The Reveal by Julie Leto

his in case someone came up from their rear. He tapped her shoulder, forcing her to follow the line he’d drawn with his gun to point at the remnants of a once-hidden security camera hanging in mangled plastic and metal from the branch of a tree.
    “Macy’s under attack,” he concluded.
    Brynn’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Because of us?”
    Sean didn’t reply. As a former operative herself, Macy was likely a perpetual target, as evidenced by the security measures she’d employed to keep her location secret—measures that she and Sean might have undermined by heading to her private French villa.
    Sean tugged Brynn into the center of the gravel and dirt road. Her leg seized, protesting her momentum. She was not a soldier. Her feet slipped underneath her, cracking open the tight scab on her thigh. She cried out, then cursed as Sean turned to check on her.
    “Keep going. I’ve got your six,” she shouted.
    If Macy was at home, she was there with her newborn child. Brynn might not have been trained by Special Forces, but she did not need advanced training to know that her best course of action was to follow Sean’s lead.
    She took a deep breath and ran after him, gun drawn. She growled past her pain until her nervous system overloaded and her body numbed. They crossed over the top of the hill and, at the apex, stopped to assess the scene.
    The house was massive. Square-shaped and erected in pale stone, the villa stood like an impenetrable fortress, despite the fact that its battlements were being bombarded by bullets fired from a pair of black SUVs parked in the drive. A sniper positioned at a third floor window popped off a few shots, but as Brynn and Sean watched, a split second later, blood splattered the glass beside him and he slumped, dead, over the sill.
    The intricately carved front door, ajar and off one hinge, bore the unmistakable marks of an explosion. Whoever had descended onto the villa had used maximum firepower to gain entrance.
    “We’re outgunned,” Brynn assessed.
    “Macy has at least three security guards on the property at all times,” Sean said.
    Brynn frowned. “Now she has two.”
    Sean schooled his expression to one of blank indifference, but Brynn could feel the tension radiating off his skin. “She probably has more if Dante is out of the country. And her personal bodyguard won’t leave her side.”
    “Then won’t we just be in the way?” she asked, not wanting to sound petulant, but Brynn had to play devil’s advocate. Sean might be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys, but she would be going in blind.
    “We have the element of surprise,” he insisted. “Might as well use it.”
    An unmistakable gleam lit Sean’s eyes to a brilliant gunmetal gray. Brynn had seen his lust before, but nothing like this. Sean had a weapon in his hand and an enemy to vanquish. With his body at a peak of strength, she knew she couldn’t stop him, even if she wanted to.
    She didn’t have time to decide if she was afraid or aroused. “What if I fire on Macy’s men?” she asked.
    “Just follow my lead.”
    As if those three words outlined a plan worthy of brilliant military strategists, he tore off into the misty morning.
    They crouched low as they ran down the drive. No one in the SUVs noticed their approach from behind until it was too late. Sean took down the man firing from behind the driver side door, leaving the second assailant, covered by the bumper of the second vehicle, to Brynn.
    With the enemy outside neutralized, Sean stormed into the house. Brynn followed. She noticed the smooth marble floors in the entry way only because her shoes slipped in a pool of blood.
    Two security guards, dressed in light gray suits, stood at the top of a grand staircase, partially shielded by thick archways while they fired on three assailants moving upward, protected by Kevlar vests, helmets and what looked like riot shields.
    As if from a movie, one of the bodyguards surged forward,