Page 16 of Ghost (Cerberus Personal Security #1)

ELEVEN

Mason

The wind stops howling, leaving an unnatural stillness in its wake. Out here, silence is rarely a comfort—it’s the quiet before the storm, the breath held before the strike, the pause between heartbeats when instinct knows danger is near.

I glance at my team as we trudge through knee-deep snow toward the storage shed where we secured Drake and his men.

Ryan walks two paces behind me, ever the faithful XO.

Jackson and Martinez flank our sides, weapons at the ready.

We left Cooper in the cabin with Willow—his sniper skills are best utilized as overwatch.

“Four tangos secured,” Ryan says, his breath clouding in the frigid air. “One KIA by the snowmobile. The critically wounded one might not make it.”

I process the information. “Status on the wounded?”

“GSW to the chest, through and through,” Martinez supplies. “Jackson patched him, but without proper medical, he’s got maybe hours.”

“And Drake?”

Ryan’s mouth tightens. “Conscious. Angry. Zip-tied hand and foot. Bastard’s already threatened to skin us alive when he gets loose.”

“Charming.” The word emerges as a growl.

The storage shed appears through the trees—a solid structure I built to house equipment too large for the cabin, reinforced against both weather and unwanted visitors. We’ve repurposed it as a temporary detention facility, one that won’t allow sound to carry back to the cabin.

To Willow.

The woman’s been through enough without hearing what’s about to happen.

Jackson clears the perimeter before I unlock the reinforced door.

The interior is dimly lit, illuminated only by a single battery-powered lantern that casts long shadows across the walls.

The smell hits immediately—blood, sweat, fear.

Four men secured to support posts, spread far enough apart that they can’t assist each other.

Drake’s eyes lock onto mine the moment I step inside, a calculating hatred burning in their depths. To his credit, he doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t cower. Just watches me with the cold assessment of a predator.

“You’re officially dead men.” His voice is surprisingly steady for someone with zip-ties cutting into his wrists. “All of you.”

I ignore him, turning to the wounded man slumped against the far post. Blood has soaked through the field dressing on his chest, his breathing shallow and labored. His eyes are glassy, unfocused.

“He needs a hospital,” Martinez mutters.

“We all do,” one of the other men snaps—younger than Drake, with a military buzz cut and a busted lip. “This is fucking kidnapping. We’re licensed security contractors.”

Ryan snorts. “That’s what they’re calling hitmen these days?”

I crouch beside the wounded man, checking his pulse. Thready. Weak. “Who’s your medic?” I ask Drake without looking at him.

“Go to hell.”

“Your man is dying.” I meet his gaze evenly. “I’ve got supplies that might stabilize him, but I need to know what field training he’s had, what medications he’s on, and his blood type. Right now.”

A flicker of uncertainty crosses Drake’s face—the first crack in his armor.

“Harris is our medic,” the young one supplies, earning a venomous glare from Drake. “But he’s the one you killed by the snowmobile.”

Jackson moves to the wounded man, medical kit already open. “I can help him, but he needs evac ASAP.”

I nod, a decision crystallizing. “Martinez, contact the chopper. We’re moving up extraction. Weather’s clearing enough for a medical evac.”

Drake laughs, an ugly sound that scrapes against the walls. “Softening already? Judge Reynolds will be disappointed.”

I turn to him, letting my expression go flat.

Empty.

It’s a look that made hardened terrorists in Afghanistan piss themselves.

“Don’t mistake mercy for weakness. Your man gets medical attention because I’m not like you. The rest of you…” I let the sentence hang.

“Your boyfriend’s a pussy,” Drake spits at Ryan. “Reynolds would’ve let him bleed out and used the corpse to send a message.”

Ryan doesn’t take the bait. Just checks his watch with exaggerated casualness. “I’m thinking we’ve got about four hours before that chopper arrives. Lots of time for a chat.”

I move to the center of the shed, positioning myself where all four men can see me. “Here’s how this works. I ask questions. You give answers. The quality of those answers determines how comfortable, or uncomfortable, the next few hours become.”

“Fuck you.” Drake strains against his restraints. “You got no idea what’s coming. Reynolds owns half the state. He’s got teams mobilizing from three directions.”

Jackson steps back from the wounded man, having administered morphine and replaced the field dressing. “Patient stabilized, but he needs blood and surgery within the next six hours.”

I acknowledge this with a nod, then turn back to Drake. “Let’s start simple. How many teams, where are they staging, and what’s their timetable?”

