I didn’t smile back. “Today, the job description isghosts.”
The banter faded. The mountain suddenly felt as if it were holding its breath with us, the whole world poised on the edge of something it couldn’t see yet.
For three years, I’d lived with the image of Lena’s body buried in rubble from that blown street in Korash, the lastplace I’d seen her. For three years, every lead had gone nowhere.
Now I stood at the mouth of the kind of place Ascendancy would use for their worst secrets, with intel that said a journalist asset had been redirected here for “long-term conditioning.”
I didn’t know why they’d kept her alive.
I just knew that if I hesitated, if I let the ghosts of my last team slow my hand even a fraction of a second, I’d lose her all over again.
I checked my watch, then my comms.
“Delta Five,” I said, voice low. “We go on my mark.”
Snow swirled, catching in my lashes. Somewhere far below, a dog barked once and went silent.
I thought of Lena’s laugh, the way it used to curl at the edges when she didn’t want anyone to know she was amused. The way she’d push her hair behind her ear when she was pretending not to be scared.
Hold on,cuore mio,I thought. Just a little longer.
“Three,” I whispered. “Two. One.”
I rose from cover and moved for the shed, my team ghosts at my back, the past and the present on a collision course deep beneath a nameless mountain.
9
Ronan
The mountain air is thin enough to cut.
I crouch beside a jagged outcrop overlooking the Ascendancy’s hidden valley, breath steady, heartbeat controlled. The storm that rolled through at dawn still clings to the peaks—low clouds drifting like ghosts, thunder muttering in the distance. Perfect cover.
I adjust the magnification on my scope.
Below, the compound sits carved into the cliffside—half fortress, half mountain carcass. Trucks move in timed rotations. Guards patrol with the discipline of men who fear their commander more than an intruder. And on the landing pad, fresh scorch marks tell a story I didn’t want to believe.
A single aircraft lifted less than an hour ago.
My jaw locks so hard my teeth ache.
Lena. I was close. Too damn close.
Cyclone’s voice crackles in my earpiece.
“Pierce, satellite confirms the bird lifted close to an hour ago. Unknown cargo. But whatever they moved… they rushed it.”
I don’t answer. I don’t trust my voice not to break.
I scan the pad again, memorizing every footprint, every tire track, every deviation in the pattern. Someone was dragged. Recently. The imprint is faint but unmistakable—a shuffle, weight uneven, one side weaker than the other.
My pulse spikes.
Lena, what did they do to you?
A shadow falls over the tracks. Faron crouches beside me, eyes narrowing.
“You think it was her?”
