Chapter 11 Hale
Hale
I can feel it in my gut.
Micah’s driving like hell’s on his heels—foot hard on the gas, knuckles white on the wheel. Nate’s next to me in the backseat, one hand on his laptop, the other scrolling through thermal drone footage we had to “borrow” from a contact who still owes me a favor.
But none of it matters. Not the footage. Not the license plates we flagged. Not the cold trail we’ve been chasing since dawn.
Because this feels wrong.
Too easy. Too clean.
Every clue fed to us. Every move expected.
Micah’s voice cuts through my spiral. “SUV was spotted on the feed fifteen minutes ago. County road. No turns. We’re close.”
“No,” I say, already shaking my head. “We’re not.”
Micah glances at me in the mirror. “You seeing something I’m not?”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “A setup.”
Nate doesn’t look up. “Explain.”
I rub my hand down my face, trying to hold in the scream I feel crawling up my throat.
“They knew we’d come for the car. Knew we’d bite on the breadcrumb trail.
Every ‘tip’ we’ve gotten came through the same filtered channel.
None of it organic. No noise from street rats, no heat from watchers. This isn’t a hunt.”
Nate stiffens. “It’s bait.”
And I took it.
My phone pings. Sharp and loud in the silence that follows.
I grab it from my chest rig and thumb open the alert.
It’s from the motion sensor at the cabin.
Zone 3 breach – front door. Camera active.
My pulse slams into overdrive. I open the live feed.
What I see sends my world into a white-hot blur.
Wren.
Kicking. Screaming.
Dragged from the cabin porch by two men in dark clothes.
One of them turns just enough for the camera to catch a glimpse of his face.
Liam.
My vision tunnels. My body goes cold. Not ice—steel.
Nate sees it. “What is it?”
I shove the phone at him. “They took her.”
Micah swears under his breath and whips the wheel hard, doing a 180 on the two-lane road. Tires scream. Gravel flies. I’m already calling up the GPS location of the cabin, but I know it’s too late for intercept.
They planned this. They planned me.
While I was out chasing ghosts, they were circling her like wolves. Waiting for the moment I was far enough away.
“Front camera’s down,” Nate says, voice clipped. “Shut off at the source. Last signal cut three minutes ago.”
Micah punches the dash. “They blacked it out. No tracker on the vehicle?”
“Only tagged the last one,” I say. “They switched rides. New plates. Probably a burner truck. Military-grade clean-up.”
Nate narrows his eyes. “Means they’ve got money. Help.”
“Yeah,” I growl. “And now they’ve got her.”
My fists clench until my knuckles crack. I want to tear through the mountains. I want to drag Liam out by his spine. But I can’t afford rage—not yet.
I need precision.
“Go dark,” I tell Nate. “Wipe the plate leads. No digital trail. If they smell us coming, they’ll vanish.”
He nods and starts typing fast, hands flying over the keyboard.
Micah flicks the headlights off and adjusts the GPS. “Fastest way back to the ridge?”
“Access road,” Nate says. “We’ll be on foot for the last mile.”
“Won’t matter,” I mutter. “I’ll run it barefoot if I have to.”
The truck slams through mud and snow like a tank. Trees blur past. The sky is turning that winter shade of orange-gray, the light before the storm.
“I saw her face,” I say after a moment. “On the feed.”
Nate glances at me.
“She was scared. But she fought.”
“She’s a fighter,” Micah says. “You trained her.”
I swallow hard. “I didn’t train her for this.”
“She’s alive,” Nate says. “That means there’s still a chance.”
“She won’t be if we don’t find them soon.”
My mind spirals. I think of Wren barefoot in the cabin. Wren curled against me, whispering that she trusted me. That she felt safe with me. I made her believe that. I let her believe it.
And now she’s in Liam’s hands.
Because I let my guard down. I let my emotions cloud the op. I let her get close, and I thought that meant I could keep her safe by sheer will alone.
I failed.
But I won’t fail again.
“I’m going to find her,” I say, voice like gravel. “And I’m going to bury that bastard.”
Neither of them argues.
Because they know what I am when someone comes for what’s mine.
They saw it in the war.
They’ll see it again tonight.
Nate closes the laptop. “Let’s burn the whole world down.”
And I nod.
Because I’ve already started the fire.