Fallon and Ink were already making their way through the shadows, each slipping from different corners of the lot. Blaze had been standing with King in my office, so all three of us were armed and ready within seconds.
When we exited the building, I took point. They were coming for her, and no one touched what was mine.
We let the first team get through the fence. Three men on foot, dressed in matte black vests under jackets, weapons tucked close to their bodies. One of them peeled toward the back, another hung low by the garage wall, and the third headed toward the front door.
They didn’t make it ten steps.
The first one dropped when Cruze cut through the dark and slit his throat from behind. The man didn’t make a sound as his body hit the gravel.
The second went down harder, taken by Rebel in a fast, brutal hit. One punch to the ribs, then another to the head, knocking him out.
The third one was mine.
He was fast—one of the quick, twitchy types who thought speed would save him. It didn’t. I met him halfway between the path and the porch, caught his wrist mid-reach, twisted until the bone popped, and slammed him face-first into the ground.
His breath left in a sharp gasp, and I dropped to one knee beside him. “You picked the wrong fucking house.”
He went for a knife. I snapped his arm at the elbow.
“Kev,” Tomcat called, voice low in my comm. “South gate. Three more.”
“Got it,” I answered, already rising.
The next team was better trained. They didn’t bunch together as they swept the southern side like they’d drilled for it, each one covering angles and moving tight. Echo took the one on the left with a suppressed round to the base of the skull. Cross came in from the east and buried a blade in the chest of the second.
The third tried to run. Ink caught him at the corner of the garage and introduced him to the butt of his rifle. The man crumpled, groaning, and Ink stepped over him without even looking back.
I glanced down at him, debating.
“Leave him for now,” King ordered as he stepped from the shadows. “He’s out cold, and he might be the one we’ll get to talk.”
We dragged the survivor to the small building at the back of the compound, shrouded in the trees. It was where we took people to be questioned. And where some of those people never walked back out.
By the time we got there, Flint had a saline bag hanging and a compression wrap around the bastard’s head to make sure he didn’t pass out on us before we were done asking questions.
I stood in front of him, my arms crossed and shirt still streaked with blood. Tomcat leaned against the wall, his eyes flat. Cruze took a chair across the room and sat, spinning a knife between his fingers like he was bored.
Blaze pulled up a chair and sat backward on it, his arms braced across the top, eyes cold.
King stepped in last. Silent and immovable. The only sound was the door shutting behind him.
I grabbed the man’s chin and made him look at me. “Start talking.”
He didn’t answer. So I punched him in the ribs. Then the jaw.
The man spat, and a smear of blood hit the floor. I didn’t blink.
“You came for her. Thought you could kill what belongs to me.”
“She’s yours?” the guy croaked.
That earned him a boot to the chest. Courtesy of King.
The man wheezed and coughed, looking like he was trying to say something, but couldn't catch his breath.
“Don’t try to bullshit me,” I growled. “It’ll only make this worse for you. You come to kill my woman and?—”
“We weren’t sent to kill her,” he argued, cutting me off. “Not unless we had to.”
