Chapter 25
Six months ago:
Binary: I have seventeen redundant security systems. I still don’t feel safe.
Mercury: Safety isn’t about systems. It’s about having someone who would come for you.
Binary: That requires trusting another person with your survival.
Mercury: Yes. Terrifying, isn’t it?
Binary: Extremely.
Mercury: I think it might be worth it anyway.
The industrial building rose against the Denver skyline like something the city had forgotten.
Morgan moved with Lincoln and the guys through the side entrance, her heart hammering against her ribs. The team moved around her like shadows in tactical black—vests, holsters, the dull gleam of weapons held low and ready.
These were the same people who’d made room for her at the Eagle’s Nest without hesitation, who’d pretended not to remember her face to protect her, who’d teased Lincoln about messed-up birthday parties.
Now Bear led their formation, his massive frame somehow silent as he moved. Derek flanked right, his jaw set with focused intensity, all that easygoing warmth replaced by something harder. Theo and Callum had already split off to cover the north exit, their check-ins a low murmur through the comms.
They looked like soldiers. They moved like soldiers. And Morgan was among them in borrowed tactical gear that felt foreign against her skin, an earpiece feeding her the soft crackle of comm chatter.
The building swallowed them whole. What little light filtered through the boarded windows died within feet of the walls, leaving the interior in a darkness that seemed to breathe.
Weathered brick. The particular silence of a place abandoned long enough to become invisible.
Lincoln had predicted this—neutral ground, no signs of regular use, the kind of location that existed because no one cared enough to look at it.
She was with them. Not sidelined. Part of this. And Lincoln stayed close to her, his presence steady at her shoulder.
The building’s interior matched the schematics. Concrete floors stained with decades of industrial use. Support columns rising toward a ceiling lost in shadow. Debris scattered in corners—broken pallets, rusted equipment, the detritus of a business that had died years ago.
Empty. Quiet.
Morgan tried to focus on what she could control. Watching. Remembering. Being useful. Her nervous system didn’t care about control—it kept insisting this place was like the warehouse Randall had kept her in. Like the box, like darkness pressing in from every direction.
This place wasn’t the same. But her body refused to believe that. She breathed through it. Counted her steps. Let the rhythm of movement keep her grounded.
“Clear,” Bear’s voice came through the comms. “Moving to secondary position.”
“Copy,” Lincoln responded. His hand touched the small of her back—brief, reassuring. “Stay close.”
They were early. Ahead of the supposed client meeting by nearly an hour. The plan was simple: get into position before Randall arrived with his skeleton crew, catch him exposed and outnumbered on ground he thought was safe.
Morgan scanned the space as they moved deeper. Nothing seemed wrong. The dust on the floor showed no recent disturbance. The air smelled stale, musty. Every detail confirmed Lincoln’s intel.
That was what bothered her.
She couldn’t point to a specific variable that didn’t compute. But Lincoln’s predictions had been right about everything—the location, the layout, the complete absence of any sign that Randall used this place regularly. It all fit together like puzzle pieces that had been cut to match.
“Something wrong?” Lincoln’s voice was low, meant only for her.
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.”
“Your instincts matter. If something feels off—”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Nothing I can point to.”
Lincoln studied her for a moment. Then he nodded, accepting her assessment without dismissing it. “We proceed carefully. Eyes open.”
They moved into position. Bear and Derek took flanking spots near the main entrance where Randall would arrive. Lincoln guided Morgan to a shadowed alcove with clear sight lines to the meeting area—close enough to observe, protected enough to stay safe if anything went sideways.
This was where she would be staying, ready to offer info if she saw or heard anything that triggered a memory, but out of the way enough to let the guys do what they needed to do.
“Team check,” Lincoln said quietly into his comms.
“Primary position, good to go.” Bear.
“Secondary, holding.” Theo.
“All clear on north.” Callum.
Everything in place. Everything according to plan.
The minutes stretched. Morgan’s fingers found the familiar rhythm against her thigh, and the words slipped out before she could stop them—barely a whisper, almost subvocal. “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul…”
Lincoln’s head turned. He didn’t tell her to be quiet. Didn’t remind her to stay focused. Just walked over and kissed her on the forehead.
