Page 4 of Code Name: Reaper (K19 Allied Intelligence Team Two #5)

AMARYLLIS

A fter nine days of never staying anywhere longer than a night, switching between trains, buses, and walking through half of Europe, I’d landed in a safe house in Kreuzberg, which I hoped would serve as my base for longer than twenty-four hours.

I’d moved through Vienna, Prague, and a dozen smaller cities whose names blurred together in my memory, until exhaustion finally forced me to take a break.

Rain drummed against the small windows as I hunched over my laptop in the dining room of the place I’d found through a contact who owed me more than money.

Seven months of searching for Mercury. Nine days since I’d gone rogue.

And I was still no closer to finding her.

Three separate data streams showed the same frustrating pattern—dead ends, encrypted communications I couldn’t crack, and financial transfers that disappeared into shell companies across Eastern Europe.

The latest intercepts from Prism’s network mentioned “asset management” and “cleanup protocols,” but nothing specific enough to pinpoint locations. Every lead turned into another maze of false identities and ghost accounts.

My facial recognition software had been running continuous scans of transportation hubs, hotels, and government buildings for the past week. Every contact, every asset, every source knew nothing . The network of people I could trust had shrunk to almost zero. That left?—

A sound from the rear of the house made me freeze. Not the random settling noises I’d learned to filter out over the past few hours. This was purposeful. Methodical.

Someone was at my fucking rear door.

Hostile. Had to be. No one approached a safe house accidentally, and my contact wouldn’t come without advance notification. The place was supposed to be uncompromised, which could mean someone had burned me.

I closed the laptop and moved to the kitchen window, staying low. Between the rain and the darkness of night, I could make out a figure near the service entrance. Professional posture, measured movement.

My mind raced through possibilities as I grabbed my go-bag and weapon. Local police wouldn’t approach this way, nor would German intelligence—if I’d somehow landed on their radar. That left bad actors.

My blood turned ice cold. They’d found me.

Something metallic scraped against the reinforced door—breach tools working through the security systems. Professional work, which meant this definitely wasn’t random. FSB, most likely.

I moved toward the stairs, planning to exit through the second floor and across the rooftops. Three steps up, I heard the distinctive sound of the rear door opening.

Shit. They were faster than expected. I raised my weapon as a shadow moved through the kitchen doorway.

“Amaryllis.” The voice stopped me cold. Not foreign. American. Male. Familiar.

“What the fuck?” I spun around, gun aimed, as Reaper stepped into the kitchen like he owned the place.

For a split second, relief flooded through me. I hadn’t been burned after all. Then fury took its place—white-hot, incandescent rage that made my vision blur at the edges.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” I kept the Glock trained on his center mass. My hands shook with barely controlled violence. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“We need to go. Now. ” His voice was granite hard, offering no room for argument as he swept the space, cataloging my setup. “FSB teams are three minutes behind me, maybe less.”

The sheer arrogance of this bastard. Breaking into my safe house, terrorizing me, and acting like he had any right to be here.

“I didn’t fucking request extraction!” The words exploded out of me like bullets. “I told you to save Mercury first, you sonuvabitch !”

His jaw clenched. “Mercury’s not the one with kill teams closing in on her location. Wren tracked you here. If she can find you, so can Prism.”

“I don’t need?—”

“Yes, you fucking do.” The insane man stepped closer and completely ignored the weapon pointed at his chest. “Enough playing lone wolf. Enough reckless bullshit while professional killers hunt you down. You want to get yourself killed? Fine. But I’m not letting you take critical intelligence with you. ”

“Critical intelligence?” My laugh sounded harsh and bitter. “You mean your precious mission parameters are more important than Mercury’s life? Typical.”

“Don’t.” His voice dropped to a lethal range. “Don’t you dare question my priorities.”

“Your priorities led you to babysit me rather than provide the help I needed. Mercury is out there right now, probably being tortured by Prism’s people, and you’re playing white knight because you think I need saving. I don’t. It’s never been about me, you fucking arrogant?—”

Something shifted in his expression—raw fury that made my pulse spike for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.

“You don’t need saving?” He moved closer.

Close enough for me to feel the heat radiating off his body.

