Talon: Combat Tracking Team (A Breed Apart) (58 page)

Yes!
Cardinal sprinted after him, ignoring the fire in his side. The renewed pain in his neck from the injury in Djibouti. Down the street. Straight toward Ligovksy Prospekt. The roundabout. Beneath trolley lines. He pushed himself.

Talon vanished when he banked left. What street was that? He knew this city. Walked it. Worked it. Prospekt Bakunina?

He careened onto the street. With one last push, Cardinal shoved himself onward. Wove around cars caught in traffic. His mind warred, knowing the others were most likely stranded in traffic, too. Which meant…

I’m alone
.

    Forty-Five    

Y
ou promised me!”

“You are lucky to be alive, General Payne.”

Despite the crippling pain from her broken leg, Aspen focused on the two men arguing within earshot. Kept still so the chains anchoring her to the table didn’t rattle as she tried to do a little recon on her surroundings and captors.

There was no chance to escape with the chain and broken leg, but she wouldn’t have a prayer anyway with the horde of men working in the warehouse.

The men thought she was unconscious, and that served her well. The man she’d seen with the cruel soldier was American—clear English gave him away. They’d worked diligently for the last two hours, barely a word spoken as trucks were loaded with crates marked in the same fashion as the ones on the boat in Djibouti.

As more trucks left and the emptiness reigned in the dingy warehouse, the voices rose again. This time, angrier.

“I’ve sacrificed everything. Done everything you’ve asked, Tselekova. I gave him to you.”

“Yes, and now our business is at an end, General.” Tselekova flicked a wrist toward a man in uniform.

He aimed at the American.

Aspen clenched her eyes. But closing her eyes could not prevent her from hearing the primal scream and the gunfire that silenced it.

As her hearing and thundering heart cleared, Aspen heard the boots.

Right next to her.

“Get up,” he said in a thickly accented voice.

Aspen stared up at him as she slowly rose to a sitting position, chains clanking.

Snarling and snapping echoed through the warehouse.
Talon?
She looked to the side, and her stomach heaved. Three Dobermans strained against chain leads. Eyes trained on her as they vied for permission to devour her.

Lord…

“You are dog handler, yes?” Tselekova stuffed a key into the lock and twisted it. The chains dropped to the floor, tugging the rest off her like a slithering snake till they piled in a mound at her feet.

The question all but forced her to look at the dogs again. The handler’s bulging muscles and face warned he had little control left. The Dobermans jerked him forward. His feet slipped and slid over the cement.

Swallowing, Aspen skated a sidelong glance to Tselekova. Gave a slow nod.

He hooked a hand beneath her arm. Hauled her up off the crate that had been her prison for the last…well, she had no idea how long she’d been out. When she woke after they broke her leg, the pain had punched her back into oblivion.

He yanked her to the front.

Her weight fell on her right leg. She cried out.

“Your foolishness,” he said, his breath salty and warm against her cheek, “in trying to escape, to thwart my plans, will now serve to bring about your end…quicker.”

Was that a threat?

He smiled as the handler shouted, now straining with both hands to hold back the dogs.

Aspen swallowed.

“You love my Nikol.”

Nikol. Was that Dane’s real name? There was no use denying it. Another sidelong glance churned her stomach. How could the man look like an older version of Dane yet look nothing like him? “Yes.”

“As I thought.” The man’s gaze fixed on something. “And it seems he loves you, too.”

A truck lumbered out of the warehouse. Sunlight bled across the cement and delivered into the chaos Dane.

Aspen sucked in a breath. Relief flooded her.

Rabid snapping and barking.

He leveled a gun at Tselekova as he closed the gap. “Let her go.”

“Where are your friends?” Tselekova’s grip on her arm tightened. “And your sister, Nikol?”

“You already took care of her,
Father.”
Dane stopped. “Or am I still not allowed to call you that?”

“You never earned the right.”

Dane smiled in disdain. “A son should not have to earn that right.”

“I see you are already poisoned by this woman. You are weaker than you were before you left.”

“No, Colonel, I am stronger than ever before.” He nodded to Aspen. “Release her.”

“If I release her, Anton will release them.”

Both hands held the gun steady and sure. Aspen saw the pure determination in Dane’s stance, his body language. The fear she’d seen before when he talked about the past, about the reasons he couldn’t love her, were gone.

Dane held Tselekova’s gaze. “I’m ready when you are.”

    Forty-Six    

C
alculated risks were always
risky
.

But the surreal confidence, peace, and laser-like focus on freeing

Aspen from the colonel’s clutches simmered in his gut. He spotted Aspen’s nervous response.

“Do you know why I killed your sister?”

“I really don’t care.” Cardinal kept his breathing steady, his focus pure. Because he had the upper hand. Kalyna wasn’t dead—she might die before the team got her some help. But for now, she was alive. The colonel didn’t know that. But he did know that Cardinal
never
missed a shot. Because it was the colonel who taught him to shoot. Taught him to never miss lest he wanted raw, bloodied hands.

“You killed the one person who was on your side. Kalyna merely wanted your approval. Just like I did.” Cardinal thrust his chin toward Aspen. “Release her. Without the dogs, and you walk out of here alive and intact.”

“I believe you miscounted, Nikol.”

“Dane!”

The sound of the shot hit him at the same time the bullet did.

Winged him. He stumbled.

A flurry of insanity erupted. The colonel shoved Aspen forward.

She screamed and dropped, holding her leg.

The colonel signaled the handler.

Free, the dogs vaulted.

On a knee, Cardinal took aim at the lead dog. The one headed straight for Aspen. Ignored the one that sailed over the air and cement toward him. He aimed a few seconds ahead. Fired. Let the dog catch up with the bullet.