The chill seeped through my clothes and into my skull, grounding me even as my heart thudded harder than it should have.
I’d spent three years in the field and done countless secret missions in countries that didn’t officially exist.
And still, every time a mission was about to end, my stomach twisted with fear.
Experience didn’t make the fear go away—it just taught me how to keep going anyway.
Tomorrow night, we would slip through a forgotten tunnel beneath Alonso Chapo Guzmán’s fortified villa.
Three operators against the remnants of an empire that refused to die quietly.
One last strike.
One last chance to end this.
I closed my eyes and pressed the back of my head harder against the wall, breathing through the weight in my chest. I whispered a silent prayer—not to any god I believed in, but to whatever force governed luck, timing, and the unpredictable flight of bullets.
Let it be quick.
Let it be clean.
And let all three of us come home.
AMY, ELENA, AND I CROUCHEDat the mouth of the tunnel we would use to infiltrate Al Chapo’s compound and end the hunt once and for all.
Night pressed down on us like a burial shroud.
There was no moon—only a thick ceiling of clouds that swallowed the stars and erased the horizon, as if the world itself was trying to hide what we were about to do.
The Greek countryside dissolved into darkness, broken only by the distant, hazy glow of Athens far beyond the hills.
The air was sharp and unforgiving, cold enough to bite through our camouflage, and every breath left our mouths in faint, ghostlike puffs—quiet reminders that one wrong sound could give us away.
We moved low through the overgrown brush surrounding Chapo’s compound, careful not to disturb the brittle undergrowth.
Elena took point with the precision of someone born to disappear, her assault rifle cradled close, barrel always tracking the dark.
Amy followed just behind her—my sister, our close-quarters specialist—compact, lethal, and coiled tight with energy.
I brought up the rear, weapon slung but ready, my mind cataloging every sound, every shift in the wind.
I wasn’t the best at any one weapon—but I was good with almost all of them. Adaptability had kept me alive.
Our ghillie suits—layers of burlap and locally gathered foliage woven into our gear—rustled softly as we crawled forward, blending us into the thorny hillside.
Sweat trickled down my spine despite the cold, soaking into fabric and skin alike.
My heart hammered not from exertion, but from the familiar cocktail of adrenaline and dread that always came before a breach.
Beside me, Amy moved on her elbows with smooth efficiency, camo paint streaked across her cheekbones and nose.
Her eyes were too sharp. Too bright. The kind of focus that bordered on hunger. It worried me more than fear ever could.
Elena was pure control. Silent, measured. But I could hear her breathing if I focused—short, disciplined bursts through her nose. Even she felt it tonight.
We were ghosts in the dark.
Three shadows closing in on a secret intel had sworn still existed: an old maintenance hatch leading to a forgotten smuggling tunnel beneath the villa. Built decades ago. Abandoned and erased from modern schematics.
