Page 72 of Pride
He flipped his middle finger up. Her eyes crinkled, and she returned to the task at hand. Too soon they reached the correct altitude to pull their ripcords, their chutes filling with air and slowing their descent.
As silent as they could be, they landed in a dry field and quickly cut their spent chutes. The sun had just gone down. The low twilight visibility and tall dead grass were on their side. Together, they rushed to a set of trees on the outskirts and regrouped.
Alice checked her weapons—short sword at her back, daggers and other blades around her belt and boots. In her full Sinner getup, Parker thought she looked deadly enough to be the woman with his family’s fate in her hands. They’d not spoken about her confession, her final kill-switch orders, but the truth of it weighed heavily on his mind. She was right. Someone had to be the final stand against them in case things went wrong, and it was better for this person to be someone close—someone who knew them. Mary had spent her life training her children to avoid this devastating future, but the fact was, they would always be a threat, and Mary loved them too much to kill them if it came to it.
Alice was more than his mate. She was his Do Not Resuscitate order.
Good thing he didn’t plan on dying any time soon.
As to the quality of that life, and whether he would keep Lazarus Tech, he’d deal with that later. The Board had been calling him, and he’d continued to ignore them.They wouldn’t dare.
“AIMI,” he said into the microphone in his hood. “Please respond.”
A crackle came through the speaker, but AIMI responded.“Yes, Pride. I am here.”
He relaxed an iota. He’d made a fairly good hypothesis about AIMI’s range using the satellite link he’d set up, but there was always a margin of error. Hopefully because of his success, the other teams would have communications up and running too.
“Can you zero in on Despair’s tracking signal through the receiver in my suit?” Even though Daisy had never been one of the Deadly Seven, using her sin’s name in the field as code was safer for everyone. Whether she wanted to join their crime fighting team was another question, and one he couldn’t answer without his sister. He wouldn’t blame her if she decided to leave the game altogether after they found her. But theywouldfind her.
A band constricted around his chest.
Alice’s eyes met his and held. They both held their breath. The plan was for each member of the Deadly Seven to use their new proximity to search for Daisy’s tracking signal. They’d hoped that, perhaps, the reason they couldn’t get an accurate log onto Daisy since AIMI’s rebirth was because of distance.
“She’s either not there, or her signal is blocked,”AIMI said.“I’m not picking up anything within a twenty-mile radius.”
“Can you search further?”
“Checking now. Thirty miles miles… Negative. Fifty miles… negative.”AIMI paused.“I’m sorry, Pride. I know you were hoping to find her here.”
Parker straightened. AIMI was sorry? That was an odd thing for her to say. He’d not allowed Sloan near AIMI’s base personality programming like he had last time. She shouldn’t be saying things like that. But he had programmed her to learn for herself. Was it possible she was developing a personality of her own?
“Update me if you hear from any of the other team members,” he said.
“Will do.”
The connection cut.
There went that hope. This game of cat and mouse was becoming tedious. Parker was ready to take the situation into his own hands. He was done playing. This was the beginning of the end for the Syndicate.
“Let’s go,” he said to Alice and gestured due east. “One click that way.”
She nodded and lifted her hood.
“How’s your leg?” he asked, as casually as he could.
Her eyes crinkled over her scarf. “I’ve been through a lot worse than landing from fourteen thousand feet. My leg is fine. But thanks for caring.”
“Just making sure you’re in shape for the mission.”
“Right.” She rolled her shoulders, cracking her neck. “And for the record, I’ve had almost two hundred jumps. This leg hasn’t given out yet.”
Fuck. His pants tightened. His mate loved adrenaline as much as he did. She was perfect for him. When they got home, there would be no more waiting. He would claim her. Maybe he wouldn’t wait until they got home. There was always the jet ride back.
He covered his mouth and nose with his mask, and then they set off. From what limited intel he gathered about the target site, its function was similar to the one in the States. But rather than operating on an old army base, this black site was a farm surrounded by long grass and the odd tree. There was one big farmhouse, a smaller outhouse, and a barn. There were even a few stray cows around to make it look legit. It was simple enough, but satellite thermal imaging had already confirmed the underground maze filled with multiple heat signatures. All Parker and Alice needed to do was get eyes inside the base and to create an uplink on their computer system to send data to AIMI.
They stopped beside a tree and crouched until the tall dry grass hid them.
“Two guards near the farmhouse door,” Alice murmured, her voice muffled by her mask.
