Chapter Nine
The warehouse buzzed with the sharp rhythm of preparation—rifle bolts checked, gear laid out, maps pinned to the table under strips of duct tape.
The plan was clear—hit the Bratya mansion on the outskirts of town, fast and hard.
Take out as many as they could, free the women and children they suspected were being held, and strip the place of everything else—money, guns, drugs.
Whatever they couldn’t use, they’d destroy.
Tonight would cut a piece out of the Bratya, and be the downfall of them here on the islands.
He scanned the warehouse and caught sight of Kai slipping out, heading for their van parked just outside the wide rolling door.
Hogan knew that look—Kai was going to change into tactical gear.
He hadn’t said a word since the debrief earlier, and Hogan could see the hesitation etched into every line of his shoulders. Without hesitation, Hogan followed.
Inside the van, the air was cooler, quieter.
The hum of voices outside was muffled, replaced by the sound of Kai unzipping a duffel.
He was moving slower than usual, his hands brushing past shirts and tactical pants, pulling gear together but not with his usual sharp confidence.
There was a weight in his posture that Hogan couldn’t ignore.
Hogan didn’t give him a chance to retreat behind silence.
He closed the distance in two strides, dropped to his knees, and wrapped his arms around Kai’s waist, pressing his face against the warmth of his stomach.
The cotton of Kai’s shirt smelled faintly of detergent and the sexy as fuck scent that was all Kai, grounding and intimate.
His eyes burned, the pressure behind them sharp and unrelenting.
Kai froze, startled. His hand came down to touch Hogan’s hair, fingers brushing through it. “What’s wrong?”
Hogan’s voice cracked. “Listening to you tell that story ... knowing you left because of me—because you thought protecting me was worth more than your own damn life. You were willing to let me live without you. I can’t—” His throat closed, the words ragged.
He shook his head hard against Kai’s shirt.
“I couldn’t do that. I can’t live with that thought. ”
For a moment Kai said nothing. Then his hands moved, firm and steady, cupping Hogan’s face, tilting it up until their eyes locked.
His voice was low, fierce. “You’re wrong.
You would’ve done the same. You already have—you’d do whatever it took, whatever was needed.
Don’t cheapen what we are by thinking you wouldn’t fight for me the same way I fought for you. ”
Hogan swallowed hard, fighting back the tide. “I just... I keep thinking about how it must have felt for you. Standing in that hospital room and walking away. Making that choice, knowing I’d wake up without you and not remember, but that you would. That’s a wound I can’t imagine carrying.”
Kai’s expression softened, but his tone stayed sharp. “It cut me open, Hogan. But I’d do it again if it meant keeping you alive. That’s the truth. That’s love. You don’t get to argue me out of it.”
Hogan’s breath shuddered out. He searched Kai’s gaze, saw the steel there, the truth he couldn’t ignore. Slowly, he nodded. Kai bent, pressing their foreheads together. The moment stretched, sharp and tender, binding them tighter than any vow.
They stayed like that for a long beat, Hogan’s arms tight around Kai, Kai’s fingers still against his jaw. The hum of preparation from the warehouse seeped back in—the clack of a magazine, the murmur of voices—but in the van, it felt like the world had narrowed to the two of them.
Finally, Hogan rose, pulling Kai into a rough embrace. “Then let’s finish this,” he murmured. “So I can spend another night with you, locked in your arms instead of my own head.”
Kai’s mouth curved, half a smile, half a promise. “Deal.”
Hogan let out a low laugh, shaky but real. “And when this is over, I’m making you pancakes. I don’t care if we’re in the middle of a damn firefight, I’ll find a skillet.”
That earned him a quiet chuckle, and Kai shook his head. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” Hogan said, pressing a kiss to his temple. “And you love it.”
They stood together for another moment, then turned back to the gear.
Hogan grabbed his vest and shrugged into it, strapping down buckles with crisp motions.
