Page 26 of Defender (Omega Sector: Under Siege #1)

Ashton made no attempts at stealth as he inched the SWAT van toward George Harper’s house. He had to force himself to go slowly, just like he’d had to force himself to not speed immediately to the house once the rest of the team had sprinted off for their tactical positions.

Everything in him screamed to barrel down the road, to burst into the house guns blazing, to make sure Summer and Chloe were safe again. Only the knowledge that his not-so-elaborate plan would do more harm than good stopped him.

Give the team time to get into place. Harper should be glad it wasn’t Ashton positioning himself with his sniper rifle. For the first time in his career, Ashton wasn’t sure he would wait for the green light to take the shot.

His watch beeped. It was now twenty-eight minutes since Harper’s call. Show time.

He pulled the truck up the isolated road and into the Harper driveway. Grass grew two feet tall all around him. There’d been no upkeep at the place for years. A nondescript vehicle was parked in the cracked driveway.

“Got a gray early-model Camry at the front of the house,” Ashton told the team as he checked inside. “Empty.”

Most of the windows in the house had been knocked out by nature or vandals. Some were boarded up. The front door leaned off its top hinges and sat at a canted angle against the floor, barely upright.

Ashton turned off the truck and got out. “I’m about to enter.” Ashton wouldn’t be able to say much once he was inside if they wanted to keep up the appearance of him being alone.

“Roger that,” Derek responded. “Roman is moving in toward the back to check out closer around the house. Lillian is establishing sniper positioning. So far we’ve had no sighting of Harper’s accomplice.”

There was a hell of a lot of empty ground where the other man could be hiding.

“Backup is on the way. ETA five minutes. We’ll have thermal imaging soon, Ashton. Just draw it out as long as possible.”

“Roger.”

Of course, if Ashton walked in there and Summer or Chloe was hurt—or, oh God, he could hardly bear to think about it, dead —drawing it out wasn’t going to be an issue.

As if he could read Ashton’s mind, Roman muttered, “Fitzy, training, man. Not emotion.”

“I’ll try.” But his promise sounded weak even to himself.

He made his way through the overgrown grass, eyes scanning everywhere for anything that might be useful or pose a threat. The porch steps made a loud sound as his booted feet landed on them. That was fine, Ashton wasn’t attempting stealth.

“So you made it,” he heard Harper say, although he couldn’t see the man. “I had wondered if you would make it in time.”

“I’m coming in, Harper.” Ashton slid the broken front door back as far as he could and stepped inside. The interior state of the house—if it could even be called that with the amount of broken windows and doors—wasn’t any better than the outside.

Ashton stepped over a pile of trash and rounded the corner of what used to be a coat closet that faced the front door. This brought him into what looked like a dining room. A few more steps brought the back room into view.

Harper stood there, grinning like an idiot, gun in hand. Next to him, sitting on the couch, gagged with her arms tied in front of her, was Summer. Chloe was in her car seat on the floor a few feet away from Summer, sleeping.

Something eased slightly in Ashton. They were alive. He would damn well make sure it stayed that way.

“I see Summer and Chloe are alive. Is it really necessary to gag Summer and tie her up?” The info was for the team, apprising them of the situation.

“I’m in charge here, Fitzgerald. You do what I say.” He swung the gun around at Summer. “Or she’s the one who gets dead.”

Ashton held his arms out in front of him. “Okay, Harper, you’re the boss. Whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do.”

“That’s right, I am the boss. Why are you in your SWAT gear?” Harper’s eyes narrowed.

“Because I was at a hostage situation across town when you called. I came straight here.”

“Take out your gun and put it on the ground slowly.”

“Why don’t you point your gun at me? I’m the one you have to worry about.”

Ashton didn’t like how shaky Harper’s hands were, especially with the gun pointed so close to Summer.

“I’m not stupid, Fitzgerald. I know keeping this pointed at her is the only way to keep you in line.”

Harper was correct about that. If Lillian had a shot available, she might take it if Harper had his gun pointed at Ashton. She wouldn’t take the chance if Summer or Chloe’s lives were at stake.

“Alright, Harper. Here’s my gun. I’m putting it on the floor.”

“Kick it away from you.”

Ashton did, but probably not as far as Harper would like.

“Take off your helmet. I want to be able to see your face clearly. I want to know that you wish you hadn’t killed my father.”

