Page 189 of He Followed Me First
Talia and the team are closing in from the alternate entry. I check my watch—synced perfectly. She should’ve killed the CCTV feeds just before I stepped out.
I push the door open a fraction and scan the opposite end of the foyer. The main entrance creaks, just enough to give me warning that my team are waiting.
Then it detonates.
Our squad floods the room. I lock down the exit, bottling them in. Some reach for sidearms but they’re too slow. My team runs hot and tight, trained on contact drills and stacked body counts.
Within minutes, the floor’s a canvas of silence—bodies in black sprawled, their weapons unspent.
“All clear,” crackles through my comms—two voices, calm.
We reload. Magazines racked, chambers cycled. No hesitation. Formation tight, purpose colder than steel.
We move as one, sweeping through the hall toward the final breach.
“Four at three,” a voice snaps through the comms, and me and Talia react without hesitation—double-tap each target before their hands even brush steel.
We reach the viewing chamber and split formation. Half peel off with Talia to breach the secondary entry. The rest of us drop into a crouch, rifles raised, waiting on her mark.
“Team Bravo ready,” she transmits.
“Let’s put these bastards down,” I reply, low and cold.
One teammate swings the door open and we sweep in like a current, covering flanks, eyes locked, weapons live—firing at will into a nest of corruption.
Chaos detonates. They stampede like animals scrambling over each other in blind panic, torn between flight and fight.
I prioritise the guards. Gunfire snaps through the chamber, ricocheting off marble and bone. Light flashes white-hot and the smoke thickens fast. A round grazes my arm, but I don’t blink. I re-centre on the runner who slipped past and land a round dead between his eyes. His skull paints the stage—a macabre arc beside the frozen silhouette of a girl too terrified to cry.
Then I spot the two I’ve been waiting for.
The men are scattering like rats, eyes wild, hands fumbling for cover or weapons—salvation always one step out of reach. But I see them first. Mark, breathe, fire. Two rounds in half a second. Clean kills.
Would’ve preferred to make them bleed slower, but tonight’s about precision, not pleasure.
“Targets eliminated,” Talia confirms, her voice steady in my ear.
I rise from cover, rifle still raised, sweeping once more to confirm there’s no movement. All threats neutralised.
“All clear, team. Moving.”
We push toward the hallway where the girls are held—the next stage of the op. I need to know if Nell held up her end.
The black balaclava chokes with heat, breath fogging the fabric, sweat clinging beneath the helmet. But it’s familiar. This gear’s not just uniform—it’s history. Twisted threads of our military past reforged into something more brutal, more righteous. I’ve worn it long enough it feels like skin.
The guards must’ve heard the chaos—when we breach the doors, they’re already positioned, pressed tight to the walls, invisible until it’s too late.
Gunfire erupts, sharp and immediate. We take cover behind concrete and steel, plaster raining down in powder bursts. We wait—count their shots—until they hit the reload window. Then we move.
Bullets tear through the corridor. Bodies follow. We push forward, inch by inch, leapfrogging from one column of wall to the next. One of my men goes down to a rogue gun shot. He’s breathing, so we stay on protocol. No breaks. No detours.
I sight the shooter.
Breath. Aim. Fire.
A clean headshot drops him flat, but before I can relax I swing to the next—dropping him before his rifle clears the corner.
Minutes pass like seconds. Now it’s quiet. The building is purged, bodies strewn in broken poses, smoke lingering in the air.
