Black. No plates. Coming in fast from the wrong end of the street, engine audible even through the camera's cheap microphone.
Rachel's head snapped toward the sound. Even through the grainy footage, Ghost could see her body language shift, recognition, then fear.
She ran.
Twenty feet to Ghost's driveway. Fifteen.
The van's side door slid open before it fully stopped. Two men in dark tactical gear hit the pavement in perfect coordination, their movements precise and practiced.
Military training. Ghost would bet his life on it.
Rachel was fast, but she wasn't fast enough.
The first man caught her before she reached the gate. His hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off the scream Ghost couldn't hear but could see building in her throat. The second man locked an arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground like she weighed nothing.
She fought. Ghost watched her kick backward, her elbow driving into ribs, her whole body twisting and bucking as she tried to break free. One of her feet connected with something, a shin, maybe a knee, and the man holding her stumbled slightly.
It didn't matter.
They were bigger. Stronger. Trained for exactly this.
They dragged her backward toward the van, her toes scraping pavement as she tried to plant her feet, tried to find leverage that wasn't there. She got one arm partially free and swung wild, her fist glancing off a shoulder.
Then they had her inside.
The door slammed shut. The van peeled out with a screech of tires that left rubber on the street.
Start to finish: eleven seconds.
The timestamp read 2:47 PM.
Fifty-three minutes ago.
Ghost couldn't breathe. His lungs refused to expand. His vision had tunneled down to that frozen frame, the empty street where Rachel had been standing, the black tire marks the only evidence that any of it had happened.
"Professional snatch," Brick said, his voice carefully neutral. "Military precision. They knew exactly what they were doing."
"Waited for the right moment," Reaper added. "She was exposed. Alone. Perfect opportunity."
Ghost's jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together. They'd been watching his house. Watching Rachel. Waiting for her to step outside without protection.
And he'd been three miles away photographing cargo transfers while the woman he—
Ghost's fist hit the table before he registered the movement.
The laptop jumped. The sound cracked through the house, wood splintering under the impact. Something in his hand popped. Might have been a knuckle. He didn't care.
"Fuck." The word came out strangled, barely recognizable as his voice.
His other hand found the table edge, gripping hard enough that his knuckles went white. His breath came fast and shallow, his chest heaving like he'd just run a sprint in full kit. The rage was there, huge and black and demanding he put his fist through the wall, through the screen, through every surface in reach until the image of Rachel being dragged into that van stopped playing on repeat behind his eyes.
But rage wouldn't get her back.
Rage would get her killed.
Ghost forced air into his lungs. Forced his breathing to slow. Forced the red haze at the edges of his vision to recede until he could think clearly again.
His hand throbbed where he'd hit the table. He flexed his fingers. Everything moved. Nothing broken.
