Page 70 of The Sniper

Artemis let out a breathy chuckle, shaking her head. “You still don’t get it, do you?” She lifted the small black device, her thumb resting lightly against the trigger. “This isn’t about winning. It never was.”

Reyna edged forward, her steps deliberate, her body a coiled spring of tension. “You’ve already lost.”

“Have I?” Artemis tilted her head, gaze flicking to Daniels. “You think this ends with me? There is another who hates you even more than me. Tonight, even if my body ends up on the ground and your team is still standing, there is another. Cerberus’ house of cards is going to come tumbling down.”

Daniels raised his gun a fraction. “I think you don’t walk off this rooftop.”

Her laugh was quiet. “Neither do you.”

Her thumb pressed down.

Daniels didn’t hesitate.

The shot echoed through the night, precise and final.

Artemis jerked as the bullet punched through her chest, her body folding backward. The detonator slipped from her fingers?—

Click. A moment of pure silence, then…Boom!

The world detonated around them. The blast hit like a sledgehammer, knocking Daniels back as fire and shrapnel ripped through the rooftop. The building shuddered violently beneath them, the concrete splitting into jagged cracks.

“Move!” Mitch barked over the comms, his voice barely audible through the ringing in Daniels’s ears.

Daniels grabbed Reyna’s arm and pulled. Hard.

She stumbled but kept up, her breath ragged as they ran full speed for the fire escape. Fitz and Mitch were already ahead, their figures barely visible through the rising smoke.

The rooftop was collapsing.

Behind them, the inferno swallowed what remained of Artemis. Flames licked hungrily at the structure, twisting metal groaning as support beams snapped.

Daniels didn’t look back. He couldn’t afford to.

He kept his grip tight on Reyna, leading her toward the only way out.

The fire escape was barely holding together, its rusted bolts groaning under the weight of their footfalls. The moment Daniels’ boots hit the first landing, a deafening crack split the air?—

The entire platform lurched.

“Jump!” Fitz shouted from below.

Daniels didn’t wait. He grabbed Reyna and launched them both off the edge, twisting mid-air to take the brunt of the landing. They hit hard, rolling onto the rooftop of the adjacentbuilding. Pain flared through his ribs, but he forced it down, pushing Reyna up before hauling himself to his feet.

Mitch and Fitz were already moving, cutting a path toward the stairwell.

Behind them, the collapsing rooftop gave one final, shuddering groan… Then it was gone. The old warehouse folded in on itself, vanishing in a rush of fire and debris.

Daniels shielded Reyna as the explosion sent a shockwave rippling through the night, bits of metal and concrete pelting the rooftop around them. The heat pressed against his back, but they were clear.

They had made it.

And Artemis…

She was gone.

Cerberus headquarters was silent.

Not in the way it usually was, humming with controlled efficiency, operatives moving like ghosts through the halls. No, this was the kind of silence that came after the storm.

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