Page 1 of Too Lethal to Love

First Lieutenant Kane Darren launched himself and the DEA agent in his arms toward the hovering helicopter. Bullets pinged off the bird’s tail in rapid succession. One hit his stronger-than-steel bionic leg as the whir of the blades drowned out his curse. He didn’t feel pain, but the agent whose cover had been blown was barely breathing, thanks to the Diablo drug cartel.

Kane handed the unconscious woman to his teammate and climbed in. He flipped his middle finger at the machine-gun-toting herd of mercenaries barreling through the tree line. Adrenaline roared in his ears as he thought the command to blow them sky-high.

Fire!

His lips twitched into a feral grin as an electromagnetic current pulsed like a live wire from the chip implanted at the base of his neck down his spine. The deadly tide flowed to his bionic leg, weaponized with technology courtesy of Project VIPER. Less than a heartbeat later, a V-Strike streamed from the center of his kneecap. The deadly, invisible laser traveledthrough his pants without leaving a trace and struck the ground with the force of a lightning bolt.

The impact shook the Mexican jungle. Flames erupted in the tall grass. A wave of heat penetrated his thick helmet and the high-tech gear protecting every inch of his body. His skin nearly melted from his bones, but he snarled with satisfaction as the explosion sucked a dozen of the bastards back into the bowels of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The helicopter pitched to the right as it rose from a clearing barely big enough for the bird to have landed in. He grounded himself with the enhanced strength in his steel leg as he and his brothers-in-arms picked off the unending force of mercenaries dodging the flaming trees.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

V-Strikes shot from the center of his quad and the juncture of his shin and ankle. His targets fell to the charred jungle floor, but fuck, cartel goons with machine guns kept coming like a plague of locusts. VIPER’s mission was to extract the agent and her valuable intel, not eliminate the devil’s right-hand men in one day. But if a bullet hit the helicopter’s fuel tank, they’d all be burned to hell.

He was a super soldier for God’s sake. A lucky shot wouldn’t be the cause of his demise, but the heat might.

Even though his head throbbed like he’d snorted half the opioids in the compound they’d infiltrated, he poured gallons of wrath into his command to fire. The intensity of his V-Strikes was controlled by his thoughts. Dialing it back from killing to incapacitating might get the job done, but these savages who manufactured deadly drugs and beat women didn’t deserve mercy, even if it was almost Christmas.

His teammates showed no mercy either as V-Strikes pulsed from their super limbs. Their combined force sucked the last of the Diablo army back into the underworld like the devil had called them home.

Kane yanked off his helmet and whipped his head to Dr. Hudson Langley, VIPER’s trauma surgeon. “Is she alive?”

Hudson shined a penlight into Agent Jenna McKinney’s bloodshot stare. “Barely.”

“We’re clear,” Linc shouted from the cockpit as he flew them away from the burning jungle.

Kane scrambled the few feet to Jenna, his super leg jittering beneath him, and sank to his knees above her head. Her sweat-soaked body shook as they rapidly ascended into the air.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he grabbed a silver emergency blanket and tucked it around her quaking body. There hadn’t been time to fully assess the extent of her injuries when they’d found her tied to a chair in a dilapidated barn a few feet from the main building.Rage sped up his breathing as the helicopter’s dim light revealed how she’d been tortured.

Bruises, some greenish blue with age and some fresh and angry, showed through the bloody sweat dripping down her cheeks. Her lower lip bled from a jagged cut. Even her nose, which had a spray of freckles across it in the photo he’d seen during this morning’s briefing, had been busted. The freckles were nowhere to be seen under the bruising and blood. God knew what other damage hid beneath her crimson-stained T-shirt and filthy jeans.

His teammate Chris crouched beside her and gently opened her eyelids. With care, he peeled contact lenses from her corneas and dropped them into a case as Hudson readied a syringe.

Kane cradled her head in his lap and brushed blood-soaked hair away from a knot on her forehead. His other teammate, Nic, dropped to his side next to her. He traced the edges of a days-old bruise on her bicep with his black, steel fingers. “Dios mio.”

My God was right.

Kane glanced at the fire-tinged smoke choking the early afternoon sky. Before he’d lost his leg to an IED in the Middle East, he’d witnessed plenty of gruesome sights with Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance. This level of brutality had him wishing for thirty seconds with the deviants holed up in the Diablo cartel’s stronghold. He’d only need a second to obliterate them with a V-Strike. The first twenty-nine he’d use to unleash the strength in his super leg on their unholy asses.

His gaze fixed on a cut in Jenna’s lower lip. “How is she alive after what they did to her?”

“Because she’s higher than this helicopter.” Hudson glanced at her track-mark-riddled forearms as he jabbed a syringe into her chest.

Her eyes shot open.

“Hey.” Kane braced her head with his hands.

She lashed her fingers around his wrists and stared up at him. The glassy defeat in her gaze almost made him vomit. “Stay with us, Jenna. You’re safe.”

“Please.” Sounds as ragged as her tormented flesh grated from her throat. “Tell Greg no…no regrets.”

Kane held his breath as everything, from Jenna’s swollen lips to her shuddering body, stilled. He didn’t need Hudson to confirm she’d said her last words. And he didn’t need to reread her file to know Greg was the husband she’d never go home to.

“Fuck.” Hudson sat back on his haunches.

Chris sighed as he patted the pocket holding the valuable intel Jenna had uncovered.

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