"If Carver's in this," he said quietly, "it runs deeper than we thought."
Rachel's chest tightened. They'd moved past gathering evidence. Now they were planning what to do with it.
The team split into pairs, each man moving without needing direction. Recon routes mapped. Comm protocols synced. Fallback plans outlined. Voices stayed low, hands moved efficiently across keyboards and paper maps.
Beside her, Echo stayed focused on his screen, then straightened slightly. "Got something."
Every head turned.
Echo scanned the readout. "The other two officers in that meeting. Colonel Nathan Hale and Major Victor Langley."
Ghost's jaw tightened. "Both have top-level clearance. They can move hardware without oversight."
Torch exhaled slowly. "Hale. I knew something felt off about that reroute."
Ghost kept his eyes on the screen. "We flagged him back at Kilo. That convoy change wasn't protocol." He paused. "Should've trusted my gut."
Nobody responded. They'd all sensed something was wrong. And they'd all let it slide.
Ghost looked at his team. "We don't move fast. We move right. Strategic, clean, no assumptions."
Digital maps lit up the wall. Routes. Logs. Background intel. The living room filled with quiet voices and coordinated movement. They weren't gearing up for a raid. They were building a long game.
Predator, Rogue, and Bear would track Carver. Eyes only. Build the pattern.
Brick and Reaper took Langley. Surveillance, no contact. Wait for him to make a mistake.
Ghost and Torch had Hale. Follow the logistics, trace the money, find where the records disappeared.
Frost handled field logistics and extraction. Mobile, ready to pull any team out if things went sideways.
Echo would run overwatch from Ghost's truck. Buried in the network, watching for threats, covering their digital tracks.
Rachel would stay here with the files. Cross-reference every report, lock down every timestamp, confirm every source. Because if one detail was wrong, one name unverifiable, everything they'd built would collapse before it ever saw daylight.
Ghost caught her hand before she could turn away. "You sure about this?"
She met his eyes. "Let's take them down."
He squeezed her hand once, then released it.
Echo stood beside the table, closing out the open files. "I'll finish setting up the blackout net tonight. Run a clean digital sweep before we meet back up."
Ghost nodded. "I know we just got back from deployment. Everyone needs downtime. I'll work on gathering assets, you guys focus on intel and rest. Four days off. We meet back here at zero-six-hundred."
One by one, the men filed out. Already in mission mode.
When the front door closed behind the last man, the house went silent.
35
Ghost stepped close, his hand finding hers again. Rough, warm fingers wrapping around hers. The calluses on his palm scraped against her skin, a reminder of what he did, who he was. A reminder that this man had spent the day keeping her alive.
"Come on," he said quietly.
She followed without a word.
The house was dim, but moonlight came through the windows in silver streams. Arched doorways opened into hallways. Cool white walls. Warm wood beams crossed the ceiling. Their bare footsteps were quiet on the tile.
