Chapter 37 – Silas - Drazen’s Net
The night is blacker than it should be. No stars, no moon.
Just the city bleeding out behind us as Jax drives us toward Petrov Station.
The hum of the tires eats up the road, steady and sharp, but everything else feels stretched too thin, like the whole world is holding its breath waiting for something to break.
I sit in the back, shoulder pressed against the door, eyes tracking the convoy lights behind us.
Three SUVs, each loaded with men Elias called in earlier.
Extra muscle, the kind of soldiers who don’t blink when the air smells like blood.
They’ve been tailing us since we left the safehouse, headlights steady in the rearview, silent reminders that Elias never walks into fire alone.
Lydia is next to me, she hasn’t said much since we loaded up, not even when Elias rattled off the plan for the tenth time. But I feel her tension, sharp and taut, running down the space between us. She’s not the kind of woman who shows nerves on her face, but her silence says enough.
Elias breaks the quiet first. “When we reach Petrov, the station perimeter is ours. My men sweep first, hold the fences. We don’t step inside until I say.”
“Good,” I mutter, mostly to myself. My eyes don’t leave the rearview. The convoy is still there, steady as teeth in a grin. But it’s not comfort. It’s calculation. Numbers mean nothing if Drazen stacked his net tighter than ours.
Elias glances back at me once, eyes sharp, then returns to scanning the road. “The vault is our main target tonight. Leverage is currency. If we take it, he has nothing left to bargain with.”
“And if it’s a trap?” I ask.
He doesn’t blink. “Then we bleed our way out.”
Lydia shifts slightly, her gaze sliding toward him. Her voice is sharp, but not mocking. “Bleed out doesn’t look good on anyone’s resume.”
Elias almost smiles. Almost. “Then don’t miss when you shoot.”
Jax exhales hard, knuckles flexing on the steering wheel. “How many men do you think he has there?”
“Enough to make you piss yourself,” I answer before Elias can. Jax shoots me a look through the rearview, half-offended, half-shaken. I don’t let him off. “That’s why you’re driving. You’re not ready for what’s inside.”
He mutters under his breath, something about assholes, but grips the wheel tighter.
Mara finally speaks, her voice soft but steady. “Why am I here?”
The car goes still. Elias turns his head toward her, eyes burning with something rawer than command. “Because I don’t leave you behind.”
“Elias—”
“No.” His tone slices the word clean. “They went for you once. They’ll go for you again. I keep you where I can see you. Where I can shield you.”
She swallows, nods once, and looks back down at the gun in her lap. It’s not agreement. It’s resignation.
Lydia snorts softly beside me, shaking her head. “You’re dragging her into hell just to keep her in your line of sight.”
Elias doesn’t bother looking back. “Hell’s safer with me than heaven without.”
I can’t argue. He’s right, and it burns me that he is.
The road narrows, turning from cracked asphalt into rough gravel. The station rises ahead—dark, skeletal structures outlined against the night sky, cranes rusting in place, shipping crates stacked like tombstones. No lights, no sound. Too quiet.
My gut twists. I’ve seen this setup before. Empty silence, like the world cleared its throat before it screams.
“Cut the engine,” I say sharply.
Jax blinks. “What?”
“Kill it.”
Elias’s eyes flick toward me, then forward again. “Do it.”
The engine dies. The sudden hush is worse than the noise—like stepping into a room where someone’s holding a gun under the table. The convoy behind us halts in sync, engines cutting one after another.
We sit in the dark, every sense stretched thin. The air smells of rust and oil, damp earth and dust. The station is a carcass, hollow, too clean.
Lydia leans slightly toward me, her voice a whisper meant for my ear only. “Too neat.”
“Yeah,” I murmur back. “He wants us to walk in.”
The floodlights slam on.
Blinding white sears across the yard, cutting through the dark, burning into my eyes. The silence shatters under the metallic whine of generators kicking alive.
And then—movement.
Dozens of men step out from behind crates, from trucks, from rooftops. Rifles raised, faces masked, formation too tight to be mercenaries. Drazen’s soldiers, clean and disciplined.
Jax jerks in the driver’s seat. “Shit.”
Elias doesn’t curse. He just reaches for his gun, his voice flat and lethal. “Move.”
But it’s already too late.
The floodlights cut everything open, burning away the shadows we thought were nothing.
White glare slams into my eyes, flattening the yard into a stage where we’re the ones on display.
My pupils clamp down hard, but I don’t need to see the rifles to know they’re aimed.
The air hums with that sharp, metallic stillness that only comes before a trigger pull.
