Lena exhales. “Malenkov just authorized an expanded force.”
“Good,” I say. “That means he’s afraid.”
I straighten, every decision locked in place.
“Delta Five,” I say. “We move now.”
The vehicle surges forward.
Outside, the forest waits—silent, indifferent, about to become lethal.
Somewhere ahead, Jonah is bleeding for time.
Somewhere below, two of my brothers are still in chains.
And Malenkov?
He thinks this is still his game.
I set my jaw, eyes burning with purpose.
It isn’t.
It’s ours.
66
Ronan
Location: Eastern Europe — Ascendancy Eastern Approach
Time: 1223 Hours
The forest swallows the vehicle the moment we leave the service road.
Branches scrape metal. Mud grips the tires. The terrain slows us exactly the way Malenkov intended.
It doesn’t matter.
We weren’t meant to arrive fast.
We were meant to arrive unseen.
“Two minutes to dismount,” Aaron says quietly, eyes scanning the forward feed.
I nod once, gaze fixed on the layered schematic hovering in front of me. Jonah’s movement line is still climbing—erratic by design. Hunter clusters tighten and split, tightening again.
He’s herding them.
Good.
“Internal security just lost overlap,” Lena says. “Malenkov pulled a unit from the east corridor to reinforce uphill.”
I don’t look away from the map. “Of course he did.”
I found out everything I could about this man, and it has taught me one thing: Malenkov cannot resist force. He always answers pressure with more pressure, never realizing that pressure reveals structure. If I had known that my team and Lena were alive, I would have done anything to get them out sooner.
And Malenkov's structure reveals weakness.
