Page 198 of Damián

Fuck…

Fuck!

“On route to the pool,” Logan says. “Forty yards out.”

I rush down the stone steps into the back garden, pushing my body to its absolute limit as I race toward the pool area, praying to find Tae.

Across the lawn, a man pops out from behind a row of hedges, raising his pistol.

I dive into a slide across the grass, tracking the guy as I move. Halfway through the slide, I plant my hand, flipping my weight around to reverse my momentum, and fire a headshot.

I push up off the grass and bounce right back into a sprint, pushing my body as fast as it can go, but two seconds later, another guy charges out from behind a stone gazebo, his rifle already aimed right at my head.

THWACK!

The man falls to the floor.

“Down. You’re good to go, mate.”

“Thanks, Law.”

Seconds later, I reach the pool area, but there is nothing but bodies, broken glass, and smoke.

“Tae!” a voice screams somewhere behind me, and the air instantly leaves my lungs because I recognize that voice.

It’s Oliver.

I spin around, my vision tunneling as sheer panic sets in, and that’s when I see them. Tae is on the floor next to Oliver, who is crouching to help him get up.

“Oliver, move!” Tae screams, shoving his hand against Ollie’s chest to push him backward.

And that’s when I see him… just a few feet away, one of Rafael’s men steps out from behind a stone pillar, raising a knife and aiming it directly at Oliver’s head.

No!

Panic floods my entire body.

I lift my gun, trying to get a clean line of sight on the attacker, but another man blindsides me from the side. He tackles me, pinning my arms down as we crash into a glass garden table.

Fuck! I don’t have time for this.

Using the momentum of the crash, I slam the back of my head into the guy’s nose, shattering it, and as he stumbles back, howling in pain, I grab a jagged piece of broken glass from the shattered table, take him down, and spin around as I raise my assault rifle.

I lock my eyes onto the man across the pool, who is just about to stab Oliver, and shoot.

THUD!

The man drops. I get up, sprinting toward them.

“I have Oliver and Tae,” I tell the rest of the team. “They are alive.”

“Oliver? I thought you locked him up.”

“I did, Knox,” I say, jumping over the debris of a broken pillar. “Leif, you have to figure out how the fuck that happened.”

“Will do.”

The moment I reach them, I can finally breathe.