The Assassin's Billionaire Bodyguard

5

“Alpha, I am in position,” Corrine, the Beta and second in command to Clara’s team with Bellona, let her voice carry through their headsets.

“Do you have a clear shot?” Clara’s voice reached her four counterparts as if she were standing at their sides. Clara had been part of a team of mercenary assassins since before her eighteenth birthday. Ruthless, dedicated to saving women in danger and without any remorse for the lives she had taken in her missions.

“Affirmative,” Corry confirmed and waited for instructions

“Where is Delta?”

“I am in the basement Alpha,” Josephine’s voice was whispered but still clear. “I can hear a lot of movement on the first floor.”

“That would be me,” Isabella spoke quietly.

“Epsilon, state your position,” Clara the leader of the team spoke quickly.

“Back door was open, main floor had one guard, who is no longer an issue, which was the sound Delta heard. The rest of the floor is clear. Waiting for Gamma to join and we will take the stairs at your order,” Isabella’s voice was assured as she perched in the darkness behind a small table.

“Gamma?” Clara’s voice came in again. “Position.”

“At the back door Alpha, watching Epsilon’s six,” Sabine’s voice carried in the silence. “It’s too bloody quiet and I don’t like it.”

“But she likes watching my six,” Isabella taunted her colleague and best friend.

“If I have to cover someone’s ass, I’m glad it yours Epsilon,” Sabine’s grin was audible.

“When’s the wedding, girls?” Corry’s voice teased.

“I’m more of a hit it and quit it girl,” Isabella retorted. “Speaking of hitting,” she paused, “Alpha, are you in position? Would you like some company on the second floor?”

“Is Delta on the main floor yet?” Clara questioned, “does anyone have eyes on the door from the basement to the main floor?”

“Affirmative,” the sound of the door creaking as Josephine tucked and rolled away from the door towards Isabella’s spot, sounded very loud in the quiet of the house.

Clara spoke again, her orders direct. “Delta, take the stairs. Epsilon give her cover. Gamma, take the rear. I’m in a small room, southeast, there are four doors left. We each take one. If you find a girl, get her out and don’t wait. When the room is clear, we head to the top floor. Beta, maintain your position and your eyes on our main target. Confirm target has not moved.”

“Confirmed,” Corry’s voice cut in, “he’s sound asleep with his noise cancelling headphones. Idiot.”

“The girl hasn’t moved?” Clara questioned again

“No, she’s still tied to the chair, heat signature tells me she’s alive.”

“All team go,” Clara ordered and stepped out of the room she was in. Her night vision goggles watched as the three women took the stairs one at a time and then took positions outside of the bedroom doors. “Easy. Let’s do this gentle so as not to wake the sleeping baby upstairs.” She gave a hand signal and the four women each went into a room.

The sound of someone’s voice catching and then sounds of punches being thrown caught the team’s ears.

Isabella spoke quickly, “one assailant. He’s down. One girl tied to a chair. I’m taking her out.” She raced to the girl and used her knife to cut the zip ties away. “I have a pulse.” She tilted the girl’s head back to look at her face after checking her heartbeat. “Looks like I have target number three. Intel was correct, Alpha. He took her friends too. She’s heavily sedated. I could throw her from the window, and I don’t think she’d notice the bounce. Anyone find two yet?”

She knew her team was waiting for her to confirm whether the girl had been assaulted when nobody answered. “Clothes are intact.”

“I have two,” Josephine commented suddenly. “Same state, heavily sedated, clothes intact.”

“Bonus prizes,” Clara grumbled, “went for one and came out with three. I am getting really sick of these traffickers.”

“Ditto,” Isabella quipped as she hefted the woman over her shoulders. “I’m taking three to team.”

“Right behind you,” Josephine grunted as she lifted the girl fireman style.

Isabella took the stairs two at a time, uncaring the teenager in her arms were being jostled. The faster she had her out, the sooner she could get back and cover her Alpha. A few bruises from being jostled would be the least of this kid’s concerns. She skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stairs as her night vision goggles picked up a lone individual at the end of the hall.

“Delta,” she whispered. “Hold your position on main floor. I have an unaccounted on main level. I’m putting my prize down and engaging.”

“Be careful Epsilon,” Clara’s voice broke through the headsets. “Do you need back-up?”

“No.” Isabella spoke curtly but also loud enough the man who was closing the back door and scratching his head as if confused it was open, turned around quickly to face her.

She immediately punched him in the nose, the sound of bone cracking echoing in the silence. She brought a knee up and felt the hardness of her kneecap connect with soft delicate tissues and the man yelled in agony. She grabbed her knife and plunged it deep into his side and then pulled it back out.

