Chapter 31
Finn
I crouched in the underbrush beyond the perimeter, my whole body drawn tight like a wire about to snap.
From this vantage, the camp was little more than a smudge of movement and muted sound—voices, footsteps, the occasional gleam of sunlight against metal.
Nothing chaotic or out of place. Which made it worse. They were still in control.
Ajax hovered at my side, his ears twitching with every shift of the breeze. He didn’t pant. Didn’t fidget. But I could feel the same tension wound through my own spine coming off him. He knew. Something had changed in me. The stillness was different now.
I wasn’t waiting anymore.
I had one real knife. No backup. No comms. No real plan beyond get Saoirse out.
A suicide run, probably. But the longer I sat here, the less that idea felt like madness and more like inevitability.
I couldn’t keep waiting. Couldn’t stomach the thought of her in there, trapped, scared, maybe already hurt worse than I could let myself imagine.
My hand flexed over the hilt at my hip, breath shallow. One man. One blade. But doing nothing? That would kill me faster than a bullet.
A whisper of movement cut through the stillness. Too deliberate to be wind, too quiet to be wildlife. Even as Ajax tensed beside me, I turned on instinct, blade already in hand, muscles locked for a strike. But before I could launch, a low voice threaded out of the trees.
“Easy, Nomad. You called. We came.”
I froze.
Callum stepped out of the foliage like the damn ghost we’d named him for, camo blending with every shade of green.
Alex and Ewan emerged behind him, just as silent, geared to the teeth, eyes sharp.
All three were dressed for war, and I must’ve looked like hell—dirty, unshaven, wild around the edges.
Relief hit me like a hammer to the chest. For half a second, I thought I might drop. My knees wobbled before I got them under me.
I opened my mouth, but Alex held up a hand. “No’ here. Too close. Come on.”
I nodded, throat too tight for words, and fell in beside them, ducking low as we slipped back into the cover of the forest. Behind me, Ajax stayed tight to my flank, quiet and watchful, but I swore I felt him relax the faintest bit. As if even he knew we weren’t alone anymore.
We pulled back half a kilometer before anyone said a word. Far enough that the hum of the compound fell away, and the forest swallowed us whole. Once we reached a hollow tucked behind a collapsed ridge, Ewan gave a short hand signal, and we stopped.
I turned toward him, already thinking through the next steps, but it was Alex who cut in first. “Where’s Saoirse?”
I swallowed hard. “She was at the perimeter last night. I went in for the radio. We had a fallback plan, but she got spotted.”
There was a beat of sharp-edged, brittle silence.
“They’ve got her?” Ewan asked.
I nodded. “Dragged her in while I was slipping out.”
Callum’s jaw flexed. Ewan muttered something savage under his breath.
“She’s alive.” I was grateful I could still confirm that. “They put her with Isla. I didn’t see them hurt her.” Not that my brain had stopped producing increasingly horrific scenarios in the hours since she’d been taken.
Ewan didn’t waste time asking what I’d seen or how I knew. He only nodded, a grim set to his mouth. “Then we move.”
Without another word, we fell into the familiar dynamics of an op, as we’d done countless times before.
Alex dropped into a crouch and finally unhooked his gear. The waterproof pack unzipped in near silence, and he pulled out a tablet, eyes flicking to me like we were already mid-briefing.
“We didn’t know what we were looking for until your signal came through.” He tapped the screen. “After that? We started pulling every nearby satellite ping and flagged comms trace from the last seventy-two hours.”
He rotated the screen toward me. A terrain map came up first, then layered data—pings, irregular signals, a faint heat signature cluster.
“You said poaching in the code. Then the location. So I started scraping. Found mentions on closed channels of high-dollar hunting excursions—invite-only shite, flown in by private heli, no permits, no oversight—tied to this ridge.”
He flicked again, this time to a grid of blurred photos. Long-lens shots of marked animals. A wildcat with a radio collar. A red deer with a clipped antler tip.
“They’re tracking protected species. Tagging them with signal trackers, calling in locations. Selling the kill slots to rich arseholes who want to brag without getting their boots dirty.”
My jaw clenched. I didn’t look away.
“They knew how to hide, but your broadcast told us where to look. So we did.” Alex looked up from the tablet. “Authorities are looped, but let’s no’ pretend they’re moving fast. Out here? We’re it.”
It wouldn’t be the first time we’d been on our own. But I was beyond grateful I had my team. “Understood. Let’s plan it right.”
