Chapter Twenty-One
Skip
Nightfall hit an hour ago.
The desert went from blistering heat to bone-cutting cold, and still… nothing.
No movement in the house.
Most of the men in the tents have settled. A few patrol lazily, bored, unalert, confident in their empty godforsaken sandbox.
But the house?
Dead still.
Too still.
My teeth grind as I scan it again through binoculars…the sagging roofline, the cracked walls, the boarded windows. A house that shouldn’t legally exist, sitting in the middle of nowhere like a tomb marker.
“Are we sure they’re in there?” My voice comes out harsher than I intend…but fuck it. I’m beyond pretending I’m calm. “Not a single soul has entered or left that house since we started watching.”
Foster taps his tablet. “I followed Cortéz’s cell.
Then hacked into nearby CCTV. His face and his phone’s location matched,” Foster confirms. “He’s inside.
I couldn’t see in the van to see if Eli and Knuckles were inside, but it’s the same van that they were shoved into near the shop, and it didn’t make any stops. ”
“Definitely feels like a trap,” Bones mutters, voice low, lethal.
“Everything about this feels like a trap,” Spike agrees. His arms crossed. “But what are we supposed to do? Our men are in there. We just have to be smart about getting them out.”
Tank shifts beside me, checking his rifle. “With no cover, we go in wrong, we lose half the team before we hit the porch.”
Foster zooms out the drone. Nothing but flat earth in all directions. No dunes, no rocks, no scrub. Just endless desert swallowing everything but that cursed house.
I clench my jaw so hard it aches.
Eli’s in there. Hurting. Scared.
God knows what those fuckers have done to him.
And Knuckles was already dying. He should never have been dragged into this. That’s why we’ve kept him away from the physical stuff. His body wasn’t up to it.
My vision darkens at the edges.
I can feel the beast under my skin pacing, snarling, begging to sprint across the sand and rip the door off its hinges.
Spike steps closer, quiet but firm. “Skip.”
I don’t look at him.
“Skip,” he says again, lower. “We get them out. But we do it right. Or more of our people die.”
“I know,” I growl. But my hand shakes anyway. The thought of Eli in any form of danger makes my chest hurt in a way I can’t fucking manage.
I swallow down the panic. Force myself to focus. Focus on the rage.
“First two waves go in and take out the guards,” Spike continues, going over the plan for the last time. “Use your silencers. We need the element of surprise.”
“Wave three breaches with Maverick’s men,” Bones adds. “They handle the tents. Take out any stragglers. We go for the house.”
“Heat signature earlier read five bodies inside the house,” Foster says, angling the drone tablet toward us. “Now there’s only one.”
The world tilts.
“What the fuck?” I mutter.
“There’s no way they built a tunnel under the damn desert,” Crusher says, leaning in. “Sand would’ve collapsed. Maybe the other four are in a reinforced room. Somewhere the thermal can’t read.”
“Or a freezer,” Bones adds, voice flat and cold.
“Or they’re dead,” I say, because someone has to say the thing everyone’s avoiding.
Silence. Thick. Heavy. Suffocating.
No one denies it. Because they can’t. Because I’m probably right.
My jaw locks so tight I hear something crack.
“That last heat signature is most likely Cortéz,” I whisper.
I close my eyes…just for a second…and every nightmare I’ve been wrestling with since Eli disappeared slams into me at once.
Pretty boy… hold on. Please, be alive.
“We go now,” Spike says, voice cutting through the rising panic in my chest. He turns to Bones. “Take Maverick’s men. I want Cortéz’s soldiers captured. You decide which ones look like they’ll talk. Kill the rest.”
Bones smiles.
“Gladly.”
He stalks toward the Italians like a wolf joining his pack.
But I’m barely seeing any of it.
Because all I can picture is me finding Eli’s cold, dead body when we enter that house.
Spike slaps a hand against my shoulder, grounding me. “Skip. Breathe. We find Knuckles and Eli. Then we make Cortéz pay.”
I nod once.
“Let’s go,” Spike orders, drawing his gun. “Time’s up.”
***
We watch in silence as wave one moves.
Four Shadows glide through the darkness like they’re made of it…one drag, one chokehold, one muffled thud at a time. No gunfire. No shouting. No alarms.
The waves are small…but our backup is not. They’re just waiting slightly behind us in case they’re needed.
When the signal comes…two short flashes…wave two sweeps in behind them.
Bones and Maverick lead their team with that lethal, quiet confidence that makes grown men piss themselves. Tents open like unzipped body bags, and our soldiers either come out with smoking muzzles… or with bound, bleeding prisoners dragged by their collars.
“Wave two out,” Maverick says over the walkie. “All clear for entry.”
Finally.
I cock my gun and head straight for the porch, adrenaline bursting through every vein.
