Page 55 of Renegade (The Santini Assassins #2)

THE SH*T GETS REAL… AND IT GETS UGLY

GREYSTONE

S quirreled away in the conference room at the Black Site, Greystone viewed the surveillance from the Riverdale Apartments and confirmed two of the terrorists were living there.

His phone rang. He put the call on speaker. “Carrera, tell me good news.”

“I got access to the surveillance footage from the camera outside the restroom and uploaded it to ALPHA,” Carrera said.

“We’re checking.” A few seconds later. Caroline nodded. “Got it.”

He thanked his cousin, hung up.

“I’m all over this one,” she said.

As he stared into her eyes, a fiery connection passed between them, then a whisper of a smile filled her face.

Over the next thirty minutes, he pulled together his hand-selected team for the surprise raid at oh-two-hundred. Then, he spent the next hour, heads-down, working out the deets.

An errant noise had him glancing up. Teddy, Sin, and Dakota stood on the other side of the conference table staring down at him. They wore no smiles. Sin’s cheek muscles were ticking in his jaw, Dakota’s lips were slashed in a thin line, and stress lines were etched deep on Teddy’s face.

“This can’t be good,” Greystone said.

“We have a problem,” Dakota said.

All three men sat. Dakota spun his laptop toward him and Caroline.

Greystone stared at the posted photo and the constant agitation that clung like a fucking virus exploded in a sea of rage.

“You’ve been made,” Sin said.

“Fuck,” he growled.

“Oh, no,” Caroline murmured.

In the private chat group, where Greystone had posted a pic of Haqazzii’s dead body, was a photo of him and Caroline at the joint base in Anacostia—he in the flight suit he was still wearing, she in her street clothes.

“Looks like it was taken from across the river,” Sin said.

“With a very high-powered camera,” Teddy added.

“Jesus,” he growled. “They could have shot us.”

“No, they’re having too much fun fucking with us,” Sin said. “Did you see the caption?”

Greystone read it.

We know who you are. Bring it on.

Fury swirled around him like a tornado, until his gaze found Caroline’s. Bolstered by the sheer determination in her eyes, an overwhelming desire to win rose from the depths of his soul.

“You can’t leave the Black Site,” Dakota said.

“Not happening. We’re raiding Riverdale at oh-two-hundred— two AM—and we start our planning meeting here, in thirty minutes. Nine o’clock.”

“Are we kidnapping or eliminating?” Sin asked.

“I wanna slit their throats,” he ground out, “but that won’t help us find the bombs.”

Everyone stood but Caroline.

“I’ll call Providence and say goodnight to the kids,” Dakota said.

“I gotta give Evangeline a heads-up,” Sin said.

“I need a power nap,” Teddy said.

The three men left, with Teddy shutting the door behind him.

Alone with Caroline. His attention shifted to her and every piece of life’s puzzles fell into place. He clasped her hand, and she stared at their entwined fingers.

“We’re together ‘round the clock goin’ forward.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I had a feeling you’d say that. I’d feel more comfortable at my place. I know you’re gonna say there’s no security?—”

“Condo works. Dakota’s right. Here is better, but I’m not hidin’.”

She stroked his skin with her thumb. Gentle caresses that were meant to calm, but had the opposite effect. The desire swirled around him, the need to kiss her, to pull her into his arms sent blood rushing through him. When his junk moved, he pulled his hand away.

“Sorry, PDA,” she murmured.

“I love your touch. So does my Johnson.”

She laughed, then the delight in her eyes faded. “We have to wear body armor every day.”

“Agreed.”

“We’ve gotta be vigilant.”

“Yup.”

“Are you scared?” she asked .

“No.” He peered into her eyes and caught a glimpse of anxiety flash across her pretty face. “You?”

“I feel like I dropped the ball,” she confessed.

“As a handler, I was trained to be aware of my IOs’s surroundings as best as I could.

I trusted no one when it came to intel and always confirmed and reconfirmed.

Anything I handed over to my IOs had to be reliable.

If I made a mistake or a miscalculation, someone could die. I should have known they’d find us.”

“Austin, we got this. We’ve got a strong team, we’ve got home turf advantage?—”

“This isn’t a sports game,” she bit out. “We could die.”

He regarded her for an extra beat. “You don’t have to go?—”

“Yes, I do,” she pushed back. “I need to see this through, just like you do. To the end, no matter how it goes.”

“We could die, but we won’t.”

“We better not,” she murmured. “That would really piss me off.”

He smiled. It took several seconds before he could coax one out of her. “We got this.”

“I’m still reviewing the surveillance of the hallway outside the out-of-order restroom.” She refocused her attention on her laptop.

