Cap held my gaze another second, then nodded once. “Suit up.”
That was all I needed.
No bikes tonight.
This wasn’t Iron Battalion rolling loud. This wasn’t about intimidation or territory. This was a retrieval. Quiet. Controlled. Lethal if it came to that.
I climbed into the back of the van, gear already strapped down, rifle secure across my chest. Ghost took the passenger seat, Brutus slid behind the wheel, and Cap climbed in beside me, tapping notes into his tablet like he wasn’t about to authorize hell.
The engine rumbled low as we rolled out of the garage, tires crunching over gravel before hitting pavement. The compound disappeared behind us, swallowed by the dark.
Fifteen minutes. Maybe less.
I counted them anyway.
One mile.
One turn.
One breath.
I sat still, body calm in that way it always got when something inside me had already snapped into place. My hands didn’t shake. My pulse stayed steady. The calm scared me more than the rage. Calm meant I’d already decided how far I was willing to go.
Underneath it all, there was fire.
Amanda’s face kept flashing behind my eyes. The way she smiled when she forgot to be scared. The sound of her laugh when it surprised her. The way she said my name like it mattered. The weight of her in my arms after our first night, fragile and fierce all at once.
They took all of that.
They were going to pay.
“Eyes up,” Cap murmured. “Ghost, drone goes up at the tree line.”
Ghost nodded, already pulling the controls from his bag.
The warehouse loomed ahead, concrete and rust against the open field. One flickering light above the loading dock blinked like it was about to die. A single guard leaned against a crate near the side door, phone glowing in his hand, smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers.
He never saw me.
I reached him in three steps. One hand clamped over his mouth, the other driving the knife home. His body went slackbefore he could react. Brutus caught him and dragged him into the shadows without a sound.
Cap gave a single nod.
Brutus popped the latch with barely a click, and we slid inside.
The air hit me immediately. Damp concrete. Metal. Something sour underneath it all that made my stomach twist. This place had seen things it wasn’t meant to hold.
“Two corridors,” Ghost whispered. “Multiple interior rooms.”
“I’ll take left,” I said, already moving.
The first room was empty. Too empty. Restraints bolted to the wall at uneven heights. Scuffed concrete where feet had kicked and scraped. Dark stains soaked into the floor, old enough to have dried but not old enough to fade. Anger bubbled in my chest as I stepped over them.
The second room had been cleared in a hurry. Food wrappers, a tipped chair, a discarded jacket that looked too small to belong to any of the men we’d seen. Drag marks led toward the back exit, deep grooves carved into the concrete.
My gut twisted.
This wasn’t where they planned to keep anyone.