Kai changed beside him, sliding into black cargo pants and a long-sleeved tactical shirt, the movements more assured now, as if the weight between them had shifted into something steadier.
By the time they left the van, side by side with their shoulders brushing, the night outside had deepened.
The warehouse hummed around them like a live wire, every man sharpening his edge for what came next.
Marsh and Luca had settled their argument, comms synced and buzzing.
Surge barked instructions about entry points while Bateman marked red Xs on the mansion map.
Dev whistled low, blade gleaming in his hand.
Keanu stacked crates of flashbangs and extra ammo.
Ty and Oren leaned against the wall, quiet, calm in the way only men who had walked through hell before could be.
Hogan glanced at Kai and felt it—the steadiness, how his presence was anchoring him in a way nothing else ever could. Tonight, they would take the fight to the Bratya. And tomorrow—if fate allowed—they would still have each other. And that was all Hogan needed to step into the storm.
****
Kai adjusted the straps of his vest, the weight of steel and Kevlar pressing into familiar grooves across his shoulders.
His heart thrummed in rhythm with the comms check echoing through his earpiece.
Around him the night air was heavy with the smell of cut grass and sea salt drifting up from the coastline.
The mansion loomed ahead, floodlit and white, sitting like a predator on the edge of town. This was it.
Marsh’s voice cut in over the channel, dry and pointed. “So, let me get this straight—you all left me out because of the leg?”
Luca, crouched with his rifle by the west wall, snorted. “Fuck, no. It’s because none of us can work your toys without blowing something up. You want in on the next op, I’ll train up one of these clowns to sit in the van with coffee and donuts while you get your ass shot at. Deal?”
A beat of silence, then Marsh’s laugh crackled through. “Deal.”
Kai’s mouth tugged up despite the tension. Marsh deserved to be in the fight, but truth was, the man owned the tech like no one else. Tonight, with his drones and surveillance feeds, he was more dangerous from a chair than most soldiers with a rifle.
“All teams confirm,” Marsh said, his voice snapping back to business.
“East entry, four strong,” Dev’s voice came through, low and steady. “Dale, Ty, Oren with me.”
“West entry,” Bateman reported. “Myself, Ricky, Hogan, Kai.”
“South rear,” Surge’s tone was clipped steel. “Niko, Luca, Tane with me.”
“And front door,” Keanu rumbled, almost amused.
The channel went silent for a moment before Marsh asked, “You’re going in alone, aren’t you? Why?”
Keanu chuckled. “I like things that go bang. My truck’s steel plated, bulletproof, rocket launchers bolted in. I’ll serve as the perfect distraction for the other teams to infiltrate while I drive around on the front lawn blowing shit up.”
Even Kai huffed out a low laugh. It was insane, but that was Torch—mad enough to drive into hell with a smile.
From his screen in the van, Marsh fed them intel. “Multiple heat signatures inside. First floor scattered, second floor heavier. Third floor looks like locked rooms. Expect resistance.”
“Copy that,” Bateman said.
The mansion grew closer. Each team peeled off into the dark, sliding toward their breach points.
Kai followed Bateman along the west wall, Hogan ghosting just behind, Ricky sweeping the rear flank.
Across the grounds, Dev and his team crouched low in the grass.
Surge’s men slipped like shadows toward the back.
Torch rumbled his armored truck straight up the front drive, bold as a war drum.
“East breach on my mark,” Dev said, tension sharp in his voice.
“West ready,” Bateman confirmed.
“South ready,” Surge echoed.
Torch’s chuckle filled the channel. “Front ready.”
The order from Marsh snapped like a whip. “Go!”
“Chaawwhhoo!” Torch’s classic Polynesian cry of excitement and joy filled the ears of all of them as his truck slammed through the front gate almost immediately, taking out the guard trying to push down the wooden barrier arm, as if that was going to stop the vehicle bearing down on him.
Then he launched the first distraction grenade, the blast lighting up the night.
Shouts broke from the guards, gunfire cracking in wild bursts.
