33. Trent
I’ve seen a lot of fucked-up tech in my years with Edge Ops, but nothing made my skin crawl quite like the tech Moreau had for sale on that goddamn island.
Sentinel was the headliner, sure, but the catalog of horrors went deeper than autonomous killer drones. Stealth suits that scrambled thermal and facial recognition. Biometric spoofs that let you walk through any secure door like you owned the place. Neural compliance implants disguised as wearable health tech. And worst of all—disposable soldiers. Gene-hacked embryos preloaded with combat aggression, grown in underground labs and programmed to die young.
Weaponized child soldiers.
Jesus fucking Christ.
My gut twisted as I leaned against the back wall of our war room, arms crossed, watching Kate and Ozzy dissect the digital remains of Moreau’s auction like forensic surgeons. The room glowed with blue light from five massive monitors—each displaying another horrific piece of intel: weapons, buyers, transaction logs, surveillance footage.
“Tracking a transaction to Saudi Arabia,” Kate said, her fingers flying over her keyboard.
“Saw that, too.” Ozzy glanced over, face bathed in scrolling code. “Looks like our Saudi prince wasn’t just in it for the scenery.”
“Emilio Benítez was there, too,” I said, nodding to El General’s profile on screen.
“Yeah, that man’s a piece of work,” Decker said, lounging back in his chair and flipping a knife from blade to hilt to blade again. “Sick fuck wanted the embryos. Kept bragging about it all night.”
Ethan stepped closer. “Did he get them?”
Kate shook her head. “They hadn’t gone up for bidding yet. If he got them, he stole them in the chaos.”
“Alright. Cross-reference his name with the transaction logs. I want to know what he did walk out with.”
Ozzy pulled it up. “Nanovirus with geographic targeting.”
Kate exhaled hard. “Jesus, this thing could wipe out a block while leaving the building next door untouched.”
I pushed off the wall. If Benítez unleashed that in Caracas, he could take out all of his dissenters and plunge the country into even deeper chaos.
Ethan nodded. “Flag it. Ozzy, track all chatter around Benítez’s network. If he plans to use that for a coup, I want to know.”
“Already listening in,” Oz said. “His passwords are tragic.”
“Huh,” Kate said and highlighted another series of transactions. “Northern Koreans were there too and they got…” She paused, frowning. “That’s interesting.”
“Define interesting,” Decker said.
“They purchased agricultural nanotech. Drought-resistant seed enhancers.” She glanced up at Ethan and then me. “Not exactly a weapon.”
“Famine is a weapon.” I’d seen starvation used as a control mechanism too many times to view this purchase as benign. “They’re not planning to feed their people. They’re strengthening their hold over them.”
The room fell silent, the only sound the soft hum of cooling fans and fingers on keyboards. This was the reality of our work—seeing beyond the transactions to the human cost. Every piece of technology sold or stolen at that auction would impact lives, and rarely for the better.
The door opened, drawing everyone’s attention away from the screens. Well. Everyone’s attention except Ozzy’s. If that man could implant a screen in his eyes, I had no doubt he would.
Leo hurried in, looking like he’d just stepped out of the shower. His dark hair was still dripping. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Hot date last night?” Nolan asked.
Leo flipped him off, settled into a chair, and scanned the group. “Ah, c’mon. I’m not even the last to arrive.”
“Flynn and Lyric aren’t coming in,” Ethan said and returned his attention to the screens.
“Aye,” Nolan said with an eyebrow wiggle. “They’re definitely fucking like bunnies right now.”
Alistair shook his head. “Jesus, Nolan.”
“What? We all know they are. I’m just stating facts.”
Despite myself, I smirked. Truthfully, I hoped they were. They’d both been through hell and deserved a break. I turned my attention back to the screens, where a new set of data had just populated.
“What’s this?” I asked, nodding toward a list of buyer IDs that Kate had just pulled up.
“Secondary purchases,” Kate replied, highlighting a section. “Smaller tech that didn’t hit the main auction block.” She scrolled down, her brow furrowing. “These were handled through a separate system. Lower profile, but still dangerous as hell.”
I scanned the list of names and purchases. Most were unfamiliar, likely shell companies or proxies for the real buyers. Standard operating procedure in the black market tech world.
“Wait.” My blood ran cold as a familiar name jumped out at me and I pushed off the wall, stepping closer to the screen. “Stop. Go back.”
“What did you see?” Kate’s fingers paused over her keyboard as the entire room shifted focus to the transaction record displayed on the main screen.
I had to be wrong. Maybe I just saw it because she’s been on my mind?—
“There.” I pointed to a line midway down the screen. “Buyer ID 45721. NeuroLink-II system.”
“Neural interface technology,” Ozzy said without looking up. “Military-grade mind-machine interface. Nasty piece of work. Military applications for enhanced soldier performance. Welcome to the future, where mind control isn’t just science fiction anymore.”
