Chapter Twelve
The woods whispered around them, thick with the weight of anticipation. Wind danced through the leaves like breath through clenched teeth—uneven, quiet, waiting. The kind of silence that knew it was about to be shattered.
Ezra crouched near the back of the ridgeline, his rifle slung across his chest, hands steady even though his pulse beat like war drums in his ears.
Below, the farmhouse crouched in the valley, squat and ugly, surrounded by a perimeter fence and bad intentions.
There was a ragged cliff face on the north side of the house, and it loomed like a threat that needed to be answered.
He stared at the farmhouse with ice in his veins. He would have thought that he would be hot, on fire, raging against the very world itself for keeping his man from him. For putting them all in danger, but it was the exact opposite.
Shadows moved around him—Hogan, Dale, Bateman, Dev, and the rest of Bravo team. Two units that had once trained apart, now moving as one. Guns loaded, faces painted and ready for action. Two halves of a blade forged in different fires but sharpened to the same edge.
Glenn and Maddox had gone on ahead, sniper and spotter ghosts high on the northern ridge, already breathing the cold stillness that came before the shot.
Dev, Riley, and Marcel would be circling to enter into the farmhouse from the south.
Sam, Nick, and Aiden would breach from the west, a three-pronged spear aimed at the compound’s weakest flank.
Ezra, Bateman, and Hogan would come in from the east, straight through the fucking front door.
Ezra would take the rear of their formation, and if anyone approached them or doubled round, they’d find Ezra Navarro waiting like the last mistake they’d ever make. He was a sniper and a storm, grief and fury braided together into something sharp.
No one had argued. Not with the look in his eyes.
But even standing among legends, a part of him felt carved out. Hollow.
One part of their formation should be Marsh. Dry humor, dangerous hands, good heart.
The other part was Ricky. That cocky, sarcastic, stubborn, brilliant man Ezra had come to love so hard it burned.
They were missing. Not dead. Ezra refused to let that thought live. But missing.
Gone from the circle. Wounds in their line.
And it was time to close them.
Bateman raised a closed fist.
Instant silence.
The team stopped at the edge of the ridgeline, crouching low in the thick brush beneath a canopy of stars. Their breath ghosted out in puffs, the cold wrapping around them like a shroud. Boots sank into damp earth. Rifles steadied. Fingers hovered over triggers with practiced patience.
The air stilled.
Even the wind seemed to understand the sanctity of the moment.
Ezra felt the familiar burn of adrenaline under his skin. His hands didn’t shake—Pathfinders didn’t shake—but there was a heaviness in his chest that hadn’t been there since Albania. Since Van.
Since Ricky.
Dev stepped forward, a silhouette carved from iron and memory. His face was stone. His voice? Even harder.
“We move fast. We move smart. We bring him back. That’s not a goal. That’s not a hope. That’s our fucking reality.”
A rumble answered him—not words, just a growl of agreement that rose from the team like the sound of wolves about to descend.
“We’re not here for glory,” Dev continued.
“We’re not here to prove a point. We’re here because they took one of ours.
Because they spilled blood in our home on our land.
Because they put their hands on kids and thought we’d walk away.
” He looked around, meeting every pair of eyes. “They were wrong.”
Ezra felt it in his spine—a cold, precise kind of fury. The kind that came with training and grief and too many names on the memorial wall.
Bateman stepped up beside Dev, calm as always, but the set of his jaw was lethal.
“Every one of you carries ghosts tonight,” he said quietly. “Van. Others who never made it home. This team doesn’t forget. We don’t leave pieces behind. Not bodies. Not memories. Not souls.”
Nick muttered, “Damn right.”
Bateman nodded. “We carry them with us. Into the dark. Into the fire.”
Sam ran a hand over his rifle. “Into the motherfucking breach.”
Aiden smirked. “Hope they’re ready to meet God.”
“No gods here,” Riley said, voice low. “Just us.”
Dev cracked his knuckles. “Then let us bring the reckoning.”
Bateman let the silence stretch for a breath, a heartbeat, a shared pulse between men forged in blood.
“If vengeance means anything in this broken world,” he said, “we win.”
Ezra swallowed the lump rising in his throat. He wasn’t the crying type—but if ever there was a moment where it would’ve been earned, this was it.
Beside him, Dale pressed a hand briefly to his shoulder. “We bring him home,” he whispered.
Or I don’t come back at all, Ezra thought to himself.
Dev nodded once. “One path.”
Bateman echoed him. “One mission.”
Maddox’s voice came over comms, low and savage. “One fuckload of dead assholes.”
Bateman’s voice cut the silence like a blade. “This is it. We’re doing this for Ricky. For Marsh. For Van. For every damn one of us who never got to come home.”
