Page 27 of My Unhinged Alphas
The job just shifted.
Information gone. Names gone. Leads gone.
All that’s left is cleanup.
I step past Havoc and crouch briefly beside the body, checking out of habit I don’t need.
No pulse. No breath.
I rise slowly and turn back to him. “You don’t get to decide when we lose an asset,” I say, voice low and controlled. “Not when I’ve made it clear what the objective is.”
Havoc’s jaw tightens. “He was pulling the trigger.”
“And now he’s useless.”
The silence stretches. Vale closes the door behind him softly.
Havoc wipes at the blood on his cheek with the back of his hand, eyes never leaving mine. “You want to write the report?” he asks flatly. “Go ahead.”
It’s not sarcasm. It’s defiance.
I take a slow breath, forcing the anger down where it belongs. “This isn’t over,” I tell him.
“No,” Havoc says quietly. “It isn’t.” He steps over the body like it’s nothing more than debris and starts toward the hallway again, shoulders loose, gun hanging easy at his side.
“You don’t get to rewrite the objective because you feel like it,” I snap, following him. I’m still angry enough that my vision feels narrowed.
We needed that man alive. Needed him breathing. Talking. Giving us something to work with besides another mess.
“You don’t get to freelance in the middle of an objective,” I say. “You don’t get to decide that because you’re irritated.”
He doesn’t look back. “He was pulling the trigger.”
“And you didn’t even try?—”
Movement.
A shadow detaches itself from the far end of the hallway. One of the men we thought was down must have dragged himself up, must have stayed quiet long enough for us to shift focus. He’sbleeding badly, but he’s upright, gun shaking in his hand as he lifts it toward Havoc’s back.
I don’t see it fast enough.
There’s a whisper of air beside my ear. Not a gunshot. A soft, cutting sound.
The man jerks, and the gun discharges into the ceiling, a wild, useless shot. Then he stumbles backward, eyes wide, as if confused by what’s just happened to him.
A knife hilt protrudes from the center of his throat.
He makes a wet, choking sound and crashes through the weak railing behind him. The old wood splinters, giving way. His body tumbles down the stairwell, hitting once, twice, then landing hard at the bottom with a sickening crack.
The hallway falls silent.
Havoc slowly turns.
I do too.
Vale stands at the far end of the corridor, arm still extended from the throw, fingers flexing once as if measuring the air where the blade had been.
He doesn’t look proud. He doesn’t look shocked. He just lowers his hand and breathes out through his nose.