He gripped his side with one hand while his other arm flailed trying to throw a punch. She deftly landed a punch to his kidney before landing a right hook to the jaw. She bounced on her toes. “Is it all you have creep? Stealing girls off the street, I would think you’d be scarier than you are and yet, you’re getting beat up by a chick.”

“I’m going to kill you,” he grunted as she landed another punch to his mid-back. “Who are you,” he demanded as she ripped his head backwards by the hair and tried to see in the darkness of the room.

“I’m the last person you’ll ever see,” she ran a blade over his throat and dropped him to the floor. “Unaccounted for has been dealt with,” she confirmed to her team and raced to pick up the girl where she’d set her.

She heard Josephine taking the stairs in the same way she had, and they both raced into the darkness of the night with their charges in hand.

“I need one of you back here now,” Clara’s voice broke into the headsets, and they stopped dead in their tracks.

Josephine was easily smaller than Isabella and Isabella immediately knew who needed to go back. She grunted as she adjusted the weight of the first girl over her left shoulder and then Josephine flipped her charge over Isabella’s right shoulder.

“You good?” Josephine asked seriously.

“I’m good,” she nodded, “go. Alpha needs you.” There had been a time she would have been annoyed to have to slow her pace and not race back but she had learned along the way, being part of a team, meant someone had to do the heavy lifting figuratively and literally when the rest of the team was busy. She was not as tall as Sabine, who was near six feet, but she was just as strong, if not stronger. She trained every day without fail and her sister-in-law was one of the most ruthless instructors she’d ever encountered. It made sense to the team she did the grunt work and transported both girls. Neither girl weighed a hundred pounds. She could bench their combined weight.

She made her way to the rendezvous point four minutes away through dark alleys and was met by the waiting floral design truck. The back doors slid open, and three women jumped out and relieved her of her load. She rolled her shoulders. “Somehow my ninety second delivery time was affected by an extra load, forgive me?” She winked at the medic in the van.

“You’re forgiven. Stretch it out and get your ass back to your Alpha, Epsilon.”

She gave a salute and raced back to the house. She zipped through the back door, hopping over both men she had taken out earlier and made her way back to the top floor. There were two men on this floor and Sabine was laying a pounding on one of them. The other was tied in the bed with the zip ties he’d used on the girls and Josephine was straddling him, slapping his face, and telling him to wake up so she could punch him out again. She grinned.

Clara was using her knives to untie the girl cursing under her breath something about the extra guy in the room.

“You good Alpha?” Isabella caught her breath from the short sprint she’d done.

“I’m good,” she looked up. “She has steady pulse. Clothes intact. We got lucky.” She looked to Isabella. “You did good Epsilon.”

Isabella nodded once in Clara’s direction. Isabella had been so pissed off at the visit she’d had earlier she’d taken the shift for Bellona. During her shift, she’d come across the missing persons report. The police were saying it was too early to call the missing persons report since the girls hadn’t been missing a full twenty-four hours and could have been with any of their friends. With Isabella checking social media and encouraging her Bellona counterpart to hack the videos of the school and the library where the three girls had gone, Isabella had figured out one of the girls had arranged to meet who she thought was a teenage boy in a chat room. She had brought her friends for support. The two girls had lied and said they were at each other’s house which was why nobody considered them missing. The one lie made the police think they were likely at a house party nobody wanted to reveal.

The abducted girl hadn’t been meeting a teenage boy like she thought but a s*x trafficker looking for prey to pimp out. Unfortunately, the man had a team with him and was able to take her friends too.

Sometimes Isabella was convinced Bellona was dealing with a hydra head. Every time they took out a trafficker, two more seemed to appear. Gangs were moving away from drugs and guns and turning to a lucrative s*x trade industry. When she’d brought the info to the superior on call for the night it had taken less than three hours for the team to mobilize, locate the house where they’d been taken and initiate the mission for retrieval.

Bellona was a well-oiled machine, and one Isabella was proud to be part of. An order in their ears from Artemis made them all pause.

Isabella looked to Clara in surprise and bounced excitedly, “cool. This is a first.”

Clara pointed at her and yelled at Sabine to stop toying with the man she’d been beating up and told her to finish the job. “You both, get your asses through the house. Do a final sweep. Make sure there isn’t anyone left.” She called on Josephine. “You’re sure the basement was clear?”

“Yes, Alpha. I checked it end to end. No hidden doors. It’s unfinished.” She gave a wave over her head and stepped off the unconscious man. She watched with satisfaction as a bullet whizzed past her head and settled into the man’s forehead.

