“Justin, we’re beneath the window where Alex’s signal is strongest, but we don’t see him.” Colt’s voice coming through the built-in Bluetooth device in their shields was laced with concern for his son.
“Send me his location,” Justin whispered, despite the shield’s ability to mute his voice to the outside world. As soon as the locator on Alex came onto his phone, Justin started moving faster toward the beacon indicating Alex’s location. “I think I’m close, but we have to get them out without engaging.”
“What? I’m going to destroy those bastards for what they did to my people, my home, my family.”
“We can’t. At least not today. We can’t take the risk with Alex, Nakia, and Imani here. There’re too many of them.”
“Get my son.”
“I will. Tell Mac to hang back. We’ll need him, but not now.” Justin continued moving, following the GPS to Alex. He passed a large room that had a glass-wall panel and looked like a prestigious corporate boardroom, complete with gleaming black furniture and a large boardroom table, which sat at least twenty and had leather chairs. Of course it wouldn’t be complete without the requisite armed bad guys, paired with his triumphant, evil, soon-to-be ex-wife. The sight of a KGB commander chilled him to the bone. The shock of it had him frozen with indecision. What the hell was Sergey Smirnov doing here? And then another man stood. It was as though he’d been gut-punched with iron fists. He stumbled.
The sound of gunfire, followed by Alex’s cries, forced him out of his daze, and Colt’s, “What the fuck was that?” had him in a full-on sprint.
Unfortunately, it also got the attention of the mercenaries, who also sprinted toward the sound.
Alex’s locator suddenly died.
Justin stood in the doorway of the bathroom where the locator had indicated Alex only a few moments ago. A man with an obvious gunshot wound to the chest was in the middle of the room on the floor, bleeding out but apparently already dead. Justin moved farther into the room baffled by the lost signal. “Colt?”
“We have Alex.” Colt’s relieved voice reached him. “Keep Nakia safe.”
The sheer relief over Alex’s safety was short lived, as the bathroom was soon swarming with soldiers.
Justin gave them a wide berth, not wanting to engage unless absolutely necessary. He watched as they searched the room in frustration.
“Where the hell is she? Where’s the kid?” Sergey muttered.
“That bitch is here. I can smell her.” The man who Justin had never thought would betray them stood in the midst of Russian soldiers against his country, against his family. Justin was sure he was still in a state of shock. He ignored this betrayal now and, instead, tried thinking of possible places Nakia could be hiding.
The windows in the room were clearly too small, and there was no way she would have made it out of the bathroom without him seeing her. She had to be in the vent.
“Search the vents!” Sergey must have come to the same conclusion that he did.
Justin wasn’t surprised. Sergey might be a sick bastard, but he was also a brilliant strategist. But then so was Nakia. He hoped she moved as though her life depended on it, because it did.
Nakia lowered Alex as far down through the window as she could. She was shaking like a leaf. Although she’d carried a gun most of her adult life, never had she ever had to shoot someone. Now in less than twenty-four hours, she’d killed four people. The man had reached into the stall to grab her and had grabbed her breast instead. She’d just lost it and shot him without thinking. She knew that the sound of the gunfire and Alex crying would bring everyone running toward her. Now, she moved as fast as she dared.
Letting go of Alex and seeing Imani immediately take him gave her an added spring in her step to get out of there. As she pulled the air conditioner vent facing open, she thought about Jay and wondered if he was close. There was no way she could get her ass out of that window, and no way in hell she could fit her ass into the air conditioner vent. As footsteps came rushing toward her, she dove behind the door of the office next to bathroom after ensuring the vent and window were left open to leave the easy conclusion in their minds that either opening was her means of escape.
While everyone was busy examining the male body and then trying to look through the open window and vent, she quickly crawled out of the office. Remaining low to the ground, she crawled quickly past another office, where she could hear Melissa cursing the men for their incompetence in not finding Imani.
The relief on seeing Imani alive had brought immediate moisture to her eyes. Imani had mouthed “thank you” as soon as Alex had fallen into her arms. Nakia smiled now thinking of the sweet reunion between mother and baby. For the hundredth time since she’d met Alex, she thought of one day having a baby like him passed through her mind He was a beautiful, mild-mannered baby. She couldn’t wait to feel her own baby in her arms, that was if she could get out of here alive.
After darting in and out of hiding places to avoid the many guards along the hall, she finally had to take refuge in another vacant room because the hall was so littered with armed guards.
The big Russian, who’d so senselessly killed so many of his own men, was even now yelling that everyone should get off their asses and find her.
Nakia knew that it was only a matter of time before they found her. She hid behind a chair in the room as men entered the adjacent room, scouring every inch of it if the noise they were making was anything to go by.
“Come with me, Nakia,” Justin whispered.
Nakia bit back a scream. “Where did you come from?” She stopped when she looked behind her but couldn’t see him. “Where did you go?”
“I’m right here. Keep moving. We need to move.”
Justin’s commanding voice left no room to argue. Nakia felt as though she was living in a bizarre realm where nothing made sense. He gripped her hand and pulled her along to follow in his wake. She had to stop her scream every time he would come in and out of invisibility wielding a wicked-looking knife with silent, deadly precision, and created a path for them. He kept her hidden behind him each time he had to silence and disarm a guard before them. When they reached a heavily guarded hall, suddenly some of the guards in front of them started dropping as though they were wired dolls and someone had pulled their plugs.
Nakia watched in disbelief as Justin entered the fray, completely undaunted by the mystery of the other guards falling where they stood. She ran along in Justin’s wake as he silently created a path. Nakia knew their silent getaway wouldn’t last for long, and it didn’t. Too soon a shout rang out behind.
“Get her!”
“Run!” Justin whisper-yelled.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Nakia took off as though a starter had set off the gun to her own personal race. As a track athlete in college, she was soon running well ahead of Justin. And then she realized that he was deliberately running behind her to shield her from any possible bullets coming their way. However, she knew that she didn’t have to worry because the men still thought she was Imani and they wouldn’t risk killing her by shooting.