The guards move fast.
They lower him—not to mercy—but to the restraint frame. Arms spread. Legs locked. No slack this time.
One of them hesitates.
I look at him.
The hesitation ends.
Electricity hums to life.
Cal screams.
The sound is raw. Animal. It echoes through the concrete corridors on purpose—carried into every cell, every chamber, every place the others are listening from.
I lean closer so only he can hear me.
“There is no rescue,” I whisper. “Lieutenant Pierce is dead. His woman died screaming. And the voice you heard?”
I smile thinly.
“It was me reminding you what hope costs.”
Another surge.
Cal convulses, then goes limp.
I raise a hand.
The guards stop.
“Return him to his cell,” I say. “Leave the lights on. No food for forty-eight hours.”
“Yes, sir.”
As they drag him away, I turn back toward the observation glass.
The facility is quiet again.
But something has changed.
The men below now know a signal got through.
They know I noticed.
And somewhere—far above ground—
Ronan Pierce has just made himself known.
I am not angry.
I am intrigued.
Because when you flush a predator from hiding, the hunt becomesart.
And I have been waiting a very long time to break a legend.
30
