hugged her firm ass, one that’d fit perfectly in his hands last night. He’d wanted to bury himself deep in her, but she deserved better than a quick rutting in a shed.
“I have something for you,” she whispered as she reached into the pocket on her left thigh. Heat spread through his hand when she took it.
“It’s nothing big. I…I just wanted you to have it.” She looked down at the ground and increased her pace.
He remained in step with her as he glanced down at what she’d settled in his hand. He reached into his pocket and turned on the small flashlight he’d been given.
He froze as the small beam of light glinted off the figurine.
A phoenix.
Small beads of green glinted from the eyes. Long streams of red fanned out along the wings and interspersed with the clear glass. Thinner strands of yellow divided the two colors.
“This is beautiful.” He breathed the words, too moved by the small creature to say more. She remembered.
He swallowed and studied the creature that’d once been the hero within their woven dreams. Futures they spun like strands of gold. He’d never expected them to come true, and he’d always doubted she bothered to remember their naive imaginings.
“He reminds me of you,” she whispered. “Tonight, we burn your past to the ground so you can finally become whatever you want when you rise from the ashes.”
“Addison.” He breathed her name on an exhale.
“What the fuck are you two doing?” Beast thundered. “We’ve got to get into position.”
“Give them a second, man.” Shep thumped the man on the back and forced him to turn around.
“I probably should’ve waited.” Addy chewed on her lower lip. “I-I just thought you should have it before we go in there. It’s not going to be easy.”
“Nothing worth having is,” he said. He grasped her face. “Thank you. This means more to me than you’ll ever know. You remembered.”
Kristof was thankful they were far enough away from the compound to be heard. Beast was right. They shouldn’t be talking, much less stopping to chat. But nothing mattered in that moment except Addy.
When everything was over and Father’s empire was dismantled, he’d get a tattoo of the phoenix Addy had created. She was his phoenix in every conceivable way.
He feathered a kiss across her lips. “Thank you. We’ll talk after this is done.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Just…”
“Just what?”
“Remember the phoenix. You aren’t your father. Don’t let him take you down in the fire.”
“I won’t.” Kristof pocketed the figurine. “I got lost in my hatred a lot of years, but you’ve renewed my strength and honed my focus. I’m more ready than I’ve ever been.”
“Good. Let’s catch up before Beast kicks my ass.”
The compound was unlike the camp, yet so similar. Addy could retrace every crevice of the area blindfolded, but none of the buildings remained. Locked in what’d once been while thrust within the unknown left her unsettled as she waited beside her team.
Kristof and Maksim remained on the left with one of their teams while Beast, Thunder, Cracker, Shep, and Johnny all lay on their bellies to her right. Divided with her between them. Would that ever change?
“It’s all gone,” she commented.
“The evil core remains,” Kristof said.
Red brick accentuated with black replaced the old, crumbling buildings she remembered. Mandrake drones, electrified fences, and armed guard towers separated those within its contained area from the outside world. No, nothing had changed. It’d simply catapulted into a new level of evil.
Chatter sounded on the com. A concussive boom exploded from the southwestern and northern sections of the compound. The shockwave shook the ground beneath them. Had the catacombs beneath the area been compromised? Would Nolan’s team be slowed down freeing the prisoners because of damage?
Not your problem. Let Edge, Jesse, Zoey, and Cord handle that.
“We’ve got control over their systems,” Zoey said. “Perimeter fencing is down. Drones are under our control. Tracking Kostya now.”
Gunfire echoed within the area as the compound’s men warred against the computerized machine guns remotely controlled by Cord. He and Bree had used drones to raise the weapons into position moments before they’d struck. She assumed Nolan’s team had assisted with the maneuver since they were the closest boots-on-the-ground team.
“Teams One and Two and Blue making entry,” Marshall said on the com. They’d enter the northwestern corner of the facility while everyone was combatting the perceived threat elsewhere. Their objective: secure the biochemical missiles.
Kristof’s four teams had been added to the mission using colors rather than numbers. The one