Her Rogue Alpha (X-Ops Book 5) (9 page)

“We have to keep going,” Jayson ground out. “They’re right behind us.”

Mikhail pointed at a metal grate in the wall a few feet away. “There’s a series of tunnels down there. We can get to the other side of the river if we go that way.”

Powell shook his head. “If we disappear, those soldiers are going to know we’re in the tunnels. They’ll have people waiting for us on the other side of the river before we can get there.”

Jayson hated to admit it, but Powell was right. The tunnels were a good escape route, just not for all of them.

“You, Dylan, and Olek take the tunnels,” he said to Mikhail. “We’ll lead the soldiers away from here and meet up with you later.”

Dylan looked like he didn’t think much of the idea. Neither did Powell. Jayson didn’t give either of them a chance to complain. He shoved Dylan toward the grate, then grabbed Powell by the sleeve and motioned him back toward the top of the aqueduct. The man took off without comment.

“There’s an abandoned library on the other side of the river straight across from here,” Mikhail called. “We’ll wait in the basement until morning. If you don’t come, we’ll know you didn’t make it.”

Jayson nodded. He waited until the three teens opened the grate and disappeared into the dark tunnel below, then he ran over to where Powell was waiting. They both took off toward the dilapidated industrial area.

“You’d better be right about this,” Powell said. “Because you just let the only reason we’re here slip away. If that kid bites it, this is going on your record, not mine.”

“By all means, let’s worry about your damn record at a time like this. Your concern for the lives of those kids is touching,” Jayson shot back as they headed for the ramshackle buildings on the other side of the aqueduct.

The place looked like it used to be a steel factory or an oil refinery, judging by the big metal pipes and conveyor chutes running between the buildings and toward the river. As the last rays of the sun slipped behind the dilapidated structures, the gathering gloom had Jayson thinking of a set you’d see in a Batman movie—all dark, gritty, and gothic.

Jayson and Powell moved slowly enough to make sure they didn’t completely lose the soldiers behind them. Unfortunately, their plan worked a little too well. One second they were jogging toward the entrance of the nearest building and the next shots were coming at them out of the darkness. Bullets smacked into the building all around them, an occasional glowing-red tracer round lighting up the night as it zipped past.
Damn, there must be at least a dozen troops out there.

Before long, he and Powell found themselves being herded in first one direction, then another. They tried to break out of the noose closing around them by taking out four of the shadowy figures chasing them, but that still left eight to deal with, and he and Powell were forced up the stairs to the roof of the factory building they were in. Jayson’s back screamed from exertion as he jumped from roof to roof, but the hybrid serum must have been doing its job because he could deal with the pain.

Soon enough, they ran out of rooftops and ended up trapped behind a crumbling brick chimney that exploded into pieces as round after round slammed into it from the other side.
Fuck
. This was so not how he’d thought this mission would go. He’d wanted to get a simple op under his belt to prove himself, then he and Layla would get teamed up together. But it looked like that wasn’t how this was going to work out.

He’d been so worried about Layla going on a mission, and now it looked like he was the one who was probably going to buy it on the job. There had to be some irony there, but he couldn’t see it. He didn’t even want to think how much his death would hurt Layla.

Jayson loaded his last clip and gave Powell a look in the gloom. “I saw a scene likes this in a movie called
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
. It didn’t exactly end well for either one of them, and it probably won’t for us either, but we’re going have to shoot our way out of here anyway. Maybe in the dark we can get past them and find some stairs down to ground level again.”

“Screw that noise,” Powell said. “You need to do some of that shifter shit and get us the fuck out of here.”

Jayson snorted. Guess Powell hadn’t gotten the memo that claws and fangs weren’t part of his particular package.

“Sorry, guy.” He ducked his head as a round hit a little too close for comfort, making shards of stone fly off the chimney and pepper his face. “I might be a shifter, but not that kind.”

Powell stared at him in shock for a moment, then his lip curled in a sneer. “Well, if you can’t do anything to get us out of this, I guess it’s my job to make sure these guys don’t get their hands on you.”

