Behind her, the mansion grew smaller with each step, but the weight of what she was about to do pressed down on her shoulders like lead. Thirty minutes to reach the pier. Thirty minutes to say goodbye to the life she’d been building with Hudson.
Thirty minutes to be brave enough to face whatever Cipher—Daniel Sheen, she would use his name, dammit—had planned for her.
The morning air burned her lungs as she ran, but she didn’t slow down. Couldn’t slow down. Time was running out, and somewhere out there, the man she loved was walking into a trap only she could save him from.
Even though it meant walking into one herself.
FOURTEEN
The convention center stretched before them like a concrete monument, the glass façade reflecting thirty or so rescue units that had rushed in at Charlie’s call.
Steele stood at parade rest between Dante and Mason, watching the NYC bomb unit clear the last of their equipment from the scene.
The device that Charlie team discovered in a centralized area that would have brought the entire urban structure down, and wiped out the rest of the block with it, had been neutralized about forty minutes ago. But it had taken the squad three hours to defuse one of the most sophisticated explosives they’d ever seen.
“This is Charlie One. Explosive disposal is complete.” Con’s voice filtered into their comms devices.
“Copy that. Initiating secondary sweep.” Steele waved a hand at the K9 unit, and the handlers and their eager dogs entered the evacuated convention center.
He shifted, the familiar weight of his gear a comfort, a reminder that he’d lived through another mission. These were moments he always catalogued as victories—another successful op completed, another threat eliminated, his brothers all still standing.
Con’s second order came through, and three of his teammates moved to do another sweep of the perimeter.
Cipher was too smart to rely on just one bomb, which meant they were all waiting for the other combat boot to drop.
Within ten minutes, the team reported back that the perimeter was secure. Every inch of the building and surrounding grounds had been checked out.
It was a textbook execution. But the whole scenario felt wrong to Steele. Maybe he was just being paranoid. While he was anxious as hell to return to base, and to Izzy, he didn’t have an easy feeling about this.
He reached up and touched the tip of the crystal dangling on the leather cord around his neck. As soon as the chopper landed, he’d tucked it inside his vest for safekeeping. He didn’t want to lose Izzy’s method of comfort, after all.
Strangely, the small lumpy stone gave him a measure of peace too—that he’d return to her very soon. That together, they were stronger.
Con broke away from the huddle of government agencies on the scene. As he neared Steele and the others standing around waiting for orders, his phone started buzzing.
The sound rarely signaled good news, especially during times like this. But this noise cut through the calm like a buzzsaw because it was Con’s civilian ringtone, so out of place among tactical radio chatter and barked commands.
Who the hell would be calling during an active operation? Steele’s sixth sense was already prickling.
Con stopped feet away from Steele and pulled out the device. His expression shifting from annoyed to concerned as he read the display. “Fuck. The call’s coming from base.”
His stomach dropped. “The only people there are the girls.” His lips felt wooden, barely allowing the words to pass through them.
Con answered on the third ring, putting it on speaker and stepping close to Steele to allow him to hear. “This is Con.”
Sophie’s voice came through in a rush, words tumbling over each other with barely controlled panic. “Ryan, thank god! I knew something was wrong. I told them it was too easy, the puzzle was too—”
“Sophie, slow down. What’s happening?”
There was a muffled sound, voices in the background, then Alyssa came on the line. Her negotiator’s training kept her voice steady despite the underlying tension.
“We can’t find Izzy anywhere,” she said without preamble.
Steele’s world dimmed to a pinprick of pain.
“She’s gone,” Alyssa continued, in a hurry now. “She left a note on her laptop.”
“What does it say?” Steele rasped.
