will rest the whole day, as soon as we get back to the house, but by midnight, I want you and Niko gone. Because we still have work to do. Sooner or later, we’ll have FBI agents knocking on our door, and it’ll look highly suspicious if we have an obstacle course worthy of a Navy SEAL training center in our backyard. You two will have to dismantle most of it. Then clean out the guest cabin.”
Gray stewed silently to himself, hating every word coming out of Darius’s mouth—mostly because the man was right.
“One more thing.” Darius’s tone softened a little. “Willow has been pushed so far outside of her comfort zone during this op. She’s near breaking point, and I want you to be there for her until the boys and I come home. Have her stay with us while she gets through her mental reset.”