Taking It Slow - Reese Knightley

Spencer

“Spence! Hold your position.”

Fuck that!

He heard the order, but no way in hell was he stopping. The order sure as shit wasn’t from his commander, and more importantly, he didn’t fucking want to stop, not when he was this close.

The place was dark, but with his infrared goggles, he could see well enough to pick out the perps ahead of him. The green glow of the room showed that a previous fire had pretty much demolished the first floor of the building.

Darting across the warehouse toward a far hallway, several suspects opened fire. Spencer returned fire, dropping one perp, hitting him in the head. The guy crumpled to the ground just as Spencer barreled past the now dead body. Gunfire echoed, light flashed, and several bullets careened into the wall near his head. Another perp lunged out and charged at him.

Spencer ran full out and dropped to his knees in a forward slide that propelled him toward the guy. The perp shot wildly and leaped over him. Spencer spun, landed on his back, and put a bullet in the guy’s neck, the blood spurting across the floor.

He didn’t wait for the guy to topple to the ground. Rolling, he lunged up and ducked into the hallway that led to the second-floor stairwell.

Entering the stairwell, he took it upward on silent feet. Reaching the landing, he eased open the door and surveyed the room. A shot rang out and wood chips and stucco flew near his head. He dove for cover.

With a grimace, he swung his arm around the corner and fired his silencer fitted weapon three times before leaping into the darkened room and behind a metal desk. A scuffle from midway into the room reached his ears, and then silence.

Crouching there in the dark, he let his heartbeat settle for a few moments before he moved. The next suspect he came across lay prone on the ground. He placed his fingers to the perp’s bloodied throat, but there was no pulse.

Moving again, he ran hunkered over through the darkness and squatted next to another set of sprawled, dead bodies. Both suspects had knife wounds, precise slits across each one’s throat. Link’s handiwork.

“Spence, where the fuck are you?” Eagle growled into his ear by way of the small, invisible mic.

“Three dead on the second level,” he said as he finally broke his silence. “I’m headed to the south stairwell to the third floor.”

“Fucker, I was just there,” Link snarled into the mic.

“So I see,” Spencer muttered, staring at the array of dead bodies.

Something crunched on the floor behind him and he spun, jerking his arm up to deflect the two by four swinging for his head. His arm rang numbly and his weapon dropped to the floor near his feet. The wood was swung again and Spencer closed his fist around it and yanked, but there was no fucking give at all. The man holding the two by four was the size of a behemoth.

Great, just once he’d like Link to take out the biggest guy in the room instead of as many perps as possible. They wrestled with the piece of wood until it toppled to the floor. He kicked his leg upward trying to hit the guy in the balls, but a massive thigh deflected his attempt. Hands reached for his throat and Spencer brought his arms up, knocking the man’s hands away.

“Spence?”

“What?” he snapped with a grunt when his back hit the wall. Instead of asking him questions, the fucker could have made his way up and helped him.

“I’m coming your way,” Link warned.

Spencer snorted and finally got his shot and kneed his attacker in the junk.

“Better watch your ass,” Link warned. Spencer didn’t snort that time. Link was lethal, a military mercenary that handled some of the worse assignments they came across. Things that involved such heinous crimes it would leave an ordinary person psychologically damaged. Even so, Link wasn’t as menacing as Eagle. Eagle was known to toy with his perps before sending them to a slow, agonizing death.

When his attacker groaned and cupped his balls, Spencer moved in. He gut punched the fucker and when the perp doubled over, he brought his knee up beneath the big man’s chin, knocking the behemoth back. The guy crumbled to the ground on his back.

Spencer snatched up his weapon, tired of the fucking games. He bent over the guy and pointed the barrel right between the man’s eyes.

“You can die right here, right now, or you can roll