“Wait,” Bones snaps, grabbing my cut. “Possible trip wires. One of my men found three landmines around the house.”
“Fuck,” Tank mutters. “Why didn’t we think of that?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Spike says. “Gather the men. Mark every mine you find. Crusher…you’re up, brother.”
Crusher nods, already moving. He’s no bomb expert…but he knows a thing or two to keep us from getting killed. He kneels. Checks under the porch. The windows. Runs his fingers under, above, and along the doorframe.
“I think we’re clear,” he says. “But don’t go stomping around like idiots. No clue what traps they rigged inside.”
I get it. I do.
But my man has been missing for seven hours. Seven hours of terror I can feel like an ache under my ribs.
I’m done waiting.
“Dammit, Skip,” Spike growls as I shove the door open and step inside. “Crusher, check every doorway near the floor. You…stay put.”
I don’t breathe. I don’t blink. I just stare into the dark, waiting for Crusher’s verdict.
“Clear!” he calls back. “Safe to move. Dark as hell though…couldn’t see dick beyond my light.”
That’s all I need.
I’m moving before Spike can start another lecture, flashlight in my left hand, gun in my right.
Spike and Tank head upstairs. I sweep the first floor with Crusher and Foster.
Two minutes later, we gather in the kitchen…right over the heat signature.
“It’s either above us or below us,” Foster says. “And since it’s not above…”
“A basement,” I finish. “Find the damn door.”
I tear the place apart, not caring about alerting anyone to our presence. I shove the table.
Drag the fridge. Nothing.
“Over here,” Spike says, shining his light on the small coat closet near the front door. “Seems odd to have a padlock on the coat closet door, don’t you think?”
The door itself is wide open, but he’s right. There’s a lock hanging off the hook on the doorframe. Spike enters the closet and moves everything to the side…and there it is.
Opening the door, Spike turns his flashlight forward and heads down a set of stairs. Holding my breath, expecting the worst but hoping for something far less, I follow.
“Do you notice something?” Spike murmurs when we’re several steps down.
We stop.
I strain my ears.
Nothing.
“No sound at all,” Tank says.
“Close the door,” Spike orders, reaching for his walkie. “Bones, shoot off your gun.”
We wait. Nothing.
“Think I might’ve shot the drone,” Bones says a moment later. “Sorry, Foster.”
“He did,” Foster groans. “And he smiled at it before he pulled the trigger, the dickhead.”
“Soundproof,” I say.
“There’s only one reason to soundproof a basement,” Tank mutters.
No one disagrees.
We keep going, guns raised, flashlights cutting through the dark like blades.
Spike reaches the bottom first.
He goes still.
“Shine your lights down here,” Spike orders.
His flashlight cuts through the black first.
Then mine. Then Tank’s. Then Foster’s.
And the second our beams sweep across the basement…I stop breathing.
Because the first thing I see are the bodies.
Dead. Bleeding. Twisted on the concrete like discarded trash.
“That one’s Cortéz,” Spike says, stepping closer, his light locking on the vacant, glassy stare of Damian fucking Cortéz on the far wall.
Good.
Let the bastard rot.
“Foster, call in…FUCK.”
Spike’s voice cracks.
I follow his beam and see it…A chair. A body chained to it. Back facing us.
My chest caves.
“Brother,” I breathe, stepping forward and then freezing, terrified of what waits on the other side. “Please…”
I don’t even know what I’m begging for.
For him to be alive?
For it not to be Eli?
Spike moves ahead of me, jaw tight, shoulders squared like he’s walking into a firing squad.
He reaches the front of the chair.
He stops dead.
“He’s alive,” Spike blurts, voice breaking into something not even he can control. “Get the fucking van. We need to get him to the hospital…now.”
That’s all I need.
I rush forward, step in front of the chair…and nearly throw up.
My pretty boy sits slumped in chains, his face under duct tape wrapped so thick it’s practically molded to his skin.
Blood streaks down his face from a gash on his forehead.
More blood…too much…runs down his throat.
But it’s the hand around his neck that hits me like a hammer.
I follow the arms down and see him.
Knuckles.
My brother.
Dead.
Pale.
Eyes open but gone.
A small, peaceful smile frozen on his face.
“He’s dead,” Spike whispers. His voice fractures. “Damnit, Knuckles.”
Foster steps in, hands already reaching. “Help me lower him so we can get to Eli…careful…careful.”
But my vision tunnels.
Everything goes blurry except Eli.
“He’s alive, brother,” Spike says gently. “Look at his eyes.”
My hands shake as I force myself to look.
And there they are.
Eli’s eyes…open and wet with tears, blood drying on his skin, terror still stamped across his face…but alive.
So fucking alive.
“Baby,” I choke, reaching to wipe the tears off him…only to hit the damn duct tape. “Oh God… what did they do to you?”