Page 70 of Stealthy Seduction
Steele was already moving, his body responding to a primal need for action before his mind could catch up. He strode out of the war room, down the corridor, his boots echoing off the walls like gunshots.
The base’s shooting range in the basement was empty, the fluorescent lights humming overhead as he grabbed a Sig from the weapons locker and loaded a fresh magazine. The first shotpunched through the center of the target downrange, followed immediately by fourteen more in rapid succession.
Each shot was precise, controlled.
Each shot was also completely inadequate for relieving the rage and terror coursing through his system.
He blew through one magazine and was loading a second when Dante appeared in the doorway.
“What do you need?” Steele barked at him.
“This isn’t you, man,” Dante said quietly. “Steele doesn’t go rogue. Steele follows orders, thinks about the team. Charlie counts on that to keep us all alive.”
“Could you walk away if it was Kennedy?” Steele asked without turning.
The silence stretched long enough that he finally looked over his shoulder. Dante’s expression was pained, conflicted.
His friend finally dropped his head. “Fuck.No. But you can’t just charge in there and kill Cipher. He’s too smart for that, too prepared.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
Dante was quiet for a long moment, his analytical mind clearly working through possibilities. “You’ll need eyes and ears. Someone to coordinate intelligence, monitor communications, provide support.”
“Are you volunteering?”
“I’m saying that if you’re determined to disobey a direct order and risk your career, your life and potentially the safety of everyone on this base…you shouldn’t go in blind.”
Steele felt something ease in his chest—not relief, but the knowledge that he wouldn’t be entirely alone in this insane maneuver that might be the biggest mistake of his life.
“Dante. You said it—I need eyes. And you’re the best there is. Help me. Help me get her back.” His grating voice was edged in apprehension.
Several long seconds passed. Every moment that Dante remained silent carried Izzy farther away from him.
Suddenly, Dante moved to the weapons locker and began selecting equipment. “I’m risking my career for going against orders.”
“Then what are you doing with all that comms equipment?”
He didn’t look at Steele when he answered. “Kennedy’s upstairs right now, probably pacing and worried sick about what’s happening to her friend. And if I let you go out there alone…if we lose youboth…I’ll have to explain to her why I didn’t do everything I could to help.”
For the first time since hearing Izzy’s recorded message, Steele allowed himself to hope.
It wasn’t much—two operatives against unknown odds, charging into what was certainly a trap—but it was better than abandoning the woman he loved to whatever fate Cipher had planned.
* * * * *
The shipping container smelled of rust and fetid water. Its corrugated metal walls wept condensation in the humid air of the Hudson River pier.
Izzy’s wrists burned where a thick cord cut into her skin, her hands bound in front of her, but the post made her back ache from sitting so stiff in the metal folding chair that had become her prison.
Through the partially open container door, she could see the Manhattan skyline glittering in the distance—so close she couldalmost touch it, yet impossibly far from the safety of Hudson’s arms.
The man she’d sacrificed everything to meet sat across from her in another folding chair, looking nothing like the monster she’d built up in her mind.
Her journalist’s eye took in every detail about the man who called himself by a name meant to inspire terror—Cipher.
Yet Daniel Sheen wasnothingat all like she pictured when she sat inside the safe walls of the Blackout Charlie base and researched him.
He was younger than she’d expected—early thirties, with sandy brown hair and the kind of unremarkable features that easily disappeared in a crowd. He could have been anyone: a tech worker, a graduate student, someone’s neighbor who kept to himself and never caused trouble.
