“Old ranger station, up in Jemez. Prospect spotted a black van, same plate block as last time.”
“How many?”
He hesitated. “Four men. Maybe five. All big, all geared. Look like Spetsnaz or the best knockoff money can buy.”
My mouth went dry. “You see her?”
Another pause. “Not yet. But they’re holding something tight. No traffic in or out since they arrived.”
I closed my eyes. “Hold position. Wait for us.”
Seneca grunted, then hung up.
I was already moving, barely registering the way the brothers fell into step behind me. Augustine checked the breach on my rifle, then on his own. He handed me a vest, lightweight but lined with enough Kevlar to keep you breathing until the ambulance showed. I shrugged into it, felt the familiar pressagainst my chest, and remembered all the reasons I’d sworn never to do this shit again.
Damron appeared at my side, shotgun slung low, eyes unblinking. “You ready?”
I nodded. “Yeah. More than.”
He grinned, that old, mean glint I hadn’t seen since the pipeline job. “You fuck up, I’ll kill you myself.”
I managed a smile. “That’s the deal.”
We moved through the club in silence, the only sounds the shuffle of boots and the metallic click of magazines slamming home. Out in the lot, the bikes waited, lined up in black and chrome, engines ticking in the cold.
I mounted the Harley, the cold metal biting through my gloves. The wind up here was always worse at night, a scalpel edge that stripped you down to bone. I kicked the engine, let it roar once, then cut it to a whisper. Damron did the same. We rolled out in formation, two wide, headlights off, letting the moon carve our way through the dirt.
No one spoke on the ride. The world was reduced to vibration, the gun at my thigh, the target glowing in the back of my skull. The only thing alive in me was the thought of her, somewhere in the black, and the certainty that I would kill every man in that cabin if it meant bringing her home.
When we reached the base of the Jemez, Seneca met us at the pull-off, idling his bike in the brush. He didn’t bother with greetings, just pointed up the trail. “They’re in the main building. No sign of motion for the last half hour. Lights are off.”
Damron eyed the treeline, then the sky. “Anyone watching the road?”
Seneca shook his head. “Nothing. Not even a deer.”
We checked our weapons, loaded mags, and chambered rounds. The clicks and slides sounded like the only real language left in the world. Augustine handed out radios, but none of usbothered to test them. We moved as a unit, slipping through the trees in a staggered line, each man scanning a different quadrant of the dark.
The ranger station was a corpse of old government wood, windows long since shot out, roof slouched like a man about to collapse. There was only one door, and it hung crooked on its hinges, daring you to try it. The van was parked beside the porch, black paint still wet enough to reflect the moon. I counted three silhouettes in the front cabin, heads slumped low. Another two in the back, moving slow, deliberate.
Seneca signed, “Three inside, two on watch.”
I nodded, swept left. Damron took point, shotgun ready. Augustine ghosted the perimeter, hugging the wall.
We waited, every heartbeat a countdown.
Then the scream.
It was hers. Seraphina, unmistakable, sharp, and wild as a blade in the dark.
We breached the door before the echo faded.
Inside, everything went to hell.
We hit the threshold with all the subtlety of a pipe bomb in an elevator. Damron led, shotgun up, the door tearing off its hinge with a single boot. The next second was a fire drill of noise and light—Seneca’s pistol barking twice, the back window exploding, Augustine pivoting right and drawing fire away from the entry.
I saw her immediately, in the center of the main room, duct-taped to a chair beneath the hanging corpse of a rafter. The men circled her like a ritual, four of them, all in black, two already up and aiming, the other two stunned by the breach.
Damron fired first, the twelve-gauge buck tearing a chunk from the nearest Russian’s thigh. He went down, howling, blood blooming on the pine boards. Seneca moved with impossible speed, crossing the room in a blur, hand-to-hand, before the second shooter could finish cursing. The Russian swung his riflearound and caught Seneca in the shoulder, but the Sadist just kept coming, teeth bared, a knife flashing from nowhere.
