Page 21 of Secrets Beneath the Waves (Beach Read Thrillers #2)
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
She lifted her gaze, and he saw in her expression that she knew she had to choose. “You think I’m going to turn myself over to you to save him?”
Ramon’s stomach clenched.
“Because, you know, I totally would.” She straightened, pulling a gun from behind her back. She pulled the trigger and shot the general’s driver.
He fell away from Ramon, nearly dragging him down.
Ramon didn’t look at the guy sprawled on the ground. The general was the real threat here.
Schnell started to laugh. “You think he wasn’t expendable.”
“I know you are.” She pointed her gun at the general and started walking toward them.
The guy who’d driven her car came with her.
Ramon realized he knew the man, one of Miami Security International’s operatives.
Their company had gone through a shake-up recently when they’d discovered their boss was actually part of Dominatus.
But this guy wasn’t? Ramon didn’t have any idea what was going on.
The general whipped out a pistol and brought it around to aim at Ramon.
Zeyla shot him in the shoulder.
Ramon flinched hard, thinking he was going to get shot, and he landed on the ground. From there, he swung his good leg around and knocked the general to the ground.
Men raced across the street from that run-down house, racing over to disarm the general while he yelled and screamed at Zeyla.
She just stood there, watching it all go down. “Make sure he doesn’t have any way to kill himself.”
“You’ll never get the truth out of me!”
The MSI operatives dragged him to his feet. Schnell struggled against their hold, and the MSI guys started to drag him away. He pushed against one with his body and managed to dislodge the guy’s grip. Schnell straightened, pressing something on his front like it was a button.
“What is that?” One of the guys grabbed his lapel and started pulling his uniform jacket off. “What did you just do?”
Schnell stood very still.
“I think we should get out of here,” Ramon said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
A major player in Dominatus should have a whole lot more robust safeguards in place to prevent being captured. There was no way the guy would talk, let alone confess to anything. Or tell them how to take the organization down. But he seemed almost…smug.
“We should get him out of here,” one of the MSI guys said, shoving the general toward the other vehicle.
Zeyla crouched in front of Ramon, swayed, and put a hand on his good shoulder. “You okay?”
“I should be asking you the same thing.”
“To be honest, I think you look worse than me.”
Ramon needed to get off the ground, but he didn’t think he could unless his life depended on it. “What is going on?” His eyes burned with unshed tears. “I thought you were dead.”
“Yeah. When I woke up? That hurt.” She touched her hairline gently. “I have a concussion, for sure. But thankfully, it was MSI that showed up and not the general’s men.”
Ramon shook his head.
“I guess Maizie sent the cavalry when you hung up on her, and they had a team in Seattle for a meeting. They brought their superfast chopper. I’m here. The rest is history.”
“Not quite.” He just needed a minute to process it all. “Swanson is going to go down as the Count, and he was part of it, but he wasn’t the one in charge. That was Schnell.” He paused. “He said he knew you.”
“I think Swanson might’ve been the one who cut me up. I don’t remember. But when I woke up, the general was there, and I was in some kind of military installation.”
He covered her hand with his. “How is it that they’ve infiltrated the military? We can’t fight against that! Taking down Dominatus is going to be impossible.”
“I’m guessing you also thought it was impossible that I survived the fall. But I did.” She glanced at the SUV where the operatives loaded the general into the back seat. “We succeeded.”
“Doesn’t feel like a win.”
“Because it’s one part of the puzzle. It might take a lifetime to get them all, but we will. Promise me that we’ll bring them all down.”
Ramon nodded slowly. “I can promise that.”
One of the MSI guys wandered over. “We’ll get out of your hair and take the general to our facility for questioning, so don’t worry about him.”
Ramon nodded again.
“You guys can take this vehicle, right?” The man motioned to the general’s SUV. “Might want to find a hospital and get checked out.”
Ramon chuckled, and it hurt. He groaned. “Guess I have to get off the ground sometime.”
The guy held out his hand. Zeyla supported his back, and they got him up.
“Thanks, guys.” Ramon shook the operative’s hand. “I’d love a debrief, preferably when I’m not in so much pain.”
“Gotcha.” The guy nodded at Zeyla and turned to his vehicle.
A whistle in the sky was the only warning.
Just a few seconds warning before a dark gray projectile flew through the sky, dropping down from a great height above and slamming into the SUV with the general in it. The vehicle exploded into a fireball that lifted it several feet off the ground.
Zeyla shoved Ramon to the ground, and everything washed in sunlight and flashes of pain. His head hit the pavement, and his whole world went black again.