“Don’t make me regret it, Marko. Speak.” I get back in front of him as he lets his head fall into his palms, probably still under the influence of that substance.
“He owns this estate, in the south,” he pauses and rubs his eyes. His voice trembles, grief bleeding through the words. “I know where it is, because I found my wife there. Dead. After I tried to leave Vermilion.”
He lifts his head up to me.
And for a second, just a second, I see myself in his eyes. The broken version. I gulp and drop my eyes to the concrete bloody floor.
That’s not my case. That’s not what’s going to happen.
Calm the fuck down.
“Let’s go,” I grab him by the collar and drag him out of the basement, his body stumbling, his legs not working properly yet.His shoes scrape across concrete, leaving smears in the blood puddles. His breathing hitches, shallow, but he doesn’t resist.
I drag him all the way up the stairs and right into the tech room, throwing his not-very-cooperative body onto the floor right at the poor IT kid’s legs.
Eric jumps like he’s been electrocuted and his eyes flicker between me and Marko lying on the ground, clutching his head.
“Tell him,” I snap at Marko.
He looks up at the screens, the maps, the heat signatures, the satellite feeds, and his eyes widen.
For the first time in weeks, I feel it. I’m going to find her.
?
Adrien drags one hand through his curls and taps the map on the center screen.
“Okay. We have twenty-one men.”
My pulse jumps. That’s enough. More than enough, if we do it smart.
“The estate is buried in the woods,” he continues. “I pulled the last satellite sweep. I’m betting twenty guards tops.”
Marko lets out a low, bitter laugh.
“Twenty you can see. Devereaux keeps around forty total.”
Adrien doesn’t even flinch as I add, “Good. Then we can match him quietly.”
That word settles the whole room. Not desperate. Not reckless. Just possible.
Marko steps closer, fingers tracing the estate like he’s handled this blueprint in his sleep.
“We split into groups.”
Adrien nods once. We’re already thinking the same way.
“Me, Kas, Marko, and two silencers go in through the drainage tunnel,” Adrien says, pointing to a thin line running under the foundation as I continue, “We hit the generator first. Once the power drops, all cameras and internal comms die.”
Marko adds, “When the lights go out, they’re blind. Half of them won’t know what to do without cameras telling them where to stand.”
Good. Perfect.
Adrien zooms the map out to the woods around the property.
“Eight men in pairs sweep the perimeter. Quiet only. Knives, suppressors, wire, whatever. We clear every lookout point before they even smell us.”
Marko nods. “Take the woods first and the estate goes deaf.”
