Mercy (Genesis: Savage Warriors #3)

Chapter One

March bit hard out here on the southern edge of Arizona, right up against the Mexican border.

The desert wind came like a knife—dry, sharp, cutting through layers of gear and grit alike.

Viper moved through the dark with his strike team fanned behind him, boots silent in the sand. He’d chosen a small, exclusive unit for this mission—seven men, including himself.

But he didn’t move with them—he moved ahead of them.

Leadership wasn’t company. It was distance.

Law apparently didn’t see it that way and joined him a moment later—pace matched, silent, steady, unbothered.

Officers at his level didn’t usually work in the field, but Viper answered directly to the Secretary of Defense and led Genesis his own way—hands-on, boots down, not behind a desk.

The air was thin and restless, humming with static. Viper could taste it—dust, sage, and the faint metallic tang that always came before violence.

To the west, the fence line glinted under a slivered moon. The border looked quiet, but it never was. Nothing about this stretch of ground was clean.

Law’s rifle hung low, his posture easy but alert. Army once, now Genesis. Viper had pulled him in personally—hadn’t known him long, but Law was one of the few he trusted to hold a line without flinching. Steady as ever.

Former Special Forces, but he belonged here, with them. Law radiated calm—every motion deliberate, efficient, and quiet.

A soldier moved up on his left—one Viper trusted with his life.

Memphis Rivers. Major.

They weren’t blood brothers, but they might as well have been. They’d served on the same dark Special Forces unit before their paths split—different commands, different continents. Memphis had only just come back stateside after a string of international ops.

Memphis had been on the verge of retirement when the Secretary of Defense called. Genesis needed men who could move through fire and keep walking. Viper hadn’t hesitated—hell yeah.

A week in at Nightfall Drifters Ranch, and Memphis fit like he’d been there from day one.

Tall, muscled, inked. Dark shaggy hair, intense green eyes that caught everything. A hulk of a man with a lazy grin that never quite reached those eyes. Dangerous and sharp, but loyal to the bone. His voice—low, rough, commanding—could cut through chaos like a blade.

“Sir,” one of his men jogged up, holding a sat phone.

Only two people ever called on that line.

Viper took it, his glove brushing sand from the receiver before lifting it to his ear. “Sir?”

“Viper? It’s Will.” Secretary of Defense William Caldwell’s voice came through, steady and calm. “There’s been a change in plans.”

“Go ahead.” Viper stood still, eyes sweeping the horizon. Orders were orders—always subject to change in a heartbeat.

The desert air moved the dust around them, soft and restless.

“You’ll be handing the asset off to Erebus,” Will said. “Savage will send a few men. The location’s still in Arizona.” Viper frowned, shifting his weight, his gaze narrowing toward the dark line of the border fence.

More and more lately, since Caldwell had taken over the President’s specialty teams, things were shifting. Not that Erebus couldn’t handle it—Savage ran a tight group—but Viper didn’t see the sense in passing off a job Genesis could finish themselves.

He said nothing. Just waited.

“You’ll get new orders once the drop’s made,” Will continued, voice still calm, though Viper could hear the strain underneath. The man was under pressure; Viper didn’t need to add to it.

“Yes, sir.”

The line went dead. Viper handed the phone back to his soldier.

Law stepped up beside him, his steps drowned by the wind. “What did he want?”

“Hand off to Erebus in Arizona,” Viper said, tucking the sat phone cord back against the soldier’s vest. “Then he’s sending us elsewhere.”

Memphis gave a short laugh, rolling his shoulders like he was shaking off the cold. “Let’s rock and roll.”

Viper said nothing. He trusted Savage and his team, but middlemen always complicated clean work.

They cleared a low rise overlooking the old checkpoint station. The structure was corroded by rust—floodlight poles leaning like snapped spines, the roof torn open to the night.

His breath came out slow, silver in the cold air.

Behind them, the team waited—silent forms, disciplined shadows.

