Page 32 of Code Name: Reaper (K19 Allied Intelligence Team Two #5)

AMARYLLIS

T he loading dock door groaned upward with a rusty shriek that echoed through the warehouse.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I strained against the zip ties cutting into my wrists.

The sound of metal grinding against metal filled the cavernous space, drowning out everything except my pulse thundering in my ears.

Mercury stepped inside, her arms raised but empty.

Even from across the warehouse, I could see the familiar set of her shoulders and the way she held herself with a confidence I remembered from a thousand briefings.

Seven months of searching, and there she was—older, thinner, but unmistakably the woman who’d shaped my entire adult life.

The relief that flooded through me was so intense it made me dizzy. She was alive. After all this time, all the dead ends and false leads and sleepless nights wondering if I’d ever see her again—she was here, walking toward me.

But the relief had lasted mere seconds when terror took its place.

She’d barely cleared the threshold when the service entrance door opened with a crash that made me jump so hard the chair rattled against the floor.

Vasiliev entered with four FSB operatives.

Their automatic weapons were drawn, and the Kevlar vests they wore gleamed under the harsh industrial lights.

They moved like predators, spreading out, each man covering a different sector.

My breath caught in my throat. This was my worst fear coming to life in front of me. Mercury was walking into a trap, and there was nothing I could do to help. In fact, I was the reason she was here. I was the bait.

A split second later, the main entrance on the opposite side also burst open.

Blackjack entered first, his weapon already drawn, followed by Dagger and Beacon, with a full coalition response team behind them, all dressed in combat gear.

Their boots pounded against concrete as they also spread out and began firing.

My chest tightened until I could barely breathe. The warehouse became a powder keg of four opposing forces, all heavily armed, all with conflicting objectives, all ready to kill anyone who stood between them and what they wanted.

Mercury hadn’t arrived alone. I watched as she was tossed a weapon, then took cover behind one of the weight-bearing columns.

Cold sweat broke out across my forehead despite the chill in the air as I sat powerless to fight back or even shield myself.

This was it. We were all going to die here.

I was going to watch Mercury get cut down by automatic weapons fire, watch Reaper get murdered by Russian operatives, watch everyone I cared about bleed out on this concrete floor while I sat helpless, tied to a chair like some kind of sacrificial offering.

Shots cracked around us like thunder, booming with explosive force. A sound tore from my throat involuntarily as the continuous roar of overlapping gunfire seemed to come from every direction at once.

Bullets sparked off the concrete around me, chips of stone flying like shrapnel. Automatic weapons spit out rounds so fast they blurred together into one continuous sound of death.

“NO!” I shrieked, pulling so hard against the zip ties that the chair rocked dangerously.

Pain shot up my arms from my shredded wrists, but I didn’t care.

I had to get free. Reaper, who’d somehow gotten loose from his chair, was by my side in an instant, pulling at the plastic bands on my wrist while trying to shield me with his body.

I nearly fell off the seat when the ties finally snapped and a weapon was shoved into my hands—metal warm from someone else’s grip, heavier than I expected.

Bullets whined above us with that distinctive supersonic crack that meant they were passing close enough for me to feel the displaced air against my skin.

I dropped and pressed myself against the ground. The concrete was cold and gritty against the side of my face as I tried to make out shapes through the haze. I couldn’t see well enough to take a shot without fear of hitting Mercury, Blackjack, or someone else from the coalition.

“Stay low!” Reaper shouted, pulling me behind a stack of industrial pallets.

The noise became unbearable. Single weapons cracking with sharp reports. People yelling incomprehensible things, screaming in pain, cursing in multiple languages. Ricochets whining off metal surfaces. The meaty thunk of bullets hitting flesh.

I tried to peer around our cover to see what was happening, but immediately retreated as more bullets sparked off the concrete inches from my face. Chips of stone stung my cheek, drawing blood.

My training kicked in. Find cover. Assess threats. Return fire when you have clear targets. Fundamentals took over despite the adrenaline flooding my system.

The warehouse had become a four-way battleground. Coalition forces advanced, weapons barking as they engaged multiple threats. Vasiliev’s team laid down suppressive fire with their automatic weapons. Mercury’s people controlled the elevated positions, picking shots carefully.

One of the Russians went down hard within a foot of me. His automatic weapon skittered across the ground, and blood spread beneath him in a growing pool.

Through the chaos, I tracked movement across the warehouse.

Vasiliev. He was advancing toward our position, his weapon aimed straight at me.

I could see his finger on the trigger of a handgun, see the muzzle lining up.

I raised my Glock, acquiring a sight picture despite the chaos around us.

Center mass. Controlled pairs. Then movement flashed in my peripheral vision.

Aldrich appeared from behind a concrete pillar, running at full speed. Not toward Mercury. Not toward the exit. Straight toward me and Vasiliev.

He fired at the exact moment she threw herself between his weapon and me.

