Kill Shot (30 page)

Kimball saluted with two fingers and left
Gabe alone in the room. He heard the lock snick shut on the outside
of the door and Kimball give orders to his guards to keep a close
watch. It wasn’t until he was truly alone that he allowed himself
to slump down in the chair. He was trapped in an oversized media
room that had the bad fortune to have white carpet and white suede
chairs grouped around small round tables. A large screen sat behind
him, covering the entire wall, white velvet curtains flanking each
side. A full bar and kitchen sat to his right, and a bank of
windows with the shades mostly pulled down sat on his left. There
wasn’t a lot to work with.

He tapped the button on his watch that gave
him direct communication with his command center. Unfortunately,
his command center was stuck in a boat several miles from
shore.

“Dragon, do you copy?”

Gabe used his good arm to pull the top half
of his wetsuit down so his chest was bared and he could see how bad
the wound at his shoulder was.

It was bad. Really bad.

“I copy, Ghost. Damn, it’s good to hear your
voice.”

“You’ll change your mind eventually. Has
everyone checked in?”

He knew by Ethan’s hesitation that something
was wrong. “Where’s Grace?”

“I can’t get her to respond on the com link.
Grim Reaper, either. Jack’s inside the house. He should be coming
through your door in just a few minutes. The last thing Grace said
before the line went cold was that Jack would get you out.”

The pain in his body was easily forgotten,
and something else took its place. Something dangerous and dark. He
searched through the drawers in the tiny kitchen area until he
found a stack of clean white dishtowels. He pressed one of the
smaller ones to the wound on his chest and then wrapped a larger
one so it looped under his arm. He held one end of the towel with
his teeth as he knotted it tightly.

His gun was gone, but he searched the rest
of the drawer for something he could use as a weapon. There were no
knives, but one of Kimball’s staff had left a corkscrew under a
napkin. It would have to do.

Gabe heard the grunt and fall of the two
guards standing outside his door, and Jack slipped in a few seconds
later. He must have looked worse than he thought if Jack’s grimace
was anything to judge by.

“Do you need help?” he asked, readjusting
the crude bandage Gabe had tied around his shoulder.

“I’m good.”

“What are we going to do about Kimball? We
can’t go in guns blazing and make it back out alive.”

“We find Grace and Logan, and if things have
gone to shit we detonate the explosives and get the hell off this
island.”

Gabe didn’t have to explain to Jack that he
wasn’t leaving the island without Grace and Logan’s bodies, if
there were even bodies to claim.

***

“We’ve got company,” Grace heard Logan call
out. “Six or seven headed our direction.”

She left her rifle in position on top of the
guard tower and slid down the fire escape all the way to the
ground. The first guards were running toward them, weapons raised,
as her feet hit the dirt. Plaster and mud exploded all around her,
and she slid feet first toward her enemy, her pistol raised and
firing rapid shots as Logan laid down cover fire.

The area was mostly open, and there weren’t
a lot of places available to hide, but she hunkered behind a
decorative half wall that followed the stone path up to the main
house. Gabe’s voice rattled in her ear, and she breathed a sigh of
relief that he was okay, but she couldn’t deal with the distraction
right now and turned off her com link. She saw Logan do the same
thing and nodded in his direction while she changed the clip to her
gun.

Logan was positioned directly across from
her behind the other half wall, and she gave him the signal for
what she wanted. Once she saw he understood, she flattened her body
into the mud and waited for his report.

His gun seemed extraordinarily loud, as if
it was somehow amplified by the rain and wind, and time seemed to
slow to the point where she could see each of his bullets cut
through the air. Logan ducked back behind the wall as shots were
returned, and he held up his fingers so she’d know the position of
her targets.

There wasn’t time to think. She could lose
her shots if she wasted those precious seconds. She took a breath
and held it as she rolled into the open, firing in the directions
Logan had just given her—seven, eleven, one, and four o’clock—from
left to right, and then she quickly rolled back to the relative
safety of her position.

They waited a few minutes more, and Logan
signaled the all clear. “Go,” he said. “Finish off Kimball, and
lets get out of here.”

She nodded and climbed back to the top of
the guard tower, flicking the switch on her watch to check in with
command.

“Dragon, I’m back in position to take the
shot. Kimball’s moved the party to the dining area. I have a clear
shot.”

“Everything okay?” Gabe asked.

She heard the worry and fear and relief in
those two words and relaxed as she realized Jack had helped Gabe
get out of the house.

“I’m good.”

And she realized she really was. Her mind
was clear and her hands were steady. But this was going to be a
hell of a difficult shot, and she’d only have one chance to get it
right. It was close to a mile in distance to the main house—similar
to the length of the shot she’d made when she’d taken out
Peters—but the wind was going in the opposite direction, and rain
was pelting her directly in the face. There were a lot of added
variables with this shot that there hadn’t been with the other.

“Grim Reaper, what’s your position?” Gabe
asked.

“I’m spotting for Kill Shot.”

“Stay where you are. Renegade and I are
going to set off the light show a little early. Take out the target
now, Kill Shot. Things are about to get crazy.”

“I’ve intercepted a signal that military
aircraft are headed in our direction,” Ethan said. “Their attitude
is hostile. We’ve got less than fifteen minutes before we need to
be as far from this island as possible.”

“Roger that, Dragon. Close up shop and pick
us up shore side.”

Grace adjusted her aim with every shift of
the wind, blanking out the wind and rain and occasional voice from
the com link until she was completely alone in her mind and silence
reigned. Her weapon hesitated, and her finger flexed, wanting to
pull the trigger, as she passed her scope across Tussad.

