“Always,” he said.
The door closed softly behind him.
I laid there, staring at the sunlight crawling across the wall, trying to convince myself that freezing didn’t define me.
That surviving counted for something.
That next time, I’d move.
7
WRECKER
Cap didn’t need to spell it out.
Church had ended with assignments moving quietly through the room. There were no speeches and no debate. Our mission was recon rides. We wanted every detail we could before we went in there guns blazing to get Scout and Sunshine. Eyes on every corridor Amanda had flagged. Follow the trafficking lanes. And most importantly, don’t engage unless forced.
So when Ranger gave the signal just after one, nobody asked why.
We rolled out right after one in the morning. Engines low, lights off, the kind of formation you didn’t break unless you wanted Ranger’s boot up your ass.
Fog clung to the tree line off the access road, thick enough to hide a small army. The night felt wrong. Too still. Too expectant.
Ranger took point, head dipped, shoulders loose, but every inch of him coiled. Brutus followed on the Harley with the chopped pipes that normally rattled your ribs, but tonight he kept it silent as he could. I slotted in behind them, running quiet, jaw grinding as we left the compound and Amanda behind the upstairs window.
I didn’t look back twice.
Once was enough.
Ghost didn’t ride.
He never did unless he had to.
He was in Ranger’s truck a hundred feet back, headlights off, rolling like a shadow. Smoke’s ears were visible in the window, tracking every shift of dark like he was born for this shit.
The road curved south into industrial zoning that should’ve been dead at this hour.
It wasn’t.
Ranger signaled slowly twice.
Up ahead, a warehouse yard glowed under a security floodlight, like someone wanted it seen from the road. A single semi sat backed into the dock, engine cold. No other trucks. No rotation.
Men in reflective vests moved pallets by hand, fast and quiet. No forklifts. No radios. No dock doors opening and closing.
Brutus grunted. “That’s not a night shift.”
“Too clean,” I muttered. “And they’re breaking it down instead of cycling it through.”
Ranger’s head dipped. “Staging point.”
Ranger rolled closer and stopped behind stacked shipping crates near the fence line. We killed our engines and moved on foot, boots quiet in gravel.
Ghost pulled the truck around the back of the yard and angled it into a pocket of darkness so deep it swallowed the vehicle whole. He stepped out with his laptop tucked under one arm, mask catching the faintest shine from the floodlight. Smoke hopped down and sat at Ranger’s knee, vibrating with energy but staying still because Ranger’s hand hovered at his collar.
Ranger lifted a finger to his lips.
Silence.
