“Sir,” the runner said cautiously, “she hasn’t moved.”
Of course she hadn’t.
Rylie Tate wasn’t a pawn.
She was an anchor.
Thomas exhaled slowly, recalculating.
Pressure had failed.
Isolation had failed.
Fear hadn’t fractured them—it hadtightened their formation.
That was dangerous.
“Pull back secondary assets,” Thomas ordered. “Immediately.”
The runner hesitated. “What about—”
“We don’t escalate again,” Thomas cut in. “Not yet.”
Because escalation now wouldn’t create chaos.
It would trigger annihilation.
Thomas stepped to the window, watching the city lights below, jaw tight with something unfamiliar.
Uncertainty.
He had underestimated her.
Worse—
He had underestimated what would happen when she was trusted rather than controlled.
Behind him, the board was no longer bending.
It was closing.
And for the first time since this began, Thomas understood something cold and absolute:
This wasn’t a negotiation anymore.
It was a countdown.
55
Trigger
The order didn’t need to be spoken.
It moved through us like electricity—silent, instantaneous.
Execute.
Havoc ghosted left, disappearing into brush that swallowed a man his size like it had been waiting for him. Saint shifted position to seal the rear approach. Ace took high ground without a sound, rifle already trained on the narrow path Thomas’s runner had chosen without realizing why.
