Prologue #2
I move again. Slower now. Each step deliberate, calculated to conserve what little strength remains. I shed my gear piece by piece, bury it deep under snow and stone. Keep the rifle, the knife, the emergency supplies that will keep me alive while the official world decides I'm dead.
My federal badge goes into a crevasse where glacial melt will carry it away come spring. My radio I keep—they're using it to coordinate the search, which means I can use it to track them. Every piece of equipment that could identify Chris Calder, federal agent, disappears into the wilderness.
My body will never be found. Search and rescue will comb these peaks until weather shuts them down.
Bryn will lead the effort—I know her well enough to know that.
She'll search for her brother who came north for hiking and wilderness trekking, never understanding what really brought me here.
She'll refuse to believe I'm gone until exhaustion and winter force her to accept what everyone else already knows.
The guilt wants to surface, but I shove it down. Later. Right now, there's only survival. Only the grim mathematics of staying alive long enough to finish what Joel and Tate died trying to expose.
Snow begins to fall, fat flakes that cover my blood trail, erase evidence that Chris Calder was ever here. By full dawn, the mountain will have claimed another victim. Three more names added to the list of people who came north seeking something and found only silence.
Behind me, Joel Martinez and Tate Bishop grow cold. Ahead, Bryn will grieve for a brother who never existed. Somewhere between, a traitor thinks the problem is solved. They're wrong.
The mountain will take me. Give me winter to heal. Time to learn who sold us out.
And when I come back, I won't be wearing a badge.
SIERRA
Warehouse District, Near the River
Chicago, Illinois
One Month Ago
The wire taped to my ribs itches like hell, but that's the least of my problems right now.
The warehouse smells like rust and river rot, concrete floors slick with something I don't want to identify.
Sodium lights flicker overhead, casting shadows that make every corner feel like a threat.
Three men stand between me and the exit, all armed, all watching me like I'm something they might need to put down.
Dominic Ruiz circles me for the third time, boots echoing in the cavernous space. He's the shot caller for this crew, mid-thirties, scarred knuckles, dead eyes that have seen too much and felt too little. The gun at his hip isn't for show.
"So you're telling me you can move twenty girls through the lakes without customs catching wind." His voice carries an edge that makes my spine straighten.
"That's exactly what I'm telling you." My own voice comes out steady, confident, bored even.
Three months of undercover work on this case have made the lie smooth as silk.
"I've got dock supervisors in Cleveland and Detroit on payroll.
Shipping manifests get filed under agricultural transport. Nobody looks twice at produce trucks."
It's bullshit, all of it. But it's the kind of bullshit men like Ruiz want to believe because it means money, power, and a supply chain that keeps running.
He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell cigarettes and cheap cologne. "You come recommended, but recommendations don't mean shit if you're a cop."
"Do I look like a cop to you?" I gesture at my outfit—tight jeans, leather jacket, boots with enough heel to make me look taller than my five-foot-four frame. Hair down, makeup heavy, playing the part of a broker who's done this dance before.
One of the younger guys, skinny with a patchy beard and nervous energy, laughs. "She looks like she could be in one of the shipments."
Ruiz doesn't laugh. He just stares, and the temperature in the room drops about ten degrees.
"Show her the route maps," he says finally, turning away.
The third man, older and quieter, pulls a tablet from a duffel bag near a stack of pallets. He swipes through images—warehouse locations, transport schedules, photographs of women who don't know they're being cataloged like inventory.
My stomach churns, but I keep my face blank. These are the faces I'm here to save. Three months embedded in this nightmare, three months letting these men think I'm one of them.
Patchy Beard pulls out his phone, scrolling through something. His eyes flick to me, then to the screen, then back to me. The nervous energy shifts into something sharper.
"Hey, Dom." His voice cracks slightly. "You need to see this."
Ruiz takes the phone, and the air in the warehouse changes. It's subtle at first, just a tightening of his jaw, a narrowing of his eyes. Then he looks at me, and I know before he even speaks that everything just went sideways.
"Surveillance photos." He turns the phone so I can see. "Federal building, downtown. That's you coming out of the field office six weeks ago."
The world slows down. My mind races through options, cover stories, exit strategies. The wire under my shirt broadcasts my heartbeat to everyone in the room.
"That's not me," I say, but even I can hear the hesitation.
"Bullshit." Ruiz reaches for the gun at his hip.
Training kicks in before thought. I pivot, kick the metal table between us, and send it crashing into his legs. He stumbles back, and I'm moving, diving behind wooden pallets as the first shot cracks.
Gunfire erupts. Muzzle flashes light up the warehouse. Splinters explode from the pallet next to my head as bullets tear through wood.
I pull my backup piece from the ankle holster, a subcompact nine millimeter that feels too small in my shaking hands. One shot, two, forcing them to take cover.
Then something punches me in the chest.
