Chapter 6 - The Innocent Infiltrator
Damon’s breath caught in his throat. Every instinct forged in a decade of ruthless mob warfare screamed at him to rush forward, grab the child, and pull her into the shadows. But moving now would expose his team to the mercenaries inside.
“Hold fire!” Damon hissed into his throat mic, his heart hammering against his ribs. “Hold fire! The child is in the approach zone!”
Marcus’s eyes widened in horror beside him. “How did she get past Vance and Thomas?”
“It doesn't matter,” Damon growled under his breath. “Cover me.”
Ruby was small, agile, and utterly oblivious to the perimeter guards or the rifles aimed through the high windows. She had seen the yellow lights of the slaughterhouse and had done what any terrified three-year-old would do: she had gone searching for her mother.
She reached the rusted metal side door—the exact point where Damon had intended to set the breaching charge. The heavy door was pulled slightly open, leaving a six-inch gap where a rusted chain had snapped off years ago.
Ruby squeezed right through it.
Inside the slaughterhouse, the sound of small, wet sneakers squeaking on oily concrete cut through the low hum of the halogen lights.
Julian froze, turning his head toward the shadowy corridor leading from the side entrance. “Who’s there?” he snapped, raising his suppressed pistol.
Moretti’s mercenaries raised their weapons, their eyes scanning the dark perimeter of the kill floor.
Out of the darkness, carrying her wet stuffed rabbit, walked Ruby.
Elena let out a choked, ragged scream of pure agony. “Ruby! No! Get out! Run!”
The little girl stopped dead in her tracks, her big brown eyes wide with terror as she saw her mother tied to the chair, her face bruised. “Mommy!” Ruby cried out, dropping the rabbit and sprinting forward across the vast, open concrete floor.
“Grab her!” Moretti shouted, a cruel smile spreading across his wrinkled face. “Grab the girl!”
One of the mercenaries stepped forward, reaching out a massive, gloved hand to seize Ruby by her hood.
He never touched her.
A thunderous crack shattered the slaughterhouse glass as a heavy-caliber sniper round tore through the roof skylight, striking the mercenary directly in the chest and launching him backward off his feet.
Before the body hit the floor, the metal side door blew inward with a deafening flash bang, sending a blinding wave of light and concussive sound ripping through the room.
Damon Reyes charged through the smoke.
He moved with terrifying, predatory speed. He fired three rounds from his Sig Sauer in mid-stride, dropping the second mercenary before the man could bring his rifle to bear.
Damon slid across the slick floor, catching Ruby around the waist with his left arm, spinning his body to shield her from a spray of incoming bullets as Moretti’s remaining men opened fire blindly into the smoke.
“I got you,” Damon growled into Ruby’s ear, pulling her tight against his armored vest as he ducked behind a heavy steel meat-trolley frame. “I got you, sweetheart.”
Ruby buried her face into his chest, her hands clutching his tactical vest so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Damon! The bad man hit Mommy!”
May you like
“I know,” Damon whispered, his eyes burning with a dark, unholy fire. “Stay down right here. Don't move.”
He set her down behind the thick steel base of the trolley, drew a secondary magazine from his belt, slapped it into his weapon, and rose from behind the cover like a ghost rising from a graveyard.
