Chapter 5
As soon as the door to the cages slammed shut behind him, Breakneck wondered what kind of punishment Ice was about to dish out. To get out of Virginia Beach, he’d do anything.
Ice turned, leaned back against his own cage, and folded his arms across his chest. That look…Christ. Breakneck felt it go straight through him like the man could read his goddamn mind.
“What is up with you?”
Breakneck stiffened. This wasn’t a chewing-out.
Ice was concerned. Fuck me. “Nothing,” Breakneck muttered.
Ice shifted, jaw ticking, shaking his head with that low, dangerous disappointment that always landed harder than his rage. “You’ve never gone rogue before, kid. So I’m guessing something’s sticking in your craw. If you think I’m letting you walk into an undercover op fucked up, think again.”
Breakneck dropped his gaze, shame twisting in his gut until he thought he might be sick. It was bad enough that Boomer had seen him like that. But Ice? He couldn’t tell him. He couldn’t.
“I’m working through something,” he said quietly. “I can handle undercover in my sleep.”
Ice pushed off the cage and came to stand right in front of him, close enough that Breakneck could feel the weight of him, the authority, the goddamn care under every hard edge.
“You remember you’re part of a team, hotshot?”
“I never forget it.”
Ice studied him for a long, heavy beat. Then nodded once. “That better be the case.” He narrowed his eyes. “You ever been under before?”
Breakneck felt something tighten, deep and hot and painful, in his chest. His throat worked. “You worried about me? Is that why you’re putting up all these barricades?”
Ice looked like he could chew glass.
“Yeah, junior,” he growled. “I worry. So don’t fucking keep me up at night.”
For the first time since he’d screamed himself raw in the forest, something inside Breakneck eased just a fraction. This man wasn’t his biological father. Not in demeanor. Not in soul. Ice was in a class by himself.
His care, his unapologetic, unflinching care, broke through the numbness for one clean breath.
Breakneck inhaled and didn’t fall apart.
Two hours later, he was waiting at the sleek, pure white Slipstream jet, then suddenly Ice was on the tarmac, stalking toward them like his tail was on fire.
Breakneck slipped between his CO and the DEA agents.
“You went over my fucking head again.” There was a killing frost flowing off Ice.
Agent Carver smirked. “I told you we have it covered. We just need the kid, not your backup like we’re amateurs, and we really don’t need your freaking attitude, Chief.”
Breakneck whipped around. “That’s Master Chief Snow to you, you smug bastard.”
The man opened his mouth and Break stepped closer.
“You say one more thing to my CO, and I’ll walk away right the fuck now,” Breakneck snarled, his fists tightening. He glared, and something in the agent’s eyes shifted.
The guy shrugged. “You got it, Petty Officer.” They turned to go, but Ice slid in front of them as slick as black ice, blocking their path with that cold, carved-from-granite stillness that made operators sit straighter. “If anything happens to him, I will find you. But no one will find your body.”
The agent glanced at his pal. The look they exchanged was cryptic.
Ice’s eyes narrowed and he turned to Breakneck. “Junior. With me.”
Breakneck followed him out of earshot.
“I don’t want you to go,” Ice said. He held up his hand.
“I know. We’ll face a shitstorm, but they went over my head and got Preacher and Boomer pulled from the detail.
” Ice paced away, ran his hand through his blond Mohawk, his handsome features tightening.
“Everything tells me to watch your six. I want to know why they want you alone. Why they’re doing this quietly. Why they keep going over my head.”
Breakneck swallowed. “I can take care of myself. Don’t you tru—”
“That’s not the point,” Ice snapped. “The point is they don’t want eyes on this op. Not mine. Not your team’s. Not Canada’s.”
Breakneck went still.
Ice lowered his voice until it rumbled like distant thunder. “Stay sharp until we get boots on the ground. Something smells wrong.”
Breakneck nodded once.
Ice wasn’t paranoid. Ice was rarely wrong. If Ice didn’t trust the DEA? Breakneck wouldn’t either.
Stone Creek Ranch sprawled across the valley like an old scar carved into the British Columbia wilderness.
Weathered timber fences cut long lines through open pasture, grass beaten down by cattle and ATV tracks, dirt roads hard-packed from years of ranch trucks hauling hay, feed, and whatever else needed to move quietly under a legitimate name.
Low hills rose around the property, their shadows stretching in the late-afternoon light.
Damp earth and cedar drifted through the barn where Breakneck stacked bales like he’d been born doing it.
His boss Michael Ryker was the kind of man cartels used when they wanted problems handled quietly and permanently.