The impact steals my breath, knocks me flat. Body armor catches the bullet, but the force cracks ribs, sends agony through my torso. Blood fills my mouth where I bit my tongue. The world tilts, sounds going muffled.
Boots pound on concrete. Shouting. More gunfire.
Then the warehouse explodes with noise.
Flashbangs detonate. The building floods with bodies—tactical gear, rifles, voices screaming commands.
"Federal agents! Drop your weapons!"
"On the ground! Now!"
The cavalry arrived.
I try to move, but my ribs scream protest. Everything hurts. I taste copper and defeat. My cover is blown, the op is burned, and all I can think about is whether we got enough for arrests or if these men will walk.
Hands grab me, familiar ones. Greg Voss, my handler, hauls me up with an arm around my waist. "Come on, Vale. We're getting you out."
"The photos...” I gasp.
"Later. Move."
He drags me through a side door as gunfire continues behind us. The cold November air hits my face like a slap, sirens wailing from every direction. Red and blue lights paint the warehouse district in chaos. DEA vans, ATF trucks, Chicago PD forming a perimeter.
Voss gets me into an ambulance. Paramedics swarm. Someone cuts my jacket away, peels back my shirt to check the body armor. The wire dangles uselessly, recording nothing but my ragged breathing.
"Ribs are broken," someone says clinically. "Possible internal bleeding. We need to transport."
The world goes gray around the edges, and I let it take me.
Waking up in the hospital is worse than the warehouse.
The room is too white, too sterile, and every breath feels like someone's driving nails through my chest. An IV drips clear fluid into my arm. Monitors beep a steady rhythm. Late afternoon light filters through blinds, casting stripes across the blanket.
Greg Voss sits in a chair by the window, looking older than his forty-something years. Next to him stands a woman I recognize from briefings but have never met in person—Assistant Director Marissa Keller, DOJ Organized Crime Division. Tailored suit, steel-gray hair, eyes that miss nothing.
"Welcome back," Voss says, but there's no warmth in it.
I try to sit up. Pain lances through my ribs, drops me back against the pillows. "Did we get them?"
"Ruiz and two others are in custody," Keller says, her voice crisp and professional. "But that's not why we're here."
Something cold settles in my gut. "My cover."
"Burned." Voss stands, paces to the window. "Someone leaked surveillance photos. They had your face, your name, everything."
"Who?"
"We're investigating." Keller's expression doesn't shift. "Someone inside the task force or connected to it. Until we identify the source, you're not only compromised, you're in danger."
The words hang there. Undercover work is all I've done for five years. It's what I'm good at, what I'm built for. Take that away, and what's left?
"So what?" Bitterness creeps into my voice. "You're benching me? Sticking me behind a desk pushing paper?"
"That's one option," Keller says.
Voss turns from the window. "Or you can quit. Walk away. No one would blame you after this."
Quitting. The word tastes wrong. Giving up on every woman in those photos, every victim I couldn't save, every monster still walking free.
"Or, there's a third option." Keller reaches into her briefcase, pulls out a folder, and sets it on the bedside table. "Alaska."
I stare at the folder. "Alaska?"
"The Wildlife Protection Division has been intercepting encrypted communications tied to trafficking routes through federal lands.
Remote areas, hard to monitor, perfect for moving people off the radar.
" She taps the folder. "They need a forensic linguist. Someone who can decode patterns, identify speakers, track networks. Someone with your skill set."
"You want me to analyze data in the middle of nowhere."
"I want you to hunt the people who are still out there." Keller locks her gaze on mine. "The ones who leaked your photos, who are running routes through federal territory, who think they're untouchable. This isn't a desk job, Vale. This is a different kind of war. Quieter, but just as important."
Voss adds, "And it gets you out of Chicago while we clean up this mess. Keeps you safe while we hunt the mole."
Safe. The word should comfort me, but all it does is make me feel like a coward.
I reach for the folder, flip it open. The first page shows a satellite image of mountains, endless forest, snow-capped peaks that look like another planet. Bold letters across the top: Talon Mountain, Glacier Hollow, Alaska.
The second page lists intercepts—coded messages, frequency logs, linguistic patterns matching syntax from known trafficking organizations. Some of the phrasing looks familiar, echoes of the Chicago operation. My pulse quickens despite the pain meds.
"How soon?" I ask.
"Take time to recover, then as soon as possible." Keller closes her briefcase. "Assuming you accept."
Not long to heal, to pack, to leave behind everything familiar and disappear into the frozen wilderness.
The warehouse. The gunfire. Women in those photos still out there, still being bought and sold.
The bullet that should have killed me. The mole who burned my cover and might burn someone else's tomorrow.
My ribs ache with every breath, my tongue throbs, everything hurts, but sitting on the sidelines while monsters walk free hurts worse.
"Alaska it is," I whisper.