Raging Fire (Guarded Secrets Book 4) (17 page)

Chapter 28

I leapt head first at Harley, closing the remaining distance between us in an instant. Without his backup he was as good as mine, and I intended to make sure he’d never get the chance to start up this cartel ever again. The blade of my knife poised in a striking position as my feet planted into the dirt, holding me firmly in place. I swiped at what I hoped would be his chest, but my blade met nothing but air. When I looked up to figure out why I hadn’t landed a hit, Harley landed a blow of his own. His kick was shift and connected with the side of my knee, breaking my stance and threatening to break my leg. 
This wasn’t a good start.

“So much for your supposed training, Grayson. You must be one of the lower agents I’ve heard about. Camden said others fought expertly and were skilled in many aspects, at least that’s what he saw during the short fight he encountered in Georgia. I guess you weren’t one of the agents he met. Have you fallen short all these years?”

I growled in annoyance before leaping at him again. Once again he dodged me expertly and left me swiping at nothing but air. Suddenly, I wished I hadn’t dropped the guns. I could have ended this with one bullet and walked away, but he didn’t deserve such an easy out. Harley deserved the most painful death I could muster for him, even if it took a few tries. He was stalling so the helicopter could land and he could be saved, but if it came to that, I’d retrieve the guns and shoot him. He wouldn’t escape, one way or another he’d die by my hands today. I leapt again, and the process repeated until I managed to slow him down. He had the skills to survive in a fight, but not the stamina. I wore him down until he faltered and then swiped his side deep enough to draw blood. 

He groaned and stumbled slightly, finally losing his footing and coming to realize I was a threat. I wasn’t playing around with him anymore. This was it.

I stood off a few paces away from him, watching the fear finally seep into his eyes. Footsteps neared us, but none ever came into our fight. Eventually the helicopter even turned around, the rhythmic beating of the blades droning out as it left him behind. His eyes frantically darted between me and the helicopter’s retreating silhouette. He was finally realizing he was alone, and he didn’t have backup coming or anyone to save him from his fate. He’d have to face me.

“I could ask the same thing of you, Harley.” I paused to let him remember his comment about me being subpar. “You must be one of the lesser leaders of the Cardoza Cartel. After all, you did only take over after the rightful leaders were killed. They had their men fighting with them until the end. That’s why I didn’t get to meet Camden until I had the pleasure of killing him. I had to distract his protectors so we could get rid of his father and him. There are more aspects to be skilled in than just fighting.” I tossed one of the knives and landed it in his upper chest. His eyes went wide as he looked down at the knife, stumbling slightly as his knees began to buckle. “Though it does help to know how to fight.”

“And what makes you think I don’t have men out here right now?” He questioned through clenched teeth.

“Where are they, Harley? 
Where
 are they?” I gestured around us. We were surrounded by trees, not cartel members. “Face it, they’ve left you. I killed the only people who would have stood by you, and the only reason they would have done that is because they wanted to take over eventually. You’re all alone.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” His voice turned dark, tingling with a murderous laugh I couldn’t understand until I caught sight of a lone figure peeking out from behind the trees to my right. 

I stood still for a moment as I processed the scene. I saw the glint of a gun move between the trees where the figure was standing before I took a few quick steps toward the cartel member and fell to the ground to avoid the bullets flying overhead. Once the gun went off, and I was able to recover mentally, I flung the last of my knives in the shooter’s direction before running at him. Harley’s would-be savior managed to dodge the knife, but I was right on top of him before he could react further. My hand instinctively reached for the gun and broke it out of his grasp before turning it to aim at him. His eyes met mine momentarily, just before I pulled the trigger, and even then I didn’t feel anything about killing him. He was just another cartel member added to the long list I had already killed. The list that Harley would soon be at the top of.

At the thought of Harley, I turned back to finish our fight only to see he had vanished. I glanced around, looking between trees for any sight of movement. Nothing moved, no sticks snapped, and no leaves crunched beneath someone’s weight. 
Where did he go? He couldn’t have gotten far. 
As the thought crossed my mind, I heard leaves rustle from the tree line. I lifted the gun in the direction of the sound before a shadow darted between the trees.

“If that’s anyone other than Harley, you better identify yourself before I shoot,” I said just loud enough to let it carry, but the figure didn’t stop. If it had been one of the other agents, they would have replied. They must still be fighting the cartel members near the compound, otherwise one of them would have come looking for me. 
Unless they were all dead.
 I pushed the thought from my mind as I caught sight of the shadow again.

