Stinger (A Sign of Love Novel)

It was funny being here again too because in part, this job, back in this city, was a direct reflection of that weekend with Carson–he had encouraged me to follow my own dreams, to do what made me happy. And look where I had ended up. Life was wild.

"Can I help?" a male voice asked and I looked up into a smiling pair of the bluest eyes I'd ever seen.

I smiled back and picked up one of the two piles of books I had already made, and stood up. "Thanks, that would be great," I said.

He bent down and picked up the other pile and followed me to my office, less than fifty feet down the hall. I set my pile of books on my cluttered desk and he did the same with his pile.

I turned to him and rubbed my hands on my jean-clad thighs and held one out. "Grace Hamilton," I said, smiling again.

"Ah! I've heard great things about you, Grace. Welcome aboard," he said, his handsome face breaking into a warm smile and his hand reaching out to shake mine. "I'm Alex Klein. I'm a prosecutor here too."

"Nice to meet you, Alex. I'm happy to be here." I smiled again. There was a lot of smiling going on between Alex and me. I moved a box over on my desk and looked at him. He was smiling again and I laughed and shook my head. He laughed too.

"Well, Grace, I'll leave you to the unpacking. I'm working late and was going to order a pizza in a little bit if you have time to join me for a slice or two?" He gestured down the hall to where I assumed his office was.

I turned around fully as he backed out my door. "Oh, um–"

"I could brief you on who you'll be working with around here," he smiled again, "who to get in good with and all that." He grinned.

"Okay, sure, Alex. Thank you."

"Okay, great, I'll come get you when the pizza's here." And with that, he turned around and walked back to his office. I watched him walk away, smiling slightly to myself. When he got halfway down the hall, he looked back and smiled. I laughed and turned around, grinning now as I started unpacking.

**********

Carson



We closed in, Leland putting a finger over his lips and cocking his head to the left to indicate our target was in the next room. We all nodded and moved in, none of us making a sound. Josh counted on his fingers as we stood to each side of the door, turning as he kicked it in on three. The door flew inward and we moved in as one unit, surprising four men, holding weapons, but sitting down on chairs, their feet propped up, clearly not expecting trouble.

We fired on them before they could even raise their guns, killing them instantly.

There was another small door beyond that room and when Josh kicked that one open, we moved in and immediately took in a man cowering on the floor in the corner. "Mehran Makar?" Eli demanded.

The man narrowed his eyes, cursing, calling us dirty pigs, and Eli fired, killing him. Maybe it was cold, but I felt nothing. Our mission was complete.

We cleared the rest of the room, letting down our guard only slightly until we were confident that no one was hiding. We had been given intel that there were only four guards, but we couldn't rely on that one hundred percent until we had checked it out ourselves.

"Clear?" Noah asked, coming back in the room.

"Yeah," I said. "All clear out front?"

"Yeah. Let's check out back." There was a small building behind the larger warehouse that Leland was now covering. There was only one door and no windows, so no way for anyone to escape. But we needed to go in carefully in case someone was waiting inside.

Ten minutes later, we had the door open and had moved inside the small structure. It looked to be deserted.

Josh flicked a light switch on the wall and Leland and I sucked in a breath. Noah swore, "Holy shit," and Eli muttered, "Mother fucker."

At the back of the room, was the biggest stash of weapons I had come upon, Russian made surface to air missiles and rocket propelled grenades. It was a fucking stockpile.

"Jesus, that fucker had some serious plans," Josh said.

We all stilled as we heard a small scraping sound in the back. When I examined the back wall, I noticed a small door next to the shelves of weaponry. It almost blended into the wall.

I nodded to the other men, making sure they saw it too, and we moved in.

Noah kicked the door in this time and as Josh shined his flashlight into the pitch-black space, we all recoiled at the smell. "God damn!" Josh coughed.

The sight that met our eyes was straight out of a horror movie.

**********

"You okay, man?" Noah asked quietly. I brought my head up from out of my arms, resting on my knees and looked up at him. "Figure I will be. You?"

His chin went up in a jerky nod. "About the same."

I nodded back, watching the other four men walk up the rocky slope toward us. "The other team will be here in about twenty minutes," Eli said.

When we had called in the night before, we had been ordered to stay with the weaponry until another team could get there to inventory it. The morning sun was already fully up in the sky.