A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(78)

“Yes, it is.” Levi lowered his hand to Dominic’s chest, spreading his fingers wide over Dominic’s heart. “You shouldn’t be doing this; it’s not safe in your condition. If anything happens to you . . .”

Dominic covered Levi’s hand with his own. “Would you let me go into a situation like this without you?”

At first, Levi looked set to argue, but then he relented with a sigh. “No.”

“Then don’t expect that from me. I’ll be fine-I know my own limits.” Dominic turned Levi’s arm over, scanning the bandages that covered Levi’s burned forearms and remembering the bruises on his back, which could only have been worsened by the crash. “Besides, you’re injured too.”

“Yeah, but at least my head is fine.”

Softly, Dominic asked, “Is it?”

Levi’s eyes flicked toward Natasha, who was standing awkwardly with Martine about twenty feet away. Then he looked back at Dominic and gave a defeated shrug.

His heart breaking, Dominic bent down and kissed Levi. “Let’s just get through this, okay? I’ve got your back.”

As he began to move away, Levi caught his elbow. “I won’t let you get hurt again because of me,” Levi said, his voice fierce. “Not ever.”

Dominic blinked, taken aback by Levi’s forcefulness and unsure of how to respond, but Levi just let go and rejoined the women.

“We good?” Martine asked.

Levi nodded.

“While we’re waiting for the key, we might as well get the lay of the land.” Natasha’s fingers slid over a tablet she’d retrieved from her car; moments later, she turned the tablet around so the rest of them could see Carmen’s face on the screen.

Without so much as a cursory greeting, Carmen said, “As Dominic surmised, Hatfield’s been staying at the condo he bought for his mistress in a luxury high-rise Downtown. He’s holed up in there with some other guys for security, but most of the residents have evacuated. As far as I can tell, the majority of the units are unoccupied.”

“Well, at least that’ll minimize possible collateral damage,” said Martine.

Dominic frowned. “If Utopia’s about to set off another bomb, why is Hatfield sticking around in the heart of the city?”

“The communications I intercepted indicated that he’s expecting a helicopter at eleven p.m. The building has its own helipad.”

Levi hummed, crossing his arms. “So we can probably operate on the assumption that detonation isn’t scheduled until after Hatfield would expect to be free and clear.”

“I agree,” Natasha said. “That gives us a bit of breathing room.”

“Any way you could obtain floor plans of Hatfield’s unit, and maybe of the building itself?” Dominic asked Carmen.

“No problem. I’m worming my way into the security system too. It’s a ‘smart’ building, so almost everything in it is automated-great protection against physical assaults, but it leaves the units extra vulnerable to hackers.”

“All right. So after we get the equipment we need, we make our way Downtown and bust into the building, then get to Hatfield before he leaves . . .”

They discussed and compared various approaches, which they refined further when Carmen dug up the relevant blueprints and sent them to Natasha’s tablet. Hatfield’s condo was on the twenty-first floor, and though Dominic wouldn’t normally risk the elevator during a mission like this-no matter how daunting the climb-it was different when a teammate had control of the building’s infrastructure.

“In the end, the best way in will come down to whichever entrance is less guarded,” he said after a lengthy debate.

Carmen’s face reappeared on the screen. “I can lead you through the path of least resistance and distract or lure the guards away as much as possible. But I can’t guarantee you won’t run into enemies on the way up. Plus, Hatfield definitely won’t be the only person in the condo itself.”

“And how exactly are we going to handle those enemies?” Natasha cast a pointed glance at Levi, who grimaced.

“Don’t you think you’ve killed enough people today?”

“It’s na?ve to think we can accomplish this without fatalities,” she said. “This isn’t a TV show, Levi. We can’t take these guys out by kneecapping them or shooting them with some mythical tranq gun.”

Dominic blew out a breath. “I hate to say this-and I mean, I really hate to say it-but Natasha has a point. If a SWAT team were infiltrating this building, they’d have the go-ahead to use lethal force.”

“I can’t emphasize enough how much we’re not a legally sanctioned SWAT team,” Martine said, holding up her hands.

“It doesn’t matter. We’re not talking about penny-ante drug dealers or thieves or street punks. These people are terrorists. What Utopia’s done, and what they’re planning to do, are deliberate acts of war. That changes the rules. We have every right to defend our home, and a responsibility to protect the defenseless. If that means enemy fatalities-well, that’s the price they pay for starting this war in the first place.”

Martine cocked her head, then nodded. “Okay, yeah, that changes my perspective.”

Raking a hand through his hair, Levi said, “It’s not just legality I’m worried about-”