Viper scanned the horizon through NVGs, green static turning the world to grain. Nothing moved except a ripple of dust rolling low across the flats.

Still, his gut said it was too calm.

It was never this simple.

“Cold one,” Law murmured, voice low enough not to carry. He shifted, raising his NVGs for a sweep.

Memphis nodded in agreement.

Viper didn’t answer. The cold didn’t matter. The dark didn’t matter.

Only the mission.

He drew a slow breath; eyes locked on the checkpoint below—on the billow of dust rising.

“Is that them?” Memphis asked.

Viper tracked the dust—too fast, too soon.

“It can’t be,” he said. “An hour early.”

Law’s rifle rose a fraction. “Intel had a time.”

“It did. Zero-three-hundred.” Viper’s words were flat.

Law squinted. “So, who—”

Viper zoomed—too many bodies, wrong vehicle types. A prickled edge at his focus. He’d felt this before.

The team waited for his mark. He didn’t give one. Not yet.

“Hold.” Low. Hard on the comms.

They froze like coiled snakes.

Below, the convoy slowed at the checkpoint. Tarps dropped over vehicles, men spilled out, fanning into shadows.

Ambush. It didn’t matter.

Genesis lived in the shadows.

Viper’s mouth twitched. “Execute.”

They moved as one—precise, absolute.

Nothing and no one would stop them from retrieving the asset.

Sliding down the sandy incline, Genesis moved like stealth itself—sound swallowed by the wind.

Viper came in low, boots hitting sand without a whisper. The air was thick with dirt and tension, visibility down to zero.

“Left,” he growled. Law peeled off without a word, rifle already rising. Memphis ghosted to the right, his bulk impossibly quiet for a man his size.

Three targets ahead.

Two armed, one scanning the ridge. Viper slid in behind a rusted, abandoned Chevy, brought his SIG Sauer M17 up, and squeezed. The lead man crumpled. The second turned, too slow—Law’s suppressed round took him center mass.

The third never saw Memphis.

A blur of dark hair and muscle, Memphis slammed the man back into the vehicle’s frame. The impact rattled metal.

The KA-BAR blade flashed—quick, clean. One jab to the ribs, another shoved up under the jaw. The body dropped, still.

“Clear,” Memphis whispered, voice low and rough.

“Move,” Viper ordered and advanced.

Law and Memphis fanned out—the rest of the unit followed.

The checkpoint burned in green tint through Viper’s NVGs—figures fanning wide, positioning for a trap that had already failed. He holstered his weapon and drew his blade.

This fight needed silence—clean, quick, controlled.

A shadow lunged from his blind side. Viper pivoted, caught the wrist, and drove his knee up. Bone cracked. The perp grunted and struck his arm.

Viper’s blade popped free—matte black, Army issue—but he caught it midair and buried it in the man’s throat. The sound was wet and final.

“Watch your backs,” Law said over comms, voice calm as steel.

Viper turned—two hostiles closing fast on Law’s flank.

Memphis moved first. His M1911 barked once, twice. Both targets hit the dirt. The silence that followed was heavier than the shots.

Memphis and Law took on three other perps—skilled, fast, brutal.

Viper scanned the area before he was lunged at.

The man came out of the dark fast.

Viper met him halfway, fist slamming into his throat, then snapping an elbow across his jaw. The impact rocked him back, but didn’t drop him.

Silver flashed low—a knife. Viper caught the wrist, twisted hard. A pop. The perp screamed, a strangled sound. The blade hit the sand. He drove the man backward, shoulder to chest, pinning him against the dirt.

A knee came up. Viper blocked, shifted his weight, and slammed a forearm across the man’s face—nose broke. Blood sprayed warm onto his sleeve.

The man lunged again, cold, lethal. Viper moved with him, used the momentum to spin and drive him down hard. Sand exploded around them. The perp’s hand clawed for Viper’s holster—bad move.

Viper trapped the arm and head-butted the fucker.

The fight bled into silence, only their breathing rough. The man tried to surge up again—too slow.

