The guard at the gate isn’t relaxed. He’s bored, but armed. Different. He keeps looking toward the road. Not random security. Expecting something, but not us.
Good. Expectations can be used.
Hammer slows before the corner, letting second van peel wide. Cain’s team disappears into the dark.
Dom whispers through comms, “Camera loop ready.”
Alessandro adds, “Nico is past the gate and continuing as if he missed the turn. Delivery van parked rear.”
Logan says, “On my mark.”
The van stops. Rear doors open. Cold air hits. I step out first. Gravel under boots. Gun in hand. Silence around us.
Then Logan’s voice. “Go.”
We move. Fast. Controlled.
Shadow takes the guard before he fully turns. One arm around the throat, blade at the side, body pulled backward into the dark. No shout. No shot.
Alive?
Probably. Enough.
I don’t check.
Joker reaches the side door, picks or breaks the lock with a small tool I don’t care to identify. Blaze and Hammer move around back. Logan is at my shoulder.
The door opens. We enter. The warehouse smells like old dust, oil, damp concrete, and fear. Men are inside. Six visible. Two near the van. One near office door. Three around a table with papers, bags, and weapons laid out like they thought they had time. They don’t.
The first shot comes from one of them. Bad aim. Panic. It hits metal shelving with a scream of sparks.
After that, the world opens. Not chaos. Not for me.Targets. Distances. Angles.
One man raises a gun toward Logan.
I shoot him in the shoulder before his finger finishes tightening. He spins and drops, screaming.
Alive. Useful. Another lunges from the side with a knife. I step into him, catch his wrist, break it against the edge of a steel rack, and drive my elbow into his throat. He hits the ground choking, body curling around pain.
Alive. Maybe. Good enough.
Shadow moves through the left like smoke with teeth, dropping one man with a blow to the knee and another with the butt of his gun to the temple. Joker laughs once, low and pleased, as he opens a man from shoulder to hip without killing him. Not deep enough. Painful enough.
Hammer’s team breaches the rear at the same time.
The warehouse fills with sound. Gunfire. Shouting. Boots. Glass breaking.
Blaze yelling, “Down, motherfucker!”
A body hits the floor hard enough to shake dust from the rafters. Someone from the office fires through the half-open door. The bullet catches Landon in the upper arm. He grunts and drops behind cover, cursing. “Hit!” he barks.
“Stay down!” Cain snaps over comms.
Another shot.
This one catches Carter’s vest near the ribs and knocks him back a step. Brooke would lose her mind if she saw it. Carter snarls and fires back, nailing the shooter through the hand.
“Alive!” Logan roars.
