Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I approached the crappy blinds and cracked them open. Night light from Crenshaw Boulevard spilled in blade-sharp. I watched Rain. Folded my arms. Narrowed my eyes. Imagined Natasha and our mingled scents.
Yeah, something refined. Coconut milk and rose. Not that cheap cotton candy crap cluttering my bathroom. Yuck. Rain Howard’s mouth was agape. Was that how Natasha slept? I couldn’t get close enough to her. Not in the way I wanted to because of where she lived.
Rain mumbled, shifted. I slid the burner phone into my hoodie pocket and took one last look at the laptop on the table. Still open. Connected to the classified surveillance software Rain borrowed last night before servicing me.
I had access to Natasha’s phone. A remote hack allowed me to pin her location. In addition, Rain virtually breached Vassili Resnov’s compound in Beverly Hills. Even though I didn’t need details, I’d map his life after trapping his daughter.
I slipped out my phone. Had she stayed at the hospital to consult with her research team? I hadn’t checked. Did she play me?
Why did she have that shadow? I’d follow her everywhere if she didn’t. I toggled to the app that tracked her phone. My thumb prepared to jab the button that would bring her location to me in an instant when—
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three hard knocks at the door.
Not neighbors.
Not friendly.
At this time of the night? Never.
Rain jolted upright from the mattress on the floor, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Who the hell—?”
She didn’t even finish. My blood iced, body moving before my brain caught up. I was already navigating this too-small studio in two strides. Wide open. Exposed. I slipped into the bathroom, yanked open the drawer under the sink, and pulled my Glock free. Silencer attached. Always ready.
Rain called out, voice laced with sleep and confusion. “Lorenzo, what—”
“Quiet.” I didn’t snap. My whispered tone could cut flesh. Had she lost her damn instincts? She’d sat behind enough black ops sites, pushed intel that saved soldiers, and now she blinked at a red flag when it knocked?
Another knock. Then a voice, low, controlled. Female. East Coast accent. Carolina. “Corporal Rainita Howard. Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Step out. Hands where I can see them.”
Every nerve in my body froze as I stood in the open bathroom door, gun trained on the entrance. NCIS? Rain appeared in the bathroom doorway, barefoot, holding a frying pan. If I didn’t need to ask her questions, I might’ve locked the door, climbed through the bathroom window, and left her to deal with the fallout. Alone.
“You tripped the system,” I hissed. “They traced the access point.”
“But I … thought you were on active duty. For intel this deep, I had to use a soldier’s …”
I turned. Full-on.
She saw it. All of it. The truth she’d ignored until now.
No uniform. Almost a year. Just ink crawling up my arm like scars, and eyes too hollow to belong to someone who followed the chain of command.
“You’re AWOL,” she whispered, her voice cracked. “Lorenzo … I told you when we started cracking Resnov’s firewalls, I’d need military—”
Click.
The doorknob jiggled.
I didn’t wait.
I darted across the room, silent. Two muffled shots pierced the door. Clean. Deadly. Screams outside. Someone fell. I dropped low, swung the door open, and shot again before the second MP could draw. Gun clattered on the concrete.
Killing two people outside of an apartment that faced a major boulevard wasn’t the best idea, but the streets of Los Angeles had seen worse.
Rain shrieked. Frozen.
“Get ahold of yourself, soldier,” I barked beneath my breath.
She trembled. The pan clattered onto the matted carpet, much noisier than my suppressed pistol.
“Lorenzo … they’re military police.”
“Were.” I dragged the woman by the collar and yanked her into the apartment. “They were gonna take you. Use you to find me. And you’re too dumb to realize you handed them a map.”
She moved back like I might lash out. She was right. I should.
I straightened, blood on my shirt, on my hands, on the floor. Outside.
“We could’ve turned ourselves in.” Her voice was smaller. Meeker. “Told them we didn’t know we were rogue agents. Blamed it on a bad order. Something.”
She peeled a blanket off the bed and tossed it to me. I breathed in the wrong scent. Her sugar-cheap scent, not Natasha’s shampoo. Rain reached for the linen and wrapped the second man. Too calm. In survival mode.
I snatched the blanket. “Plans have changed.”
“You think they won’t send more?” she asked, voice rising in the night. “The military doesn’t allow someone to kill two MPs and walk—”
I bucked at her, hand in a fist. I pulled my punch after she flinched.
Rain glared at me, fire in her eyes.
I grinned.
“Strike one.” My knuckles tapped Rainita Howard’s cheek, mocking. Almost tender. “Flinch again, you’ll see how far my forgiveness goes.”
She didn’t answer. But her eyes said it all. That panicked calculation. Will he murder me? Do I run? Will he let me?