"Understood, Boss."
"We roll out in ten," I say. "Check your gear. No mistakes."
The room breaks into motion. The sound of slides racking and velcro tearing fills the air. It is the sound of war preparing to leave the house.
I walk over to Killian. He is staring at the map, tracing the route to the shipyard with his finger.
"You ready?" I ask quietly.
He looks up. "I'm ready to end it."
"Your side?"
"It holds."
"Good." I reach out and adjust the collar of his jacket, hiding the holster strap. "Because I need you standing when we walk out of there."
"We both walk out," he says. "That's the deal."
"That's the deal."
The convoy is six vehicles.
Three Falcone sedans, sleek and black. Two Kavanagh SUVs, battered and heavy. And the grey Volvo that Killian hotwired at the rail yard, which has somehow survived every phase of this operation. It sits among the armored vehicles like a stray dog in a pack of wolves.
Killian drives. I ride beside him.
The symbolism is not lost on me: we started this war in stolen transportation, running for our lives, and we are ending it the same way.
The city thins as we head east. The dense verticality of the financial district gives way to the low, sprawling industrial blocks. Warehouses. Smelting plants. The skeletons of factories that died in the eighties. The streetlights become sparse, yellow pools of sodium vapor fighting against the encroaching dark.
It is raining again. A cold, miserable drizzle that slicks the streets and turns the world into a blur of grey and black. The wipers slap back and forth.Swish. Swish.
Killian’s hand finds mine on the center console. His palm is warm, rough with calluses. The grip is brief—a squeeze, firm, communicating everything that doesn't fit into the operational frequency.
"Whatever happens in there," he says, eyes on the road, "we stay together. No splitting up. No heroics."
"I promise," I say. "No heroics. Just results."
He glances at me. A corner of his mouth lifts. "Liar."
"Strategist."
The Grayhaven Shipyard materializes through the windshield. It is a massive complex, jutting out into the harbor like a black tooth. Cranes loom overhead, silent sentinels against the graphite sky. The dry dock is a cavernous covered structure, open on the water side, lit by harsh industrial floodlights that spill out onto the wet asphalt.
Vehicles are already present. Three black SUVs parked in a triangular formation near the entrance. Engines running. Exhaust pluming in the cold air.
Volkov's people. They're here.
"Showtime," Killian whispers.
We park outside the perimeter, behind a row of shipping containers. The convoy forms a loose semicircle. Our soldiers deploy with a silence that speaks to the quality of the briefing. No doors slam. No voices are raised.
Rocco takes his team left, circling wide toward the elevated catwalks on the dry dock's southern wall. They move like shadows, disappearing into the industrial gloom.
Brennan takes his team right, moving through the maintenance corridor that connects the office block to the dock's interior.
Killian and I walk.
