Steel Vengeance (Blackthorn Security #6)

Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

H e’d lied to Sloane. He had to.

Until he figured out what the hell was going on, he couldn’t give her the details about the shipment. If she reported back to Matthew, her boss would know Jeremy was involved. Hell, maybe he already knew. Maybe Matthew was in on it too.

A whole faction of the CIA could be dirty. Stitch had no idea how deep this thing went. The last thing he wanted was to put Sloane in the crosshairs. At the very least, she’d get pulled from the op and the whole thing would be shut down.

He couldn’t let that happen. Not if he wanted to find out the truth.

He left her place around midnight. They’d talked for hours out on the balcony—her, about Matthew, and him about his life as a medic in that remote Afghan village.

That was a big deal for him. She had no idea just how huge.

After the attack, he’d completely fallen apart. Went off the grid, living in the mountains, hunting to survive. For a while, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go on. The pain was... unbearable.

Living off the land was easy. SEAL training had more than prepared him for that. But as the weeks dragged into months, the grief morphed into anger, and the anger hardened into white-hot rage. That rage became his fuel—his focus. He swore he’d track down every person responsible for what happened.

That promise had brought him back. He’d crawled out of his hole, found a cheap, filthy flat in Kabul, and started working. He used every contact he had—local officials, poppy farmers, village elders to piece together the truth.

He had a list—and Omari’s name was at the top.

Tracking the Afghani drug lord to Peshawar had taken months. He was hiding, all right, but not from the U.S. for terrorism. No, it was drugs—he was a kingpin in the growing Taliban-run heroin cartel.

He’d only told Sloane part of that story, sticking to the basics. He’d kept it light, sharing enough of his life without getting too deep.

The sharing part? That felt good.

Almost... normal.

For once, he wasn’t the grieving widower fueled by grief and vengeance. He was just a man talking to a woman. A beautiful, interesting woman.

What was so wrong with that?

By the time Stitch pulled up across the street from the meat market, the sun was already blazing. The morning was barely underway, but the heat clung to the air, thick and relentless, promising another scorcher. The market was bustling—Saturday brought out the crowds. Carcasses hung from giant hooks, swaying gently as butchers moved between them, the smell of raw meat and blood hanging heavy in the air. He could already catch a whiff of it, and the busier the market got, the worse it would be. They needed to get on the road soon.

Sloane stepped out of her building, and for a moment, everything else faded. She was wearing a dark skirt, a silky blouse that caught the light just right, and a green-blue scarf wrapped loosely around her head. The color made her eyes pop, and as she waved at him, she gave him a smile that made him forget the smell of the market and the heat pressing down on him.

He found himself smiling back. He was doing that more lately—smiling, talking. Things he’d long forgotten how to do. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he remembered how to be human anymore. But with her, it was coming back.

She stepped off the curb, moving toward him, but then the butcher from the meat market called out to her. She turned to respond, her body angled away from the road.

Something shifted in Stitch’s peripheral vision—a dark figure, a motorbike weaving through the traffic. Full-face helmet, black gear, moving too fast. Warning bells went off in his head. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

He saw it then—a weapon strapped across the rider’s chest.

Fuck.

Instinct kicked in. He didn’t think, didn’t plan. He yanked his gun from the glove box and bolted out of the vehicle.

“Sloane, get down!” he roared as the biker skidded to a stop.

She swung around, but not fast enough. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, and he couldn’t get to her in time. The motorcyclist raised the rifle and opened fire. The air exploded with the crack of gunshots, and the sidewalk shattered with concrete chips. Shoppers screamed and scattered, dropping bags and running for cover.

Stitch dropped to the ground, rolling and firing as he went.

Sloane twisted violently mid-turn, her body jerking as she hit the ground.

No. God, no.

“Sloane!”

He fired off more rounds, charging toward the shooter. The gunfire was deafening, each shot ringing in his ears. The biker turned the weapon on Stitch, but he rolled behind a car just as the butcher grabbed Sloane and dragged her to cover behind the counter.

She wasn’t moving.

“You son of a bitch!” Stitch growled, breaking cover and emptying his magazine at the shooter. He knew it was reckless, but all he could think about was stopping this bastard before someone else got hit.

He saw the shooter flinch, grabbing at his shoulder.

Good. He’d hit him.

But Stitch’s gun clicked. Empty.

Shit.

He sprinted toward the biker, ready to tackle him if that’s what it took. But before he could reach him, the motorcyclist swerved hard, pulling a sharp U-turn and speeding off down the road. In seconds, he was gone, disappearing around the corner in a blur of black.

Stitch didn’t stop. He ran straight for Sloane, who lay on the ground behind the butcher’s cutting machine, her face pale, eyes closed. His heart pounded in his chest as he dropped to his knees beside her.

Not again. Please, not again.

“Sloane?” His voice was hoarse. He touched her face. “Sloane, can you hear me?”

Her arm was bleeding badly, but there were no other visible wounds. No bullets to the torso, no major damage.

Thank God.

Her eyelids fluttered, and she groaned. “Stitch…”

“I’m here,” he said, his voice low but urgent.

She tried to sit up, wincing immediately. “My arm… what happened?”

“You’ve been shot. I’m going to need this.” He unwrapped her scarf and tied it tightly around her arm, above the wound. “The bullet’s still in there, but it’s not too deep. You’re gonna be fine.” He glanced at her hand. “Can you move your fingers?”

She wiggled them, and he let out a breath of relief. No nerve damage.

She was still pale, the shock starting to take hold. He tightened the makeshift tourniquet. “This’ll hold until I can get the bullet out.”

The butcher was hovering nearby, his face etched with concern. Everybody in this border town had seen violence before, maybe too much of it. “The gun’s empty,” he said, nodding toward the pistol on the ground.

Stitch picked it up, tucked it into his pocket of his robe, then gave the man a firm shake of the hand. “Thank you.” He’d pulled her out of the line of fire.

The butcher nodded once, then stepped back. Stitch gently lifted Sloane to her feet, wrapping an arm around her waist to steady her. “Come on, we need to get you out of here. I’ve got to treat that arm.”

“We can go upstairs to my place,” she said, but her voice was weak, shaky.

“Not a chance,” he snapped. “You’re coming with me.”

“But… why? I’m just?—”

“Isn’t it obvious?” His tone was sharp, harder than he intended, but the realization of what had just happened hit him full force. “That was an assassination attempt. Someone just tried to kill you.”