I crouched beside him, cleared a patch of forest floor with my palm, and started sketching with a stick.
“The only tent with a posted guard is on the eastern side. It’s small, tucked near the tree line, half-shielded by storage crates.
I haven’t seen inside, but it’s the only one with traffic that isn’t shifting gear or posturing. That’s where they’re keeping them.”
I saw the flash of understanding move through all three of them.
“I haven’t seen Isla since yesterday. Saoirse and I spotted her when we first found the camp.
They had her restrained but untouched. Since then?
Nothing. But so far as I can tell, they haven’t moved her, and they added another body to their problem.
That pressure’s building. They’ll want to clean house before anything slips. ”
“Which means they willnae sit on them long,” Ewan concluded. “This isnae catch and release.”
“No.” My hand fisted. “It’s control and cleanup.”
Callum shifted beside me, already scanning mentally for angles. “What’s their coverage?”
“Loose perimeter. Three walking the boundary. Most of them look bored out of their minds, but they’re carrying rifles.
Weekend warrior types rather than hired mercenaries.
I counted at least two with comm units. Basic, unencrypted.
They’ve got a vehicle stash. Three ATVs.
I haven’t seen a helipad, but based on what Echo already found, they’re flying in somewhere. ”
“They’re used to being above consequences,” Alex muttered. “They’ll assume no one’s coming.”
“Let’s prove them wrong.” I tapped the dirt. “They’ve got gaps. West side’s the quietest—shallow incline, brush cover. No guards stationed there full time. Not that any of their security is exactly disciplined. Callum, you’ve got sniper elevation on that quadrant?”
He nodded once. “I can give you the entry window and cover the fallback.”
Ewan spoke next, low and steady. “I’ve mapped two exfil vectors. Stream path south, or the gulley east. We lose high ground either way, but the brush is dense. We’ll have to move fast if it turns on us.”
“We will.” And with my men at my back, I felt as if I could fucking fly. “We go in, get them out. No posturing. No speeches. Quiet and quick.”
Alex looked at me. “You’re sure they’re still alive?”
“I am. Because if they weren’t, the guard wouldn’t still be posted.”
He didn’t argue.
Ewan nodded. “Then we move tonight.”
Callum folded his arms. “It’s a decent plan.”
Alex shoved the tablet back into his pack. “We’ve surely operated on worse before.”
Ewan shucked his pack and pinned his focus on me. “In the meantime, let’s get you properly geared up.”
But as I reached for the fresh gear, my hand paused.
A single, insistent thought cut through the motion. Getting them out was step one. But it wasn’t enough.
I looked up at Callum. “If we can find leverage—intel, evidence, something we can extract or burn?—”
“—we end it,” he finished. No hesitation.
Alex’s jaw set. “You want to kill this thing at the root.”
“If we can,” I said. “Without risking them. We keep the rescue clean. That comes first. But if there’s a chance to tear it down while we’re in there—quietly, surgically—we take it.”
No one disagreed.
Not even Ewan, who usually played the voice of restraint.
“They’ve been doing this a long time,” he said. “There’ll be records. Comms. Maybe even footage. Bastards like this dinna build these operations merely to brag to each other. They keep receipts.”
“Then we find them,” I said. “And we make sure this place disnae rise again after we’re gone.”
The plan didn’t change.
But the stakes had.
This wasn’t only about saving Saoirse and Isla anymore.
It was about making sure no one else ended up in that cage.
“Thank you. All of you.”
Short nods of acknowledgment from all of them.
The forest didn’t feel quite so suffocating now.
I sat back on my heels, hands braced on my thighs, and let the quiet between us stretch.
For the first time in what felt like days, I wasn’t chasing breath.
I could actually pull it in and let it stay.
The tension was still there—God, it was never gone—but underneath it now was something else.
A thread of steadiness I hadn’t felt since Saoirse was taken.
Ajax nudged in close, pressing his shoulder against mine. I reached up and scratched behind his ears, felt the weight of his body lean in, steady as ever.
“Told you I wouldn’t do this alone.”
He huffed softly and rested his chin on my thigh.
Hope wasn’t loud. It didn’t burn bright or swell up all cinematic and grand. It was quieter than that. Slower. But it filled the cracks. Held the pieces in place.
And it reminded me what we were fighting for.
Another chance to feel the silk of her hair, the bite of her sharp tongue, and the peace of her kiss. Another quiet moment with nothing more than her warm silence and her hand in mine.
I’m coming, Saoirse. Just hold on.