Page 80 of Midnight Torment

“I need to go to the gym more,” I groaned as I straightened and stretched my back.

We tucked the boards in against a small ventilation hut and took our heat detectors out.

“Looks like most body temperatures are over there.” Flynn pointed to the island facing side of the house.

“We stick to the plan. Go in through the least densely occupied area and clear it room by room,” I replied. My abseiling gear was in a kit bag the drone had dropped at my feet. They came to rest on the roof until Ash and Xavier needed them.

“Gotcha,” Flynn mouthed. “Lethal force?”

I nodded. Not one fucker was getting out of this house alive if I could help it. I strapped the kit bag to my shoulders and headed to the side of the roof.

“We’re right here with you,” Xavier said. I nodded and knew he’d see it since there was a camera on the side of the glasses.

There were no side windows on the second story, so I moved down toward the middle level of the house. There were a few windows with lights on, but I angled the guide rope and headed to the second window along that was in darkness. My glass cutter carefully cut around the edges of the frame and allowed me to catch the window and set it inside. Since the climate was warm, he didn’t have the double glazing we relied on back in London.

One leg at a time, I climbed in through the window and disconnected my harness, leaving it hanging where I knew to find it if I needed it later. I pressed the coms device in my ear twice to let Flynn know I was inside.

I quickly skirted around the outside of the room and opened the door into the hall, keeping my back tight against the wall and my gun up. There were noises coming from the next room, but there was little point in me only searching the empty ones. A man paced, talking on a phone. He was dead in seconds with a broken neck, and I laid him on the ground as I disconnected his call. I dragged him to behind a chair and turned the lights out as I exited the room.

I released a long beep into the comms to signal the first death. A similar reply sounded to let me know that Flynn had joined in the killing spree. Room after room, I crept in, some of them empty, others containing one man since this seemed to be the bedroom floor. The next room had two men who jumped up when I entered.

“Sorry to bother you, I was looking for the toilet,” I said. By the time they looked at each other in confusion, I had a garrotte attached around the first guy’s throat.

“What the fuck?” the other one almost shouted and lunged at me.

I grabbed his hair and brought his head to my knee, my gun in my hand in an instant to shoot two rounds into his chest at close range. The silencer didn’t make it silent, but at least it was muffled.

The first one had fallen to his knees, his fingers desperately clawing at his throat as his face turned bright red.

I walked away, turning the light out as I went.

I darted across the landing to the other side, staying low so no one could see me above the banister. The next room made my breath catch in my throat as Megan fought a deranged female with a syringe in her hand.

“No one resists my medications,” she said. “Sometimes I get the dosage a little wrong and accidents happens. Oops!”

What the hell?

The needle cover clattered to the floor. “He’ll be devastated whether you’re barely alive or dead.” She shrugged. “Dead suits me.”

It really didn’t suit me, and I wasn’t making it across the room in time to stop her. I fired without warning, knowing I was about to unleash hell as that sound would echo forever and bring soldiers running. Her body froze mid-flight to Megan when the two bullets entered her brain, knocking her off her attack course.

She slumped to the ground, her syringe falling beside her, blood starting to pool around her head.

Megan’s eyes came up to meet mine, and my heart remembered how to beat.

She was covered in bruises, and had cuts on her arms and stomach. Her face was puffy as if she’d been crying, but she was still the most beautiful woman in the world. Even more so, since she’d walked through Hell and came out the other side.

Megan let out a squeak and stumbled into my arms that automatically opened to catch her. There was no way anyone possessed the strength to drag her from me right now. I wanted to count every single golden curl on her head to ensure she was in one piece. I knew I held her too tightly, but I needed to feel her heat, the rise and fall of her chest to reassure myself that she was alive.

“Shush, baby, I’ve got you,” I said into her hair, pressing a kiss to her head as she clung to me, burrowing deep into my chest. I touched the comms device in my ear. “Target acquired.”

“Thank fuck,” Flynn replied. “I’m the level above you if those gunshots were you.”

I pulled Megan behind the door as it was flung open. A guy stopped and stared at the body before his gaze lifted to scan the room. My gun was in his face in a split second.

“I think it’s best if you take me to Dante,” I said.

His gaze moved to Megan with her arms wrapped around me and her head in my chest.

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