She didn’t respond. Typical.
He followed, gun raised, every muscle tight. The interior smelled of oil and damp concrete. The walls were slick with condensation, and somewhere high above, the faint echo of footsteps.
Then a voice.
“You came.”
It was calm, almost resigned. Blake swung toward the sound. Thirteen stepped from the shadows beneath the stairwell—hood down, clothes soaked through.
Blake didn’t lower his weapon. “You picked a hell of a place for a reunion.”
Vivian moved to Blake’s flank, rifle steady. “You said this was a meet.”
“It was. Until it wasn’t,” Thirteen grumbled. “Bureau found a lead to this place. Old lead, but that brought Laurel here, too.”
He gestured toward the narrow window slit. Outside, the fog was alive with motion—shadows moving fast and low.
Blake caught the gleam of gunmetal, the pulse of red lights in the mist. “Ambush,” he muttered.
Thirteen nodded. “They have her.”
Viv’s breath hitched. “Mara?”
Thirteen’s jaw worked once before he spoke. “Laurel Tide intercepted the medical transport after your escape. They don’t know who she is—only that Vivian wanted her safe. They think she’s a bargaining chip of some sort.”
Vivian swore under her breath. “We’ll get her back.”
Thirteen shook his head. “You don’t understand. If they realize she’s connected to me, they’ll use her to keep me in line, or worse. I kept the truth buried for a reason.”
“Where is she?” Vivan asked, her tone resolute, already telling Blake she’d rescue Mara no matter what.
“I don’t know.”
Vivian pulled out the burner phone and texted something to someone. She’d been sending messages since he’d given it to her back at the cabin.
The wind howled through the open door. Distant engines revved. Blake’s instincts screamed—they were boxed in. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “They’ll pin us between the ridge and the sea.”
“Then we take higher ground,” Vivian said, already moving toward the stairs.
Thirteen caught her arm. “No. They’ll expect that. After Jensen’s takedown up there, and then you showing up, they installed a beacon upstairs—motion sensor linked to a dead man’s switch. You trigger it, the whole place goes up.”
“Jensen?” Viv asked.
Thirteen nodded. “The bullet that killed him. It’s why I had to retrieve it. If you turned that into the bureau, they’d have come down before I could get Mara out.”
Blake’s stomach turned to lead. “How long have we got?”
“Minutes. Maybe less.”
The ground trembled as a shot cracked outside, echoing up the cliff. The first round hit the wall near the door, spraying concrete dust.
Blake shoved Thirteen toward the inner stairwell. “Move!”
They sprinted upward as gunfire erupted outside. Shadows swept past the windows—Laurel Tide’s hired guns, black-clad and precise. Another shot punched through the doorway, grazing the railing beside Vivian’s hand. She didn’t flinch.
At the next landing, Blake shoved Thirteen behind a generator and leaned out to return fire. Two rounds dropped, one into the sandbags, one into the fog. He didn’t wait to see if they hit.
Thirteen crouched beside him, breathing hard. “They’re not here to capture. They’re here to kill, and if they see us together, then we’re all dead.”