Viper’s knife came free in a single, practiced motion, dark and steady in his hand. One thrust under the ribs. Quick. Clean.

The man jerked once and went still.

Viper rose, breath sharp and uneven before he forced it steady, pulse still heavy in his ears.

For some reason, he was reminded of that last near-altercation with Titus. If he ever did come to blows with that asshole, it’d probably look a lot like this—him taking that bastard to the ground. Maybe not the dead part, but definitely an ass-whipping.

Fucking bullshit, thinking of that guy mid-mission.

He crushed down thoughts of Titus, spat blood into the sand, and wiped the blade on the body’s sleeve, eyes already scanning the dark beyond.

“You good, Colonel?” Memphis jogged over, voice low.

“Yeah,” Viper rasped, tucking his blade away.

Law swept the perimeter, coming up beside them, wiping his own blade clean. “Area appears secure.”

“Team, report,” Viper ordered. His tone carried no emotion, no relief—just direction.

One by one, the remaining three in his unit checked in. It wasn’t until the last voice came through that Viper let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

He shook it off and crouched beside one of the fallen men, fingers searching, finding nothing. Not a cartel, probably private hire.

Didn’t matter.

Genesis were ghosts. They’d take custody of the asset and vanish. Gone—like they’d never been here.

When these bodies surfaced, someone else would take the blame.

“Locals,” he muttered. “Sent to take us out before we could reach the asset.”

Law leaned in. “They underestimated us.”

Viper rose, scanning the dark where the dust had finally settled.

“Yeah, they did,” Memphis said.

Viper checked his watch, then keyed his comms. “Get ready. Asset’s five out.”

Five minutes crawled by—quiet, tense, dust still hanging in the air.

Then headlights crested the rise.

Two men climbed out, faces dark behind masks. Viper recognized the posture immediately—at least one of them was undercover. A slighter man was hauled from the back and shoved forward. He hit the ground, caught himself, and staggered upright—eyes locking on Viper across the distance.

Viper lifted a hand in a sharp, wordless signal.

The accountant bolted toward him, running like he expected a bullet between his shoulder blades. Viper hauled him off-line, driving him across open ground toward the staging area, dust kicking up under their boots until the dark shapes of the SUVs rose beyond the rise.

They loaded the trembling man into the back of the SUV, his breath fogging in quick, panicked bursts.

Law stepped in beside Viper, voice low enough not to carry.

“No cartel comes down this hard for an accountant,” he muttered. “Somebody above them wants him gone.”

Memphis huffed a tense breath. “Yeah. Feels wrong. Too much muscle for one pencil pusher.”

Viper shut the door with a solid, final click.

He didn’t look at either of them—just stared out at the dark stretch of desert, jaw tight.

Law was right.

Memphis was right.

And Viper had learned a long time ago:

the higher the money trail, the dirtier the monster.

Within minutes, they were racing across the desert—tires churning, dust billowing, the border fading behind them.

It wasn’t until they were halfway across Arizona, the sun breaking over the horizon, that the tension finally eased.

Memphis groaned, rubbing his shoulder as he rolled his neck.

Law glanced over. “You good, Memphis? Thought I saw you limping earlier.”

Memphis cracked a grin. “Nah, that’s just swagger. You’d know if I was hit—I’d be cussing you out.”

Laughter rippled through the transport. The two men Viper trusted to be smartasses lived up to it.

“Hell, if Rivers was hit, the whole damn desert would know,” Major Rhett Caine chimed in—thirty-eight, lean, and fast as hell.

“Careful, you two,” Captain Ramsey Webb added with a grunt—Special Forces, all muscle and trouble. “Memphis could bench-press both your asses and still have a hand free for his coffee.”

Law laughed, low and genuine. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Viper’s mouth twitched, a half-smile.

Just another night’s work for ghosts.

They made it to Kingman, Arizona, by sunrise, dropped the convoy at a secured site, and waited for orders.

One day turned into two, the desert heat settling in like punishment.