A mid-level enforcer running courier routes through the remote wilderness of British Columbia, he supervised drop points, vetted new recruits, and kept the pipeline moving through a mix of intimidation and calculated violence.
Ryker wasn’t high enough in the hierarchy to see the whole operation, but he knew enough to make himself dangerous.
Lean, tattooed, and always coiled like a spring, he carried the reputation of a man who enjoyed testing people until they broke.
Couriers feared him, prospects avoided him, and when Breakneck entered the pipeline, Ryker was the man assigned to decide whether he lived long enough to earn the cartel’s trust.
Three weeks in and he still hadn’t gotten close to the precursor flow.
He’d learned more about horses, pasture rotation, and fence repair than about how the cartel moved product.
Every lead dead-ended. Every suspect watched him too closely.
Every shed or outbuilding had locks that didn’t match their hinges, and every time he drifted near them, Ryker’s shadow wasn’t far behind.
Today was no different.
He stacked the new hay shipment, dust floating in thin shafts of light between warped boards.
The barn smelled of alfalfa, manure, diesel, and that faint metallic tang he couldn’t place.
Outside, cattle called over the hum of ATVs.
Inside, his boots echoed steady and unhurried, the rhythm of a man with nothing to hide.
He lifted another bale, set it down, adjusted the edge, and used the movement to slide his hand beneath the platform under the stack. Nothing. No taped bricks. No hidden bags. No residue. Whoever was using this place cleaned well. He straightened, wiped sweat from his jaw, reached for another bale—
“What are you doing?” Ryker’s voice cut through the dim.
“Stacking the hay that came in this morning,” he said calmly.
Ryker stepped into the barn, blocking part of the light, arms folded. “I didn’t tell you to.”
Breakneck shrugged, balanced a bale on his thigh. “Just doing my job.”
Ryker watched him too long. “Most guys don’t work unless they’re told.”
“Most guys ain’t me.”
Ryker’s mouth twitched. “You’re eager.”
Breakneck met his gaze, mild irritation and boredom masking everything else. “You pay me to work, so I work.”
Ryker stepped closer, boots grinding hay into the floor. “You get paid the same as the rest of us?”
“Far as I know.”
“You sure?” Ryker asked quietly. “What if you got a little extra next paycheck?”
Breakneck tilted his head, blank. “Like overtime? You need something else done?”
Ryker leaned against a beam, casual in a way that wasn’t casual. “Depends how flexible you are.”
“Flexible how?”
“Flexible about what you see. What you do. What you don’t report.”
There it was. The test.
Breakneck let confusion flicker across his face, shallow and controlled. “You trying to get me fired on my third paycheck?”
“Fired isn’t the problem,” Ryker said evenly. “Misunderstandings are.” He lowered his voice. “We take care of people who mind their business.”
Breakneck scratched the back of his neck like a man thinking it through. “I’m just here to work. That’s it. You want something done, say it. I’m not looking to make enemies.”
Ryker’s smile returned, thin and sharp. “Good answer.”
Breakneck caught the flicker in the man’s eyes. Approval. Calculation. He’d passed the first test.
Exactly what they wanted.
Ryker jerked his chin toward the yard. “Finish up here. Boss wants to see if you ride as well as you work.”
Breakneck nodded, kept his expression bland, and reached for another bale.
Ryker stepped out into the sunlight, boots crunching gravel, leaving Breakneck alone again with the dust, the hay, and the suspicion curling like smoke in the rafters.
He stacked the bale, jaw tight. Three weeks in, and this was the first crack in their armor. This was the opening.
It was also the danger.
He set his shoulders, reached for the next bale, and kept working.
He’d find the route. He’d find the leak. He’d find the truth tucked in the shadows of Stone Creek Ranch. When he did, he’d need to be ready. Whoever ran this place was watching him very, very closely.
Ryker led him around the side of the lower paddock, past rusted gates and a line of cracked water troughs, toward a smaller corral tucked behind a row of old cottonwoods.
The sun had dipped low, staining the dirt with copper light, and Breakneck felt the prickle along the back of his neck that always meant trouble.
A horse stood inside the round pen, tall and raw-boned, its dark coat slick with sweat, foam around its mouth, eyes rolling white at the edges.
Breakneck knew that look, the thin trembling space where fear met fury, where an animal didn’t know whether to tear through the fence or turn on whatever trapped it.
He felt that same edge under his own skin, sharp and restless, the line between fight and flight he’d been walking since the night the world shifted beneath him.