The defenders rushed to the front—exactly as planned.
“East breach!” Dev barked. Glass shattered, wood splintered. “Inside—contact!”
“South breach!” Surge roared, followed by the heavy thud of a door being blown off its hinges. “Multiple tangos, clearing!”
Bateman surged forward. “West breach!”
Kai’s boot smashed against the lock, the door bursting open. He flowed in behind Bateman, rifle up, muzzle flashing. The first guard dropped before his weapon cleared the holster. Ricky’s shot barked, Hogan swung left, Kai swept right. Screams tore through the hall as they advanced.
The mansion erupted into chaos. Gunfire echoed off marble floors, shouts in Russian barked orders, the smell of cordite burning the air.
Kai moved like a blade through water—controlled, deliberate, every breath a trigger pull.
One man lunged from a side room with a knife.
Hogan dropped him mid-stride, blood spraying across pale walls.
“Keep it tight,” Bateman ordered, his voice calm over the chaos.
“Police incoming,” Marsh warned, tension sharpening his words. “ETA seven minutes. I’m rerouting traffic lights, buying you time.”
“Copy that,” Surge gritted out over the comms.
They cleared the west wing, room by room. Dev’s team cut down resistance in the east, voices clipped and efficient. From the south, Luca cursed in Italian before blowing another door with a charge. Then Tane’s voice bled through, trembling with fury. “We’ve got them. Women, kids. Jesus—”
Surge picked up, voice like a growl. “We’re getting them out. They’ve been caged down here like fucking animals.”
Fury rippled through the teams. Ty snarled, “Where’s the handler? Somebody’s gonna pay.”
“Alive,” Bateman snapped. “We need them breathing for Tane.”
“Bring me a souvenir,” Dev muttered darkly. “Our interrogator’s hungry.”
“Fucking oath I am,” Tane’s low and unmistakable voice came over the comms, filled with the promise of pain.
Up the stairs now, marble slick with blood and dust. Torch’s explosions still rocked the front drive, his laughter manic in the comms. “Boom. Still here, motherfucker!”
Second floor resistance hit harder—automatic fire shredding plaster, ricochets sparking stone. Kai ducked and rolled, firing clean through a guard’s chest. Hogan pressed tight to his side, their movements synchronized, brutal, efficient.
Then a cry cut through the comms. “Man down!” Dale’s voice, ragged.
Ty’s laugh followed a second later. “It’s just a scratch!”
“Scratch my ass,” Oren shot back, furious. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig. Sit the fuck down before you drop.”
Marsh’s voice thundered over the channel. “Call out all injuries. Now.”
Reports came back quick and clipped—Ty grumbling about his arm, Ricky admitting he caught shrapnel in his calf but was still moving, Niko growling about a graze across his ribs.
Luca muttered he’d taken a slice to his shoulder but was fine.
The roll call steadied the teams, everyone knowing who was still in the fight and who needed watching.
“Third floor locked down,” Luca reported, voice tight. “Heat signatures bunched together. Looks like where they’re keeping the rest.”
“On it,” Surge replied, his breath heavy from the fight.
Kai’s pulse tightened. Every step forward dragged them deeper into the hornet’s nest. He followed Bateman up the grand staircase, Ricky covering the rear. The roar of battle below faded to the thunder of boots and the pounding in his skull.
The comms were a storm—rage, orders, fury, purpose. It felt like war all over again, the kind that carved scars into bone.
Then it happened.
A burst of fire ripped across the hall. Kai spun, too slow—and then felt cold steel bite against his throat.
A man had risen silently behind him, one arm crushing his chest back, a knife pressed hard under his jaw.
He staggered in shock, vision tunneling, the blade nicking skin as the grip tightened.
Hogan’s shout ripped across the comms, raw and desperate. “Kai!”
Kai froze, muscles locked as the knife pressed harder against his throat. Gunfire and shouts blurred to static in his ears, the world narrowing to the hot breath of the man at his back and the sting of steel breaking skin.