“Eleanor!” Mercury’s scream pierced through the gunfire at the same time flash-bang grenades clattered across the concrete floor, the spheres bouncing and rolling like deadly marbles.

The sound they made—that distinctive metallic chiming—sent ice through my veins because I knew what was coming next.

White light brighter than the sun filled my vision. Sound beyond human comprehension slammed into my eardrums. The concussion wave hit me square in the chest, knocking the air from my lungs and making my ribs ache.

I couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear. Couldn’t think. Panic consumed me completely, terror that wiped away everything except the primal need to survive. Was I hit? Was I dying? Was I bleeding out and couldn’t feel it yet because of the shock?

My vision strobed with afterimages—green and purple phantoms that danced across my retinas. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else. I couldn’t tell up from down, couldn’t orient myself in space.

When my vision cleared, I couldn’t track Vasiliev. “He’s gone,” someone shouted. “The motherfucker vanished.” The shooting had stopped, leaving dead bodies littered on the warehouse floor.

But directly in front of me, I could see Mercury cradling Prism in her arms.

“Eleanor, no, no, no,” Mercury sobbed. “Stay with me. Please stay with me.”

As coalition medics rushed forward, Reaper kept his weapon ready, scanning for threats. His free hand found mine and squeezed.

Blood frothed at the corners of Aldrich’s mouth, but her eyes were clear and focused. She raised one trembling hand to touch Mercury’s cheek.

“Keep our girl safe for me,” she said, barely audible above the ringing in our ears. Her gaze found mine across the space, and I saw recognition there—and love. “It’s up to you now.” She turned to Mercury. “You and Amaryllis and Beacon. Finish what we started—you, me, and our brother.”

“Don’t leave me,” Mercury begged, tears falling as Eleanor’s breathing became shallow, rapid, then stopped entirely. Her gaze lost focus, staring up at the warehouse ceiling.

Mercury’s grief-stricken wail echoed off the walls as she rocked her sister’s lifeless body.

Agents from the coalition and Minerva shouted orders that seemed surreal after the chaos of combat.

I couldn’t make sense of any of it. My mind kept replaying the muzzle flashes, the screaming, and the moment when Aldrich had thrown herself into certain death.

It played over and over like a broken film loop, each repetition making me feel sicker.

“Amaryllis.” Reaper’s voice was gentle. “Look at me.”

I couldn’t. I was shaking too hard. The adrenaline was wearing off and leaving me hollow, empty, and broken. My teeth chattered despite the warmth of the warehouse. Cold sweat made my clothes cling to my skin.

“She’s in shock,” someone said. Beacon maybe. I couldn’t tell. All voices sounded the same through the ringing in my ears and the fog of trauma that seemed to wrap around my brain like cotton.

Mercury was still cradling Eleanor’s body. I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t support me. I clung to Reaper until I found my footing, then he and I approached Mercury together. When I knelt beside her, she reached for me but didn’t speak.

Aldrich’s words, though, continued looping.

“Keep our girl safe for me…It’s up to you now…Finish what we started—you, me, and our brother.”

I pulled away far enough to see her. “Who are you?” I cried.

“Your aunt,” she stated it so simply that it didn’t seem real. Two words that changed everything.

She hugged me harder as different tears streamed down my cheeks. Not terror. Grief. Loss. Understanding that came too late. Years of lies and deception and secrets had unraveled in a cold warehouse full of blood and death.

Mercury had never been a stranger I happened to meet.

It hadn’t been random. The way she’d mentored me, took care of me, was no longer inexplicable.

My family tree reconstructed itself in my mind with sickening clarity.

My parents, dead in what I’d been told was a car accident but was almost certainly murder.

My uncle—Edgar—dead after years of deep cover work that had eventually killed him.

And now, Eleanor, dead on a warehouse floor because she’d saved me.

“We need to move.” An urgent voice cut through my cloud of confusion.

“Let’s go,” said Reaper, who hadn’t left my side.

“I can’t. Not without my aunt.”

She looked up when another woman appeared. “Katarina,” she whispered.

“Come, Lyra. We need to go now.”

The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it, and the name meant nothing to me.

Yet she was able to help Lyra to her feet.

When I stood too, my aunt reached for my hand, clinging to it like she’d never let it go.

I held on harder too, drawn by something stronger than fear or shock or confusion.

Blood called to blood. Family called to family.

Even if I’d only learned about that family in the last few minutes.

“You look so much like Amelia. Your mother. My sister,” Mercury whispered, her voice broken and raw from screaming. “I’m so sorry. For all the lies. For everything we kept from you.”

I shook my head, understanding that everything had been for a reason—to protect me. I still had so many questions, but they could come later. I looked over my shoulder at Eleanor’s lifeless body as it was carefully moved onto a stretcher.

“She died saving my life.”

“We promised our father we’d take care of you.”

My eyes met hers. “Minerva?”

“Yes, and soon you’ll know the whole story about how we continued to fight on behalf of our father, Horatio Hyde, code name Minerva. Now, you will too.”