“We’re on our way,” Trav says in his comms.
“We haven’t finished the mission,” Iris croaks.
The dark clouds of anxiety try to roll in. My brain wants me to freeze again. It wants to block this out. But the man I love is out there, dying, lying in a pool of his own blood, and it’s my heart that pumps enough adrenaline to drown out the doubts in my head.
I don’t think. I just act.
I step forward and hit the button on Ghost’s mic. “Forget the mission. You need to get out of there.”
“Saint?” Iris’s voice is weak.
“I’m here.” I pull up a seat next to Ghost. “You need to hang on, okay? Trav’s coming for you. The guys will get you out of there.”
Iris grunts. “Oh, how the tables have turned.”
I try to laugh, but it comes out as a sob. “You need to try to move him,” I say to the others.
“No,” Iris says, his voice firm. “The asshole is right there below us. We can still get him.”
“You need medical attention. Don’t argue with me.”
“They get the guy,” Iris wheezes. “Then they get me out of here.”
“You stubborn son of a—”
“There’s a trapdoor,” Atlas says.
My gaze moves to Atlas’s cam, where he and Zeus pull back a rug to reveal a hidden compartment in the floor.
“Why aren’t they getting him out?” I ask Ghost off mic.
“Trav is still too far out. If they have a chance, they need to take it.”
“Well, it needs to happen fucking fast.”
“Saint,” Iris says.
“I’m here,” I remind him but keep my eyes on Atlas’s and Zeus’s bodycams. “And you’re going to be okay.”
“I just want to say …” He takes a deep breath. “I want you to know—”
“Nope. You’re not doing that. You hear me? We’re not going there.”
“How do you want to play this?” Atlas asks Zeus, but I jump in to answer. If Iris can’t get out, and he’s going to be stubborn about getting the job done, I’m going to get them there the fastest way possible so they can bring my man home.
“Atlas, you have any more flash-bangs on you?”
“Yep.”
“Throw one in. Draw them out like you did outside, and take out anyone who tries to escape.”
“He’s so bossy,” Iris mutters.
I ignore how tired he sounds and try to forget that he’s bleeding out while I bark orders at Atlas.
“Masks on,” Atlas says.
Zeus puts his on and then rushes to Iris and Decaf to help with theirs so Decaf doesn’t release the pressure on Iris’s leg.
I’m completely helpless as I watch on, but there’s a power inside me too. I have every angle, every vantage point. From here, I can make the best decision for the team.
“They’re going to come running out armed up to their tits,” I say. “So be prepared.”
Beside me, Ghost smiles.
“What?” I ask him off mic. “Oh, did I take over your job? You can—”
He gestures to his controls. “Have at it. This will be your job one day, and you seem to have gotten over your nerves. Trav hasn’t told you to back off yet, so I won’t either. I’m here if you need backup.”
When Trav’s out there with the guys, it’s us behind the monitors who take control, but Ghost is right. If Trav doesn’t want me doing this, he could put a stop to it.
I don’t question it. I can’t. Because Iris’s life hangs in the balance, so I don’t have time to overthink this.
“I’m four minutes out,” Trav says.
I spring into action. “Atlas, Zeus, you’ve got four minutes to carry out the mission and then bring the love of my life home.”
As if rehearsed, countless voices fill the room through the speaker. “Your what?”
“Focus,” I order.
“In three, two, one,” Atlas orders, and together, he and Zeus open the door to the underground bunker.
Atlas throws the flash-bang into the abyss, and for one, silent moment, everything is still.
Then gas and smoke cover their cameras, and this is the moment of truth.
There’s coughing and spluttering, yelling, and then a whole lot of gunfire lights up my screens.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
What the fuck is happening? I can’t see shit.
The rapid gunfire stops abruptly. Gas rises and slowly starts to clear.
Atlas takes out a device and lowers it into the hatch. After a couple of painstakingly long moments, he finally says, “All clear. Zeus, cover me.”
Zeus lies on his stomach, and as soon as Atlas is through the trapdoor, Zeus sticks half his body through as well as his rifle.
Atlas’s bodycam shows three dead bodies in white robes on the ground, but the picture isn’t clear enough to see if any of them are Farouk. I can see the blood that stains their clothes from where they’ve been shot, so if it really is Farouk, Mike Bravo taking him down the exact way I was almost killed by Farouk’s men is poetic justice in my book.