Chapter 41 #3
The moment the SEALs deployed, the high-value targets broke for the horses, the op splintering into chaos.
What had been a controlled funnel dissolved into shouts in Spanish, hooves hammering earth, bodies scattering in four directions, just as the cartel’s planning dictated.
Damon Carver had to give it to Blair Brown, that sweet, little piece of ass the kid was banging.
She had a brilliant tactical mind. Carver’s mount barely moved beneath him, these Mountie horses were so well-trained.
Dust kicked up in choking clouds as the Kings ran for their getaway horses tethered along the tree line, each man gambling on speed, luck, and fear.
Years of DEA work had taught him the difference between panic and opportunity, and this was the latter.
Everyone else surged forward, adrenaline-blind, boots pounding, radios crackling with overlapping calls as teams split to intercept.
Carver stayed exactly where he was for one heartbeat longer than necessary.
Then he glanced at Trevor Jones. Jones was already looking at him.
No words passed between them. None were needed.
This wasn’t a decision being made. It was a confirmation.
“Overflow’s yours,” someone barked over comms.
Carver acknowledged. “Copy.”
He turned his mount in the opposite direction of the overflow targets, angling wide as if to cut off a flank.
Jones mirrored him, falling in just behind his shoulder.
To anyone watching, they were doing exactly what they’d been tasked to do, contain, redirect, and clean up what slipped through the cracks.
The Money King spurred his animal south toward the tree line, four bodyguards tight around him, two Hell’s Eights riding tail guard. Ahead of them, Contingent One broke pursuit, closing fast.
The two Hell’s Eights swung wide, menacing, forcing two of the Mounties to slow and engage, while the remaining pair, a man and a woman, split off and continued straight after Valdivia.
Carver and Jones shadowed the pursuit from the trees, pacing the movement like predators waiting for their moment.
A cartel guard twisted in the saddle, bringing his weapon up, but dropped hard before he could fire.
Another rider tried to break left, firing wildly as he went, then screamed as a round tore into his shoulder.
He pitched sideways, hit the ground, and didn’t rise.
The remaining two bodyguards went down in quick succession under Mountie fire, clearing the space around Valdivia in seconds.
The female Mountie charged him, slamming her shoulder into his side and knocking him from the saddle.
Valdivia hit the dirt. He made it three steps before the male Mountie was off his horse, tackling him low and driving him face-first into the ground.
He screamed, a raw, animal sound, fingers clawing at dirt as cuffs snapped around his wrists.
Satisfaction coiled in Carver’s chest. He and Jones came out of the trees at a trot, faces set in the neutral masks of men doing their jobs.
“Nice takedown,” Carver called, steady and authoritative. “You good?” he asked, dismounting. He crouched down, retrieving the closest dead bodyguard’s weapon, concealing it along his thigh.
One of the Mounties glanced up, breathing hard, relief flashing across his face. “Yeah. We’ve got him.”
“Thank you for your service,” Carver said without inflection, firing once.
Clean. Center mass, the sound of it lost in the gunfire echoing across the valley.
The Mountie dropped without a sound, surprise frozen on his face.
The second Mountie spun, reaching for her weapon too late.
Jones was already on her, driving a round into her chest with surgical precision.
The woman hit the ground hard, the breath blasting out of her in a wet gasp that never pulled back in.
For a moment, the clearing was silent except for the horses snorting and stamping, nerves jangling.
Valdivia stared up at them, not with terror, but with a cold, simmering outrage.
His breath came in sharp bursts, his eyes like black agate, burning with defiance.
Blood spattered his face, his guard’s blood, not his own.
“What—what is this?” he rasped, his voice a low growl of indignation. “You cannot do this.”
Carver crouched in front of him. With deliberate care, he weighed the fallen bodyguard’s weapon in his hand.
Jones hauled Valdivia upright and shoved him toward the trees, away from the other pursuits, away from radios and eyes and help that was already moving farther out of range.
Valdivia stumbled, arrogant to the last, lifting his chin like he expected his due respect.
“Do you know who I am?” he demanded, his voice laced with fury.
Carver smiled as he followed the sound of gunfire and shouting fading behind them. “Oh,” he said softly. “We know exactly who you are, and exactly what you’re worth.”
Jet shifted, quivering under her command of him, muscles bunched and trembling with coiled energy, sensing the hunt ahead as much as she did.
