That earned him a faint smile—small, but real. “You don’t look it.”
“That’s the trick.” He let his hand brush hers for the briefest second, grounding both of them.
Outside, a low horn sounded across the water. Cyclone’s head snapped up. “That’s not a ship signal. That’s code. Hydra’s regrouping along the southern pier.”
River swore under his breath. “They’re pulling every man they’ve got.”
Elara’s eyes narrowed toward the window, where faint lights flickered along the horizon. “They’re coming for the shipment.”
“No,” Beckett said quietly, his gaze locked on the distant cranes turning slowly and deliberately. “They’re coming forher.Grand’s lieutenant doesn’t want the cargo—he wants to clean up the mess.”
Cyclone killed the lights on his rig. “Then we have five minutes before hell arrives.”
Silence settled like dust. The kind of silence that hums with inevitability.
River adjusted his earpiece. “Gage and Oliver are on approach with the evac truck. Once they hit the gate, we run the civilians out.”
Beckett turned to Elara. “When the fight starts, you stay close to me. No heroics.”
Her reply was sharp and certain. “You’ll have to keep up.”
He almost smiled. “Deal.”
Outside, the sound of engines grew louder—low, rolling, mechanical thunder crossing the docks.
The boy buried his face against Elara’s side. She whispered something soft to him, a promise too quiet for anyone else to hear.
Beckett chambered his weapon, his pulse steady as steel.
The calm had done its job. Now came the storm.
He looked at his team, at Elara, at the faint glow of dawn beginning to edge the horizon.
“Positions,” he said.
And then the night shattered.
78
Viktor
The sea was black glass beneath the floodlights, and Viktor watched the ripples spread like veins across the surface. The docks reeked of salt, oil, and fear—his favorite combination.
“Contain the perimeter,” he ordered, his voice smooth yet sharp. His men moved out with mechanical precision—no wasted movement, no chatter. Hydra’s elite. Handpicked. Loyal only to Grand’s coin and Viktor’s cruelty.
A truck burned faintly in the distance, smoke rising into the early dawn. The Golden Team’s doing. He smiled.
“They’ve become predictable,” he murmured. “Always running toward the fire, they start.”
The lieutenant at his side adjusted his comms. “Thermal shows multiple signatures near the cargo offices. Four, maybe five.”
Viktor’s gloved hand rested on his pistol. “Beckett and his woman,” he said. “Bring the rest in alive if you can. But the girl—” his smile deepened, snake-like—“she’s mine to deliver.”
“Yes, sir.”
The lieutenant started to turn, but Viktor caught his arm, pulling him close enough to see the fear in the man’s eyes. “Andif Beckett interferes, you shoot him once in the leg. I want him towatch.”
He released the man and stepped forward, the hem of his coat brushing through the drifting ash.
