Malloryn glanced up at the warehouse's office, noting the light there had been swiftly snuffed. The metaljacket was merely a distraction. The office was where he'd find whoever was in charge.
"Go!" Gemma told him, watching her lover slip behind the metaljacket. "You can't let whoever that is escape."
He'd given her command of COR upon their return to Russia, but as he slipped away, he wondered if she realized she'd just told him what to do.
Moving like a ghost through the darkness at the back of the warehouse, he headed for the office. Shoes rang on the stairs as the overseer escaped into the morass of rooms at the back of the building.
And a figure loomed nearby—
"Don't shoot me," Kincaid called, materializing out of the shadows, as Malloryn jerked his pistol up at the last second.
"Follow me," Malloryn commanded, moving to cut the bastard off.
Charlie and Lark were presumably cutting off the rear, as instructed.
Sure enough, the overseer had returned, clearly sighting the trap. Footsteps pounded down the hallway. Malloryn pressed his back to the nearest wall, holding a finger up to his lips.
Kincaid vanished into the shadows with a nod.
Someone cursed under his breath, and Malloryn could hear his target panting. Not Balfour. Whoever it was, they weren't used to running.
Malloryn coolly stepped out of the shadows, his pistol locking on his target's chest.
Sir George Hamilton skidded to a halt, the tails of his coat flapping.
They both stared at each other in shock.
"Malloryn," Sir George spat.
"Sir George." This was an unexpected boon. Caught red-handed with his fingers in the till. "Fancy finding you in a warehouse full of explosives."
Sir George's eyes darted this way and that. "You son of a bitch. You have no right to be in here."
"I have every right," Malloryn told him as he advanced. "My men tracked a dangerous suspect who has ties to a dangerous organization to this building last night. My information tells me a group of terrorists are planning an attack on the queen, and they have enough explosives to level the tower. The only anomaly—as far as I can see—is your presence. But surely you can explain."
Sir George's mustache fair quivered with rage. "I don't have to explain anything to the likes of you!"
Malloryn stared along the top of his pistol. "You don't. But you will. Eventually."
"What are you going to do? Shoot me?"
A part of him would like to. He'd spent years dealing with belligerent fools like this, who thought themselves entitled to do anything they desired. They'd sneered at him at Eton, and spat behind his back when he first ventured into society.
And they still sneered, even now he'd climbed to the top of the tree.
No matter how many "Your Graces" he heard in a day, he would never truly be one of them.
And he'd never truly cared.
But something about Sir George rubbed him the wrong way—as if Malloryn's loyalty to the queen and his country was little more than the lip service of a social-climbing monkey, when it was one of the few things he cherished most.
"I should." Malloryn hesitated. "But I won't."
This was Adele's father.
And while he knew there was no love lost between the pair of them, she might look askance on him putting a bullet in Sir George's skull.
"You're under arrest," Malloryn said, putting up the pistol.
"You can't arrest me! I'm a peer of the realm!"
"And I have been granted the queen's authority on this matter. Anyone who is suspected to be part of this conspiracy is subject to my authority, no matter their rank. Put your hands in the air."
Sir George tore something from the pocket of his waistcoat. "You're the traitor! You're a traitor to your class and I'll be damned if I'm brought down by someone like you! Rot in hell, Malloryn!"
He held up a small device, thumb hovering over the red trigger.
"Get out! He's got a detonator!" Malloryn screamed, turning and catching sight of a nearby window.
Kincaid stood directly in front of it, his eyes widening in shock as Malloryn sprinted toward him. Slamming into the burly mech, he heard glass shatter as they both went through the window.
A whoosh of sound lit up the warehouse behind him, heat and light exploding into being as they hit the docks and rolled. Slashes of pain speared through him. Glass stabbing into his sides, and splinters of timber slicing lethally through the air. Flame seared the air, stealing all the oxygen around him, until he thought—for a second—that it was all over.
That this was the end.
Then he and Kincaid were skidding to a halt as the enormous fireball rolled over the top of them. His leather body armor saved him from most of the intense heat, but he could feel his skin cracking and drying. His sleeve was on fire, but Kincaid slapped it out as they both scrambled to get to safety.
Malloryn rolled behind a nearby pillar, tearing the earpiece from his ear as the high-pitched whine threatened to rupture his eardrum. He threw it aside, staring with horror at what remained of the warehouse.
"Jaysus fuckin' Christ," Kincaid breathed, staring up at the enormous fireball. The color drained from his face. "Who was inside?" He scrambled for Malloryn's cast-aside earpiece, and fiddled with the transmitter. "Gemma? Byrnes? Charlie? Can anyone hear me?"
Malloryn pushed unsteadily to his feet as Kincaid kept repeating the message.
He and Kincaid had escaped, but the others.... They would have been inside. Somewhere.
And the fuse must have been set in the center of the warehouse.
All those crates....
"Stay here," he told Kincaid. "Keep trying to contact them." Licking dry lips, he stared at the far end of the warehouse. "I'm going back in."
The front door burst open, and then Malloryn hauled Obsidian inside the safe house.
The tall dhampir's face was blistered and what remained of his shirt clung to him in charred strips. Raw, reddened skin peered through the gaping fabric, but it was the look on his face and the trembling in his hands that caused the most concern. Behind them, Gemma looked like she'd been in the same fire, half her hair singed, and her cheeks black with smoke.