Chapter 17 Damian
Damian
The night smelled of salt and diesel.
Every line she’d muttered into that recorder, every circle she’d drawn on a manifest, had led us here.
“North side,” Cyclone murmured, pointing to the chain-link fence ahead. “Maintenance gate. Blind spot between cameras. We’ve got thirty seconds between sweeps.”
“Copy.” My voice was low, clipped.
River slid the cutters into place, metal snapping softly in the fog. We slipped through, boots silent, hugging the shadows along the wall.
Hub 9 loomed above us — corrugated metal, floodlights buzzing, the thrum of machinery inside. Ordinary to anyone else. But my gut told me it was a wolf in factory skin.
At the north door, Cyclone tapped a code into his handheld, syncing with the camera feed. “Thirty seconds. Go.”
I shoved the door open, rifle raised. The corridor smelled of oil and mold. We moved fast, stacking against the wall, clearing corners.
Voices drifted from deeper in the building. Male, clipped, foreign accent. I caught fragments — “shipment… schedule… Caldwell.”
Caldwell. Morgan’s voice echoed in my head: Not sloppy. Not a coincidence.
We pressed closer, slipping into the shadows of a half-open storage bay. Through the gap, I spotted a cluster of men around a stack of crates. Pallets marked with Caldwell’s logo. And at the center — Hemsley.
He was older than the file photos, hair thinner, but his arrogance was intact. He barked orders like a man who thought the world bent to his ledger.
“Tag him,” I whispered.
Cyclone slid the tracker into place on the underside of the nearest truck. Green light blinked once, then vanished. Hemsley wouldn’t know he was carrying a leash until we pulled it tight.
“Two minutes,” Cyclone warned. “Camera sweep’s coming back.”
We started to fall back when a guard rounded the corner. His eyes went wide — ours narrowed.
River moved first. One hard strike, the man crumpled before he could shout. We dragged him into the shadows, breath tight.
Not clean. Not perfect. But still silent.
We slipped out the way we came, vanishing into the fog as the cameras clicked back into place. By the time we reached the van, my pulse was steady again, though my jaw was locked hard enough to ache.
“Tracker’s live,” Cyclone confirmed, eyes on his screen.
“Good,” I said. But my mind wasn’t on Hemsley’s blinking signal.
It was on Morgan, back at the safehouse, whispering promises into that recorder of hers. Promises she meant with every ounce of her being.
And for the first time in years, I felt the dangerous tug of something I couldn’t name.
Hope.