Page 72 of Covert Vengeance

“Ready.” His face tightened as he muscled the cover up.

Amber tensed, waiting.

“Go.”

She yanked him backward with all her might just as he wrenched the crowbar up and over.

Metal thudded on the ground, then Jesse’s full weight hit her, taking her down. She grunted at the impact as he landed on top of her, bits of sharp gravel biting into her arms as he rolled them toward the armored truck.

An ear-shattering explosion lit up the night just as they cleared the rear of the vehicle. Jesse pinned her beneath him, his arms covering her head. In the deafening silence that followed he lifted his head. “You okay?” he asked urgently.

“Yeah. You?”

“Fine.” He jumped to his feet and hauled her up with him.

“What was that?” Megan asked.

“Stanislav booby-trapped the entrance,” Amber responded. “We’re okay. Hang tight, we’re coming to you.”

“I’ve got another problem. This tunnel’s filling with water.”

What? That shouldn’t be possible. The other hacker must have done it.

Pulling out her radio, she contacted Trinity as she followed Jesse back to the hole. He was limping. Had he been hit with shrapnel? There was no time to stop and check him.

“Looks like someone’s activated this section of the sewer system. Find out where the hack came from. Jesse and I are going after Megan.” She put the radio away without waiting for a response and rushed forward.

Jesse was at the manhole, covering the top of it with his pistol. His head came up, his eyes meeting hers. “First section’s clear, but they’ll be sending someone this way.”

She nodded and straddled the hole. Below her, blackness awaited, hiding the enemy… And her sister.

“Amber, Jesse, heads up. Three men from the first truck are on their way back to your position,” Bautista said through her earpiece.

“I’ll take care of it,” Jesse said, his gaze steady. “Go get your sister.”

In that moment, Amber knew she’d just lost her heart to him.

Shoving that thought aside for later if she survived what was coming, she gave him a grateful smile. “See you down there.”

Drawing her pistol, she slipped down into the hole and hurriedly climbed down the steel ladder into the blackness below.

Chapter Twenty

Dead end.

Calf-deep in the cold river water now flooding the tunnel, Megan again tried the lever-shaped handle on the steel door barring her way through the tunnel. It didn’t budge.

She’d followed the route precisely. Had gone over it with Amber and checked to make sure it was clear. Amber was supposed to close this hatch once Megan was through, to trap Stanislav down here.

But something had gone wrong, and now Megan was the one trapped instead.

There was nothing but the sound of her uneven breathing in the absolute darkness. Her NVGs were now useless without any ambient light source, and she couldn’t risk using her flashlight because Stanislav and his men were coming and it would give her position away.

She felt along the hatch and the wall surrounding it, searching for another way out. The schematic she’d memorized of the system had another exit but she’d have to go back the way she’d come. Dammit, Ty was somewhere on the other side of this barrier, along with a cache of weapons and equipment, and she couldn’t get to either.

If she was lucky, Stanislav and his men might take a wrong turn in the tunnels and take a while longer to find her, buying her some precious time. She could have seconds or minutes, she didn’t know.

She paused, craned her neck around to face the way she’d come when muted gunfire sounded behind her. Either from the start of the tunnel, or above ground.

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