“You call FSB assassins arriving within the next few minutes ‘not needing saving’? Or hiding in safe houses while sending cryptic messages ‘handling it’? Sweetheart, if I have to put you in handcuffs and throw you over my shoulder to get you out of here alive, I will. Don’t test me. ”

The endearment hit like a slap. “Don’t you dare call me?—”

An alert sounded on my laptop. Motion sensors triggered.

“Fuck.” I glanced at the display. Three figures moved through the garden. Different approach patterns from Reaper’s route. “They’re here.”

“I told you.” Reaper was busy readying weapons. The way his hands moved—steady and controlled—sent an unwanted shiver down my spine. “Three minutes was optimistic.”

Glass shattered in the front room. Coordinated breach—multiple entry points. These weren’t amateurs.

Heavy boots hit the hardwood floor below. Voices in Russian, sharp and efficient.

“How many?” I whispered as adrenaline overrode my anger.

Reaper went still and silent. “Small team. Four at the most. They want this quiet.”

Footsteps pounded on the stairs. They were coming up fast.

“Fire escape.” Reaper moved toward the bedroom window.

I grabbed my laptop bag and weapon. “They’ll have it covered.”

“Better than staying here.”

The first Russian appeared at the top of the stairs. I put two rounds dead center before he could raise his pistol. The body slunk to the floor.

“Contact!” someone shouted in accented English.

Reaper reached the window and looked down. “Two more in the alley, but it’s our only way out.”

More footsteps pounded up the stairs. The remaining team was almost here.

“Jump! I’ll cover you!” Reaper shouted.

“Are you insane?”

Gunfire erupted from the hallway behind us. No choice now.

“Move!” Reaper kicked out the window screen and stepped onto the metal platform.

I followed him out the window, and we clattered down the stairs as fast as we could.

Bullets sparked off the grating around us when the Russians in the alley opened fire.

“Jump from here!” Reaper shouted when we reached the second-floor landing.

Two stories down onto wet pavement. I hit hard and rolled across the alley. Reaper landed beside me and pulled both of us to our feet.

“Motorcycle!” He pointed to a black BMW at the alley mouth. “Let’s go!”

We ran as bullets hit the concrete inches from our feet as we raced toward it.

Reaper kicked on the engine of the bike he must’ve arrived on. His muscles flexed under his gear. “German intelligence response is five minutes out!”

I climbed on behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist.

The bike launched forward. Behind us, automatic weapon fire lit up the night as the FSB agents poured from inside the building.

“Left!” I spotted a roadblock ahead. “They’ve got the main streets!”

Reaper’s knee nearly scraped the pavement as he leaned into a turn that defied physics, and shot onto a narrow side alley.

Bullets whined off brick walls inches from our heads as we weaved through the streets.

“Subway!” Reaper pointed ahead of us.

He skidded to a stop at the entrance. We abandoned the bike and raced down the concrete steps into the tunnel system.

“Run!” Reaper grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the maintenance corridors.

Footsteps echoed from behind. Heavy boots. At least three hostiles on our tails.

We squeezed into a narrow maintenance passage, pressed together in the confined space. I could feel his heartbeat, fast and hard.

Flashlights swept the main tunnel, and voices shouted orders in Russian. They were more now, spreading out, searching systematically.

We pressed deeper into the shadows when a beam of light drifted past our hiding spot. The voices faded as the team moved beyond our position.

We stood there in the dark, breathing hard, facing each other. The adrenaline, the fury, the electricity between us—it was all still there, crackling in the air.

“You should have left me.” My voice was raw with anger mixed with terror.

“Like hell.” His words were rough, dangerous. “You think I’d let them put a bullet in your head?”

“I specifically told you to save Mercury first, and you ignored me!”

“You want to hate me for saving your life? Fine. Hate me.”

“I do hate you.” The words came out breathless and unconvincing.

Reaper’s body pressed against mine. His hands fisted in my hair, and his mouth crashed into mine. I returned his kiss with everything I had—all the rage and terror burning through my veins.

“I hate you,” I repeated. “I fucking hate you.”

“Yeah, babe, I hate you too,” he said before he thrust his tongue inside my mouth, making my traitorous body lean harder into his.