Harley didn’t leave the safety of the trees so instead I took off after him. He had a slight advantage of knowing the landscape, and most likely had another escape route ready just in case he was caught, but he’d underestimated my determination to kill him. The only downside was that I had lost the chance to make it slow and painful. Once I got a clear shot, I’d have to kill him. It wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as letting his blood run from his wound and watching the light leave his eyes. Now it would have to be short and quick unless I wanted to risk losing him.

I glanced around, chasing after his figure in the distance before darting in another direction. I wanted to confuse him while I cut him off and blocked his escape. Without knowing exactly how he’d react I vanished from his field of vision and made my way toward him from a different direction. Sticking to the trees and shadows, I approached him easily. He had slowed down, but hadn’t stopped. Occasionally he would glance around to look for me, but I always stayed just out of sight. I remained close enough to see the panic etching its way onto his face and the fear residing in his eyes. He wanted to know where I was and where I’d show up next, but I couldn’t reveal myself yet. I wanted to give him time to squirm before I shot him.

I smiled as I sprinted forward and passed him. He didn’t seem to notice since he followed after me for a short distance, but as soon as I cut him off he skidded to a stop. He stumbled through the fallen branches to maintain his balance, and eventually came to meet my gaze. His chest was heaving, his eyes darting from side to side to look for an escape, and his body rigid and tense. I wondered if he knew how a caged animal felt now, and more importantly, how he made my family feel before they were killed. 

A cruel smile curved at the edges of my lips as the thought crossed my mind. “Good bye, Harley.”

“Wait, please!” His pleading fell on deaf ears. The panic in his features told me he was about to run, and I didn’t have time to chase after him again and again. My teammates needed me; my family needed me. He was wasting my time while they were dying.

I pulled the trigger without a second thought and watched the bullet pierce his chest. Unaffected, I shot him twice more and watched him fall to the ground. Blood was rushing in my ears, blocking out the sounds of the gun going off. My breathing remained heavy as I waited for him to stop moving, and my hand stayed clutching my gun tightly as if he’d get up and come after me again. That’s what all monsters do, they get up and come again, but not this one. I had finally ended him—put him down like the dangerous animal he was. I checked to make sure he was dead. I had to be sure.  I was finally able to breathe easy when I felt that he had no pulse and there wasn’t a final breath escaping his lips. When I was satisfied, I turned and left him there to rot.

My other family needed me now and I wasn’t going to let them finish this fight alone
.

Chapter 29

Slowly my senses came back to me, and I found a twisted enjoyment of the silence around me. Harley was gone, dead and not coming back. The weight I had been carrying around for years finally lifted off my shoulders. For a moment I felt peace and happiness for the first time in years. It didn’t last long though.

From the distance I could hear screaming, guns firing off rapidly, and a faint order being yelled. The fight with the cartel members was still going strong, which meant agents were still getting injured or dying. I took off toward the fight, silently praying I wasn’t too late. More gun shots went off as I ran full speed back toward the compound. I passed a few cartel members, who were attempting to escape, and shot them dead. The few I didn’t kill would hopefully never join another cartel again because they wouldn’t get away from me a second time. 

As I neared the building, I caught sight of a couple of agents fighting hand-to-hand. A few seemed to be handling themselves well, others were calling in for assistance and receiving whatever the other agents could give them. I shot at the cartel members once I joined the other agents. They fell without much of a fight, and the agents either collapsed from exhaustion and relief or went on to find the next fight with only a nod in my direction as a quick thank you. Though a few went to rest beside fallen partners and teammates. 

I took a step back, reeling from the sight of agents lying on the ground injured, dead, or dying, and knowing there would be more to come. This was my fault, and I had ended the cartel by killing Harley, but now we had another fight to win. 

A scream broke through my thoughts, pushing me away from the bodies of my fallen family members and into the building again. I found Valkyrie in almost the same spot I had left her in, but this time she was at the disadvantage. She screamed as a cartel member shot her in the leg again. Judging from the pool of blood beneath her, they had been torturing her by shooting her to cause her pain instead of killing her on the spot. I was about to shoot one of them when one spotted me. I took cover as the cartel member began to fire at me. The metal clanged against the wall beside me while a few ricocheted around the small hallway, but soon I heard the bullets stop.

I tentatively glanced around the wall to see Sandstorm cutting the last one’s throat. He let the body drop once the deed was done and let out a heavy breath before he turned to Valkyrie. He quickly tended to her wounds as best as he could while telling her help was on the way. I didn’t hear her reply as I got up from my hiding spot and rounded the corner in time to see a cartel member approaching with a gun level at Sandstorm’s head. I sunk down into a hidden position and took aim of my own. I leveled my weapon to his leg so he could feel the same pain as Valkyrie. The gun went off and the cartel member fell to the ground.

