Page 48 of Lost (Powertools: The Shields 2)

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Kennedy stared into the moonless sky. Without the night vision goggles from her kit, she wouldn’t have been able to see shit from her outpost. She hunkered down beside Aarav on a hilltop overlooking the edge of the jungle where a massive drug manufacturing complex was mostly obscured by a lush canopy of leaves. Their “guests” had given up the location fairly easily, along with a few key details about the formula of their new superdrug—mostly that only one person had control of it and that it was stashed in his office.

The past forty-eight hours had involved a lot of strategizing, intel gathering, a couple of quickies. What it hadn’t included was hardly any sleep other than what she’d managed to steal on the private jet flight James had arranged for her, and most of the rest of the team. Jordan, James, Ace, and Ruby were probably huddled together around the table in the command center, monitoring the feeds from each of the field agents’ body cams as well as maintaining the comms, though they were eerily silent at the moment.

Fruit bats circled overhead and monkeys chattered in the distance. Bugs and who knew what else slithered in the shadows, making her edge closer to Aarav while still being mindful of his personal space. She didn’t want to risk nudging him at the wrong moment, given the precision necessary to make his long-distance shots.

Kennedy squinted, barely making out a rustle of movement she knew belonged to one of the pairs creeping up on the complex from various angles. Her stare was locked on the pathway she knew Knox and Marcus were taking on their approach.

At first, she’d been surprised Jordan intended for Knox to come along on this assignment, but she recognized that he had more experience with these sorts of shit shows than she’d like to consider, just from the opposite side. He’d run a profitable arm of a drug cartel’s operations, and that didn’t come without conflict. Besides, Jordan had seemed to think he might have information or connections that could tip things in their favor in the heat of the moment.

Kennedy had to wonder if he was also giving Knox the chance to atone for some of his previous poor decisions. No matter what the reason, she hated that both he and Marcus were out there, crawling toward danger instead of away from it, but that’s also what made them men she could love.

Everything seemed to be going according to plan, which was essentially break in, sneak around, hopefully not get caught, find the recipe, and get the hell out before blowing the factory to bits—though no one really believed that was how things would ultimately go down. There were too many eyes on the entrances and far too many guns patrolling. The rest was going to be an improvisation.

Aarav snapped her from her thoughts when he uttered something in Bengali that sounded a lot like a curse to her.

“What?” Kennedy squinted into the distance.

“Nolan and Sola have been made,” Aarav told her at the same time he disclosed the bad news to the rest of the team back in Middletown. “I can start picking off guards to even the odds, but then they’ll know we’re here. The whole team.”

“We don’t have a lot of options. They’re going to find our people.” Jordan’s voice was tight. “Go ahead, Aarav. Give them the best advantage you can. Take every clean shot.”

Aarav didn’t respond verbally. Instead, he pulled the trigger on the stabilized rifle he was stretched out along. The damn thing was nearly as big as he was. He went so still she knew he wasn’t breathing and wondered if he could even stop his own heart. He was efficient—shot, reset, another shot…

And James’s play by play over the comms made it clear Aarav didn’t miss.

He’d gone through at least a dozen rounds when chaos broke out over the lines. Kennedy tapped her goggles so that one eye displayed footage from Marcus’s body cam along with the blended audio of her teammates.

Kennedy debated taking up chewing her nails like Knox when she saw Liam and Nolan smashing a window before tucking and rolling through it onto a concrete slab floor. Unfortunately, that was about as far as they got. Sola took out a man rushing her, but then she and the rest of the agents were swarmed and fighting hand to hand. Enemies were everywhere.

Too many.

Aarav groaned. “They’re mixed now. I can’t target any more without risking one of our own.”

“You did your part,” Jordan told him. “Sit tight and let’s see if we get another chance to help them out.”

But from where Kennedy sat, watching in horror, it wasn’t looking like most of their other operations. They didn’t have the manpower to go up against this much sheer volume. Punches were flying. Kicks, grunts, and curses echoed from both sides, too. Someone grabbed hold of Liam’s arm and wrenched, making him howl before he flattened the bastard.

And then, a voice cut through the din. “Knox. Is that you?”

Marcus whipped around to face the newcomer, giving Kennedy a good look at the man dressed in a black suit with slicked-back hair. He wasn’t scarred or ugly. No, the man was only about five or ten years older than her and covered with black-and-gray tattoos that would have been sexy if she didn’t have an instinctive sense that the man they were decorating was pure evil incarnate.

“Capture, not kill!” the man bellowed.

Several more of his lackeys were taken out by the Shields then. They had the advantage because they were fighting full out despite the reprieve granted by their enemy’s directive. But eventually, each of them was outnumbered at least five to one. They were herded together, disarmed one-by-one until they stood in a circle, their backs toward the center, facing out.

“That’s better.” The man flashed a wicked too-white smile. “Knox. Welcome home.”

He strode down an open-backed metal stairway from the catwalk over the cooking floor and approached the Shields. Kennedy knew the first person with an opening would break that bastard’s neck.

“What about now, Aarav? Do you have a clear shot?” Jordan asked.

“Negative. There’s a steel pillar in the way. The guy isn’t an idiot,” Aarav hissed.

Instead of telling the asshole to fuck off, Knox tucked his gun into the shoulder holster James had fitted him with and strode over to the drug lord. He bowed his head as he approached. Instead of spitting on the man, Knox took his outstretched hand and kissed his knuckles. “Sorry it took longer than expected, Vex. These guys aren’t easy to fool. I had to be careful.”

What? No!Kennedy’s blood froze in her veins and her lips went numb. She tapped her comms as if she wasn’t hearing them correctly and scrubbed her eyes as if it would change what she was seeing as she watched Knox betray each and every one of them. Her entire being vibrated with rage and pain and self-loathing that she hadn’t known better.

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