Though she’d severed their connection, his gaze stayed cemented on her. Her beauty soothed him, her determination bolstered his.

“Shouldn’t you be doing something besides watching me work?” She shot him a smile.

He loved that, despite the constant pressure, she could pluck him from his angst.

“Whoa, check this out.” She spun her laptop toward him, rewound the footage and hit play. “Time stamp says eleven-fifty at night.”

A man wearing a custodial uniform stopped his cart in front of the FBI restroom. He keyed his way inside, stayed there for several seconds, then exited. He looked up and down the deserted hallway, pulled something from one of the lower containers on the pushcart, then ducked back into the bathroom.

She stopped the video, zoomed in, but Greystone couldn’t ID what the man had removed from his cart.

“That’s not paper towels or toilet paper,” she said.

After several minutes, the man in the video exited, then continued down the hallway, until he vanished from the frame.

Caroline pulled up the photos of the mug shots, then toggled back and forth. “I think it’s him.” She pointed to one of the men. “He changed up his looks. I’d walk right by him.”

He’d shaved his facial hair, wore glasses. Either he’d grown his hair longer and lightened it or he was wearing a wig.

“They’re not playin’ around,” Greystone bit out.

He couldn’t miss the fire in her eyes. “Neither are we.”

Without another word, she left, shutting the door behind her.

Greystone was alone with his thoughts and with his demons. At the moment, they were one in the same… and he welcomed the mayhem. Feeling settled and overly confident was the last thing he needed. They needed this win and they needed it bad.

At twenty-one hundred, Greystone left the exec conference room, his laptop tucked under his arm. En route to the large conference room, he grabbed several waters. Once he rounded the corner, voices spilled into the hallway and the pit in his stomach grew.

His team needed to know that tonight could go well or it could be a trap, set by Muhammad Haqazzii, a mastermind of destruction and murder. Killing a highly-skilled BLACK OPS team would be a great victory for the international terror cell.

Greystone would fight to his death, and he would stop a bullet with his body if that meant one of his teammates could live.

He entered the conference room, set down the chilled waters, and plugged in his laptop.

Once the picture was projected on the opposite wall, he eyed the group of fifteen, which included Dakota, Sin, Hawk, Addison, Prescott, Slash, Rebel, Teddy, and Caroline.

The ALPHA Ops he’d first met by video chat were Stryker, Emerson, Cooper, Danielle, and Jericho.

As he eased down, he asked, “How’s everyone doin’?” After a chorus of responses, he continued. “Let’s start with mission agenda.” He tapped his laptop and the details shone on the back wall.

“For the next ninety, we’ll be reviewing the mission, the goals, the potential challenges.

Everyone’s been paired, we got one trio.

Spouses are teamed. If that’s a no-go, speak up.

” He paused, but the group remained silent.

“We’re hitting building three where Caroline saw the leader, Muhammad Haqazzii, and one of his soldiers enter and exit.

She’s confident they’ve taken over that building. ”

“And if they’re spread out over the three?” Sin asked.

“Caroline’s thorough. I trust her completely.” Greystone shifted toward her. “Austin, why don’t you address Sin?”

“All three buildings are occupied,” she began, “but I’ve only identified terrorists in building number three.

If we raid the other two buildings—where no one matches the descriptions of the men we’re after—we could kill innocent people, we could trigger a media frenzy, and we open ourselves up to being shot by a homeowner.

I’m also aware that we could be walking into a trap, so I’m more concerned with containing the mayhem than adding to it. ”

“Well said,” Slash said.

“I’m good,” Sin said. “Thanks, Caroline.”

Greystone acknowledged her with a nod. “Once we complete the raid, we secure the prisoners in the vans. We’ve ID’d fourteen confirmed terrorists, but there could be more.”

“So, we could be walking into a situation with dozens of ‘em,” Jericho said.

“Yeah, but doubtful based on intel,” Greystone said.

He addressed everyone’s concerns, but he had no guarantees. He acknowledged they were going in blind, not knowing if they’d be walking into rooms filled with explosives set to blow when they opened the doors or a group of terrorists waiting to ambush them.

“Time’s running out,” he said. “We’re an action group, not a watch-and-wait team. We bring ‘em in alive, if possible, and we confiscate any laptops and phones we find.”

At twenty-three thirty, Greystone said, “Hawk, kill the cameras at Riverdale.”

Hawk got busy on his laptop. “Done.” He slid his computer to Teddy who confirmed that Hawk had deactivated the security cameras in the complex.

“One more thing,” Greystone added. “We’re goin’ in with assault rifles.”