Page 73 of Shadows Relived
There were no radios buzzing, no shoutedorders. Just hand signals passed from shadow to shadow. Callen raised two fingers—eyes on. Hawk angled toward the side porch. Gage pointed to one visible guard pacing out front while Elvis took the other. Grim shifted back, preparing for the drop.
Even the damn senator, tucked behind him and shaking like a leaf, had enough sense to keep his mouth shut.
The house loomed ahead, two stories of sagging boards and rusted gutters, paint peeled back like dead skin. One porch light burned above the door, swaying gently with the breeze like it couldn’t decide whether to blink out or keep watch.
Callen crouched, heart hammering, not from fear, but from focus. Meaghan was in there. He could feel it like a current in his veins. That red dot on the GPS didn’t just mark a location. It was a lifeline.
And now the wolves were at the door.
He signaled again, fist up. Hold.
Two of the guards were within visual range. One leaned lazily on the railing of the porch, AK slung loose, his cigarette ember bright in the dark. The other was checking his phone near the side yard, attention drifting.
That’s your mistake, Callen thought coldly. You stopped watching the trees.
Three silent seconds passed.
Callen raised his hand, took a slow breath. Then dropped it flat.
Go.
The first shot came from the woods.
Muffled. Sharp. The sentry on the back porch dropped like a rag doll. Then chaos exploded.
Gunfire burst from the treeline. Muzzle flashes lit up the windows, and Callen surged forward with Hawk and Grim at his sides, boots pounding over the porch. The front door shattered inward as they crashed through?—
Inside was darkness, choked with must and rot.
Callen pivoted left, eyes slicing through shadow. Someone raised a weapon, and Callen dropped him with a clean shot to the shoulder, ducking as another charged from the hall. Hawk took him down with a brutal elbow to the face.
“Clear!”
The team split—Grim heading for the hallway, Hawk to the right. Callen’s pulse thudded like war drums.
He turned a corner, and his heart stuttered.
There she was, zip-tied to a chair in a dim room, rocking side to side. Her shirt was torn at the sleeve, but her eyes—her eyes were defiant and blazing.
Callen froze.
Time stopped.
She stopped rocking, a smirk twisting her lips. “Took you long enough.”
He was beside her in an instant, fingers trembling as he cut the zip-ties. She collapsed into him, arms wrapping around his neck, breath shuddering against his collar.
“God, I thought?—”
“Well, you thought wrong,” he murmured, gripping her tighter. “I told you. I’d always come for you.” He turned to point to her father, but Senator Harrington wasn’t there. “That son-of-a-bitch.”
“Who?” she asked.
Before he could answer, however, footsteps thundered on the porch. Gage burst into the room a second later. “We’ve got two down outside. House is almost clear.”
Callen helped Meaghan stand, one arm around her waist.
But then he heard a door slammed in the back and then someone running.
