This has to be the Ghost. They figured out what we were planning, how important Dinara was to our mission and knew exactly where to hit to make me bleed.
I consider bringing every soldier we have here and burning whoever sent this message down to ash and bone. But I know with bone-deep certainty that if I don’t follow the rules, if I show up with an army, she dies.
I strip off my earpiece, my Glock, my backup weapon, and the knife strapped to my ankle and hurl them into the shadows between shipping containers. One of my men approaches to ask me something but I don’t hear it.
Nothing else registers except that address. Nothing matters except her.
How did this woman become the center of my world? My beating heart? Everything good worth living for?
Because the idea of her no longer being here destroys something essential inside of me.
I throw myself into the nearest Humvee, engine still running from the convoy, and slam the gas pedal to the floor. The vehicle rockets forward, tires shrieking as I punch through the loading zone and onto the street beyond. Someone’s yelling my name, but I don’t slow down or look back.
I blow through red lights and ignore every traffic law in the book, weaving between cars, cutting across lanes, pushing the Humvee faster around every turn.
The address is in an industrial development zone on the outskirts of Queens—half-finished construction projects and abandoned lots stretching into the dark.
There’s construction equipment scattered everywhere like forgotten toys, and the whole area feels hollow and abandoned. How appropriate.
Only one building has lights on.
I kill the engine and sit there in the dark for three seconds, staring straight ahead. Is this a trap? Probably. But I’ll paint this city in blood before I let anyone think they can get away with hurting her.
I step out of the Humvee and barely make it five steps before two masked guards materialize from the building’s entrance. They look identical to the soldiers that attacked us at Rosa’s.
“Hands up,” one of them barks.
I raise my hands slowly. “No weapons. I got the message loud and clear.”
One covers me with his rifle while the other runs his hands over my body with the kind of thoroughness that says they know what they’re looking for. He checks my jacket, my waistband, my boots, every place I could hide a weapon.
“He’s clean.”
“Move.” The one with the rifle jerks his head toward the building.
They march me in, one on each side, close enough that any sudden move would be my last. The interior is a gutted shell of concrete pillars wrapped in shadows, plastic sheeting, and stripped rebar. How fitting that the Ghost found a ghost town for our final showdown.
We follow the only path available, a long corridor that ends in a pale wash of light. Dread coils in my stomach considering what I might find. What if they’ve already hurt her, or worse? Fuck it. If I let my mind spiral now, I’m in trouble.
The hallway opens into a massive warehouse floor stripped down to steel and concrete. The guards push me forward with enough force to make their point and then fall back to guard the entrance, rifles still trained on me.
I scan the space and my heart stops.
In the center of the room under a single overhead work light is Dinara.
She’s tied to a chair exactly like in the photo, with her wrists bound behind her, the cloth gag digging into the corners of her mouth, and her ankles secured to the legs. The bruise on her cheekbone has spread into a dark, angry purple, and my jaw locks so tight I think a tooth might crack.
Relief floods her expression but her eyes are blazing with urgency. She’s shaking her head, trying to tell me something, but my body moves on instinct, closing the distance between us.
“Stop.”
The familiar voice is like a punch to the solar plexus.
The overhead lights come on all at once, fluorescent white flooding the space so bright I have to blink against it. When my vision clears, my father stands in the shadows behind Dinara’s chair, one hand resting on her shoulder like she’s his to touch. He’s not dressed in his usual three-piece suit but in tactical gearthat makes him look like the soldier he used to be instead of the pakhan he became.
He appears totally calm, totally in control.
And then, something else catches my attention.
