Page 110 of Defending You

Asher waited until Wiry was directly above his position, then exploded out of the ditch. His hand clamped over the man’s mouth as the knife found its mark between his ribs, angled upward toward the heart. The man’s body went rigid, then limp, and Asher lowered him silently to the ground.

He took the man’s earpiece and listened.

“Marco?” The voice carried a note of concern. “You got something?”

Asher whispered, “Yeah,” hoping the commando wouldn’t realize the voice hadn’t come from his partner.

“Coming.” Sure enough, the larger guy started moving toward him.

Asher crouched behind the oak, controlling his breathing. His shoulder throbbed, his knee ached, but adrenaline kept the pain manageable. He had maybe ten seconds before the partner realized Marco wasn’t there.

“Hold up. Patrol,” Grant said in Asher’s ear.

Hold up?They needed to move in. Asher could only divert for so long.

The larger man’s footsteps crunched through the underbrush, moving toward the oak. “Marco, status.”

Asher heard the words both through the enemy’s comms and through the forest. He gripped the knife, sticky with blood. This one would be harder—bigger, maybe more experienced, considering the way he moved silently on the bracken.

Asher was creeping out from behind his tree when the commando spun, raising his weapon.

Asher dove, tackling him around the waist and driving him backward into a cluster of saplings.

The man’s handgun discharged into the canopy above them.

They hit the ground hard, the commando’s breath whooshing out. Asher drove his elbow into the man’s solar plexus, then brought the knife up. The blade caught him in the throat, and he went still, his eyes staring sightlessly at the night sky.

Asher rolled off the body, chest heaving. The gunshot would signal where he was. He needed to move.

He shoved the enemies’ comm units into his pocket, speaking into his team’s. “Two down. Shot fired.”

“We heard.” Grant’s deadpan reply might’ve made Asher smile under other circumstances. “We’re moving now. Stay low and don’t get caught.”

Asher was already jogging, needing to be far from this place before anyone reached him.

He ran deeper into the forest, making all sorts of noise on his way.Follow my breadcrumbs, boys.

His phone buzzed—Gagnon calling back.

He kept moving, silently now, and ducked behind a bush twenty feet from a fallen tree, hoping the enemy would look there first. He pulled out his phone and answered. “I bet you hoped I wouldn’t pick up.”

The question was met with a long beat of silence. “The men?”

“Won’t be reporting in.”

“You just signed your death certificate.”

“You’d better hope not.”

“You have no cards. Every second you evade capture is another moment of torture for your little girlfriend.”

Cici screamed, punctuating the point.

“You will protect Cici, or I will end you.” He let fury resonate with the words. “With a push of a button. And if your goons happen to get to me first, you’d better start running.”

Speaking of goons, he spotted a couple moving through the woods, far enough away that he wasn’t worried he’d be heard. Not yet, anyway.

Gagnon said, “What are you talking about?”