“I know it was.” My voice comes out low. Flat. Deadly. “They moved her before I got here.”
Faron exhales, not sympathy but understanding—the kind only a man who’s almost lost everything can offer.
“Then we take the rest,” he says. “We take this whole damn mountain apart until they regret ever touching her.”
I don’t nod. I barely breathe.
My gaze drifts to the highest ridge, where a sniper tower pierces the clouds. A man stands inside it—tall, lean, posture arrogant enough to make my blood chill. Even from a distance, I recognize those shoulders.
Roscov.
Tech mastermind behind Ascendancy’s drone network.
The man I once hunted and lost.
The man who took Lena.
Heat crawls up my spine. Not rage—something colder. Sharper.
Purpose.
Cyclone comes back on the line.
“Pierce, I pulled chatter from the compound’s comms. They were talking about the transfer. I caught only one clear sentence before they scrambled it.”
“Say it.”
A beat of static.
“‘Make sure Pierce never finds her.’”
Silence.
Wind sweeps over the ridge, lifting the edges of my hooded jacket. For a moment, I don’t move. I don’t feel the cold. I don’t feel anything except the brutal truth tightening around my ribs.
They know I’m coming.
They’re afraid.
And that means Lena is still alive.
I close my eyes for half a second—the first prayer I’ve offered in years.
Hold on, Hart. I’m coming.
When I open them, whatever man I used to be is gone, replaced by a blade honed to a single purpose.
“Cyclone,” I say, my voice like ice breaking, “tell River I’m going in.”
Faron’s brows lift. “Solo?”
“Not for long,” I reply, sliding down the ridge with fluid, lethal intent. “Just until I make them scream.”
Below, the guards shift, clueless.
Above, thunder rolls like an omen.
And I descend into the mountain facility—not as a soldier, not as a ghost, but as the one man Ascendancy should have killed when they had the chance.
