Page 52 of Rusty's Command

But Wang?

Wang was Special Forces cold. The kind of cold that put bullets between eyes without blinking.

“Eight.”

“Jesus,” Sienna said. “What do we?—”

“Quiet.” Rusty hissed, squeezing his hand around her arm. “He won’t kill her.”

Sienna’s eyes locked onto his, fierce and demanding in the dark.

“She’s merchandise.” He snapped the disgusting words off his tongue. “So he needs her alive.”

“You sure?” Her whisper ghosted against his ear.

He gave a sharp nod, praying that he was right.

“Seven.” Wang shifted his chokehold, fluid and practiced. The gun stayed dead level against the woman’s temple, unwavering as a sniper’s scope. Her fingers clawed at his arm, and her mouth was open in a silent scream.

Four of Wang’s men shifted through the shadows behind him. He caught the weapon on the biggest guy, an MP5 held low and ready. The area went cemetery-quiet, nothing but the soft whimpers from the stage cutting through the dark.

Rusty’s trigger finger twitched, demanding action, but the women’s faces below gutted his opportunity. They were all young and terrified. And innocent. Carbon copies of the womenhe’d saved from that village in Kandahar, where his first shot had started an avalanche of death.

Wang had Sienna and him pinned to the balcony like insects. Each second of this countdown was calculated, and Rusty’s neck prickled.

Why’s he dragging this out?The answer hit him like a rifle butt to the throat—Wang was stalling. Buying time while more boots moved into position.

“Six.”

Weapons littered the balcony around him. M4s, Glocks, enough firepower to start a small war. Rusty lurched back from the railing and snatched the nearest Glock. But it was useless without a clean shot. He could position himself on the stair and try for a better angle, but Wang had thought of that. Between the women around him and the armed killers in the shadows, one wrong move and Rusty was fucked.

His options were bleeding out fast. Surrendering was not an option. He would eat a bullet. That was guaranteed.

Fuck! If I’m taken out, Wang will add Sienna to that stage.

Wang didn’t waste assets. He harvested them.

His jaw clenched until his teeth creaked. Not fucking happening.

“Five.”

“Jesus. Rusty, we have to do something.”

A sharp bark sliced through the dark like a blade.

Sienna’s breath hitched. “That’s Pick?—”

Rusty’s hand sealed her mouth as another bark ricocheted off the walls, playful as a puppy at a park.

His heart skipped. That crazy little mutt.

As Wang’s men spun, their flashlight beams pierced the darkness like predatory eyes hunting Pickle. But the dog was a phantom, appearing and vanishing as he darted across the polished marble in his lethal game.

A current of tension rippled through the hostages. The Colombian woman lifted her chin and took a single, defiant step away from Wang’s human barricade, her eyes blazing with newfound courage.

“Don’t move.” Wang’s gun snapped to her chest.

The fracture in Wang’s control was microscopic, but to Rusty’s trained eye, it blazed like a signal flare. These women were his payday, his golden ticket. They were worth hundreds of thousands. The Colombian woman had done the math, too—Rusty saw it in her posture, in the razor-sharp calculation behind her expression. She wasn’t just a victim, she was a wild card waiting to be played.

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