The rifle bucked once, clean and controlled. The round punched through the gunner’s chest and folded him backward out of the truck like he’d been unplugged.
The RPG man turned. “Too late, sucker.”
Breakneck shifted a fraction, adjusted for the bird’s continued movement, and fired again.
The second body dropped hard over the side of the technical.
“Gunner down,” Breakneck said. “RPG neutralized.”
The driver panicked, swerving, trying to run the vehicle out of the kill zone. Breakneck didn’t chase him with the scope. He tracked the engine block instead, waited for the split second when the truck bounced over uneven ground and exposed its underside.
Another shot.
The engine seized violently, smoke pouring as the technical fishtailed and rolled, coming to rest in a cloud of dust and flame.
Breakneck stayed on it until there was no movement. Only then did his focus widen again, snapping back to the ground where Blair and the Mounties were still riding full out, alive because the threat was gone.
He watched them for a heartbeat, his own breath coming in a ragged gasp he hadn't realized he was holding. “Stay with them,” he growled.
Valdivia stumbled as Jones shoved him forward. The gunfire faded. The shouting thinned. The forest swallowed sound whole.
Carver stopped near a shallow ravine choked with brush, a place where the ground dipped just enough to hide them from casual sight. He crouched, eye level with Valdivia, studying him like a problem already half solved.
“Where’s the main stash house?” Carver asked.
Valdivia lifted his chin, blood drying stiffly on his cheek. His mouth curved in a slow, contemptuous smile. “You think I would tell you that?” he said. “You are nothing. Bureaucrats with guns. You will be dead before sunset.”
Jones hit him from behind, driving a knee into his spine and forcing him down onto his face. Valdivia grunted but didn’t cry out. He laughed instead, a low, rasping sound that carried more pride than pain.
Carver watched him carefully. “That’s not the right answer,” he said mildly. “I’ll ask it again.”
Valdivia spat into the dirt, then started chuckling.
Carver nodded once, as if confirming something he already knew. He rose, unhurried, and walked a slow circle around Valdivia, boots crunching softly on pine needles and gravel.
“You know what’s interesting about men like you?” Carver said. “You mistake structure for safety. Titles. Hierarchies. The idea that because you sit at the center of a web, you’re untouchable.” He stopped behind Valdivia and crouched again, close enough that his voice dropped to something almost conversational. “We’ve already mapped your web.”
Valdivia’s laughter cut off abruptly.
Jones hauled him upright and slammed him back down onto a fallen log. The movement knocked the breath from Valdivia’s lungs, a sharp, involuntary gasp tearing free. His defiance wavered, just for a second.
Carver saw it.
“Your wife,” he said calmly. “Still lives in Monterrey. Same house for twelve years. Your eldest son just started university in Madrid. Likes late nights. Bad neighborhoods.” He tilted his head. “Your daughter…well. She’s more cautious. Smart girl.” Valdivia went very still. Carver’s voice never changed. “We have detailed files on every member of your family. Names. Routines. Patterns. Safe places. Unsafe ones.” He leaned closer. “We will hunt them down, and when we’re done, they will breathe their last because you chose your money.”
“You don’t know a thing about me.”
“I know everything about you. I’ve seen you with them, and I’m not bluffing.”
Valdivia surged against the cuffs, a snarl tearing from his throat. “You touch them and I will?—”
Jones cut him off with a sharp blow that snapped his head sideways. Valdivia sagged, breath coming ragged now, fury cracking into something rawer, more desperate.
Carver didn’t rush him. He let the silence stretch, let the threat settle into bone.
“Where is it?” he asked again.
Valdivia’s chest heaved. His eyes burned with hatred, then something unhinged slid into them, something wild and glittering, and then he laughed.