Jayson had half a second to figure out what the hell Powell was talking about before the asshole lifted his weapon and pointed it straight at him. Powell was going to kill him so the DCO wouldn’t be compromised by having a hybrid taken alive.

Bullshit.
The fucker wanted to kill him because he was a piece of crap who knew he’d never get a better chance than now to take him out.

Jayson lashed out with his foot, the heel of his boot slamming into the center of Powell’s chest and sending him flying backward across the rooftop, where he fell on his ass right in the line of fire. Jayson would have loved to hang around and see if the bastard took one through the head, but he needed to take advantage of the distraction while he had it. Spinning around, he ran for the far edge of the roof, keeping the chimney stacks between him and the militia soldiers as much as he could.

He didn’t have a plan for what he was going to do when he reached the edge. He just prayed he wasn’t going to have to jump. The thought was painful enough. The reality was sure to be even worse.

Bullets zipped past him, striking the next building over, the one that was way too far away to reach from his position. That was when he spotted one of those big horizontal pipes he’d seen from the ground sticking out from the side of the building. As round as a big telephone pole and at least thirty feet above the ground, it was still a good ten feet from the edge of the roof where he was standing. The very thought that he could possibly jump so far and somehow land on such a small, round surface, and still maintain his balance was insane.

But he was going to do it anyway. It was either that or get shot full of holes. He jammed his pistol in its holster and launched himself off the roof and through the air before he had time to think about how incredibly impossible the jump was.

The leap sent a stab of pain up his spine, but he barely noticed as he focused every ounce of concentration on the pipe. He didn’t even try to land feetfirst. That would have been ridiculous for anyone but a cat shifter like Layla. He might have hybrid serum running through his blood, but he didn’t think it would improve his agility that much.

He slammed into the pipe chest first, wrapping his arms over it as the air exploded from his lungs. For a moment, he thought he was going to slide right off, but by some miracle, he held on. He would have shouted in triumph if he hadn’t been worried about the soldiers hearing him. He’d disappeared from view for the moment, and if the shooting on the roof behind him was any indication, Powell was still occupying the soldiers. But they’d come looking for him soon enough, and he didn’t want to be hanging here like a kitty in a motivational poster when they did.

Gritting his teeth, he kicked his legs and crabbed his way up and onto the pipe. Balancing on the small metal tube wasn’t much different from some of the elements on the confidence courses he used to run back at Fort Campbell—minus the three-story drop underneath him. And the people trying to kill him, of course.

Ignoring all of that, he took a deep breath and moved across the pipe in a half crouch as fast as he could. Thankfully, it was completely dark now, so he couldn’t see the ground far beneath him. Unfortunately, he also had no idea where the pipe led. Did it go all the way to the river, or was it some kind of outlet into the aqueduct?

Shouting from the building behind Jayson along with the sudden end of the shooting suggested that Powell was done for—and that he would be too if he didn’t get the hell out of there. He stopped trying to be careful and ran along the pipe instead. Bullets buzzed past him, making him duck.

Jayson tried to remember how far this building had been from the river. How far had he run? Was he over the aqueduct now or not even close?

He had to be almost there, right?

He was still wondering that when a bullet clipped him in the right thigh. The impact twisted his body, and he felt himself start to fall.

Oh shit.

Jayson was still praying he’d come down on something that wouldn’t kill him and bracing for one hell of a hard landing at the same time when he plunged into the river. It might not be concrete, but water was still fucking hard when you hit it from three stories up. He had just enough time to suck in some air before the cold, dark water closed in over his head.

* * *

“Why the hell did you tell me about the diamond if you didn’t want me to steal it?”

Dreya’s words came out as something close to a growl as she glared at Rory from across the small office in the back of the shop. She’d come into his jewelry store expecting him to tell her he’d find her a buyer for Thorn’s diamond in no time and that she’d make a nice chunk of change in the process. Instead, he’d taken one look at the gem and told her she’d made a mistake by stealing it.

