Page 67 of Critical Strike

She never took her eyes from the screen. “It’s going.” Even if the guards caught wind of something being amiss, the Patterson brothers had log-in credentials for four terminals each and directions for where to find them. They’d already planned out their next target, and the next. The point was to keep security thinned out, running from floor to floor, chasing ghosts. Luke was watching for any approaching guards so he could give his brothers the heads-up to start moving.

He muttered a curse. “Here we go.” She knew that meant security was onto them. “Chance, you need to move. Now.”

Her hands flew faster than ever. They were already running out of time.

“Brax. On to your next terminal. Move.”

Cold sweat ran down the back of her neck and pooled between her breasts. The progress bar inched, signaling the decryption in progress. It wasn’t moving fast enough, yet she knew it would only take a minute for the process to wrap up.

Which was the longest minute of her life.

“Weston, you’ve got two on you, approaching from above and below.” There was extra strain in Luke’s voice, which was more of a sharp bark at this point. She could almost taste the fear for his brother.

Come on, come on, faster. Weston will be trapped soon.

Luke’s hand cupped her shoulder. “Claire, you’ve gotta pause it.”

“I can’t. We’re too close.”

“I have to help Weston. I have to get them off him. They’ll kill him, you know they will. I’m closest, so it has to be me.”

He left the tablet on the desk next to the laptop. “Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll be right back, I swear.” He took her by the back of the neck and silenced anything she might’ve said by pressing a hard, desperate kiss against her mouth.

She watched the live feed with her heart in her throat, tracking the guards closing in on Weston’s floor as victory slipped through her fingers like sand.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Come on. Come on, Luke.” Claire chewed her lip hard enough to pierce the skin, watching as Luke moved between floors via the camera feed on his tablet.

This wasn’t something she’d prepared for or thought out in advance.

This gut-twisting, nauseating dread.

The feeling that she was watching her life crumble in real time.

What if he got shot?

What if they killed him?

There would be nothing for her to do about it, nothing she could say. A decryption program wouldn’t bring him back. Wouldn’t erase the guilt. The pain. The loss.

Khan was restless in the pack at her feet. He sensed her anxiety; he always did. She couldn’t find the breath to comfort him. Who was going to comfort her if she lost Luke?

And it was all her fault.

There was movement from another section of the screen, another camera’s feed. Chance was on his way to his next terminal—only he’d end up on a floor where two guards currently patrolled, weapons drawn.

“No,” she breathed, her heart sinking. Her stomach clenched and threatened to expel everything in it. Only the thought of Khan’s reaction at being thrown up on stopped her.

She had no way of warning him. Why hadn’t she thought to get an earpiece for herself? She could only watch and let things unfold. She was utterly powerless.

The same powerlessness she’d felt all her life. Every day for so long. No power. No say in how things unfolded.

And she was tired of it.

She realized there was something she could do.

Because at this point, what did it matter? If they were going to die, it had better be for a good reason.