Page 28 of Tag (The Golden Team #9)

Tag

T he first bullet hit the front door like a hammer through glass.

I shoved the receptionist down behind the counter and sprinted toward the back, heart slamming against my ribs. Aponi’s voice had just yelled from the office—

Then the window exploded.

I rounded the corner to find chaos.

Faron was already firing through the blown-out glass, calm and lethal. Aponi had her mother on the ground, shielding her with her body, blood running from a cut above her eyebrow.

“Two outside, north side!” I barked, taking cover by the doorway and firing at the dark figures moving through the rain.

“They’re not cartel,” Faron grunted. “Too coordinated.”

I caught a glimpse of body armor through the smoke.

“Private contractors,” I said. “Somebody with serious money wants her dead.”

Aponi scrambled to her feet, hauling her mother behind the desk as bullets tore through the wall above them.

“Back door’s a trap,” she shouted. “They’ve got us boxed in!”

Faron reloaded. “Then we make our own exit.”

I nodded toward the hall.

A grenade rolled across the floor.

“Down!” I yelled, tackling the nearest table just as it went off with a deafening BOOM .

Smoke. Screaming metal. Dust and drywall in the air.

My ears rang, but I could still hear gunfire—closer now.

“Tag!” Aponi shouted.

I coughed, crawling toward the desk. “I’m here! Everyone okay?”

Faron emerged from the smoke, dragging a duffel of recovered weapons from under the desk. “We’ve got ten seconds before they breach.”

Aponi’s mother looked dazed but conscious. “There’s a tunnel under the pantry. Emergency evac for the girls. It leads out past the alley.”

I grabbed her arm. “Then let’s go.”

We ran.

Gunfire ripped through the walls as we ducked into the kitchen. I slammed the pantry door behind us, wedging a broken chair under the knob just as someone rammed it from the other side.

Tag dropped to his knees and yanked up a trapdoor hidden beneath the pantry shelf.

“Go!” he barked.

Faron first. Then Aponi. Then her mother.

I went last, pulling the hatch closed just as the kitchen door burst open behind me.