Page 77 of Tactical Lies

Just as he hit the ground, he saw the cabin door open, and four men came spilling out.

Four to his one.

Perfect odds.

Two of them ran for the branch that had just hit the cabin.

“Think it was the storm or him?” one of them yelled out, his voice getting carried by the wind so Connor could hear his every word.

“Probably the storm,” another answered confidently.

“Where’d you hit him?” a third asked.

“Couldn’t tell because it was so dark,” the first man answered.

“If he’d given us the tools we needed, we could have finished this job properly,” the fourth man huffed, clearly irritated.

“You know he said he didn't have time to pull everything together. Once he found out where they were he had to act right away,” the confident man said.

“Yeah but we don’t know if he’s dead or alive.”

“If he’s alive he’s plotting something.”

“We all served, we have training,” the confident man bragged.

“Yeah, but he’s a SEAL, man, a freaking SEAL. You know those guys are trained way harder than we were,” the man who had shot him said. “If I’d had the night vision goggles like I requested, he’d be dead, and we wouldn't be worried about it.”

“Relax, dude. We have the girl. We have our fun with her like he told us we could, and then we kill her and cut up her body and send it to the family as a warning. If he’s still alive, we at least know we hit him. When the storm lets up, we’ll go looking for him,” the confident man said like it was all that easy.

Rage burned inside him as he listened to their plans for Becca.

Not happening.

None of it.

“We should look for him now,” one of the men insisted.

“Fine.” The confident man sighed, long sufferingly. “Dingo and Mad, you two go looking for him, just in case it was him. Ridge and I will check the damage caused to the cabin, make sure it won’t fall down or anything.”

Perfect. They were going to split up and make his job so much easier than it would otherwise be.

Following the two men who peeled off from the cabin, he didn't even have to sacrifice speed for silence thanks to the storm.

The first man never knew what was happening.

One second, he was walking through the woods, the next, his hands were flying to his neck as Connor sliced the saw blade through his carotid artery.

Leaving the man to bleed out, he darted up to the one a few yards ahead of him. The man turned at the last second, probably to say something to his now-dying teammate.

“What the?—?”

The man never got to finish his question. Connor plowed a fist into his solar plexus, shoving all the air from his lungs.

“Shouldn’t have put your hands on my girl,” he snarled as the other man sagged to his knees, attempting to gulp in oxygen. “The only easy day was yesterday. You'd know that if you were a SEAL, and you would have insisted on having the equipment you needed. Now you and your friends aren't going to be alive by the time the sun rises.”

This time he used his weapon, firing a single bullet into the man’s head, killing him instantly.

Echoing through the storm, he hoped the sound carried enough to reach the cabin.

---