The guard by the cab lit a cigarette. That flare was all I needed.
“Now,” I growled.
Hawk moved first, a shadow turned to fire as his rifle coughed suppressed rounds. One guard dropped, then another, bodies hitting concrete before the echo even carried. Blade was next, knife flashing once in the dark, silent and final.
But the cab driver shouted—too loud, too fast. An alarm wailed, lights blazed, and suddenly the dock erupted into chaos.
Gunfire tore the night apart. Sparks lit the steel walls. I shoved Raine behind cover as bullets chewed into the forklift.
She cursed, rolled to the other side, and snapped off two shots clean and fast. A grunt, then a body fell. No hesitation. No fear. Just fire.
“Left flank!” Logan shouted. He laid down cover, rounds sparking off the container walls.
I leaned around the cab, squeezed off three shots. Two targets down. My blood burned hot, vision narrowing to the fight.
But it wasn’t the bullets that twisted my gut.
It was the pounding from inside the nearest trailer. Fists. Weak voices, muffled screams.
“Adam!” Raine’s voice cut sharp through the chaos. She’d heard it too.
I spun to her, and in that instant, she wasn’t just a soldier. She was the reason I didn’t walk away from this war.
“Cover me,” I barked.
Her chin lifted, fire blazing. “Always.”
We moved together, side by side through the storm of bullets, straight toward the trucks.
103
Raine
The dock was hell lit in floodlights. Gunfire cracked, ricocheting off steel, hot brass clattering around my boots. The air stank of salt, oil, and blood.
Adam surged toward the truck, every step a target painted on his back. My heart lurched, but my hands didn’t falter. I pivoted left, sighted down, and dropped the bastard aiming at him from behind a crate.
“Not today,” I hissed.
Another guard lunged from the shadows, rifle up. I swung wide, fired—missed. His muzzle flared—too close, too fast—
“Raine!” Adam’s voice ripped through the chaos.
But I was already moving, throwing myself low as the shot cracked overhead. My ribs screamed, white-hot fire through my chest, but I came up steady, my pistol locked. One squeeze. His body jerked, collapsed.
Adrenaline drowned the pain.
I scrambled to Adam’s side, laying down fire as he slammed his shoulder into the trailer’s lock. Metal groaned. Sparks showered. The lock clattered free.
The door yawned open—and the sound that hit me wasn’t gunfire. It was the whimper of children. Women. Weak hands clawing for freedom.
My throat closed, rage flooding hot and clean.This is what they’d hidden in the dark. This is what we’d bled for.
“Cover the line!” Adam barked, already hauling the first victim out.
I planted myself in the open, wide stance, pistol raised. Hawk and Blade carved through the flank, Logan cursed steady fire behind us. Bullets whined past, but none would touch the people stumbling from that trailer. Not while I stood.
One guard broke cover, rifle aimed dead at Adam. I didn’t think—I fired. The shot cracked through the air, and he went down before his finger could twitch.