Dev stepped forward, eyes hard. “You all know your entry points. Bravo takes the west and south. Pathfinders on the east and high flank. Glenn and Maddox have eyes on from above. Once we breach, it’s sweep, clear, and extract.”
Nick and Riley bumped fists. Marcel gave a tight, silent nod.
Glenn’s voice came through clear, “Locked and loaded, sights in.”
They all turned as one toward the descent.
The world held its breath before the storm hit, and it wasn’t long until gunfire shattered the quiet.
Ezra broke from cover, sprinting low across the open field watching Bateman’s back. Hogan covered the left flank. He could see Dev coming in from the far side of the property, and he moved like a goddamned ghost—silent, lethal, precise.
Bravo hit the south wall with an explosion that shook the ground. Marcel’s shout was followed by Nick barking orders and Sam’s clipped comms check-in confirming breach. From the west, Aiden’s voice crackled, “Two down. Pushing inside.”
Ezra took the rear, keeping their backs safe as Bateman cleared a side door and Dale swept the hallway. Blood smeared the walls already. Someone hadn’t expected guests.
“Clear left,” Dale called.
“Right secured,” Dev added.
They moved like a machine. Like they'd trained for this every day of their lives. Because they had.
A scream echoed from inside.
Ezra’s breath caught. Ricky?
Bateman’s voice hit over comms. “Stay sharp.”
Glenn’s voice came through like steel. “You’ve got four coming out the north door. Maddox and I have eyes.”
“Copy,” Bateman said. “Light ‘em up.”
The crack of a sniper rifle split the air like divine punishment. Four shots, all down in a matter of seconds.
They kept moving.
Room by room.
Body by body.
The farmhouse was a maze of stinking rot, shadows, and gunfire. Ezra kicked a door in, caught a man off guard, and dropped him with a brutal elbow to the throat and a shot to the chest.
“Ez!” Hogan called. “He’s not here. Try the second level!”
Ezra bolted up the stairs, heart in his throat, blood roaring in his ears.
At the top, he found Riley slamming a man into a wall, Marcel covering his six. “Third hallway’s clear,” Riley reported, breathing hard.
“Where’s Ricky?” Ezra demanded.
“Not up here.”
Ezra turned, eyes sharp, and shouted into his comms. “Bateman, anything?”
“Basement,” Dev answered, voice tight. “We found a locked stairwell under the kitchen. Breaching now.”
Ezra didn’t wait.
He ran.
He hit the kitchen like a battering ram just as Bateman shouldered through a steel door, blowing the hinges off with a shaped charge.
Smoke and dust filled the air. Bateman was already inside, gun raised, and Dev followed tight.
Ezra descended into the dark.
The air was thick. Damp. Smelled like blood and mold and pain.
And there, chained to a chair, arms limp, blood crusted down his shoulder, was Ricky.
“Ricky!” Ezra’s voice cracked.
Ricky lifted his head weakly, both eyes swollen shut. A smile broke across his face. “Knew you’d come,” he rasped.
Ezra was at his side in two strides, ripping off his gloves to check the wound. “We’ve got you. You’re safe.”
Bateman moved to cover. Dev called over the radio, “Medic to the basement now. We have the package.”
Ricky slumped forward, whispering, “The kids?”
Ezra pressed a hand to his cheek. “Safe. They’re safe.”
Ricky’s eyes fluttered. “Good. Don’t let me die, Ez.”
Ezra’s grip tightened. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Above them, the gunfire slowed.
Bravo cleared the last room.
The farmhouse was theirs.
But as Ezra crouched in the shadows, holding Ricky’s battered body close, he knew this wasn’t the end.
It was just the beginning.
And whoever had done this?
Had no idea what storm was now coming for them.
****
Somewhere between pain and peace, between breath and silence. The world came in flashes—voices Ricky knew, faces he couldn’t quite hold on to, a light too bright behind his eyelids, and then darkness again.
“...still no change?”
A voice—Bateman’s? Maybe Blake’s. Everything sounded like it was underwater, the baseline of their concern vibrating in his bones. He didn’t have the strength to open his eyes, to tell them he was trying.
Time spun...
Another voice now. Dale, maybe? “Marsh’s vitals are holding, but barely. Infection’s not backing off. They’re worried about sepsis. Damage from the blast was worse than they thought.”
Time spun...
The world came in fragments. Sound before sight. Light before clarity.
“...infection’s bad,” someone was saying. “Complications from the amputation. Internal damage. It’s not just the leg.”
A low voice—Bateman’s, maybe—gritty and tired. “Guy’s already taken more hits than a fucking war movie.”
Footsteps. The rustle of a chair shifting. And then silence, like everyone had run out of things to say.