“We’ll get them,” he says.
All I can do is nod, sharp and determined, as I pull my hand from his.
I wrap my arms around myself, hunching as I stare out at the passing night. Liam doesn’t push. He doesn’t pry. He just drives.
We end up on the South Side of Chicago, in a neighborhood of large homes and multi-unit apartment buildings.
The houses are all brick and stone, probably once stately, now in various stages of disrepair.
Many look abandoned. A few seem recently renovated.
Warm lights glow in the apartment windows across the street, and a few people linger outside, talking beside their cars, oblivious to the storm gathering in front of them.
A couple of kids pedal down the sidewalk, weaving around the cracks in the pavement like it’s any other night.
I feel instantly tense as Liam slows the car. He leans toward his open window, scanning the block, then pulls into a space along the curb.
He nods toward a house across the road, dark except for a black light glowing in an upstairs window and the faint pulsing of a TV on the main floor, barely visible through closed blinds.
His phone buzzes, and he looks down, then hands it to me.
Nik:Team is in action. Stay out.
We go still.
And then—like shadows splitting from shadows—several massive men in black tactical gear slide into position around the house. They move with impossible precision, stealthily enough that if I weren’t staring right at them, I’d swear no one was there at all.
Two take place at the front door, one on each side, swallowed by darkness.
Then nothing.
No movement.
No signal. Just stillness stretching long enough that my pulse starts hammering in my ears.
“It’s taking too long,” I whisper. “What if this is the wrong place?”
Liam doesn’t answer. He just keeps watching, his jaw locked tight.
I look back toward the two men by the door. One of them lifts a hand to his ear.
“Does he have an earpiece?” I whisper.
“Most likely,” Liam murmurs, barely moving his lips.
The man makes a quick hand signal.
A second later, Liam’s phone buzzes in my hand.
I blink down at it, realizing only now that I still have it.
Nik:Boy and woman inside. Extraction imminent.
The message barely registers before the two men at the door kick it in and sweep inside with brutal, practiced speed. Then Screaming.
Yelling.
The sharp, unmistakable pop of gunfire.
