The room felt like it shrank a little. Kawan took a step closer, anger burning hot in his chest.
“This needs to be clean. Contained. No distractions.” Lorre’s voice dropped a notch, that slick condescension slipping through the cracks. “I expect you wheels-up in twelve hours. I’ll have transport arranged.”
Lark stared at the phone, her voice calm—but hard. “Understood.”
Lorre didn’t say goodbye. He just ended the call.
“What the hell was that?” Specs asked, breaking the quiet.
“A power play,” Kawan said darkly. “And he wants you and Lark alone. He wants control.”
“It’s a trap,” Jupiter added. “The kind that starts with plausible deniability and ends with someone disappearing.”
Ry spoke up, calm but certain. “And if it really was higher than Grady? He’d name the chain. He wouldn’t hint. That was meant to rattle you.”
“He sounded sure I’d come,” Lark murmured. “Almost smug.”
Kawan stepped in. “You’re not going.”
“I know.”
“You sounded like you were agreeing to.”
“That’s what I wanted him to think.”
Specs gave her a long look. “Even if it was above Grady—which I doubt—there’s no way it’s clean. That’s a black-bag pick-up if I’ve ever heard one.”
Jupiter pushed away from the wall. “We tell Grady. Now.”
Lark nodded and turned to Ry. “Can you send a secure ping? Something short. Let him know Lorre’s trying to force my hand.”
“I’ll bury it in a satellite pass,” Ry said, already moving toward Specs’ laptop. “He’ll see it.”
Kawan kept his eyes on Lark. She was putting on a hell of a show, holding herself together like she wasn’t fraying at every edge. But he could see it. She’d lost too many people. Now, Lorre was trying to isolate her again. Pull her out. Get her back under his thumb.
She’d been a weapon too long.
Not anymore.
The door creaked open.
Everyone turned.
Pipe entered, shoulders broad and presence heavy. But it wasn’t just him.
A second figure followed—a man in camo fatigues, hard-lined face, clean-shaven, with storm-gray eyes and silver at his temples. He wore the bearing of command like a second skin.
Kawan straightened.
“Colonel Dustin Amber,” Pipe said grimly. “He says we need to talk. Says he knows things. Like Alverez.”
The moment Colonel Amber stepped into the war room behind Pipe, the air tightened like someone had cocked a gun under the table.
Kawan didn’t move, but every muscle in his body coiled.
The man looked leaner than Kawan remembered. Not gaunt, but hollowed out by the kind of stress that didn’t show up on medical charts. His hair had more gray streaks than the last time they’d worked together, and the fine lines around his eyes had deepened. But his uniform was squared, his posture sharp, and his eyes—those were still battlefield-clear.
Pipe didn’t say a word. Just gave Kawan a nod before closing the door and bracing the wall like a silent sentinel.
