Page 110 of Always Been Mine

“Bee,go upstairs and cover the back! Take Rhino with you,” Nate shouted, taking a moment behind the reinforced wall by the door to instruct her. Sam was at the other end, firing at will. She didn’t see her dad, but the trap door leading to the armory was open.

The German Shepherd was circling in excitement in the middle of the living room.

She nodded and grabbed her two Sigs and a can of pre-loaded magazines that were under the kitchen cabinet. Grabbing a short-wave radio from Nate, she confirmed the frequency and scrambled up the stairs.

“Come on, boy!” She looked back to make sure Rhino was following her. The walls and windows were bullet-resistant, but wouldn’t hold off a continued assault for long.

Beatrice had Rhino lie down on the side of the bed away from the windows. She fitted the suppressor on her Sigs. The lights in the room were off. She slowly slid the window open a smidge. For a while there was no movement in the backyard. Her eyes roamed far and close to the side of the house. The lighting in the back was also behind bullet-resistant glass.

She ignored the raging war that seemed to be taking place in the forefront of the safe house. At least with the fierce exchange, it was a good sign that her father, Nate, and Sam were putting up a good fight. The bad news? So were the hostiles.

Her eyes caught a stir by the wall, a minuscule peep of a leg that quickly disappeared. She focused on that spot, though in a way, she was omnipresent-aware. It was hard to describe the feeling where all she could hear was her breathing and all her senses were alive. Three figures broke away from the cover of the wall. Beatrice didn’t fire yet, waiting to see what they would do.

One of them was carrying a large weapon that looked like—

Oh, my God! It’s a RPG.

Before the hostile could shoulder the weapon, Beatrice aimed and squeezed off two shots. The remaining two scuttled in opposite directions, firing haphazardly at the house. She ducked behind the walls momentarily, gauging where the bullets were hitting. The suppressor disguised her muzzle flashes and the sound of her gun, so they didn’t know from where she was shooting. The line of the lights that ran along the middle of the house also made it difficult for the attackers to aim and fire into the house.

Satisfied that they were shooting far from her location, she peered over the window edge again. Her blood turned to ice. There was a body on the ground, but the RPG was missing.

It was a split second before she caught the movement right behind the tree line. She fired the same time she heard thewhooshof the rocket. An instantaneous explosion rocked the floor below her.

Cat!

The control room was reinforced, but Cat better be ready to make a quick exodus.

She heard shouting on the first floor and from her radio. Nate was yelling out orders to put out a fire. Beatrice was able to pick off another shooter, but her eyes were searching for the man with the RPG. Rhino was whining in agitation.

“Shh . . . quiet, boy,” Beatrice said. She spied a gunman lurking, trying to sneak into the back patio. She managed to disable him, sending him crashing to the ground. She was about to fire another shot when a bullet ricocheted off the edge where she was shooting from. Amid the crazy ruckus of gunfire and more explosions, Beatrice thought she heard the blunt rhythm of a chopper.

Another bullet struck near her. Same spot. Shit, they were using a special scope and must have clocked her.

Which meant . . .

Oh, shit.

She saw it, the rocket heading straight for her.

She scrambled to her feet and ran across the room toward the bed.

“Rhino!” she screamed.

A thunderous roar and a fireball shot past her, sending her flying on top of the bed. The blast wave further rolled her off the mattress. Pain exploded on the back of her head before darkness claimed her.

It was a war zone.

The muzzle flashes of carbines and assault rifles lit up the front yard like a firework show. Smoke was rising from the safe house and the stucco walls were heavily pockmarked.

Their Black Hawk’s machine gun did quick work on the attackers, not giving them an opportunity to use the RPG on them.

“Get us down there,” Travis growled.

“Hold on, Blake,” Viktor said. “You don’t want to drop dead before you hit the ground, do you?”

Gabe clenched his jaw as he gripped his carbine tight, but Viktor was right. He also understood how Travis felt because an overwhelming desire to make sure Beatrice was all right prickled the expanse of his skin.

The chopper swooped to the back of the house and raked the ground there as well, tearing a path and taking down two more of Baxter’s men. The assailants appeared to be a different faction from the guards at the meet and they were not the U.S. Special Ops team either. How many schemes did Harold Baxter/Frank Wilkes have?

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