"Summit officially opens tomorrow at 1800hrs," Ronan announced, checking his watch. "But we're supposed to report for our security detail at 1600. We've got forty hours to figure out how to catch Buckley trying to kill us."
"And sleep," Axel added, yawning hugely.
"No kidding." Izzy shot him a look. "You're looking low on beauty sleep, dude."
Griff was the only one who didn’t crack a smile. “Yo, guys. We whiff this, and the people on Buckley’s list die.”
“What he said,” Ronan added. “We miss him this time, we might not get a second chance.”
Axel fingered a wicked-looking knife. “Copy that, jefe. We hear you loud and clear.”
They moved like water around rocks—never colliding, always knowing where the others would be. Deke would reach for a magazine as Axel finished with it. Ronan would point to a position on the blueprint just as Griff marked it on his tablet. No words needed. Years of muscle memory and trust.
Sarah understood none of it.
She watched Izzy fieldstrip a pistol faster than Sarah could type a password. Watched Kenji and Zara synchronize their communication equipment with hand signals she couldn't read. Watched Griff clean a rifle with the tenderness most people reserved for babies.
"Here's the situation," Ronan continued. "Buckley hired us through Knight Tactical for exterior security. He thinks he's setting us up—plans to have us arrested or eliminated during the summit."
"But he doesn't know we know," Maya added. "So we play along."
"Exactly. We show up at 1600hrs, as ordered, take our positions around the perimeter." Ronan pulled up a photo on the main screen. "We need concrete evidence linking him to Tank's murder and the Charleston Option. The Admiral says we're cleared to detain the man, but he wants the charges to stick once we hand him over to the Feds."
"So we're running two ops simultaneously," Deke clarified. "The one Buckley thinks we're running, and the real one."
"He'll have layers of deniability," Maya said. "Politicians always do."
"Which is why we go after the paper trail," Griff added, nodding toward Sarah. "Financial records, communication logs, anything that ties him directly to the orders."
“We’re close,” she said. With Zara and Finn and Kenji helping her, she’d have the evidence she needed by tomorrow, for sure.
They were discussing entry points now, using terminology that might as well have been Mandarin. Fields of fire. Fatal funnels. Dead space. Violence reduced to geometry and probability.
Finn pulled up blueprints for the Charleston Place Hotel. "Main ballroom, three levels of security. We'll be stationed here, here, and here"—he marked the exterior positions—"for the official detail."
"But we'll also need people inside," Axel suggested. "Kitchen staff, maybe tech support for the AV equipment. People Buckley won't expect."
"I can handle tech," Zara offered. "Get into their systems, monitor communications. I'll go in early as IT support."
"—remember Kandahar?" Axel was saying. "That warehouse breach?"
"Don't remind me," Deke groaned. "Fifteen hostiles, one exit."
"Tank saved our bacon with that flashbang," Ronan added quietly.
A pause.
Sarah turned back to her screens, feeling more out of place than ever. These people had bled together, killed together, nearly died together more times than they could count. And here she was, a forensic accountant who'd stumbled into their world by accident. She analyzed spreadsheets. They analyzed kill zones.
"Sarah." Griff appeared beside her. "You remember what we practiced?"
She looked up from her screen, pulse quickening. "The self-defense moves?"
"Show me the grip break again."
She stood, hyperaware of how close he was. His lesson came flooding back—including that horrible thumb dislocation technique she'd refused to even attempt. He held out his hand, waiting.
She grasped his wrist, trying to focus on the technique and not the warmth of his skin or the way his presence seemed to fill the space around her. He was built like a weapon—lean, lethal, perfectly calibrated for violence—yet his touch remained gentle as he corrected her grip.
