Chapter 25
Finn
The world was still gray when I surfaced.
Not the soft gray of peace. The brittle, watchful kind.
I eased out of the sleeping bag as quietly as I could, careful not to jostle Saoirse where she was tucked against my side. Her breathing hitched once as the warmth shifted, but she didn’t wake. No surprise. We’d barely slept since we’d left Glenlaig all those days ago.
Ajax lifted his head the moment I moved—ears pricked, eyes bright in the low light. Waiting for a command.
Good lad.
I pulled on my boots, shrugging into my jacket. Checked the combat knife at my belt, the weight of the multi-tool tucked into my pocket. No gun. No easy fallback if things went wrong.
When I straightened, Saoirse’s lashes fluttered. Sleep-heavy, half-aware.
She blinked up at me, and I leaned in, keeping my voice low.
“Going scouting,” I murmured. “Be back soon.”
Her hand twitched like she wanted to catch me, and I caught it, pressing a kiss to the back. Her fingers twisted to brush my cheek before she let it fall, trusting. That trust anchored something in my chest I couldn’t afford to look at too closely. Not now.
I turned to Ajax, dropped to a knee, so we were eye level.
“Stay with her,” I ordered.
It was the only way I could make myself go do what needed to be done. Knowing he’d protect her. Hold the line.
Ajax settled his head back on his paws, muscles coiled tight beneath him. Ready.
Good.
I slipped into the trees, the mist closing around me in ribbons of silver. Each breath ghosted in front of me, cold enough to sting. The forest wasn’t silent. It never really was. But it held a different kind of hush in the early hours. Like the world itself was holding its breath.
I moved through it without a sound.
Predawn was a hunter’s hour. And today, I was the one doing the hunting.
The forest thickened as I moved downhill, every step calculated. Old habits took over. The ones drilled into bone and blood long before I ever set foot back in Scotland.
Stay low. Move slow. Use the ground like it’s working for you, not against you.
The mist was thicker here, clinging to the hollow like smoke.
It muffled sound, blurred edges. A double-edged sword.
Good for masking my approach, but bad if I wasn’t the only one slipping through the dark.
I kept to the tree line, body angling into natural breaks in the terrain.
Crouching behind a rock outcropping, I caught my first glimpse of the compound again.
Faint golden glows dotted the canvas walls. Probably small battery lanterns or chemical lights. Enough for them to see each other without giving away their position from the air.
Smart. Experienced. Expensive. But none of that made them invincible.
I circled wide, veering up a slight rise to the east. Higher ground meant better sightlines, and a fighting chance if I had to move fast.
I didn’t let myself think about Saoirse waiting back at camp. Didn’t think about Ajax, lying vigilant beside her. Didn’t think about what would happen if this camp caught wind of a shadow moving in the trees. I focused on my breath, on each deliberate step.
When I finally dropped into position behind a half-fallen tree, sapling growth veiling me from view, I went still. Listening. Watching. Waiting for the camp to reveal its cracks.
I melted into the underbrush, breath shallow, every muscle tuned tight.
The perimeter wasn’t careless.
Guards were posted—four that I could see, maybe more deeper in. They moved often enough to suggest routine, but not pattern. Not strict enough to give more than the illusion of control. Weapons slung easy. Eyes moving. Posture casual, but aware.
Not amateurs. But not pros either. They wore their confidence like extra kit, and that kind of cockiness could be an asset.
I watched longer than I probably should’ve, tracking their movements, letting the rhythm settle into my bones. It wasn’t military discipline. It was something looser. Maybe learned from hunting lodges or security contracts. The kind of training that made them dangerous but not airtight.
The gap wasn’t in the men. It was in the ground.
A natural fold in the terrain curved along the northern edge of the site—low, tangled, thick with scrub and moss-draped timber. Looked impassable if you weren’t paying attention. Too steep to drive through. Too cluttered to be worth crossing.
It read like a natural barrier.
They didn’t patrol it. Not really. A couple of glances. A sentry posted too far up slope to catch anything moving low and quiet.
I ran the calculation in my head, accounting for distance, grade, and cover.
It wasn’t easy, but it was there. A blind spot. A potential way in. Risky. Tight timing. But possible.
A ghost of grim satisfaction stirred low in my gut.
You built defenses for what you expected. Not for what you didn’t want to see coming.
And I’d made a career out of being the thing they didn’t see coming.
A flicker of movement caught my eye—two figures near the main fire pit, framed by the weak glow of coals.
They were relaxed. Coffee mugs in hand. Talking low.
I shifted a little closer and caught the edges of their conversation.
“… spotted a pair near the west ridge. Big ones, good summer coats. Healthy.”
A chuckle. “Client’ll pay double if he bags a true Highland wildcat. No one’s seen a pure strain in years.”
“Tracker said there’s a golden eagle hunting over the cliffs, too. Might set a bait line. Easy pickings.”
My gut twisted.
Wildcats. Eagles. Deer with antlers thick from good grazing.
Not survival. Not conservation.
Trophies. Ego. The kind of killing done because no one ever told them no.
I swallowed the anger trying to rise and stored it. I’d need it soon enough.
Heart steady, I eased back a fraction, mind already working the angles.
The trackers were out there now. Somewhere in the forest. Radioing in locations. It was easy to imagine intercepting one. Disabling him. Taking his comms.
But finding one tracker in thousands of acres of dense woods? That was a needle in a haystack. And if I missed—if one so much as got a garbled call through—the whole camp would go on alert. Isla would likely be the first to pay the price.
I ground my teeth, considering. Better odds inside. Better to wait for the camp to thin. For a shift change. Hell, did they even do a shift change? I couldn’t count on them operating with that kind of discipline. They didn’t move like hired mercs.
If I could slip in, find a radio. Maybe in a command or logistics tent, maybe where they stashed the high-end kit.
It’d be a hell of a risk. But it was cleaner. And it was the only way we were getting backup before this turned into a two-body recovery.
As I waited, the camp shifted around the edges.
Small movements at first, barely more than a ripple.
Tent flaps stirred. Figures emerged, stretching, shaking off sleep.
Someone kicked life into the main fire pit, smoke threading upward into the heavy gray dawn.
If they were rousing this early, they likely had a hunt planned and needed to get into position.
I stayed motionless, half-buried behind a fallen log, the damp moss seeping through my sleeves.
No alarm was raised. No shouting broke the morning quiet. No one scrambled for weapons.
Good. I hadn’t left a footprint. Hadn’t turned a single head. The hunters moved like men with no reason to hurry as they checked rifles, topped off fuel on the ATVs parked along the tree line, laughing low over whatever they thought the day would bring.
They didn’t know they were already being hunted, too.
I pulled back in the same slow, deliberate the way I’d come, every footfall placed with care. No broken twigs. No slipped stone. Nothing obvious to catch a half-alert eye.
With every step, I logged what I’d seen. Positions. Movement habits. The dead space near the fire where two of them leaned too close, voices low and careless, bragging about what they’d “bagged” that day.
A thread of arrogance running through it all. Like they believed no one would ever get close enough to hear them.
That arrogance? That was the opening. The thinnest of cracks in the armor. But it might be enough.
And still, something twisted low in my gut. A weight I didn’t let myself look too closely at. Because hearing those words, seeing them laugh scraped something raw.
I wanted to move now. Strike. Do something.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
So I tucked it down deep. Locked it beside every other instinct I’d had to ignore. And kept moving.
We had a window.
It wouldn’t stay open forever. And when it closed, there likely wouldn’t be a second chance.