“Nice shot Delta,” Isabella whistled. She clapped Sabine on the shoulder. “Let’s do this.”

“Check every room, every closet and every crawl space. Make sure there’s nobody here. You have three minutes before clean-up crew is here. The three of you go. Delta, meet me at the back door and help me get this girl out.” Clara ordered curtly. She carried the teenager in her arms like a sleeping child and raced through the house.

“See you at debrief Alpha,” Josephine called as they finished sweeping the top floor and heading to the main. They tore through the house, leaving no stone unturned and in the basement, they reconfirmed Josephine’s assertion it was empty.

“I kind of want to stay and watch,” Isabella said to Sabine as they made their way out the back door after Josephine opted to go out the way she came in, through the basement window, much to their laughter.

“It’s a first for me,” Sabine shook her head as they raced back up the stairs with fifteen seconds to spare. They met a woman at the back door and knew she was there at Artemis’ bequest. They nodded and moved past her, splitting up as soon as they reached the edge of the property and disappearing into the night.

Three blocks out, Isabella came out of an alley way, wearing a track suit, carrying a backpack with her equipment in it, sporting a blonde wig in a ponytail making her look much younger than she was and a pair of headphones on. It was four in the morning and while the house they had infiltrated was in a quieter burb, it was still out of the ordinary for a young girl to be out walking the streets. She kept her head down but her senses on high alert. Her headphones were display only, turned off and she made her way to her pick-up. She got to the end of the street and slipped into the passenger side of the car and looked in the back seat and chuckled. “At least I’m not last. Where is everyone?”

Clara sitting behind the wheel grinned, “it’s not a race.”

“It is,” she argued with a smirk, “and I’m second.”

Sabine hopped into the backseat with a huff, “jeez how did you get here so fast?”

“Magic.”

Sabine grunted as Josephine opened the door and shoved her over.

“Move your large ass,” Josephine complained as she squeezed into the seat.

Corry jumped into the opposite side sandwiching Sabine between them.

“She’s burning it down?” Corry shrieked with excitement as she tossed her bag over the back of the seat and into the open trunk.

“She wants to assess the new girl.” Clara shook her head unable to stop her own excitement. “Of all the chicks to recruit, she finds a damn pyromaniac.”

“I think it’s hot,” Sabine said earning her a collection of groans. “Come on, that was a good one.”

“My dad has better jokes and he’s old.” Isabella threw over her shoulder as Clara pulled away from the curb to take them to the location for their debrief.

“Speaking of dads,” Clara gave her a sideways glance, “want to tell me why you were asking me about Portia Torres’ dad?”

“He was at the deli today.” Isabella looked out the window suddenly being reminded of how furious she’d been with him earlier. She heard Sabine snicker behind her and rolled her eyes.

“Spill it.” Clara stopped at a red light, strangely obeying every traffic rule when normally she would tear through the city at this time of night. She was stalling to get the story out of Isabella before they all got separated for debrief.

“He showed up at my house.”

“What why?” Clara asked curiously, “is this why you asked me if was dangerous?”

“Seems he just found out his daughter was dating Evgeni and he doesn’t like the age difference. He offered me a million dollars to take Evgeni back.”

Sabine was chortling, already aware of the story because Isabella had called her almost instantly after the man had left her house and once, she’d gotten back from walking Casper.

“What did you say?”

“I told him I was going to call her and tell her what he said and encourage her to follow her heart and chase Evgeni to the ends of the earth. I could kill two birds with one stone.”

Clara chuckled, “you’re devious.”

“Then he said the little b***h told him she wanted me dead.”

“Da f**k?” Josephine hissed from the back seat. “Let’s go. I’ll have a chat with baby girl.” She hit the back of Clara’s seat. “Drive Clara, let’s go teach the little punk-ass b***h a lesson.”

“We’re not teaching anyone a lesson,” Isabella rolled her eyes, “although I did say his brat needed a good paddling on the arse and I might be the one to do it.”

“What else did he say,” Clara asked quietly.

“He then asked me to dinner.” She wrinkled her nose, “he’s got to be as old as Elian or older. Not interested.”

Clara shrugged, “you could do worse. He’s gorgeous, rich, smart and if anyone could understand what you do here with Bellona, it’s his group. Rumor has it, his team runs mercenary ops all over the world with him joining in.” She paused, “and he’s not old, we’re nearly the same age.”

“If she doesn’t want him, can I have his number?”

For some reason she didn’t understand, Josephine’s question and resounding cackle grated on Isabella’s nerves, and she folded her arms and stared out the window in frustration.