Iris (Mike Bravo Ops 1)

It’s in this moment that I realize with Iris and Angel keeping our marks busy and Ghost keeping watch, it’s up to me to get this done.

This wasn’t the plan.

“Can you do it?” Trav asks. “You can switch out with Ghost if you need to.”

“I’m on it,” Ghost says.

This is my chance to step up or bow out. I need back in the game because it’s all I have, but I’ve lost confidence in myself since my injuries. If I do this, I might regain some of my control and believe I really do belong with Mike Bravo.

“No, I’ve got it,” I say as the elevator takes me down to our level.

Iris’s and Angel’s comms cut out as they switch their earpieces to mute. All they have to do is press their finger to the bud in their ear and make it look like they have an itchy ear to play it off. It’s to give me the silence I need to work without all their voices going off in my head while I do this.

The buzzing and constant noise in my ear dies down immediately, but now it’s eerily too quiet in there.

Instead of checking in with Ghost back at our room, I go straight to Danyal’s so I don’t have time to let my nerves change my mind. “Am I clear?” I ask Ghost.

“Unless Danyal’s hiding a fourth bodyguard in his room, you’re good to go. Angel still has goon number one under her spell, and the other two are at their posts in the lobby.”

I guess I’m doing this, then.

“There’s a Taser in the bag if you need it,” Ghost says. “It’s the most silent way to incapacitate someone, but only use it if you have to. If they come back to the room to find one of their men knocked out, they’ll know we’ve been in there and look for any electronic abnormalities.”

The spyware we’re placing in their devices can be hidden but not made completely invisible. If they find it, they’ll ditch it, and this will all have been a waste of time. Though, I’m still not convinced we’ll get anything out of these guys.

“You’ve got this,” Trav says in my ear.

“On it.” I take a calming deep breath and unlock the door. The whole place is covered in darkness now that the sun has set, which reassures me that the place is empty. But it is a suite, and it has multiple rooms. I quickly move from room to room, my chest rapidly rising and falling while my hand still clenches around the Taser.

When I’m satisfied that the apartment is clear, I take out a small flashlight and get to work.

There are numerous laptops, and instead of working out which one is Danyal’s, I install the spyware on all of them. The high-tech equipment Trav has access to is crazy. All I have to do to install it is press the round device that’s about the size of a coaster against the hard drive on the laptops or against the back of a phone. It takes about thirty seconds per electronic to upload the app and automatically unlock the device. From there, I go in, install the app, and then bury it way down deep inside a folder that’s inside a folder inside another folder.

It’s so easy, anyone could do it, and that there is the reason it hasn’t been released to the public. If this device was unleashed into the world, it would make stalking even more accessible than it scarily already is.

I move quickly, and in less than ten minutes, I’m almost done.

“I got the laptops,” I say. “But I haven’t seen any phones. They probably have them on them. I’ll check the bedroom—”

“Fuck,” Ghost says in my ear. “Get out now. One of the lobby guys got an alert on his phone. I think he knows you’re in there because he’s heading your way. He’s taking the stairs, so you have time. Move now.”

Instead of doing what he says, though, I freeze.

Adrenaline makes my heart thud harder than it should. Fear of being caught has my feet cemented to the carpet when it should have me running.

“Saint?” Ghost says.

I try to talk, but all that comes out is breathy sounds.

“What’s going on?” Trav asks. “Did someone go back to the room already?”

“No, I would’ve seen it,” Ghost says. “Saint, can you hear me? Did we lose the feed? Get out. Get out—fuck! It’s too late. He’s in the hall.”

Yet my feet still don’t work.

“Saint.”

I don’t even know whose voice that is.

“Saint,” they say again.

The key in the door to the room should get me to move, but I don’t. And that’s when the dreaded familiar feeling of everything being over hits me like a flashback in real time. Pain riddles my body.