Her concentration was broken as she watched
The Passover Project being demonstrated in front of the curious and
terrified crowd. They were all just beginning to realize what kind
of position Kimball had just put them in. They’d all be working for
him before long.

Tussad fell to his knees on the floor, a
fountain of blood coming from his mouth and splashing onto the
white tile like red paint. She watched him die without remorse, her
idea of justice being well served.

“Kill Shot,” Gabe shouted in her ear. “We’re
waiting on your hit.”

Grace kept her eyes on Kimball and lined her
shot up once more—her mind blank and the coldness of the kill
steeling her spine. She breathed in slowly and held her breath as
her finger squeezed the trigger.

“It’s a go,” she said, knowing she’d made
the shot as soon as the bullet left her gun.

An explosion rocked the area next to the
house, and she knew Gabe and Jack had set off the bomb at the pool
house where Kimball’s scientist had set up a lab of sorts that
housed all of his research and the components to the formula.
Debris mixed with the rain, and chaos reigned over the island as
she dropped down to the ground beside Logan. She slid the strap to
her rifle across her chest and took out her pistol.

“Kill Shot and Grim Reaper headed to the
pick up location,” she said to Ethan.

“I’m in position. Eight minutes and counting
until military transport arrives.”

“We’ll meet you there,” Gabe said. “Five
minutes.”

The helipad exploded within the next minute,
and the ferry and docks went up in flames moments later. Seven of
the world’s most dangerous terrorists were trapped with no way out
but by military assistance. They were going to have a lot of
explaining to do.

Five minutes passed, and she gave Logan a
worried look. He turned the Zodiac so they were backed into
shore.

“Ghost, where the hell are you?”

“Right behind you, sweetheart.”

Gabe and Jack appeared out of the shadows,
running like hell towards the Zodiac. The bandage at Gabe’s
shoulder was soaked through with blood, and she could tell he was
running on pure adrenaline. Logan had the boat in motion just as
they cleared the sides.

Gabe collapsed against her, and she felt for
the pulse in his neck, trying not to show him how worried she
was.

“I’m fine,” he said, taking her hand and
kissing her fingers. “But I’m probably going to pass out soon.
Don’t take me to the hospital.”

Grace leaned down and kissed his brow,
cradling him against her. “Payback’s a bitch, my love.”

He smiled, and she took his face between her
hands and looked into his eyes. “It’s over, Gabe. Tussad’s gone. I
thought I’d feel something—more. But it almost feels as if I’ve
lost her all over again.”

“Because you were able to let it go,” he
said. “We won’t forget her, Grace. And we won’t forget what he did
and how he paid. The future is ours.”

She leaned down to kiss him softly, her
cheeks wet with tears. “I’m looking forward to it.”

One Year Later…

Marseilles, France: New Collective
Headquarters

Jack was restless.

Maybe he was burned out. Or maybe he was
jealous that Gabe and Grace had managed to have their marriage
resurrected from the ashes. They’d worked hard to save what was
most important to them, purging the demons that had tried to
destroy them. They were happy. And he was happy for them. But there
was a part of him that knew that kind of happiness would never be a
part of his future.

He’d thought of retiring or taking an
extended vacation, and he could tell by Gabe’s long looks and
probing questions that his friend knew he wasn’t satisfied. He
just—needed something more.

Even now, Jack was only halfway listening to
the team briefing for their next mission, his mind finding it hard
to settle on any one thing.

“This one is all you, Jack,” Gabe said,
sliding a black folder in his direction and getting his attention.
“We’ll all be there as backup, but it’s you our target needs to
trust. Do whatever it takes to get the information we need.”

“He always gets the hot chicks,” Ethan
muttered.

Jack looked at the picture Ethan had put up
on the wall screen and felt lust slam through his system. He read
the description that accompanied the photo until he found her name.
Lissa Yamagata
. Her face was exotic—eyes that tilted
slightly, high cheekbones, and lips that were luscious and full.
Just the thought of her mouth and what it could do had him shifting
in his seat to accommodate the painful erection behind his zipper.
She was small, only a couple of inches over five feet, and she had
a waterfall of silky black hair that fell straight as rain to her
waist.

Her mother was an American citizen, but her
father was a Japanese warlord. According to the data Ethan had
collected, she was brilliant, fluent in several languages, and had
a hell of a sword collection.

The team was watching him carefully, waiting
for some kind of reaction, and he realized he must have missed the
complete rundown of the mission. Something wasn’t right, and he met
Gabe’s stare head-on and without apology for not paying better
attention.

“And what happens after I get the information
I need?” Jack asked.

Gabe’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned back in
his chair. “You kill her.”

Liliana Hart is a bestselling and
award-winning author in both the mystery and romance genres. After
starting her first novel her freshman year of college, she
immediately became addicted to writing and knew she'd found what
she was meant to do with her life. She has no idea why she majored
in music.

Liliana is an avid reader and a believer in
all things romance. Her books are filled with witty dialogue,
steamy sex, and the all-important happily-ever-afters her romantic
soul craves. Since self-publishing in June of 2011, she's sold more
than half a million ebooks all over the world. She lives in Texas
with her husband and four children, and they occasionally let her
meet her deadlines.

Connect with me online:

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My Website:
http://www.lilianahart.com

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Read on for an excerpt of Breath of Fire! Coming June
4!

I lifted my nose a little higher, hoping to
get another whiff. The atmosphere was thick with ozone, and
lightning raced horizontally across the sky. Mist crept in slowly,
building in white waves so the ground below it was invisible to the
eye. The rain fell harder, almost as if it were a sign of bad
things to come. And then the mist grew thicker, taking the shape of
a man—a mist dragon. I’d never seen one before, only heard the
stories passed down through the generations.