Page 64 of Winters Heat

He ran his fingertip over the recently sharpened edge of the tactical blade. Its serrated claws gleamed. The metal was warm in his grip. He had toyed with the knife handle since they started their steep descent. His hands itched for action, while his mind fucked with him. The job had never been personal, and this was far past that level. Doubt and anger battled, leaving a bitter aftertaste in his throat.

Winters coughed for attention. “If anything goes wrong, if something happens to me, you bring Mia home. No questions.”

Jared ignored him.

Cash rolled his eyes. “Christ, Winters. Nothing’s going to go wrong. We didn’t fly across the globe just to bail on your girl if your pretty ass takes a bullet.”

He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “She’s an important person.”

“Yeah, we gathered that.”

Winters sheathed his knife and ran his palms over his thighs. Too much energy. Too many what-ifs.

Jared turned around in his front passenger seat. “Listen, man, do whatever you have to out there. And we’ll do the same. We know somewhere in your pea brain, she’s important to you, so she’s important to us. End of conversation.”

Jared finished with a curt nod and swiveled forward again. They bumped along a makeshift path. Branches hit the windshield. Winters wasn’t entirely sure Rocco was using a road. But whatever the quickest way from point A to point B was, he was cool with it.

Rocco pulled up hard, parked the vehicle as planned, and they fell out. Cash slipped into the vegetation. Gone. Damn snipers, and typical Cash. Sneaking in. Sneaking out. The man melted into shadows.

Brock had the trunk open and unloaded a cadre of explosives.

Jared moved past Winters. “Let’s go. On my six.”

They hoofed it to the fence line, barreling to the main gate like they were running toward Satan’s open jaw. On the other side, hell waited, machine guns on the ready.

Brock broke off with a hand gesture from Jared. Winters checked his watch. Time wasn’t moving fast enough. They dropped to the ground. Waiting. Calculating. Preparing.

Blast number one hit. The front gates exploded. Shards of wood and fragments of concrete rained down in a cloud of smoke and fire. Before the vibrations stopped, blast number two, smaller and less obvious, rolled through the outer wall. Alarms shrieked. Guards bellowed. Confusion penetrated the perimeter.

Jared and Winters crawled to position, rifles up, scanning their opening. Uniformed men ran toward the main gate, positioned in defensive formations, and ready to take on an enemy they couldn’t see.

Time to duck and hustle. Jared and Winters sprinted forward, reached the side of the main house, and breached a door. They pushed in. Uniformed maids ran past them, eyes averted. Obviously not their first attack. He swept a harsh gaze back and forth. No tangos worth a bullet.

A quick hand gesture later, Jared veered down a winding hall. Winters listened with angry intent for signs of life, oncoming attack, and Mia through the constant pulse of warning alarms.

The house sounded empty. Jared was on stealth mode. Undetectable, then he disappeared.

Winters moved forward, one cautious step at a time, long gun ready, finger on the trigger. Seeing no traps, he sidestepped around a corner, focusing in the now dark hallway. Sirens still blared.

Winters pushed down a hall, spot-checking each room. Another corner. This place was a maze. A muffled feminine sob stole his breath.

Only one closed door left.

“No!” Exhausted pleas homed him to her. He readied to burst through the door, but instead, tried the handle. It swung open to his real-time nightmare.

Juan Carlos Silva held her by the neck and shook her limp body as he pointed wildly to something outside the window. A number of foreign curse words were tossed at her, and she had the thousand-yard stare of a battle weary soldier. Silva moved her with the ease of a child playing with a doll. Her arms hung flaccid, and her legs wobbled.

Winters’s try-the-handle-first tactic gave him the element of surprise. Silva never even looked his way.

“Get your hands off her neck, Silva.” Winters roared so deep, his voice was unrecognizable.

Silva spun Mia into a choke hold. A knife glinted in the other hand. Mia faced Winters but gave no acknowledgement.Shit.

Hell, she couldn’t even focus in his direction. Her head lobbed forward before Silva shook her back to consciousness. The need to kill burned in Winters’s veins.

“How are you in here?” Silva looked around.

All his guards were busy. Big blasts would do that.Thank you, Brock.

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