"Trust me. No matter what. No matter how it looks."
His words crashed through the panic. That urgent conversation in the clubhouse. The way he'd gripped my shoulder, made me promise.
No matter how it looks.
I forced myself to breathe. To think. To watch. Tyler was moving through the Devil's Dust lines now, gun raised, shouting orders I couldn't hear. They were following him. Trusting him. Streaming out of defensive positions toward?—
Toward the kill zone.
Phoenix had set up crossfire points on the north and south flanks. Positions that had been accidentally left weak in the assault plan. Positions that Tyler had argued for during the strategy sessions.
He was leading them into a trap.
"Now!" Hawk's voice thundered through the comms.
The flanking teams opened fire.
Devil's Dust, caught in the open, went down like wheat before a scythe. Tyler dropped to the ground as bullets screamed overhead, rolled behind cover, came up shooting—but now his gun was aimed at Devil's Dust, not Phoenix. He moved through them like death itself, every shot precise, every movement efficient. It was over in seconds.
The compound's defenders lay scattered across the killing field. A few survivors fled into the warehouse, but the tide had turned. Phoenix surged forward, overwhelming what remained of the resistance.
I was running before I made the conscious choice. Tank. Tyler had shot Tank.
I found him behind a concrete barrier, cursing viciously while pressing his hand to his thigh. Blood seeped between his fingers, but he was alive. Conscious. Furious.
"That fucking—" He saw me, grimaced. "Flesh wound. Through and through. Your brother's got shit aim."
"He hit exactly what he was aiming for." I was already cutting away fabric, examining the wound. Clean entry, clean exit, missed the femoral artery by inches. Deliberate. Precise. "He needed it to look real."
"Could've warned me."
"Would you have sold it?"
Tank considered this, then laughed—a pained bark that turned into a groan. "Probably not. Fuck, that hurts."
"Bullet wounds usually do." I packed the wound, wrapped it tight. "You'll live. Stay here."
"Like hell?—"
"Stay. Here." I met his eyes, channeling every ounce of authority I'd learned in the ER. "You try to walk on that, you'll tear the muscle worse. I need you alive for the aftermath."
He glared at me. I glared back. Finally, he slumped against the barrier. "Fine. But tell your brother he owes me a bottle of the good stuff."
"Tell him yourself."
The warehouse loomed ahead, its massive doors blown open by Irish's breach charges. Smoke poured from the gap, lit from within by flickering emergency lights. The sounds of combat had faded to sporadic gunfire, the occasional shout. Phoenix was winning.
Tyler materialized out of the haze, blood on his face—not his own, I noted—and exhaustion carved into every line. "Kai." He grabbed my arm. "You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you, apparently." I couldn't keep the edge from my voice. "You could have told me the plan."
"I couldn't risk it. If anyone suspected?—"
"I thought you'd betrayed us. For thirty seconds, I thought my brother was a traitor."
Something cracked in his expression. Pain, guilt, the weight of necessary deception. "I'm sorry," he said. "There wasn't another way."
"There's always another way."