“I’m not telling you shit.” Drake’s sneer is pure bravado. “Reynolds will find her. And when he does, what he’ll do to her will make the last three years seem like a honeymoon.”

Something snaps inside me—a thin tether of control I’ve maintained since Syria. I’m across the room before I realize I’ve moved, my hand wrapped around Drake’s throat, thumb pressing precisely into the pressure point beneath his jaw.

“Wrong answer.” My voice emerges strange even to my ears—flat, emotionless, yet somehow charged with lethal intent. “Let’s try again.”

Ryan steps forward. “Mason.” A single word of caution. He knows what happened in Syria. Knows what I’m capable of when that control slips.

I release Drake, stepping back while he gasps for air.

“You think this is about Reynolds?” Drake manages when he can speak again. “You’ve stumbled into something so much bigger. The judge has connections you can’t imagine—cartels, foreign governments, people who make rendition flights when problems need to disappear.”

“Names,” I demand. “ Locations. Timeframes.”

Drake spits blood near my boots. “Like I said, fuck you.”

I exchange glances with Ryan. We both know Drake’s training. Delta operators are taught to resist interrogation techniques that would break most people. Physical intimidation won’t work—not quickly enough, anyway.

“We’ve got time,” Ryan says casually. “Lots of time to work with.”

I crouch down to Drake’s eye level. “Here’s what’s going to happen.

I’m going to step outside with my team to discuss our options.

While we’re gone, you’re going to think about something.

” I lean closer. “I’m not military anymore.

I’m not bound by rules of engagement, Geneva Convention, or operational protocols.

You hurt someone who matters to me. So, I’m pissed and not in a forgiving mood. ”

Something flickers in Drake’s eyes—not fear exactly, but calculation.

“Five minutes,” I tell him, then signal my team to follow me outside.

Once we’re in the clear, Ryan speaks low. “He won’t break with standard approaches. Not in our timeframe.”

“I know. We need leverage.”

Martinez jerks his head toward the wounded man. “What about him? Drake seems to at least marginally care about his team.”

“Or,” Jackson interjects, “what about the younger one? He’s already shown a willingness to talk.”

I consider this, weighing options and ethics against the clock ticking down to Reynolds’s reinforcements arriving.

“Divide and conquer,” I decide. “Martinez, move Carver to the other side of the shed, out of earshot. Tell him we know he’s not fully committed to this, offer him immunity in exchange for cooperation. ”

“And if he doesn’t cooperate?”

“Make him think Drake already sold him out.”

Jackson nods toward the wounded man. “I’ll play up the severity, tell Drake his man will die without immediate evac.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

We re-enter the shed. Drake watches us warily, sensing the shift in tactics.

The next forty minutes are a carefully choreographed sequence of psychological pressure. We separate the prisoners, feed them contradicting information, and create the impression that their teammates are cooperating.

It’s not pretty, but it’s effective.

When we return to Drake for the third time, something has changed in his demeanor.

“Your boy Carver’s singing quite a song,” Ryan comments casually. “Seems he knows more about your operation than you gave him credit for.”

“That punk knows shit,” Drake snarls, but there’s uncertainty now.

“He’s talking about the warehouse in Billings,” I say, watching Drake’s reaction closely. “About the Kostic connection. About Reynolds’s arrangement with the FBI field office in Helena.”

Drake’s eyes flicker for just a microsecond—that was validation enough. I’m on target with the intelligence Willow shared with me privately, but Drake doesn’t need to know that.

“Your wounded man isn’t going to make it without proper medical,” Jackson adds. “Field dressing can only do so much for a chest wound.”

Drake stares back at me, eyes hard as flint. His training is evident in the way he controls his breathing and his expressions.

He’s not going to break.

Which makes him useless to me.

I nod to Ryan, and we step outside the shed, leaving Jackson with Drake. Martinez is already outside, having finished his session with Carver in the separate storage area we moved him to.

“Carver’s starting to crack,” Martinez reports. “He’s young, scared. Claims he didn’t know what he was getting into.”

“What did he give you?” I ask.

“Not much yet. Says he was hired as muscle, doesn’t know operational details. I’m not sure I believe him.”

“Play them against each other,” I decide. “Go back to Carver. Tell him Drake’s already given us everything, including how Carver was more involved than he’s admitting.”

Martinez nods and heads back to the storage area where Carver is held. Ryan and I return to Drake.

“Your man Carver’s quite talkative now that he’s away from your influence,” I tell Drake. “Smart kid, looking out for himself.”