Page 45 of Boomer
She took a soft breath. “Gott, yes.” Her eyes were now as stormy as an incoming nor’easter. She bit her lip, her eyes turning even more tender, but the steel was still there. “I’ve never had this,” she whispered. “Not like this. So, whatever happens in there...you better come back with me.”
He smiled, and she smiled back, maybe a little shaky, but it was there. He hefted the files. “If I have anything to do with it. No one dies except the people who need to.” He stepped back. “I’ll prep for a clean entry,” he said quietly.
Taylor’s voice was barely audible. “I know you will. You’re a demo god.”
“Now who’s being charming?”
She cleared the two steps separating them. She grasped a handful of his shirt. Her mouth was hot and warm as her lips brushed his, then firm as they pressed hard and quick against his. “I’m not being charming. I’m being dead honest. If I was to trust anyone with this breach, it would be you.” She retreated, her fists clenching like she wanted to do something more with her hands.
He paused at the door. “Aw, shucks, Red, you’re making me blush.”
“Boomer,” she bit out as he chuckled and closed the door. He paused outside the door, the files in hand, her scent still clinging to his skin. She’d almost said it, almost told him what he already knew. That she wanted more. That she wantedhim.
If he hadn’t been about to risk both their lives, he might have let himself believe it was enough. They were going in blind here, and the unknown of the op wasn’t as terrifying as the unknown with her.
But he couldn’t stop the question now threading through his ribs like detcord. Was he breacher enough to take down those load-bearing walls? His hands ached to trace the structure and the pressure points, figure out where to place the charges, and detonate with her.
Where the breacher becomes the explosion.
He walked away, heart a little heavier than when he came in. Wanting her was one thing. But earning her trust? That was going to take more than clean entries and tight charges. It was going to take every piece of himself he’d been trying to keep buried.
He headed directly to find Ellis “Forge” Ward, SBS’s breacher, to get his take on these schematics. If he hadn’t fucked up so royally in the past, he might have let himself believe it was enough.
An hour later, the MAOC conference room was full of way too many alphas—the kind of aggression that made Boomer’s skin itch beneath the collar of his shirt, still damp from sweat and salt air. That was adrenaline and testosterone in the mix, warriors ready, willing, and able to carry out whatever op was mandated.
He sat at the back of the room, shoulders set and still, flanked by Skull and Bones and Breakneck, who each kept their own brand of stillness, Skull methodical and unreadable,Bones panting, tongue lolling, ready at a moment’s notice to spring into action. Breakneck watchful, keyed tight. Hazard and GQ, looking like twin models, were talking softly to each other, Kodiak was sliding his fingers across his tablet, probably making sure he had all his checkmarks for his med kit, Preacher introspective and serene, the man took Zen to another level, and his master chief’s intense pale eyes were as sharp as icicles. Across the table, the Brits sat like coiled wire, especially Bash, brow low, all silent calculation and sharp edges. He didn’t track Taylor, he tracked Boomer. Lockhart stood beside Iceman, waiting with the ease of a leader.
Anna sat with half her butt on a table, the other foot on the floor. She looked a little green around the gills. He wondered if she was ill.
Taylor stood at the front of the room beside the projection screen, her voice calm, crisp, unyielding. “The trucks are loaded with acetyl chloride, piperidine, and several solvent agents used in refining. All documented. The thermal and route traces confirm passage from Setúbal to a civilian warehouse hub near Alcântara. We believe they’ve already begun reconstitution inside the facility. Possibly mobile compression labs, possibly dry-handoff cells for maritime shipment.”
She clicked through the images. Satellite overlays. Thermal spikes. A grainy time-stamped photo of a man unloading crates behind a rusted security fence.
“TheRovikatied to Leixões is a flagged container vessel registered out of Monrovia. It departs in twelve hours. We don’t have time for niceties. We breach, sweep, collect residue samples, confirm occupancy, and trace any op-for on-site back through comm intercepts.”
Boomer translated op-for, meaning if they encountered any enemy personnel at the site, they would trace them back through their communication channels, phones, radios, encrypteddevices, to uncover who they’re working with or reporting to. Boomer didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But his focus never left her.
The room pulsed with tension, the kind that only came before impact. Taylor moved like a woman bracing herself against more than just cartel logistics. She had that edge in her voice again, tight, measured. She wasn’t just briefing an op. She was holding the center.
She did it so well.
But he saw just at the edges the storm beneath. She wore the weight like armor. She changed the slide. An overhead schematic. “Target building is a decommissioned warehouse. Records show it used to house agricultural shipping. Minimal infrastructure updates. No reinforced supports, no secondary power source. It shouldn’t be stable enough to support large-scale synthesis. But we believe the mezzanine is being used for storage. Could be product. Could be people.”
“Boomer?”
Boomer rose slow, deliberate, his presence calm and grounded, and stepped to the front with the steadiness of a man who didn’t need to posture to be listened to. He took the clicker from Taylor’s hand with a brief nod, careful not to touch her, though the air between them sparked with every unspoken word.
He changed the slide. A top-down schematic. “Forge and I went over this frame by frame.”
Forge nodded once from across the room.
Boomer circled key ingress points with the laser. “Standard delivery access here and here. Side utility door, possibility of secondary egress along this alley choke point.”
He clicked again. “Now, here’s where it gets tricky. Mezzanine’s not on original blueprints. Added in 2017 by a shell corp. Steel support beams, no seismic anchors, no crossload balancing. It’s deadweight above dry-lab real estate. You stackthe wrong gear on that platform and it’s a coffin drop. You breach hot, and the vapor load from that acetyl chloride? It will ignite into a corrosive gas, and it’ll eat your lungs before you hit the second room.”
A long breath passed through the room.
Boomer continued, voice level. “We considered demo. Standard charge would cut through the primary door, clean and fast. But with the likelihood of uncontained solvents, possibly even reconstitution underway? That’s too big a gamble.”