“Mind control?” Decker echoed.
“Yep. Not the crude kind, either. This would allow the controller to make suggestions that feel like the subject’s own thoughts. The perfect sleeper agent delivery system. Your target wouldn’t even know they were compromised.”
But I wasn’t listening to Ozzy’s explanation. My focus had narrowed to the name listed beside the purchase.
Evelyn Phillips.
Impossible.
“Something wrong, Dalton?” Ethan asked, his tone casual but his eyes razor-sharp as they studied my reaction. He knew me like nobody else. He knew I didn’t panic. He also knew I was panicking inside now.
I forced myself to breathe, to maintain the composure that had kept me alive through thirteen years of wetwork and black ops. But inside, alarm bells were screaming.
This couldn’t be happening.
“Trent?” Ethan’s voice sounded distant. “You recognize the buyer?”
I reached past Kate and froze the screen, enlarging the section. There was no mistake. Evelyn Phillips. The same Evelyn Phillips I’d extracted from a cult compound in California just over a month ago. The woman I’d personally escorted to a safe house in rural Montana, thirty miles from the nearest town, with a new identity so complete that even our own intelligence agencies couldn’t trace it.
The woman who should be completely off-grid, invisible, safe.
“Trent.” Ethan’s voice was sharper now. “Talk to me.”
“She didn’t buy this,” I said, my voice dangerously calm despite the adrenaline flooding my system. “Evelyn Phillips is a protected asset.”
“Fuck,” Decker muttered and sat up straighter in his chair. “That’s the cult woman, isn’t it? And now she has fucking mind control tech?”
“She’s not—” I bit off the words and rubbed a hand over my head. “She was a single mother in a bad situation, who ended up in a worse one.” I stared across the room at Ethan, waiting until he met my gaze. “She didn’t buy this.”
“Okay, are we sure it’s the same person?” Kate asked, already typing. “Could be a coincidence. Evelyn Phillips is a common enough name.”
Which was exactly why I’d chosen it for her new identity.
“It’s not a coincidence.” I was certain. She’d been completely off-grid since her extraction from the Hope’s Embrace cult. New identity, new location, no digital footprint. Invisible. I made damn sure of it because Evelyn had a young daughter to protect.
Emma. Five years old with her mother’s eyes and unshakable trust in me.
The memory of carrying that child through the chaos of the compound’s collapse was still vivid. Her tiny arms around my neck, her mother stumbling beside us, half-blinded by the cult leader’s final act of violence against her.
I’d promised them they’d be safe.
I’d promised .
And I don’t break promises.
Ozzy finally looked up from his screen, his expression grave. “Then someone’s sending a message.”
Someone knew who Evelyn really was. And they knew I had hidden her.
“Or it’s a trap,” Ethan said, voicing what we were all thinking. “Someone’s trying to flush her out.”
I was already moving toward the door, grabbing my go-bag from where I’d stashed it beneath the conference table. My mind shifted into operational mode, cataloging what I’d need: weapons, cash, comms, medical supplies.
“Where is she, Trent?” Ethan asked.
“Classified,” I replied automatically. The fewer people who knew, the safer she would be. That had been the protocol from the beginning.
“Not anymore,” Ethan countered. “If someone’s compromised her location?—”
“Then I need to move her immediately.” I checked my sidearm, confirming a round in the chamber. “Alone.”
Ethan stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the door. “That’s not how we operate. If one of our protected assets is compromised, we move as a team.”
“With all due respect,” I kept my voice steady despite the urgency pounding through my veins, “this is my responsibility. My extraction, my protection detail.”
“Your emotions clouding your judgment,” Ethan said quietly, for my ears only.
I stared him down. He was one to talk. “I’m the only one she trusts. If I show up with a team, she’ll run.”
A tense silence filled the room as the rest of the team watched our standoff. Ethan searched my face, looking for something—weakness, maybe, or deception. He wouldn’t find either. What he would find was determination and the absolute certainty that I needed to handle this alone.
After what felt like an eternity, he stepped aside. “Twenty-four hours. Then you check in, or I send the team.”
“Understood.” I shouldered my bag and headed for the door.
“Take this,” Ozzy called, tossing me a secure satellite phone. “It’s untraceable. Call when you have her.”
I caught the phone and nodded my thanks.
“And Trent,” Ethan added as I reached the doorway. “Watch your six.”
“Always do, boss.” I didn’t look back as I strode out the door, my mind already calculating routes, contingencies, extraction points.
Whoever had used Evelyn’s name at that auction had made a fatal mistake. They’d revealed they knew about her, but they didn’t know about me. They didn’t know what I was capable of when someone I’d sworn to protect was threatened.
If they were coming for Evelyn... they’d have to go through me first.
* * *