Page 132 of The Sterling Acquisition

“Please don’t,” Dante said softly. “You are perfect.”

A sharp crackle of static interrupted the moment. Stone’s radio, still clipped to her tactical vest, was buzzing with an incoming transmission.

“Regulator Team Charlie, report status. What’s your situation out there?”

The voice was crisp, professional, and unaware that Regulator Team Charlie was currently decorating the landscape in various pieces.

Dante looked at the radio, then at Lilac, who raised an eyebrow. With considerable effort, he reached over and grabbed the device, keying the mic.

“Still engaging subjects,” he said, falling back into his old corporate cadence without missing a beat. “Will contact when subjects are subdued.”

There was a pause, then the voice came back—amused, almost fond. “Copy that. Pulling back reinforcements for the all clear. Good luck, Dante.”

The radio went silent.

Everyone stared at him for a long moment. Granny Lu was the first to speak, her weathered face creasing into something that might have been approval.

“Well,” she said dryly, “that was either very clever or very stupid.”

“Little of both,” Dante admitted, letting the radio fall from his nerveless fingers.

“Got it,” Riot said, returning with a large med kit. “We’ll be long gone by then.”

Granny Lu was already pulling out medical supplies, her movements efficient despite her age. “First, we need to get a chest tube in him and start a real transfusion, or he won’t survive the trip back to the collective.”

“Trip back?” Orion asked, his face pale with worry as he watched Dante’s deteriorating condition.

“We’re far from home,” Lilac said, helping Riot lay out the medical equipment. “And we’ve got a makeshift trauma room prepped and waiting. But first we need to keep him breathing long enough to get there.”

Dante felt his consciousness wavering as Granny Lu approached with what looked disturbingly like a large-gauge needle and surgical tubing. The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was Orion’s voice, fierce and determined.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Dante Ashford. We haven’t even started arguing about who gets which side of the bed.”

Chapter forty-nine

Exodus

Orion

Themedicalbayinthe collective’s main building smelled like the peculiar green scent of whatever medicinal vines Granny Lu had coaxed to grow along the walls. Orion sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair beside Dante’s bed, watching his chest rise and fall with the steady rhythm that meant he was finally, truly out of danger.

Three days since the battlefield. Three days of watching Dante fight off infection and blood loss while Lilac worked miracles with salvaged medical equipment and plants that shouldn’t exist. Three days of Granny Lu’s herbal infusions being fed through IV lines when conventional antibiotics failed to address the specialized bacteria from the Gensyn nanoclotting agents. Three days of wondering if saying “I love you” would be the last real conversation they’d ever have.

But Dante was stubborn. Dante was alive. And right now, he was pretending to sleep while listening to the conversation happening in the next room.

”—drove right through the main road like we weren’t even here,“ Riot was saying, his voice drifting through the thin walls. “Gensyn convoy first, then SVI about an hour later. Both of them so focused on getting to that killbox they didn’t even slow down.”

Lilac’s laugh was sharp with satisfaction. “The beauty of hiding in plain sight. To corporate eyes, we’re just another abandoned settlement. Overgrown buildings, no obvious infrastructure, nothing worth a second glance.”

“Helped that we killed their drones first,” added one of the other Berserkers—Stave, Orion thought his name was. “Hard to spot a settlement when your surveillance equipment is scattered across three counties.”

Orion leaned back in his chair, still marveling at how their world had changed. Six days ago, the Berserkers had been terrifying enemies who tried to kidnap him in a Neutral Zone alley. Now they were allies who’d not only saved their lives but also robbed Gensyn blind in the process.

“INSA has stopped asking around about the ATMs in the Neutral Zone,” Lilac continued. “No traceback, no flags, nothing to connect it to any of us. As far as Gensyn’s concerned, it was just a routine systems failure that happened to coincide with some very lucky timing for a group of anonymous hackers.”

Dante’s eyes opened, focusing on Orion with that particular intensity that meant he’d been awake and thinking for a while. “How much?” he asked.

Orion grinned. “You mean how much did your corporate girlfriend and her psychotic friends steal from your former employers?”