He stared at me, torn between logic and instinct, between the risk and the possibility, and I watched the moment he started to lean toward it, even as he resisted. “You could blow everything,” he said.
“Or we get more useful intel.”
Silence stretched, tight and weighted.
“You’ve already decided,” Caleb said.
“Yes.”
He shook his head once. “You’re asking me to trust a kid in a collar over every instinct I’ve got to wait this out until we have more intel.”
“I’m asking you to trust my assessment that the kid is about to run for help, and when he does that, he’s likely dead.”
I could see the calculation running, the same way it did when Caleb worked a system, weighing risk against outcome.
“He won’t get far,” Caleb said, quieter now.
“No.” Another pause. “He has a three a.m. shift, he’s alone for exactly five minutes and fifteen seconds, I’ll go now.”
“Fuck,” Caleb muttered and pushed himself away from the keyboard. “I’ll back you up?—”
“No. This is best done alone.”
“Novak—”
“We can’t chance giving him anything to communicate with us, but I’ll wear a body cam, and if he has any useful intel, you’ll have it directly.”
He stood and yanked me close, stealing a kiss that made all the blood in my body run south. “Don’t get dead,” he ordered.
“I won’t.”
Every stepof my approach was silent, following the path through the trees and fencing charted from the patterns I’d drawn, the blind spot opening exactly when expected. Noah moved into position on schedule, posture tense, scanning without conviction, the kind a person gives when they’re thinking about something else entirely. I closed the distance, one hand over his mouth, the other locking his wrist before he could react, pulling him back into the shadows and pinning him hard enough to control without breaking him.
“Don’t fight,” I said low against his ear.
He froze.
Good.
I disarmed him cleanly, weapon out of reach before he could process the loss, and kept my grip firm as he struggled once, instinct more than intent before going still again.
“Ezra and Seth are safe.” I gave him only what mattered.
Everything in him changed in that instant.
The tension dropped out of his body so quickly it was almost structural, as though something holding him upright had been cut loose, and he went slack against my hold for a second before catching himself.
“They’re safe?”
“I said that.”
“Where are they?”
“Safe.” Why did people always need me to repeat things.
“Who are you?”
“We don’t have time for that?—”