Blair sat deep in the saddle, a statue of focus amid the bedlam.
She saw the frantic scramble of armed, mounted bodyguards, the menacing weave of the Hell's Eight bikes, and at the center of it, Torres.
Hector Manuel Torres broke exactly where she expected, angling for the brush line where the ground buckled and narrowed.
It was a smart move, forcing the fight into terrain that favored his harassers and negated her overwatch.
Four men rode with him, disciplined and close.
Beyond them, engines screamed as Hell’s Eight riders peeled off, dirt bikes surging into position, aggressive and fast. Those men deferred to him without a word, space opening where he moved.
The King of the North rode like he owned the very ground beneath his horse's hooves, bequeathed by royal decree.
A cold fire ignited in her chest. "Torres is breaking south-southeast," she snapped into her mic. "Armed mounted bodyguards. Menacing Eights." The moment the words left her lips, she tightened her hold on the reins, leaning forward.
One moment Jet Relevé was a taut wire of contained energy, the next he was pure, unbridled force.
His massive haunches flexed, gathering every ounce of his strength, his back hooves digging divots into the earth as his front end lifted.
He didn't ease into a gallop. He attacked the horizon, a thundering war machine of muscle and will, his hooves striking the ground with the rhythmic, brutal power of a battering ram, each stride a declaration of his unstoppable charge.
The world was a blur of green and brown, a tunnel of motion torn through the Canadian wilderness.
Blair was fused to Jet, a single, perfect note of speed and fury.
She adjusted for the explosive coil and release of his haunches with every stride, the piston-like drive of his legs devouring the ground.
His breath was a hot bellows against her calves, his heart a frantic, powerful drumbeat echoing through the saddle and into her bones.
This was his element, a primal symphony of chaos.
Ahead, the chase was a hectic storm. Hector Torres was the eye of that storm, his horse a frantic engine of escape, but he wasn’t alone.
The pack of Hell’s Eight bikes fractured.
Two peeled off in a coordinated scream, becoming Torres’s personal hellhounds on the flank.
The others spread wide, a skirmish line of snarling engines and rooster tails of flying dirt, their only purpose to crowd, confuse, and break the chase.
“Tyler—parallel left,” Blair ordered. “Beef—cut the angle. Don’t let him widen.”
“On it,” Tyler replied, already moving. Beef didn’t answer.
The bikes fell back, spitting chaos. One swerved viciously toward Beef, its engine a scream. Beef’s mount, Sundance, a sturdy quarter horse, jackknifed away with a scream of defiance, its haunches sliding in the loose dirt.
Beef was a rock in the saddle, his weight shifting instantly, using his strong legs to anchor himself and a sharp rein check to straighten the animal, shoving back into the chase without losing a stride.
Simultaneously, another biker kicked gravel toward Tyler.
A shotgun-wielding bodyguard on a galloping horse took aim, but Tyler was already moving.
He saw the kick, dropped his shoulder, and his horse, Blue, a scrappy roan, pivoted on its forehand, turning the spray into a harmless cloud.
The shotgun blast went wide, and Tyler kicked his horse back into his lane, the correction so fluid it was barely a hesitation.
Jet stretched into his stride, a seamless fusion of power and grace.
The drumbeat of his hooves was a physical force, a rhythm that vibrated up through the saddle, into her bones, and resonated in her teeth.
Eating ground, picking his footing with brutal intelligence, body steady even as chaos erupted around them.
A crack split the air, and a tree branch just ahead of Blair exploded into a shower of splinters.
She didn't flinch. She just leaned lower, pressing her cheek to Jet's neck, murmuring a single word into his twitching ear.
"Go." The horse responded with a surge of speed so violent it stole her breath, closing the gap with a predator's focus.
Then a different sound cut through the chaos, the sharp, clean thwump of a rotor blade from above, a promise of absolute precision. "Blair, move left," Breakneck's voice was calm in her ear, a god's-eye view in the middle of hell.
She didn't look. She trusted. She just shifted her weight, a silent command, and Jet cut hard left, his hooves skidding on loose earth as a bullet ripped through the space horse and rider had just occupied.
In that same instant, a single, heavy round took out the biker behind her.
He went down in a tangle of shrieking metal and flesh.
"Torres is breaking for the trees!" Tyler yelled, his voice tight with strain.