Rory didn’t bat an eye at the strange sound she had made. He simply leaned back against the front of the big, ugly, antique desk that occupied way too much of his small office and regarded her thoughtfully. Then again, he’d known she was different for a long time.

“I tend to recall we talked about a lot of things that night.” He chuckled. “Though it’s hard to remember everything considering we’d put a good dent in that bottle of El Tesoro.”

Maybe so, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook just because he didn’t have a problem with her being a freak.

“Don’t try and blame this on tequila,” she snapped, remembering back to that night a couple weeks ago when they’d hung out at a trendy little bar in Foggy Bottom and talked shop. “You were stone-cold sober and had to know that if you mentioned some guy right here in DC had a diamond that big, I’d go after it.”

Rory eyed the diamond nestled comfortably in the palm of her hand. “Actually, I didn’t know that. Color me stupid for thinking someone as smart as you would have the sense not to steal something from a man as rich and powerful as Thomas Thorn. I didn’t tell you that story so you’d go after him. I told you so you’d stay away.”

Dreya frowned and dropped the big diamond in the center of his desk, practically knocking a dent in the dark mahogany wood. “So you’re saying you can’t fence this diamond for me?”

Rory shook his head of salt-and-pepper hair. “I didn’t say I couldn’t fence it for you. I’m saying that no one can fence it for you. No one is going to go near that gem with a ten-foot pole. It’s unsellable even to a private collector. Everyone on the planet knows that diamond belongs to Thomas Thorn. You’re not going to find anyone willing to cross him, no matter how valuable it is or how badly they might want it.”

Dreya swore, not even caring if it came out as a full growl this time. “Can’t you…I don’t know…find somebody who could cut it down into smaller stones, so it wouldn’t be recognizable?”

Rory looked at her like he thought she was insane. “Right. I just told you that no one would be dumb enough to even consider buying Thorn’s diamond, and you think I’ll be able to find someone willing to take a cutting tool to it? Not going to happen.”

Dreya flopped down hard in the seat in front of the desk and sighed, waiting impatiently for the tingle in her gums to away. That was all she needed, a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. That would make her day just about complete.

She supposed she couldn’t blame Rory. It had only been a little over seventy-two hours since she’d broken into Thorn’s place, and already the world she and Rory lived in was buzzing with the news that the former senator had brought in some heavy hitters to find the person who’d stolen his stuff. Rory had every right to be scared. He was one of the better-known fences along the northeast corridor. If someone was going to start hunting for a jewel thief, there was a good chance they’d start with him.

She leaned forward and picked up the diamond pendant by its chain, watching the lights in the office twinkle off the facets. “What the hell am I going to do with this thing, then? Should I just hold on to it for a while, until it cools off a bit?”

Rory pushed away from the desk, then walked around behind it and sat down in a monstrous chair that matched the desk perfectly. They both looked like they’d be more at home in an English manor than a custom design jewelry shop in DC.

He leaned back and met her gaze, his hazel eyes serious. “You could hold on to this thing for ten years and it would still be too hot to move. You want my honest opinion about what you should do with it?”

Even though they came from two completely different worlds and Rory was fifteen years older than she was, he’d been the only one she could talk to back when her whole life had turned upside down a decade ago. He’d been making some custom jewelry for her mother at the time, so she had come into the shop on a regular basis. He’d let her try on whatever jewelry she wanted and even listened to her when she offered suggestions on how some of his designs could be improved. Not only did he take her opinions seriously, but he also let her use his bench and tools, so she could try out some of her ideas with real metal and gemstones.

When she’d come in one day after the freaky stuff had started happening, exhausted and a complete wreck, he’d immediately picked up on it. The next thing Dreya knew, she was in this very office, crying her eyes out and telling him about all the crazy stuff that was going on with her. He’d never flipped out or called her mom and informed her that Dreya was in need of a few Xanax and serious therapy. Instead, he’d just listened as she told him what she was turning into. She’d even shown him her claws and fangs. From that day forward, he’d stayed calm enough for both of them and had helped her learn how to deal with these things. Without Rory, she probably would have fallen completely apart.