Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 205

Chapter 205

Nicolai

The plan is as clean as we can make it based on the limited intel we have. Thankfully, It’s not my first time infiltrating a heavily secured building whose layout I know very little about and can only make assumptions.

I know what a clean plan looks like. I’ve run operations with the deck stacked against me before. Against people who were expecting me, with resources that didn’t cover the gap between what I needed and what I had. I know the difference between a plan that works and a plan that looks like it works.

This one works. It has to.

We pull off the dirt road, into an abandoned field near our target but still far enough away not to be detected. It’s where we’ll leave most of our vehicles while we go the rest of the way on foot. Everyone exits their vehicles and crowds around mine for one last briefing before we go in.

“Entry will be from the eastern access point.” I call out, pointing at the map spread out on the hood of my SUV. ” Secondary team waits on the perimeter-eight men, Mikhail leading, with the specific task of neutralizing the exterior guards silently and holding the perimeter for as long as the extraction requires.”

Nods and murmurs of “yes sir” follow my instructions, all eyes locked onto me or the map. Only my most loyal men are here and every single one of them has their jaw set with determination. It settles my racing pulse just a

little.

“Stealth and surprise are imperative so only Jaxon and I will enter the building.” I continue. “Jaxon will take the service entrance on the eastern side while I take the main approach from the northwest. We have ninety seconds of clear corridor between the main entrance and the basement stairs. We have good intel that we’ll find Skye in the basement. The interior guard rotation creates that window every fourteen minutes. We hit the window. We get to Skye. We’re out through the northwest corner where Noah is waiting with two vehicles.”

The intel has been confirmed through two additional sources-Jaxon’s eastern contacts who’ve had some involvement” with Savin in the past and Mikhail’s surveillance of the property over the past six hours. Guard count, rotation schedule, entry points, Skye’s probable location. It’s the best we could hope for with such a tight turn around.

It’s clean. I’ve done harder things, I remind myself. But none have ever mattered this much, my subconscious unhelpfully supplies.

I check-in with my men one more time. We all sync our watches and test our radio comms.

Then we all move as one.

The first few minutes go exactly as planned. Mikhail’s team moves through the perimeter with the efficiency I pay for. Two exterior guards down before the alarm can register them. The northwest corner is clear and I’m through the main access in forty seconds-the lock is the type our intelligence identified, the bypass takes only seconds. So far so good.

I’m in the corridor when I get the signal in my earpiece: “Northwest perimeter clear. You’re good.”

I move.

The corridor is what the blueprint said it would be-long, poorly lit, and I recognize the smell of a property that’s used for operational staging rather than habitation. Concrete and damp and something chemical underneath.

The basement stairs are forty feet ahead. Ninety-second window. Forty seconds used. Fifty remaining. I’m moving

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toward the stairs when it all goes sideways.

Mikhail’s voice crackles in my ear, clipped: “Extra guard. Eastern perimeter. Not on the rotation.”

“Fuck!” I hear Jaxon curse through the comms. My sentiments exactly.

Everything cascades from there. The eastern perimeter extra guard means Jaxon’s entry point is compromised– someone will have seen or heard something, the timing will have shifted. The ninety-second window is now forty -five at best because when one thing moves, everything moves.

I don’t stop. Stopping is worse than adjusting. I’m in the corridor and I’m twenty feet from the basement stairs and I’m determined to be at those stairs before the interior rotation catches up-

But the interior alarm triggers. Not a full alert-not the sound of a facility that knows it’s under attack. Something smaller. Someone saw movement. Heard a door. The type of alert that says check it rather than mobilize. Thank fuck!

For approximately thirty seconds that distinction matters. I’m at the top of the basement stairs when it stops mattering.

Jaxon’s voice: “I’m in but the eastern access is compromised. They have the service corridor.”

“Get out,” I bark. “Find another way.’

Silence stretches for several extremely uncomfortable seconds. Then: “Working on it.”

I head down the stairs. The basement door opens from the inside as I’m two steps down. Two men are coming up -not rotating guards, not the pattern we mapped. Men moving with specific purpose. Someone gave them a task and they’re executing it.

They’re moving her. I understand in the half-second before we connect, they’ve been told to relocate her. Which means the window isn’t forty-five seconds, it’s whatever time I have before these two men don’t report back.

I take the first one on the stairs. The confined space is an advantage-nowhere to maneuver, nowhere to swing wide. It’s fast and ugly, not thinking, just moving on autopilot. The snap of his neck is the most satisfying sound I’ve heard in hours.

The second one gets his radio up. I get to him before he finishes the transmission but not before he starts it.

“Shit!” I mumble to myself, forgetting the others can hear.

“Wha- … fuck…. happen… Woolf?” Jaxon’s message breaks up but I get the gist. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to respond.

Above me, the house comes alive. Full alert now-the sound of a facility that knows exactly what’s happening and is responding to it. Multiple sets of footsteps. Voices in the corridor I came through. The organized noise of trained men who know their role and play it without pausing to ask questions.

I’m at the bottom of the stairs with two men down and forty seconds before the ones above reach me.

I find the door I’m looking for.

Now I just have to figure out how the fuck to get inside.

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