Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
He drops into his chair as if his legs gave out. When he looks up his eyes are wet. “Because I love my daughter. Because I thought I could control a fire and instead I lit one under a monster. Because I needed someone capable of ending this who wouldn’t waste time lecturing me on ethics while my child was taken.”
I want to break him. I want to walk around the desk, take him by his tie, and tell him what it feels like to watch a woman fight in a patch of grass while you arrive sixty seconds too late. But that won’t bring her back.
I put my palms flat on his desk and lean in. “You are going to give me everything. Every email. Every burner number. Every contract. Every payment. Every Kestrel address.”
He nods fast, rummages in a drawer, produces a folder too thick to be an accident. “I started compiling when they placed the bomb,” he says, voice fraying. “There’s a shell company—Alder Street Holdings—that Vale funneled payments through. Kestrel invoices came from a P.O. box in Magnolia Ridge. Rourke’s last known was… a warehouse lease in South Ridgeville. Under another shell: Red Trace Logistics.”
I snap photos, slide the files into my bag, and pin him with a stare. “Do not talk to the press. Do not call Vale. Do not breathe outside this room unless I tell you. If you go off script again, I will not be able to save you from Hartley.”
He nods, swallowed whole by fear.
I’m at the door when he speaks again. “Bring her home.”
I don’t answer. If I open my mouth right now, the only word that will come out is a growl.
I head to the command room, my thoughts a swirl of anger and confusion. Riggs shuts the door as I enter, and leans back hard. “Jesus.”
I hand him the folder. “Gregory started it. Vale escalated. A blacklisted Kestrel operative named Rourke is freelancing now. We have a P.O. Box, a shell, and a likely warehouse in South Ridgeville operating under Red Trace.”
Rae swears softly. “Son of a— That’s why the threats had a mix of amateur and pro hallmarks. Two different hands.”
“Dean is going to implode,” Riggs mutters, flicking through invoices. “Controlled crisis my ass.”
My satphone vibrates. Dean—already on. “Gregory is behind this? And he just told you?”
“He told me,” I say. “Sending you the file now.”
I beam the scan. Dean goes quiet as data scrolls on his end. He exhales something that could kill small animals. “Here’s the plan,” he says, calm and lethal. “We split capabilities. Riggs, you lock Kingsley House down and keep PD and Hartley inside the net—no leaks. Rae, you pivot to finance: run Alder Street Holdings through every payment processor; follow wires to physical addresses. Sawyer, you’re point on Rourke. We’ll loop in a trusted federal contact, but you move faster than paper does. You get a grid, you move. You do not breach alone.”
“Copy,” we echo in chorus.
Rae flips a screen to a map. “Alder Street’s incoming wires show cashouts at three ATMs in Evermore two weeks running. Red Trace leases two units at a storage complex in South Ridgeville—Riverfront Industrial—units 312 and 314. One shows energy spikes at irregular intervals—somebody’s running tools.”
Riggs taps his chin. “Storage units are kidnapping 101. Sound masks, easy access, nobody asks questions.”
I look at the clock. 14:27. If the van took 115 south and exited near Fox Hollow, they could be there now.
“Hartley?” I ask.
Rae shakes her head. “He’s Good Cop on Gregory. We shove him a slice, and we take the meat.”
Dean grunts approval. “SPPD will want to own the collar, but I want Cam breathing, not a ribbon-cutting. Sawyer—bring two, not ten. Quiet over show.”
“Riggs and Rae,” I say. “And Andersson on cordon if we get a second location.”
Dean: “I’ll have Orange-Plus on standby as QRF six minutes out. Make the hit clean.”
I snap the mag in my SIG, and rack the slide. “We go now.”
Riggs’s eyes flare. “That’s the look you get before doing something dumb and glorious.”
“Who says it’s dumb?” I check the holster retention, and grab a short-barrel carbine from the locker. “It’s only dumb if we miss.”
Rae’s tablet chirps. “Wait—one more breadcrumb. The van—if they used a jammer, they might have turned it off when they parked. I’m seeing a white panel on a municipal cam, timestamp fifteen minutes ago, turning into the exact industrial park the lease lists. Partial plate matches outline. I’m ninety percent.”
My pulse steadies—not calm, not joy—something colder.
“Gear up,” I say. “We drive.”
The SUV travels southbound, sirens nowhere near us, because this is off-books. The River glints on our right; cranes needle the sky. My phone hums; Vanessa: Any word? I don’t answer. My hands are busy strangling the steering wheel.
Riggs readies a breaching kit—bolt cutters, wedge, flex cuffs. Rae checks a trauma pouch, then toggles a drone to manual and sets it in a foam cradle—launch on arrival.