Page 9 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

He pulled the trigger.

He stops two feet away. He doesn't look at the dead gunman bleeding out on the floor. He doesn't look at the chaos in the room below.

He looks only at me.

His gaze drops to the blood splattered across my face and chest. A muscle ticks beneath his scarred cheek.

For a long second, we stare at each other. The fragile sanctuary of my life and the brutality of his colliding in the center of the ruined stage.

He shifts his grip on the rifle, lowering the smoking barrel toward the floor.

He extends his left hand.

A massive hand, the knuckles scarred, the calluses thick. A hand built to inflict violence.

"If you want to live..." His voice is a gravel rumble that vibrates through the floorboards and into my bones. "Come with me."

3

The Breach

DAX

"If you want to live..." My voice drops to a gravel rumble that vibrates through the blood-slicked oak of the stage. "Come with me."

The ballerina doesn't move.

She remains on her hands and knees in the center of the slaughterhouse, the white tulle of her costume stained crimson. Her chest heaves with shallow breaths. Her wide eyes, emerald green, lock onto my face, dilated with terror.

I keep my left hand extended. The calluses on my knuckles are thick, my skin still coated in the fine grit of burned powder from the three shots I took from the comms tower.

My body screams for oxygen, my chest a furnace from closing the twelve-hundred-yard gap. Slinging the TAC-338 and descending the comms tower ate precious seconds. Sprinting three-quarters of a mile through the sweltering streets while carrying fifty pounds of Kevlar, ceramic plates, and ammunition pushed me to my limits.

My thighs burn from twenty flights of emergency stairs taken two at a time. The Kevlar vest traps the Bangkok heat against my chest, slicking my skin with sweat.

The sprint is a neon smear in my memory—screeching taxis, panicked tourists, the metallic snap of shooting out the mag-locks on the loading dock doors.

I control my breathing and force my heart rate out of the red zone, letting the cold discipline of the sniper wash back over the burn of the sprint.

"Wraith, report." Hutch's voice cuts through the encrypted comms in my left ear. The clinical detachment of the Task Force 9 leader is gone, replaced by cold authority. "Local authorities are three minutes out. Private security is pulling back. You have a Consortium ground element converging on your location."

"I have the primary target." My gaze never leaves the ballerina.

"You burned the tracking operation." Hutch's voice hardens. "We needed them to lead us to the hub. By taking those shots, you declared war on the most ruthless syndicate in Southeast Asia."

"No shit."

"Why?" The word lands sharp.

"I couldn't watch it happen." My tone is dead flat. "They took a secondary asset. They dragged her into the service elevator while I was dropping the point men."

Dead air on the comms. Half a second of it.

"Okay." Hutch exhales, pivoting to the problem. "If they took a secondary, this op isn't a total loss. We might be able to salvage it. They'll consider it a partial success, but they'll send a clean-up crew to eliminate loose ends. They'll trace your firing position in minutes. Every corrupt cop on their payroll is about to sweep that tower and expand outward. Secure Lily Masters and move to Fallback Point Echo. Now."

"Copy that."

I don't break eye contact with the girl on the floor.