Papa slid his phone across the table. “Surveillance shows Maddie outside the store at 4:19 p.m., then nothing. No one follows her in. No one follows her out. We checked the tape five times.”
Arsenal’s jaw flexed. “Someone inside her truck?”
“Didn’t see ‘em make entry. Maybe they knew the camera angles,” Gunner said, voice soft as sandpaper. “Makes sense why her truck wound up where it was. No struggle. Just gone.”
“Her purse was on the floorboard, phone still in it.” I told them, rubbing my hand down my face.
I looked at the faces around the table. Every one of us had scars from Greenbriar’s last game. Everyone of us wanted blood.
Bronc said, “Same plan as before. Small team, surgical entry, in and out. We don’t let them see us coming.” He looked at me. “You lead. You remember what worked and what didn’t.”
The war room shifted. My hands stopped shaking. The wolf retreated, replaced by something sharper, colder.
I nodded once.
“Gunner, get ready for your first taste of war. Doc, you’re in backup position. Arsenal, I want your eyes on entry and egress. Papa, you run comms. We’re all on this. All heading out.”
Pearl poked her head in the door, arms crossed, face set in lines of concrete. “Don’t let her die, Bronc,” she said. “She’s not like Emma. She’s not strong that way.”
“I know,” Bronc said. “We’re bringing her home, Ma. Head back to the civic center. That’s where everyone already is.”
We broke to prep.
Thirty minutes: that was all I asked.
In the armory, the lights were cold and blue. I went down the row of guns, checking weights, stocks, ammo. I grabbed the Sig Sauer, loaded the magazine, holstered it on my left side. Backuppiece in the boot. Knife on the belt. Kevlar on, black T-shirt over top. I checked the radio and the comms twice, then once more for luck. Gave Parker a call to see if she’d talked to Maddie or seen anything on the cams. She hadn’t yet, but was still checking.
The rest of the crew was a symphony of motion. Gunner and Arsenal loaded the bikes with extra mags, hydration packs, blacked-out helmets. Doc was on the phone with his hospital contact, prepping the back end for a wounded return.
I could hear Bronc upstairs talking on the phone to Juliet. His voice was low, but I caught the edge in it: a mix of fear and fury, the kind you only heard in alphas who loved something more than themselves.
Papa found me at the back door, jacket zipped to the throat, helmet under his arm.
“Wrecker,” he said.
“Yeah?”
He looked down, thumbed the strap of his helmet. “Let’s get her. Don’t go full reaper, though. We’ll need you here after.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
He squeezed my shoulder. “You can do this.”
I wanted to believe him.
Outside, the cold bit straight through the shirt, even with the Kevlar. I pulled on my leather jacket. The bikes lined up under the porch light, black and silent. Gunner handed me a comms set and a tiny packet of salt. “For the shakes,” he said. “Never fails.”
I took it, pressed the earpiece in place.
Arsenal came out last, carrying a duffel stuffed with C-4, detonators, wire. “Just in case,” he said.
We loaded up. The engines rumbled to life, low and angry, the sound of half a dozen heartbeats in unison.
Bronc swung up onto his ride, nodded at me. “You ready?”
I pulled on my helmet, the chin strap digging into the scar there. “Let’s ride.”
We peeled out of the compound, rubber screaming on gravel. The sky was bruised purple, the moon a clipped thumbnail. Wind clawed at my face, pulled the breath out of my lungs. The road ahead was a ribbon of black, straight as a gun barrel.