Elias doesn’t blink. He pushes his door open, steps out slow and deliberate, gun drawn but angled low. His shoulders square like he’s walking into a boardroom, not a firing squad. Mara scrambles after him, pistol trembling in her hands, but she holds it, and that’s enough.
Jax’s knuckles go pale on the wheel. “We can’t—we can’t drive out of this.”
“No shit,” I snap, already unholstering my weapon. “Stay in the car unless you want a bullet in your teeth.”
Lydia slides out her side, her knife already in her palm, gleaming under the floodlights. She doesn’t crouch, doesn’t flinch. She walks forward, her posture sharp enough to draw blood, and stands beside Elias like she’s daring Drazen to take his shot.
The convoy behind us stirs, doors cracking open, Elias’s men fanning out, rifles rising. They form a perimeter automatically, disciplined, trained. I catch one of them signaling to Elias, a tight gesture: flank? Elias shakes his head once. Not yet.
Because we’re not in control of this field. Drazen is.
More figures emerge from the center of the station yard.
One, two, then more. A slow march, measured, deliberate.
And then him: Drazen, cutting through his soldiers like he was born at the center of a blade.
Suit tailored, tie perfect, hair slicked back without a strand out of place.
He’s not armed, but that’s the point. Men like him never need to hold the gun.
“Mr. Voss,” Drazen calls out, his voice smooth, cultured, carrying effortlessly under the glare. “And company. You’ve saved me the trouble of knocking on your door.”
Elias lifts his chin. “You should’ve kept knocking.”
A faint smile twists Drazen’s mouth. “Ah. There it is. The arrogance I’ve heard so much about. But tonight isn’t about you.” His gaze slides sideways, across the yard, through the light—until it lands on Lydia, then a brief shift to me and back to Lydia.
Her spine doesn’t waver. But I see it—the flicker in her throat when his eyes pin her.
“Ms. Carr,” Drazen purrs. “Finally. The woman who cleans every mess but her own.”
Elias’s gun rises half an inch. “You talk to her again, and I’ll open your skull on your own concrete.”
Drazen chuckles, light, effortless, but it lands like glass breaking. “Protective, as always. And yet…” He gestures once, elegant, almost bored.
The rifles snap up in unison. Dozens of barrels pointed at us, Elias’s men included. Outnumbered, outflanked.
My instincts roar, muscles twitching for cover. But Drazen’s not here to shoot us into paste. Not yet. He’s here to break the stage first.
He steps closer, shoes clicking against the gravel, his soldiers parting in smooth lines. His eyes never leave Lydia.
“You’ve danced long enough, Ms. Carr. But the music is mine tonight.”
Two men move fast from the flank, rifles steady, and before I can raise my weapon, one of them barks: “Drop it.”
Elias doesn’t. He takes one step forward, daring, lethal. The soldier falters, finger tightening on the trigger.
And then Mara moves. She grabs Elias’s arm, whispering something sharp into his ear. I can’t hear the words, but I see the effect—the fraction of a pause, his jaw flexing, his finger easing away from the trigger.
I curse under my breath, lowering my own pistol slowly, keeping my eyes on Drazen. “You want her,” I growl. “That’s what this is.”
Drazen tilts his head, as if amused by my clarity. “I want proof. Allegiance. You understand, don’t you, Agent Ward?”
The word slams through me like a gunshot. He says it smooth, casual, but loud enough for every soldier in the yard to hear.
Agent Ward.
The soldiers murmur, shifting, guns tilting in my direction. They didn’t know. Elias already did. Mara, Jax, Lydia, they knew before Drazen ever opened his mouth. But these men, this army he’s built out of money and fear, they eat the word like it’s gospel.
And Drazen knows it. He’s not exposing me. He’s staging a trial.
The ground tilts beneath me.
Lydia’s eyes whip toward me, sharp, burning. Fury. The kind of cut that doesn’t need a knife.
Elias doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, but I feel his gaze slide over me, weighing, calculating.
I hear someone among Elias’s soldier mutter, “What the fuck?”
“Shut up,” I snarl, my weapon still in my hand but heavier now, heavier with every eye on me.
Drazen’s smile sharpens. “You thought your cover was perfect. But I know my enemies better than they know themselves.”
The circle tightens. Rifles raised, boots crunching closer. Elias’s men glance at him, waiting, but Elias doesn’t give an order. Not yet.
And then Drazen’s voice softens, silken and deadly. “Lydia Carr. Prove yourself. Kill your pet agent. Or I kill Elias. And Mara. And the boy in the car.”
The floodlights hum. The yard holds its breath.
And Lydia turns her head toward me, eyes sharp, unreadable, a knife already in her hand.