They weren’t afraid. Or maybe they were, but they wore it like armor.
I tried to do the same.
The pistol was warm in my grip, my finger light against the trigger. But no matter how hard I steadied my hands, my chest betrayed me—each breath a little too fast, each heartbeat tooloud. Hydra’s city. Hydra’s rules. And we were walking straight into their snare.
Beckett’s voice brushed against me, low and steady. “Eyes up, Elara.”
I looked at him. Just for a second. And in that second, the noise dimmed. The panic dulled. His eyes burned with that impossible promise—not while I’m breathing.
I nodded, swallowing the knot in my throat. “I’m with you.”
The words were small, but they felt heavier than any weapon in my hands.
Movement flickered above—a rooftop shadow, there and gone in an instant. My breath caught. “Left side, second roof!” I hissed.
Beckett swung his rifle without hesitation, firing a burst that dropped the shape before it could fully rise. The body crumpled across the tiles, tumbling into the alley with a sickening thud.
River cursed. “Yeah, they’re here.”
The street seemed to inhale all at once. Then the night erupted—shouts in Hydra’s tongue, boots pounding stone, the metallic click of weapons locking into place.
They weren’t retreating. They’d been waiting. Watching. Herding us exactly where they wanted.
And now they were closing in.
I lifted my pistol, chest tight, fear clawing at the edges of my resolve. But Beckett shifted closer, his shoulder brushing mine, grounding me even as the world tipped into chaos again.
“Together,” he said.
The word burned through me like fire.
And for the first time, I wasn’t just afraid. I was ready.
59
Beckett
The city erupted.
Gunfire chewed the night apart, muzzle flashes sparking from rooftops and alleys, the air splitting with the guttural shouts of Hydra men closing in from every direction. Bullets sparked off stone and metal, glass shattered from the stalls around us, and the market district became a cage of smoke and fire.
“Contact left and right!” River shouted, already laying down fire as shadows surged from the alley.
“Cyclone—feed!” I barked.
“Forty-plus signatures closing fast,” his voice came ragged through comms. “They were waiting for us—whole damn block is hot!”
“Figures,” Oliver muttered, squeezing off three rounds and dropping two men before ducking behind a crumbling wall.
I pushed Elara hard against cover, my body braced in front of hers as rounds peppered the brick at our backs. “Stay low. Stay with me.”
Her eyes burned, pistol already raised. “I’m not hiding, Beckett.”
Damn stubborn woman. Even here—especially here—she wouldn’t let me carry it all alone. And somehow, that made me fight harder.
I leaned out, rifle snapping to my shoulder, and fired in controlled bursts. One Hydra soldier collapsed in the street. Another crumpled on the rooftop. But for every one that fell, two more rose. They poured in like a tide, black-clad, masks gleaming in the half-light.
“Push forward!” I roared. “Break their line before they box us in!”
