He lifted his gaze sharply, scanning higher ground, the slope to their left steep and choked with brush. Perfect for concealment. Perfect for overwatch.
Perfect for an ambush.
“No,” he muttered.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He didn’t like surprises.
Thomas answered. “What?”
The voice on the other end was tight. “We lost visual on the Ranger.”
Thomas’s jaw clenched.
“When?”
“Just now. He doubled back. Or vanished.”
The word hit harder than it should have.
Vanished.
Thomas exhaled slowly, forcing his temper back under control. Rage would make him sloppy—and he refused to give Trigger that satisfaction.
“He wants us here,” Thomas said quietly. “He’s leading us.”
Diego looked uneasy. “So what do we do?”
Thomas’s eyes hardened.
“We continue,” he said. “But tighter. Quieter. And if you see the woman—”
“Yes?”
“You take her alive,” Thomas said coldly. “She’s the leverage.”
A pause.
“And the Ranger?”
Thomas’s gaze drifted back to the ravine, to the path that suddenly felt like a throat closing around him.
“Break him,” he said. “Slowly.”
Even as he gave the order, the unease returned—stronger now.
Because deep down, Thomas knew the truth.
He wasn’t chasing prey anymore.
He was walking into a man who had stopped running.
And men like that…
Were the most dangerous kind.
24
