Chapter Nineteen
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I look down at the live drone feed glowing across Foster’s tablet.
He’s in there.
Somewhere behind those cracked walls, beneath that sagging tin roof, inside whatever sick, rotting hellhole Cortéz calls a hideout.
Eli’s in there. Knuckles is in there.
“There’s no place for cover,” Bones mutters beside me, rage simmering so hot he looks ready to boil the damn sand.
His binoculars stay fixed on the only structure in sight.
Though sight is generous. Even with high-grade scopes, the farmhouse is nothing but a pale blur on the shimmering horizon.
“There aren’t even trees. Not a single fucking bush. ”
He’s right.
Miles. Of. Nothing.
Just open, flat desert stretching in every direction. No dunes. No rock outcroppings. No abandoned tractors or fence lines. Just heat-baked earth…and a lone house so far away we can barely make out its shape without tech.
If not for the drone circling it from a half-mile up, we’d have no idea what we were dealing with.
And unless Cortéz is using solar panels covered in sand…there’s no electricity going to that place either.
We’ve known all this since Maverick’s scouts first found the coordinates. But seeing it in person?
Yeah. It’s a giant middle finger from Cortéz.
“With no cover, going in before dark is suicide,” Tank growls. The heat distortion makes the farmhouse flicker like a mirage. “Even with snipers. This is too far a shot for clean support.”
The place shouldn’t exist.
California law says nothing gets built out here. No utilities. No permits. No infrastructure. This far into the desert is supposed to be protected land.
And yet, this house is on county records. Under the Cortéz surname. Not filed under Damian Cortez, but rather, his father. Registered, inspected, and mysteriously ignored.
A perfect little ghost house. An isolated kill box.
A fucking obvious trap.
But…
A trap we can’t avoid.
“We wait until darkness,” Spike says quietly. His gaze never leaves the horizon line. “We move slow, silent, smart. No hero bullshit.”
He doesn’t look at me, but I feel the weight of the warning anyway.
Every instinct I have is telling me to run straight across that desert and tear the door off with my bare hands.
“Skip,” Spike says, voice low and steel-edged. “We get them out. But we do it right…or we bring home filled body bags instead.”
I drag in a breath that does nothing to put the fire out.
The sun dips lower. Shadows drag long across the sand like dark fingers reaching for that farmhouse.
On the drone feed, the house sits silent.
Waiting.
“It looks like there are thirteen tents set up around the house,” I say, zooming in on the live footage.
The drone is high enough that no one on the ground could spot it.
Just a buzzard silhouette against a darkening sky.
But its camera might as well be God’s eye.
I can see Cortéz’s men talking. I can see their mouths moving.
Crusher leans in.
“And those motherfuckers look bored,” he says. “They think they’re out of reach.”
A slow smile touches my mouth. One that promises pain.
“They won’t be for long.”
“Let’s go talk to the first two waves,” Spike says, already striding toward the line of waiting soldiers. Every man turns to face us as Spike speaks.
“We need a plan of action,” he says. “Wave’s one and two…no cover means you now move as one unit. Quietly. Taking out only the men on patrol.”
The select group nods their understanding.
“We go in with wave three,” he turns to tell us. “They’ll keep the enemy occupied while we get inside and find our people.”
“Cortéz is capture-only,” Bones reminds everyone. “I’ll carve whatever information I can from him. Then I’ll let Skip have his turn.”
“After that,” Tank adds, cracking his neck, “we’ll ship what’s left of him to every Los Fantasmas branch. A little care package labeled ‘Back the fuck off.’”
“Sexy,” I smirk. “I’ll make sure my last act is cutting his dick off and shoving it in his mouth.”
Bones actually freezes mid-step, then lets out a grunt that sounds like he surprised himself.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “I think I’m gay, because that was sexy as hell.”
Despite everything…the fear clawing at my ribs, the rage boiling under my skin, the drone feed showing my man trapped in a kill box…I bark out a laugh. Hard. Loud.
Because hearing Bones say something like that?
Yeah. That shit rewires your fight-or-flight real quick.
And when I glance over at him, he gives me a little nod.
A tiny, deliberate nod.
A Hey, brother…breathe. I got you.
Smart fucker.
Shaking my head, I look back down at the drone footage.
Nothing’s changed…but it’s about to.