Page 101 of Cyclone

Another came from behind.

I kicked.

Screamed.

Fought like hell.

But there were too many.

Too fast.

I hit the ground, knees scraping against tile, arms pinned.

“You’re making this harder than it has to be,” one of them muttered.

I spit blood onto the floor and looked him dead in the eye.

“Good.”

Then everything went dark.

58

Oliver

The house was too quiet.

Olly was at school. The dishes were done. The dog had finally stopped barking at the neighbor’s cat, which kept coming into the yard to make Duke bark.

And I had run out of reasons to pretend I didn’t miss working with my buddies.

I stood in the kitchen, sipping coffee that had gone cold twenty minutes ago, staring out the window like something out there might change.

But it didn’t.

The ocean looked the same, high up here looking down.

Just stillness.

It should’ve felt peaceful.

But all I felt was restless.

I’d built this life—brick by brick—after the last mission nearly ended me. And then Dana showed up and said I had a son, and she was dying. I decided to care for her. After all she was once my wife, and my son’s mother, even if Olly was four when she told me about him. I couldn’t let her go into a place and die with nobody there for her.

After the funeral, I took Olly to Disney World. We stayed three weeks, traveling everywhere on a whim—just my son and I. That was last year. Now, I was ready to go back to work.

Sometimes, I felt like a lion pacing in a cage.

The phone buzzed on the counter.

I glanced at the screen and stopped pacing.

CYCLONE.

I answered without thinking. “Yeah.”

His voice was tight. Focused. No greeting. Just mission-mode.

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