CHAPTER 160: INJURED

~AXEL~

"Are we sure this is the place?"

I checked the tracker on my phone. The signal pulsed steadily. "One hundred eighty feet. Second floor, west wing."

We rolled up the coastal road in two black SUVs, six men total. Tye and I were in the lead vehicle with three ex-Rangers in the back... men Tye had worked with before, professionals who didn’t ask questions and didn’t flinch at violence.

"Remind me why we aren’t calling the cops?" I asked.

"Because they can be unpredictable. We don’t know what they would do to Layla if they hear the police from a mile away."

I sighed. "Okay."

The Sinaloa estate came into view, enclosed by a low stone wall. Floodlights lit up the perimeter, creating sharp shadows over the well-kept lawns. A guard tower stood at the northeast corner, with two patrols moving around the grounds.

"Arrogant," Tye muttered from the passenger seat. "They think the ocean at their back protects them."

"Does it?"

"Not from us."

I checked Layla’s tracker again. The signal hadn’t moved in five minutes. She was stationary, still alive. She had to be alive.

"What’s the plan?" I asked.

Tye pulled out a tablet showing thermal imaging of the estate. "Simple. Sniper drops the tower guard. You cut the power at the junction box on the south wall. Six-man breach straight to the study. In and out in under five minutes."

"And if they have more guards than we think?"

"Then we improvise."

One of the Rangers, a compact man with a scar across his jaw, checked his rifle. "Who’s on the tower?"

"I am," said another Ranger, the tallest one. Rodriguez, I think Tye had called him.

We pulled over a quarter mile from the estate and killed the engines. Rodriguez grabbed his rifle case and disappeared into the brush, heading for higher ground.

Three minutes later, Tye’s radio crackled. "In position. Clear shot on the tower. Waiting for your signal."

"Hold," Tye said. He turned to me. "The power box is fifty feet from the north gate. Can you handle it?"

I nodded, adrenaline sharpening every sense. "Yes."

We moved through the darkness, staying low. The wall was only six feet high, easy to scale. I dropped over first, landing in a crouch on damp grass.

The power junction box was exactly where Tye said it would be, mounted on the exterior wall. I pried it open with a screwdriver, found the main lines, and cut them with wire cutters.

The floodlights died instantly, plunging the estate into darkness.

"Now," Tye whispered into his radio.

A silenced shot cracked somewhere in the distance. In the guard tower, a figure slumped forward.

We jumped over the wall, our boots making no noise on the grass. We were halfway across the lawn when two guards rounded the corner of the house, rifles rising.

"Contact!" one of them shouted.

Tye dropped the first one with two silenced shots to the chest. I tackled the second guard before he could fire, driving my shoulder into his gut. We hit the ground hard, his rifle clattering away.

I pressed my knife to his throat. "The study. Second floor. Where exactly?"

"Top of the stairs," he gasped. "Turn left. Big oak doors."

"How many guards inside?"

"Two. Maybe three."

I zip-tied his wrists, gagged him with a strip of cloth, and left him face-down on the grass.

"Move," Tye commanded.

We hit the side entrance. Jake picked the lock in under thirty seconds, and the door swung open silently.

Inside was dark, emergency exit signs providing the only light. We moved through a kitchen, then a grand hallway lined with paintings.

At the top of the stairs, we turned left and found the oak doors, just as the guard had described. But these doors were different from ordinary ones; they were reinforced with steel and had a biometric lock that was glowing a faint red.

"Shit," I breathed.

Tye pulled a small breaching charge from his pack and slapped it onto the lock mechanism. "Everyone back. Three seconds."

"Three... two... one."

The explosion was muffled but powerful. The lock mechanism peeled away like paper, the door swinging open on damaged hinges.

Inside, my eyes landed immediately on Layla, sitting on a couch.

Behind an enormous desk sat an older man, silver hair, expensive suit, cigar smouldering in an ashtray. Emilio Sinaloa, I assumed.

And standing beside him, reaching for a pistol on the desk was his son, Diego.

"Drop it!" I roared, raising my weapon.

Diego’s hand closed around the pistol. He fired.

I dove left. Tye went right. The bullet smashed into the doorframe where my head had been a second before.

One of Tye’s Rangers behind us took a round in the vest, the impact driving him back but not down. He returned fire instantly, three shots.

Diego screamed, clutching his shoulder as blood bloomed through his shirt. The pistol clattered to the floor.

Emilio raised both hands slowly, looking unnervingly calm. "No need for more violence, gentlemen."

"Don’t move," Tye growled, advancing with his weapon trained on Emilio’s chest.

Then Emilio’s eyes shifted to Tye, and something changed in his expression. "You’re Rafael Vargas’s boy."

Tye froze.

"I thought I recognised those eyes," Emilio continued, smiling slightly. "Your father and I ran tequila together back in ’98. Good man, Rafael. Shame what happened to him."

Tye’s jaw locked, muscles bunching. "Keep his name out of your mouth."

"Or what? You’ll shoot me? That would be..."

"Tye," I snapped. "Not now."

I rushed to Layla, ignoring Emilio and his bleeding son. She stood as I reached her, and without a word, pressed a glass shard into my hand like passing a relay baton.

"Window," she said, her voice steady despite everything. "Behind the desk. It’s our best exit."

"Can you run?"

"Watch me."

I grabbed a chair and hurled it at the large window behind Emilio’s desk. Glass exploded outward. Tye fired twice more at Diego to keep him down, then we moved.

Layla went first, climbing through the shattered window onto a stone balcony. I followed, then Tye and his team.

The drop to the lawn was about ten feet. Layla didn’t hesitate; she jumped, landed in a roll, and came up running.

I landed beside her. "Go, go!"

Behind us, gunfire erupted as a dozen guards poured from the garage.

We hit the wall at full sprint. I boosted Layla up first, then scrambled over myself. "Go, go, go!" Tye was right behind us.

The SUVs roared to life, Rodriguez at the wheel of the lead vehicle. We piled in, tires already spinning. "Hold on!" he screamed as he hit the accelerator hard.

We burst through onto the coastal road, the second SUV coming right behind us.

I turned around and saw Tye in the back seat, holding his side. His fingers were covered in blood, and it was starting to leak through them.

"You’re hit," I said.

"Just a graze. Keep driving."

Layla’s fingers found mine, ice-cold despite the adrenaline. "You came."

"Always. Did you really think I wouldn’t?"

"I hoped. I..."

She stopped suddenly, her eyes widening as she looked down at me. My eyes followed, and I saw the red patch on my shirt... blood.

"You’re wounded," she gasped.