Ashton took off his helmet and dropped it to the ground, but tried to stick to the wall. If the second man was out there, ready to take a shot, Ashton wanted to give him as small a target as possible.

“I’m willing to talk about that with you. But you need to let Summer and the baby go first.”

“Why don’t I kill them both and then we’ll talk?” Harper sneered.

Ashton swallowed the panic. “You do that and there’s going to be nothing keeping me from diving across this room and you and me fighting one-on-one. Remember what happened last time we fought, Curtis?” Ashton tapped his nose, reminding Harper of his broken one.

Wrong thing to say. Harper brought the gun even closer to Summer. “That won’t happen again, trust me.”

Ashton tensed to pounce, but then Harper brought a hand up to his ear for just a second, then seemed to relax. He eased the gun away from Summer’s head.

“Fine,” Harper said, sulking like a child. Ashton wasn’t even sure what he was talking about. “Did you come alone?”

“Yes.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?”

“The only thing I care about is getting Summer and her daughter out of here unharmed. You can make that happen. Let them go right now and you can do wherever you want with me.”

Harper brought his hand to his ear again. “Is everything a go?”

Ashton stared at the man. What was Harper talking about?

It dawned on Ashton. Damn it . The man was talking to his partner through a radio comm channel, just like Ashton was with his team.

“Who you talking to on that comm unit, Harper? Your partner?”

Harper’s gloating laugh filled the air. “Just because you’re here alone doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to be.” Harper touched his earpiece. “You’re sure he’s here by himself?”

While Harper and his partner spoke, Ashton’s team reported to him.

“Ashton, we’ve got no evidence of a partner out here.

” Derek’s voice filled his ear. Ashton didn’t want to answer and tip his hand to Harper that he wasn’t, in fact, alone.

“Thermal imagining report in the next two minutes. The rest of the Omega team is here. Tyrone Marcus is making his way around to help Roman.”

Harper was looking at Ashton with glee in his eyes.

“I told you I was alone, Harper. Now let’s stop messing around. Let Summer and the baby go.”

“You killed my father, Fitzgerald. In cold blood.”

“I killed your father because he’d taken people hostage. Had hurt people.”

“He was forced to do that!” Harper’s tone bordered on whiny.

Ashton shook his head. “We gave him every chance to surrender before using lethal force. He’d already killed one of those hostages—a young girl who’d just started college and had never hurt anyone. And he was about to kill someone else.”

As he spoke, Ashton could see a myriad of emotions cross the other man’s face: disbelief, guilt, acceptance, fear. Harper knew what Ashton said was the truth.

Ashton lowered his tone, tried to be more friendly, approachable like Joe Matarazzo would do if he was here handling the negotiation.

“It was an unfortunate situation, Curtis. If I could take it back, I would.” It was a partial lie. Ashton would change shooting George Harper if he could, but only if it meant the other victims wouldn’t have been hurt also. “The Omega team always tries to get everyone out alive if they can.”

He was getting through to Harper. The gun in his hand wavered and lowered.

But then his partner obviously said something to him, because Harper stopped and looked away, holding his ear.

Whatever the other man said worked. At his words, Harper obviously pushed the other emotions away to hang on to what justified his actions now: righteous anger on his father’s behalf.

“No,” Harper said. “Omega Sector does what it wants. Shoots first and asks questions later. You shot before you had all the facts.”

Derek’s voice came on again. “Ashton, thermal imaging confirms there is nobody out here. I don’t know where Harper thinks his partner is, but no one out here has a bead on you.”

No partner.

This changed things. Yes, Harper still had a gun, but if he didn’t have a partner out there with a sniper rifle, the odds just became much greater in Ashton’s favor. All he needed to do was get the gun pointed at him and not Summer.

But where was the partner? If their goal was to kill Ashton, this was a great opportunity. But the other man had left Harper without any backup. What was their plan?

Ashton stepped closer. Summer started shaking her head.

“I shot before I had all the facts?” Ashton ignored Summer and took another step closer to the couch. He needed to be close enough to attack Harper if things turned sour. “Is that what you really believe, Harper, or was that what someone told you to believe?”

Harper’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve known I shot your father for four years. Why are you just now deciding to take revenge?”

“Because you deserve to rot in hell for what you’ve done.”

“That may be true, but why are you just now deciding that’s the case? I think you had to be talked into it. I think maybe you know your father was wrong, but when someone started talking about revenge, that sounded interesting so you went for it.”