“Spit Fire,” Sandstorm said, taking notice of me. “Thanks for the save.” He flashed me a smile before turning to the cartel member, who proceeded to beg for his life and ask Sandstorm to have mercy because he was just following orders. I vaguely recognized him from the Sandtown compound when we lost Hess. Pride swelled in me for finally getting one of them back.
 
“Where was the mercy shown for the families you and the cartel killed and tore apart?” Sandstorm questioned, without missing a beat, as medics came in to retrieve Valkyrie. 

The cartel member looked between us and the medics before he shook his head. He let his silence answer for him, and once Valkyrie was out of the room, safely on her way to medical assistance, Sandstorm continued. “That’s right, there wasn’t any.” He shot the cartel member again without another word. 

It fell silent in the room. Four bodies lay dead in the room, but none of them were CIRA agents. I noticed the sounds of battle outside were waning off and couldn’t help but wonder if CIRA was winning or not.
How many friends had we lost to this fight? How many more were injured or would later be forced into retirement? How much blood was on my hands?
I was about to answer those questions by stepping outside into the madness when Sandstorm’s voice stopped me.

“Where do you think you’re going, Spit Fire? Why would you torture yourself by seeing how many agents died from this battle? You’ll only blame yourself. Let the medics take care of them while you take some time to come to terms with what happened here. If you don’t, then you’ll never recover from this. You jeopardized lives to save a teammate and even worse, froze in the middle of a fight. What happened to you? I thought you said this wouldn’t be a problem.”

What did happen? I was usually so focused.

“What the hell happened, Spit Fire? What were you thinking going back to help them? You could have gotten killed and then what? They would have died for nothing because Harley would still be alive. So why torture yourself?” Sandstorm questioned, approaching me when I didn’t answer his questions. At this distance I could see in detail the blood covering his face and clothes. He had his gun drawn, ready for another attack, which could come at any moment. He didn’t make a move to put the weapon away as he kicked the rubble out of his path. I half expected him to shoot me for causing so much destruction and death, but instead he only reprimanded me. Maybe he had already experienced too much death for one day and didn’t want to cause another. “We lost a lot of agents because the plan fell apart. We didn’t know what the failsafe was and we weren’t prepared for it. Nothing else.” His green eyes bore into mine to see if I got the message. He must have known it was a lost cause, I would always blame myself for the lives lost here. Even though I knew it had to be done so we could finally defeat the Cardoza Cartel. “What happened out there, Spit Fire? What were you thinking? What was holding you back during the fight?”

“I didn’t mean to.” I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself down. My body shook uncontrollably and my thoughts spun wildly as I wondered who had been lucky enough to make it out alive, if anyone had, and I could do nothing to get myself to relax. I couldn’t believe this happened. It was exactly what I wanted to avoid by coming here alone. If anyone should have died here, it should have been me. Instead, countless agents and mislead civilians were killed. All caused by a man I hated, and now I loathed him more. He took away both sets of families I had and I couldn’t bring either of them back. At least he was gone now. He couldn’t hurt anyone else, and the Cardoza Cartel was finished for good. 

The thought didn’t comfort me like I hoped it would. As I looked at the destruction around me and breathed in the smoke, a tear trickled down my cheek. 
This is all my fault.
 Another tear fell from my eyelashes and I did nothing to stop it. Everything was catching up to me all at once. Waves of emotion I couldn’t comprehend washed over me and filled me with dread, guilt, and crippling agony.
How had everything gone to hell?
I had planned meticulously, but this still happened.
Could I have done anything to save them?
I loud sob escaped my lips as the truth came to light. 
No, I couldn’t have.

I worked on recomposing myself before I turned to face Sandstorm again. He remained mostly unaffected by the deaths of the agents, most likely because he didn’t know them. He wasn’t attached to them like I was. He didn’t know their lives, skills, or their stories. I knew them, whether in passing, working with them for missions or on teams, or just as agents, and I watched them as they took their final breaths. 

“They must have figured out the plan. I saw them stop and then heard the order to return to the compound. Something gave us away,” I finally managed to say between recovering breaths. “We underestimated Harley and he figured us out before we could act. I also wasn’t planning on all these agents being here. They just showed up and weren’t going to leave. They were determined to help and look how that ended.”

Sandstorm shook his head in disappointment, but didn’t say anything. He looked away from me for a moment before he began pacing and talking to himself to figure out what to do next. His cover was blown, but with Harley dead and the last trade link between his group gone he was done; he could finally go home. Though I’m not sure what was left of home with all of these agents gone. The thought resonated with me as Camo and Renegade came running into the room. 
Night Stripe won’t be far behind.
 I cringed at the thought.
How could I tell her that Rum had lost her life saving me?
She looked up to Rum. Rum was her support, her mentor, and overall, her friend. She was everything to Night Stripe.

