I need a direct line. The encrypted ping I sent earlier was a beacon. A flare in the dark. Now I need voice contact. I need logistics. I need to know how much time I have before my world crashes into hers.
I tune the frequency. I bypass the standard emergency channels. I spin the dial past the ranger broadcasts and the commercial aviation bands. I find the dead zone. The static hiss. The frequency my family owns. I flip the encryption toggle. The light turns red. The line is secure.
I pick up the heavy black microphone. I press the transmission button.
"Echo actual. This is shadow actual. Over."
Static crackles through the small speaker. Five seconds pass. Ten. Then, the static breaks.
"Shadow actual. Stand by for command."
The operator's voice is clinical. Flat. I release the button and wait. The tension in the cabin spikes. I can feel Reese watching my back. I can feel her stare pressing between my shoulder blades. She is listening. She is piecing together the puzzle of who I really am. The ledger she found. The hollow-point rounds. The encrypted comms. The mafia reality stripping away the civilian lie.
The speaker hisses again. A new voice cuts through the noise.
"Santi."
Dominic.
My brother. The Don. His voice presses through the room. Absolute authority. Cold, calculated power. It demands submission from everyone who hears it. I do not submit. I am his shadow, but I am my own violent sovereign.
"Location is secure," I say into the mic. "Blackwood Ranger Station. Sector four, grid nine. Ten miles north of the crash site."
"The beacon signature is locked." Dominic's voice is devoid of relief. Costa men do not celebrate survival. We merely expect it. "What is your physical status?"
"Unharmed. Armed. Supplied for three days."
"The pilot."
Dominic does not ask if she survived. He asks about the asset. The variable.
I turn my head. I look at Reese over my shoulder. She stands still. Her knuckles whiten on the grip of the Glock. She hears the tone of his voice. She understands what Dominic is.
"She survived," I say.
"Extraction window is the first break in the storm," Dominic states. "The secondary weather front is a severe blizzard. The wind shear is tearing the trees apart. Choppers cannot fly in this. The mountain is isolated."
"Make them fly."
"I have three tactical teams staging at the border of the national park," Dominic continues, ignoring my demand. He operates on logic. He operates on strategy. "They have heavily modified snowcats and a fleet of snowmobiles. They begin the ascent the second the wind drops below fifty miles per hour. Bird in the air at the first dawn the ceiling lifts. No sooner."
A dawn window. A long night alone in this cabin before the violence of Chicago bleeds onto this mountain.
"Understood," I say.
"Santi." Dominic pauses. The silence hums through the speaker. It is a dangerous sound. When my brother pauses, people die. "The ghost signatory thread. The intel you were chasing before the flight went down. The blind trust transferred three million dollars to a holding company in South America twelve hours ago. The Bellanti family is moving assets. They know you were getting close."
"Let them move assets," I reply smoothly. "They are delaying the inevitable. I will handle it when I return."
"The pilot overheard the flight manifest," Dominic says. His tone shifts. The Don is speaking now. The executioner. "She was chartered by Costa Logistics. She has seen your face. She knows your operational capacity. She is standing next to you while you communicate on an encrypted mafia frequency."
"She is."
"Is she a liability, Santi?"
The question hangs in the air. A death sentence wrapped in a bureaucratic inquiry. If I say yes, the extraction team will arrive with a body bag for her. If I hesitate, Dominic will assume sheis compromised and order her elimination anyway. The Costa family does not leave loose ends. We do not leave witnesses.
I turn my chair around. I face Reese. I look directly into her sharp, beautiful eyes.
