Page 3 of Savagely Yours
My phone rang, and I tapped the screen to answer.
“Hey, Dez? It’s me. It’s Chris.”
He sounded choked, his breathing labored. Instantly, I knew what those sounds meant.
“They’re all after...after Songbird,”he continued.“Suppressors. Military-trained. SpecOps. Soviet, best guess. One…neutralized. One…remaining.”
I hated that I could pick up on his fear, hear his impending demise. Chris was an elite soldier, but he was only twenty-four years old. As technically advanced as I’d been at his age, I’d still learned tons from the leaders who’d guided me. Not many received the golden ticket of training under Gage Wolfe and Curtis Savea.
I peered again.
Chris, still holding his neck, was now kneeling over the man, who lay on the ground, motionless.“I messed up, Dez. My mom, she…she’s not gonna...”
I motioned for Larke to return to her desk and reached under my blazer. Although her eyes widened when I brandished my weapon, she began to shove sheets of paper into a cross-shredder.
“You didn’t mess up,” I reassured Chris. “You did good. Your mom, you know she’s proud of you, man.”
“I’m dying, Dez.”
I heard a sniff between the whirr of the shredder blades and realized that particular sniff hadn’t come from the man on the other side of the phone.
“Shit.” I tapped to switch from speakerphone to my earpiece. “Chris? Hey, talk to me.”
A commotion started up outside—the rest of the team. In a perfect world, it would have been the team I’d served with in my Black Cell ghost unit, but they were out trying to make sense of civilian life, the same as I was. We got together no less than four times a year, and the last time we met up, no one else appeared to be antsy to jump back into the chaos.
“Tapley, put on the vest.”
“Way ahead of you.”
I glanced over.
She was ready to go, bulletproof vest and all. The rims of her eyelids were beginning to puff up, and I mentally chastised myself for not realizing sooner that I’d placed the call with Chris on speakerphone. I was used to death, and even I had a tough time listening to it.
“The way you prepare in a crisis, if we survive this, remind me to ask you to be my wife,” I teased.
“Um, what do you meanifwe survive this?” she asked.
It wasn’t the part I’d wanted her to pay attention to, but it was a fair follow-up question to my stupid ass comment.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Dez,” she set a hand on her chest, “you can’t be saying stuff like that.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Stay behind me.”
I went to the door and tapped twice before opening. Four more from Tapley’s detail waited on the other side, weapons drawn: Tony, Isaac, Solana, and Mario. They positioned themselves around Tapley, nudging her to the center.
“Jesse?” I asked.
Solana answered for the group. “Jesse’s still monitoring the cameras, but the last threat’s location remains unknown. Local authorities have been notified. DOJ is en route.”
“Good.” I looked over my shoulder. “Tapley?”
“Stay behind you, I know,” she said. “Trust me. I won’t deviate.”
We left the main office area, following the route we’d practiced since I was notified that Larke Tapley would be my next assignment.
Later, I would tell the team about Chris.