Camo pulled me into a bone-crushing hug, crying about how happy she was to see me again. “I was so worried when I didn’t see you outside after the fight ended. Siren is caring for as many agents as she can, but I don’t know if they’ll make it. Everyone left is calling for medical evacuations and helping to provide any care they can while we wait.”

I hugged her back, squeezing her tightly as she cried on my shoulder. I didn’t know what to say, and even if I did I wouldn’t have been able to speak. All I could do was hold her and cry with her.

“Spit Fire, are you okay?” Renegade asked, placing his hand on my shoulder. He accepted the curt nod I gave him even though he could see the tears staining my face. He opened his mouth to say something else, but his eyes darted to my right. I followed his gaze as he took in Sandstorm to determine if he was a friend or a foe. “Who are you?”

“I’m an undercover agent from the Middle East following the weapons trade. With war brewing over there, and where anything can be a tipping point to instigate another one, I try to cut off as many ties to cartels as possible to help prevent another war where our men die.” His response was cold; he didn’t even look in Renegade’s direction as he spoke. Instead, he kept his eyes level with mine. “Spit Fire has met me before and she’s assisted me in bringing down this cartel for good. My job is done, as is hers. Thank you for coming when you did. We lost enough people as is so I’m glad to see some of us are still standing.”

Anger flashed in Renegade’s eyes as he opened his mouth to tell off Sandstorm, but he was cut off when Night Stripe entered the room and Sandstorm turned his back on him. “There you guys are. Did you leave me outside to finish off the last few cartel members by myself on purpose? It must be my birthday and I forgot. Not that it matters, because I gave myself the gift of getting rid of them. I even ran into one of the men I left behind in Georgia. Shockingly he wasn’t as excited to see me as I was to see him again, but oh well, he’s gone now.”

I turned to see her walking toward Renegade’s side, coated in blood, dirt, and sweat, but with a smile plastered on her face as she looked over her friends, injured and in pain, but alive. Renegade gave her a thumbs up, and Camo, now recovered from her emotional high of seeing me alive and well, moved from me to Night Stripe. Night Stripe opened her arms gratefully, even as Camo rubbed off some of the dirt from her hands onto Night Stripe’s shirt with a playful smile on her face. She pushed Camo away from her, laughing at her friend’s antics, before she turned to me. She smiled brightly at me as she approached, most likely to hug me as well, but her smile vanished quickly when her eyes landed on Sandstorm, who was now standing behind me.

Her lips twitched as if holding back a cry. Her hands flew up to her mouth to cover the whimper that escaped her lips as her eyes began to glisten. I watched in confusion as tears welled up in her eyes. A mix of emotions clashed over her features, one unable to overpower the others. Confusion, desperation, and pain flashed in her eyes in rapid succession as she looked over him. I glanced toward him, but he was typing away on his phone, most likely talking with Sharp Shooter and too busy to pay attention to the scene unfolding in front of him. He hadn’t seen her expression change to pure disbelief before she fell to her knees and began to cry. Her sobs were so powerful that they shook her small frame to the core.

Renegade rushed to her as Camo and I stood frozen, taken back by the sudden show of emotions. Night Stripe had kept up an impenetrable wall throughout her years at the agency, and it had suddenly exploded to pieces. 

“Night Stripe,” Renegade cooed softly as he looked her over as best as he could. He didn’t attempt to move her from her position, but she crashed to his chest a moment later. “Tell me what’s wrong. Are you hurt? Did you get injured during the fight? Where’s the pain? Do I need to call someone to have a medic look over you?”

Night Stripe didn’t respond. All she managed was a strangled cry. This is how I expected her to act when she heard the news about Rum; unable to respond from crying hysterically.
What had brought this on?
I couldn’t see any blood to indicate a deep wound. She looked roughed up, but nothing bad enough to explain the wailing cries.

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” Renegade begged, his voice tight with worry. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“Spit Fire, I thought you said the agents you worked with were excellent. Yet all I’ve seen is sloppy work and crying. Why the hell is she crying?” Sandstorm questioned, finally putting his phone away. “Can she not handle a fight? Is she a rookie or something? Seriously, this is a job. It’s not for the faint of heart. Did she not get the memo when she joined?”

I turned to face him with Camo mimicking my actions. I could feel her anger radiating off of her. I didn’t have to look for the body language to give it away: clenched fists, locked jaw, teeth grit together, and the way her eyebrows pushed down. She had always stood up for Night Stripe since she was the one who’d given her another chance at life. Night Stripe had believed in her and given her a second chance while Camo had given her a chance for revenge. She’d defend Night Stripe with her last breath if needed, because if she hadn’t saved her, Camo would already be dead, but I beat her to the punch this time.