“It’s going to be okay.” He squeezed her hand and let go. “I’m moving to my main position. Stay here. Let us know if you see or think of anything we need to know.”
She nodded. Watched him cross the open space toward where Bear and Derek held the primary entrance, his silhouette swallowed by shadows until she could barely make him out. Twenty feet away. Maybe twenty-five.
The building settled around them, small sounds magnified by silence. A creak of old metal. The whisper of wind through gaps in the boards.
Nothing else. No approaching footsteps. No vehicles outside.
“And sings the tune without the words…” She spoke even softer now. Just for herself. She focused on the words, the rhythm of them, as the guys did another update a few moments later.
Then the comms died.
The sudden absence of background static fell like a blade. Morgan tapped her earpiece. Nothing. Not even the hiss of an open channel.
“Bear, confirm.” Lincoln’s voice cut through the darkness—too loud without the comms to carry it. “Derek, respond. Callum, Theo—anyone copy?”
Silence.
“Jamming,” Lincoln said. His voice had gone flat. “What the fuck? They’re jamming our—”
The first gunshot shattered the air before he could finish.
Muzzle flashes lit up the darkness from three directions—not one or two shooters, but many. More than they’d prepared for. More than should have been possible.
Something clattered across the concrete near her feet. Morgan had half a second to register the shape before smoke erupted from it, thick and acrid, filling her lungs and stinging her eyes. Another canister. Then another. The building disappeared into a choking gray haze.
She pressed against the wall, blind now, ears ringing from the gunfire that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Somewhere to her left, Lincoln was returning fire—she could hear his weapon, could track his position by the muzzle flash that strobed through the smoke like lightning through storm clouds. She couldn’t see Bear or Derek at all.
This wasn’t a vulnerable moment they’d caught. This was a trap they’d walked into.
“Morgan!” Lincoln’s voice burst through the chaos—closer, but she still couldn’t see him in the smoke. “The corridor! Get to the exit!”
She could only hear his voice, track the direction of his muzzle flash through the haze.
“What about—”
“We’ll cover you! Go!”
She hesitated. Every instinct screamed against leaving him, against running while he stayed behind. But she wasn’t trained for this. She didn’t have a weapon. Staying meant being a liability—something he’d have to protect instead of fight.
“I’ll be right behind you!” His voice again, closer now but still lost in the smoke. “I promise. Now go!”
Morgan ran.
The hallway stretched ahead, longer than she remembered from when they’d entered. Emergency lighting cast dim pools of illumination every twenty feet, islands of sickly yellow in the darkness. Her legs pumped. Her lungs burned—still thick with smoke, every breath like swallowing glass.
Behind her, the gunfire continued. She could hear Lincoln’s weapon, distinct from the others now that she knew what to listen for. Covering her retreat. Buying her time.
She passed the first emergency light. The second.
Her footsteps echoed off concrete walls, too loud, but she couldn’t make herself slow down.
Third light. Fourth. The corridor seemed to narrow around her, walls pressing closer, ceiling dropping lower.
Just her imagination. Just panic doing what panic did.
She could see the exit now—a metal door at the end of the hall, the red glow of an emergency sign above it. Fifty feet. Forty. Her hand was already reaching for it, body leaning forward, desperate for the night air on the other side.
Thirty feet. Twenty.
The gunfire behind her had changed. Less of it now. She didn’t know if that was good or bad.
Ten feet. She could see the push bar on the door, the scuff marks where countless workers had shoved through it in another life, another time when this building had been something other than a trap.
Her hand closed on the handle.
The explosion hit before she could push it.
The shock wave slammed her forward into the metal door, then threw her sideways onto the concrete. Sound became a physical thing—pressure and heat and a roar that swallowed everything. She curled instinctively, arms over her head, as debris rained down around her.
Her ears rang. Her vision swam. She lifted her head, coughing through the dust and smoke, and looked back the way she’d come.
The far end of the corridor was gone.
The path back to Lincoln was now nothing but rubble and flame. The ceiling had collapsed. Support beams jutted at broken angles. Fire licked through the gaps, casting hellish shadows on the destruction.
Lincoln had been back there. He’d said he was right behind her.
Morgan crawled toward the wreckage, toward the fire. “Lincoln!” Her voice came out raw. “Lincoln!”