Page 9 of Damián

I pause on the third floor to reload. “You bought bio-cement online? Where? Temu?”

“Close, the dark web.”

“Alexios…” Logan sighs, sounding exhausted.

“…Yes, boss?”

“Stop giving Tae access to the dark web. We don’t want another incident like the ‘military’ sedative that made Leif hallucinate dragons for three days.”

“No, we don’t,” Alexios agrees quickly. “That was… messy.”

“I actually didn’t mind.” Leif laughs over the comms.

And to be honest, I didn’t mind it either. It was freaking hilarious.

After the second hallway, Logan signals for us to hold at the door and looks at me. “Who is the target Harry sent us, Damián?”

Ugh… the name feels heavy in my mouth.

Like a damn curse.

I take a deep breath. “…Elijah West.”

The comms go dead silent. Hell, even the gunfire seems to pause for a second.

Yep… that’s pretty much the reaction I was expecting.

“Repeat?” Law asks over the comms.

“Elijah West.”

“Fuck.” The word is said in perfect unison by Law, Logan, Knox, and Tae.

“Who is Elijah West?” Leif asks, because of course, our loving Swedish hippie doesn’t know the devil’s name.

“The worst monster of our time.” I shoot a locked doorknob off a door and kick it open. “He traffics everything from drugs to people all over the world. He uses aliases like Kilos, Wendigo, the Black Shuck…”

“The Black Shuck?!” He gasps after recognizing the nickname. “If everyone knows who he is, why isn’t he locked in a cell?”

“Because he’s a ghost, Leif,” Law answers, and the sound of him chambering a round into his sniper rifle is audible over the line. “There isn’t a shred of evidence to link him with his affairs. On paper, the man is a proper saint.”

“Well, not anymore,” I say, spotting two guards at the end of the hallway. I double-tap the chest of the one on the left; Knox takes the one on the right. “The CIA has an informant on the inside that has helped them stop fifteen shipments and save thirty people.”

“Someone dared to betray Elijah? I don’t know if that person is a hero or an idiot.” Tae’s voice hums in my ear, and I gotta say, his voice is very melodic and nice.

Not that I would ever tell him… he would likely stab me with a sterilized scalpel if I did.

“Probably a bit of both.” Björn shoots at three guards, ejects his mag, drops it, rips a fresh one from his vest, and slams it in.

“What intel do we have about the informant?” Alexios asks. “I checked the entire file, but there’s no mention of who they are.”

“That’s because the CIA has no idea who he or she is,” I explain. “Harry told me they’ve been trying to find a way to meet in person and exchange a secure phone so they can have a two-way method of communication and ask for the specific info they need to arrest Elijah, not just stop his shipments.”

“Makes perfect sense, actually,” Law says.

We reach the sixth floor. The final door is a thick steel-reinforced industrial slab.

This is it.