A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(86)

Dominic gave Levi a quick, tight smile. Levi mimed tying someone up, and Dominic tossed him a bundle of zip ties from the open duffel bag.

Confident that the rest of the team had the men upstairs under control, Levi focused on binding his own two opponents. He dragged them both in front of the door, side by side, so they’d serve as an obstacle to anyone coming through, then sprayed more fire-suppressant foam on the floor for good measure.

When he finished, the latest aggressors had been dealt with, leaving five disabled Utopia guards sprawled over the stairs and landings above him. Most were unconscious and seriously injured, but he didn’t think any were dead. By his count, there were six guards remaining, not including the ones stationed on Hatfield’s floor or in the condo itself.

They all turned toward the doors, panting, ready for the next wave. Dominic and Martine reloaded their weapons. Leila swiped impatiently at her bleeding mouth.

Nothing happened.

“Um . . . Carmen?” Natasha said.

“I know. They’re just . . . hanging back. Three on eighteen, three on seventeen. They’re whispering among themselves, so I can’t-oh, here we go.”

Utopia’s radio crackled over Levi’s earpiece. “Baker, you copy?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re gonna rush ‘em all at once, hit ‘em with everything we got. Don’t hold back. Shoot to kill.”

“Got it.”

Natasha turned to Levi. “Now is it okay if I kill them?”

He glared, but before he could respond, Carmen called, “Incoming!”

The foam in the fire extinguisher was spent, but it still made an excellent blunt weapon. He snatched it up again and positioned himself behind the door-which swung inward when entering the stairwell, another disadvantage for their enemies.

This time, he heard the men running toward him, their feet pounding along the carpeted hallway on the other side. Levi braced himself, and when the first guard charged through the door, leading with his gun arm, Levi threw his entire body weight forward.

The door slammed closed on the man’s elbow, pinning it against the jamb. The man screamed, then shrieked even louder when Levi smashed the fire extinguisher into his hand until he dropped his gun.

Though the element of surprise had been in Levi’s favor, he couldn’t hold the door shut against three people by himself. They combined forces and burst through, knocking him backward. He stumbled over the men lying on the ground, but hopped away and managed to regain his footing on the part of the landing that wasn’t slick with foam.

The guard with the mangled hand wasn’t so lucky. Already disoriented by pain, he tripped over his prone comrades, slipped in the foam, and went tumbling down the stairs, landing perilously close to the “dynamite” trap below.

The other two guards caught themselves before they suffered the same fate. Rebel launched herself at the nearest man-who was clearly unprepared to face an enraged hundred-pound dog-and tussled with him in the foam, her four legs giving her more confidence on the slippery surface.

Levi redirected the second guard’s gun arm a split-second before the guy pulled the trigger. It was such a close call that he felt the heat of the bullet as it whizzed past his cheek, and the sheer volume of the gunshot battered his eardrums.

He gripped the slide with his free hand, intending to disarm the man, but a vicious kick to the stomach caught him off-guard. Reeling backward, he collided hard with the railing at the edge of the landing. Lightning shocks of agony radiated through muscles that had already been beaten and bruised to the limits of his endurance.

Momentarily paralyzed, Levi struggled to regain control of his spasming limbs. More shots were ringing out above, interspersed with the shouts and cries of the bloody confrontation engaging the rest of his team. Rebel was thoroughly focused on her own opponent. Nobody had noticed Levi’s predicament.

The Utopia guard grinned, jumped over his friends’ bodies, and raised his gun. Staring death in the eye, Levi did the only thing he could do-he pulled down his hood, exposing his face.

The guard faltered as his jaw dropped.

That was the opening Levi needed. Gritting his teeth, he rocked back onto the railing, drew his knees to his chest, and uncoiled with explosive power, driving both feet into the man’s chest. The force of the double kick sent the man flying into the opposite wall, where he hit his head with a nasty thud and slumped to the floor, moaning weakly.

Levi strode forward, wrenched the gun out of the man’s hand, and pistol-whipped him.

Rebel’s guy was on his hands and knees, trying to crawl away from her, only for her to snag his ankle and drag him back. Levi called her off, pushed the man down flat, and pinned him there with one knee while reaching for the zip ties.

“Levi!” Dominic shouted. His gun fired in the same breath.

Flinching, Levi spun to his right, staying atop the man beneath his knee. The guard who’d fallen down the stairs earlier had recovered without Levi noticing. He must have had another gun on him, because his hand was wrapped around the grip as he lay in a crumpled heap halfway up the stairs-mere feet from where Levi had been oblivious to his approach.

Death had found the guard instead. Blood streamed from the neat hole Dominic had put in his skull.

Levi looked up at Dominic, whose face was soft with understanding but no apology. “I had to,” Dominic said.

“I know-”