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“That’s a shame.” She reached out, brushing a strand of hair from my face with an almost maternal touch. “Because I’m the only person who can stop what happens next.”
A shiver rippled through me, but I didn’t let her see it. I wouldn’t give her that.
“You don’t scare me.”
Hart’s gaze softened—mocking. “That’s because you don’t understand what’s coming yet.”
She straightened, adjusting the belt of her coat like we were at a fucking dinner party instead of a goddamn torture warehouse.
Then she turned to her man.
“Break her.”
And just like that, the real pain began.
34
MARCUS
Istood in the marsh, Claire’s recorder in my fist, blood dripping from my knuckles onto the dirt. The Bugatti sat useless behind me, tires shredded, glass glinting in the sun like broken teeth. Ryker and Atlas flanked me, their silence a weight I didn’t need but couldn’t shake. The van was gone, swallowed by the marsh, and with it, her—my Claire. Every second she was out there, with them, carved a fresh wound I couldn’t bleed out.
Ryker’s truck idled. Atlas tapped his phone, drones humming overhead, their feeds streaming to his screen. “Tracks head east,” he said, voice sharp, no bullshit. “Toward the docks. Cooper River, maybe.”
“Then we move,” I growled, shoving the recorder into my pocket. My boots crunched glass as I stalked to the truck, sliding into the back. Ryker took the wheel, Atlas up front, and we peeled out, gravel spitting like shrapnel. The engine roared, a match to the fire in my chest, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing would be until I had her back—until I had their blood on my hands.
I stared out the window, the humid air thick with salt and rot. Her scream echoed in my skull, that last desperate thrash before they’d hooded her, drugged her, taken her from me. I’d been close—thirty yards, gun raised, ready to end it—and still too fucking late.
Jason’s laugh hit me then, unbidden, a ghost from the sand. Iraq, years back. “Keep your head, pretty boy,” he’d said, grinning as we loaded up. Then the blast, the crater, his blood on my clothes. Too late then, too.
And Dad’s shadow loomed darker, a specter I couldn’t outrun. I’d been sixteen, sneaking a beer on the porch when I’d heard him—low, tense, on the phone in his study. “They’re closing in,” he’d muttered. “We can’t stop it.” No names, just dread, a warning I’d ignored until he was gone, secrets buried with him. Hart’s taunt on that burner—“Ask your father how this ends”—twisted the knife. Whatever he’d tangled with, it was here now, and Claire was in its jaws.
I slammed my fist into the seat, leather creaking. “Faster,” I snapped.
Ryker didn’t flinch, just pushed the truck harder, the speedometer climbing. “Drones are locking in,” Atlas said, eyes on his screen. “Got a hit—black van, parked at an old warehouse, waterfront. Five minutes out.”
Five minutes. Too long. I pictured her—gray eyes fierce, fighting even now, refusing to break. I’d find her. I’d rip through every bastard in my way, paint the docks red with their guts. Hart, Department 77, whoever—they’d learn what happened when you touched what was mine.
We hit the industrial stretch, the river’s stink seeping through the windows—oil, rust, and decay. The warehouse loomed ahead, a rotting hulk of concrete and steel, windows smashed, walls streaked with grime. Thevan sat out front, black and silent, a taunt. Ten guys milled around it—dark gear, rifles slung, moving like they’d done this before. Mercenaries. Hart’s dogs.
Ryker killed the engine a hundred yards out, parking in the shadows. “Ten on three,” he said, voice flat, like it was nothing.
“Good odds,” Atlas muttered, checking his weapon.
I didn’t smile. Didn’t care.
“They’re dead already.” I drew my pistol, checked the magazine—full, ready—and grabbed a knife from the truck’s kit, its weight cold in my hand. “No mercy. We cut through, get her. Hart’s mine.”
Ryker nodded, dark eyes unreadable. Atlas cracked his neck, a predator waking up. We moved, silent, shadows on the crumbling pavement, the river lapping at the docks behind us. No words, just instinct—years of war, blood, and brotherhood honed to a blade.
The first two went down easy. I came in low, knife slashing across the back of one’s knee, tendons snapping like twine. He went to scream and I drove the blade up through his throat, blood gushing hot over my hand. Ryker took the other—a single shot, silenced, skull exploding in a red mist. They hit the ground before the others turned.
Then it was chaos.
A shout went up, rifles swinging our way. I dove behind the van as bullets chewed the concrete, sparks flying. Atlas rolled right, popping up to drop a guy with chest shots—clean, brutal, the body crumpling like a rag doll. Ryker charged left, a fucking tank, slamming one into the warehouse wall, his knife sinking into the guy’s gut. He twisted it, yanked it free, blood sluicing down the steel.
I didn’t wait. I vaulted the van’s hood, landing on abastard mid-reload. My fist smashed his nose, cartilage crunching, then my knife found his ribs—once, twice, a wet pop as it punched through. He gurgled, eyes wide, and I shoved him off, blood pooling under my feet. Five down.
The rest came hard. A big fucker swung a rifle butt at my head—I ducked, grabbed his arm, snapped it at the elbow. Bone cracked loud, his scream louder, cut short when I pressed my pistol into his temple and pulled the trigger, brains splattering the wall. Ryker took two more—one with a throat shot, arterial spray painting the air, the other with a knee-cap blast, finished with a curb stomp that left his face a ruin.