Page 18 of Fighting for Valor
Against me, Evianna shifts, and fuck. She feels so good in my arms. “Are you sure about this?” she asks. “Going back there?”
“Yes.” Taking off my glasses so she can see my eyes—not that it does anything for my sight—I wait until she brushes a kiss to my lips. “I left him behind, darlin’. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t know. I spent so many years mad at Ry for leaving me behind. Not in Hell. He didn’t have a choice when he escaped without me. But when we got back. I can’t do that to Ripper for one single day more.”
“You’re not going to Faruk’s compound, though, right?” Worry tinges her voice, and I wish I could tell her what she wants to hear. Give her some guarantee I’ll come back alive. And whole.
Skating my thumb over her engagement ring, I evade the question. I won’t lie to her. “I’ll stay with Trev the whole time.”
“That means you’re going.” She frames my face with her hands. Her palms are warm and soft, and she traces the scars around my eyes gently with her thumbs. “You’re scary-good at navigating the world without being able to see it, babe, but this is—” Evianna’s voice cracks and she touches her forehead to mine, “—men with guns who’ll kill you in a heartbeat. Or worse.”
“I know, darlin’. I know.” I don’t have any answers for her. Or myself. I just know I have to do this. If I stay here…or even at the Kabul safehouse, it’ll be the end of me. “I’ll come back alive. We’ve got a wedding to plan. There’s nothing in this world that would stop me from marrying you. I promise.”
Chapter Nine
Ryker
West peers through the night-vision scope at the compound at the top of the hill. “One target on each of the north and east towers. Two on the south and west.”
With a nod, Inara hoists her rifle case onto her shoulder. “Roger that. It’ll take me twenty minutes to get into position. Another ten to sight in. Radio silence from me until I’m done.”
“Base? You have Indigo on GPS?” On mission, we never use our real names. Only designators. Too great a risk if anyone were to intercept our signals. This job is so fucking illegal, we’d all be locked away for the rest of our lives.
“Yep. Got her.” Wren sounds so far away—and she is. Back in Boston. This is the most complicated job we’ve ever done, and so West’s wife, Cam, and Inara’s guy, Royce, are patched in to Wren’s other ear in case the GPS trackers go down. They’re all computer geniuses, and more than once, I’ve thought about asking them to join Hidden Agenda.
West pulls out his tablet as soon as Inara takes off. “All right. Listen up. This isn’t a normal op.” He focuses on Graham. “If you can subdue a hostile silently, do it. Even if that means killing them. You okay with that, probie?”
“Got it.” The kid’s barely twenty-seven, new to the team, and though he’s seen combat, he’s green as fuck, and I hate filling his ledger like this. But we need all the help we can get.
“Anyone comes across Faruk, you take him out. No hesitation,” I add. “He’s not going to hurt anyone again after tonight.”
West calls up the satellite photo of the compound. “We have no idea where the target is, and the house is a fucking maze on the main level and underground, but Base will be watching our GPS signals. You get boxed in, you signal for help.”
“Last call,” I say quietly. “Check your weapons and ammo. Zip ties. Flares. We’re going in hot and silent. Thermals show twenty-three signals, but we don’t know how well the scanner penetrates into the basement. So we could be looking at double that number.” Turning to Dax, who’s standing next to me with his hands clenched into fists and a special pair of glasses with a built-in camera covering his sightless eyes, I clasp his shoulder. “Are you sure, brother?”
“If you ask me that again, you’re going to be on your ass,” he growls.
I have to stifle my grumbled curse. “This party can’t get any bigger. We should invite the guy we passed an hour ago with that herd of goats too.”
“Shut it, Alpha Team Leader.” My little bird chuckles over the air, and the sound calms me like nothing else. “This is what family does.”
Family.
I never thought I’d have one again. Before Hell, my team was my family. Dax, Ripper, Hab, Naz, Gose… But after we escaped, I thought I’d lost them all—along with any hope of redemption.
“All right,” I say over the lump in my throat. “Indigo should be checking in soon. Let’s go get our brother back.”
“Hooah,” Dax says.
West and Graham add, “Hooyah,” in tandem.
Over comms, I hear Ford’s “Oorah,” and we’re good to go.
We’re coming, Ripper. I’m sorry we’re six years late.
As the sky darkens at moonset, West, Graham, and I creep closer to the compound. Trevor and Dax crouch behind an old truck parked a thousand yards away. The former CIA spook paid a local to leave the vehicle this morning with the air let out of one of the tires.
“You’re up, Indigo,” I whisper.
“Roger that.”
