Page 77 of Break For Me
The big SUV eats highway in the left lane at a hundred and ten. The engine is a low, steady hum, a predator's purr. Adrian handles the wheel the way he handles a scalpel—precise, controlled, with minimal corrections. His eyes read the road three cars ahead, anticipating lane changes before they happen. He drives like a man who is very good at things he rarely has to do, and the discovery of this hidden competence sits in my gut like a hot stone.
I sit in the passenger seat with the Glock in my lap and three spare magazines lined up between my knees. My world has shrunk to this one task.
My right hand seats the first magazine. The polymer clicks against the metal of the mag well. Solid. I rack the slide on the door frame—the metal edge bites into the weather stripping, but the action is clean. A round chambers. I eject the magazine, set the loaded gun in the center console, and start on the second.
My left hand feeds. The grip is the ugly, clumsy one I practiced in the gym—fourth finger bracing, fifth a useless passenger, the base plate pressed hard against my palm. Eachmagazine takes me three times longer than it should. Each one is a negotiation with the pain screaming up my arm.
I load all three. I line them up in the console beside the Glock. I flex my left hand. The fingers protest. I tell them to shut up.
The body armor is from Alessandro's personal armory—a plate carrier, rated for rifle rounds. It's heavy. The broken rib I earned in the shack announces itself every time the SUV hits a seam in the highway, a sharp, grinding pain. I wear it over a black t-shirt. The ceramic plates sit against my chest and back like a tombstone.
Connecticut is ninety miles northeast. The GPS on the dash says an hour and forty minutes. Adrian will make it in less. The thought isn't a comfort.
I run the scenario in my head. A constant loop.
The house is a Falcone property I've never seen. Alessandro described it: two stories, colonial, on a quiet residential street. Four bedrooms. Two exits—front door, kitchen slider. The security detail was two men. Competent, but not tactical. They left for groceries. Elena is alone.
Dmitri has at least two men with him. The sedan holds four, and he'd keep the driver behind the wheel. So, two to three operators inside or approaching. Armed. Professional. They are running on a personal vendetta, which makes them more dangerous than any organized unit. Organized units follow rules. Revenge burns the rulebook.
I have one working hand, a loaded gun, three spare magazines, and a body that will stand between a bullet and a twenty-two-year-old girl. Because the man driving this car put his hands on my face and told me I was a shield.
I have decided to believe him.
"How far?" I ask. My voice is a rasp.
"Forty minutes."
I chamber a round in the Glock. The slide racks clean.
The street is quiet. Too quiet. Lined with old oaks and perfect lawns. The kind of groomed, peaceful Connecticut suburb that believes bad things only happen on the news.
The black sedan is parked four houses down from the target. The driver's door hangs open. The interior is empty.
They've already gone in.
Adrian pulls the SUV to the curb two houses past the sedan. He kills the engine. The silence is sudden and absolute—no highway noise, no mechanical hum. Just the wind whispering through the bare branches and the distant sound of a leaf blower.
The house is white. Colonial. Green shutters. A fucking wreath on the door. The front door is closed. The curtains on the first floor are drawn—Elena followed instructions. The second-floor windows are dark.
I check the perimeter. The driveway is empty—no sign of the security detail's vehicle. The detached garage is closed. The backyard is fenced. The gate on the left side of the house stands open.
It was closed when Elena called. Someone opened it.
"Stay in the car," I say.
"No."
"Adrian—"
"She's my sister." He's already unbuckling his seatbelt. His face is the clinical mask—the Ice Queen, deployed for one last battle. The composure is a weapon in itself. "She doesn't know you. She doesn't know what you look like. If a man your size kicks down her door, she's going to think the Russians sent you."
He's right. I hate that he's right. I hate that his logic is clean and mine is a blunt instrument of rage.
"I go in first," he says. "She sees my face. She comes to me. You do what you do."
"Behind me," I say, my voice a low growl. "Always behind me. If shooting starts, you get low and you stay low. You do not stand between me and anything with a gun."
"Understood."
