Chapter 17 Reno #2
And beneath it all, the fear. Not of the dark—darkness had never scared me, not even as a child. Not of the tight spaces, though they made my skin crawl. The fear was simpler than that, and worse: What if the pipe didn't lead anywhere?
We'd seen it on recon. We'd guessed it might run under the warehouse.
But we didn't know. We were gambling everything—the assault, our lives, the lives of the brothers fighting at the front—on a hunch and a hand-drawn map.
If this was a dead end, if it led somewhere useless, if we emerged in the middle of nowhere while Blade's team was slaughtered—
Stop. I forced the thought away. One foot in front of the other. One hand after another. Move.
Then Axel's voice drifted back through the darkness, barely louder than a breath: "Junction ahead. Hold."
We stopped. I could hear my own heartbeat in the silence, could feel Tank's presence behind me like a physical warmth. The darkness pressed in, thick and heavy, and I focused on breathing—just breathing—while Axel moved ahead to scout.
Scraping sounds. A faint grunt. Then silence.
Seconds stretched into eternity.
"We're under the warehouse. I can hear them."
The relief hit me like a wave.
My whole body sagged against the concrete, tension I hadn't even realized I was carrying draining out of me like water through a sieve.
My eyes burned. My throat tightened. We'd found it.
The drain led exactly where we needed it to—not a dead end, not a flooded passage, not a useless exit in the middle of nowhere.
We were under the warehouse. Behind me, I heard Santos let out a shaky breath. Vega laughed—a single, nearly silent huff of disbelief. And Tank's hand found my ankle, squeezed once, his grip trembling slightly with the same relief that was flooding through me.
The gamble had paid off. We crawled forward into the junction—a wider space where multiple pipes converged, tall enough to crouch in.
Faint light filtered down from somewhere above, gray and diffuse, and I could see the others now for the first time since we'd entered the pipe.
Their faces were streaked with grime, their clothes soaked with sweat and worse, but their eyes were bright with the same fierce hope I felt burning in my chest.
Axel was pressed against the wall beneath a rusted grate, head tilted, listening. Declan crouched beside him, rifle ready. Through the grate, I could hear voices—muffled, distant, but unmistakably human. Footsteps. The sound of men moving with purpose.
Axel keyed his radio, his voice barely above a breath: "Nest is warm. Repeat, nest is warm."
A pause, then Hawk's reply crackled through: "Copy that. Overwatch in position. Eagle is two minutes out."
Eagle. Blade's team. They were almost there. We'd all made it.
"Overwatch to insertion team." Hawk's voice crackled through my earpiece, low and calm despite the tension I knew he must be feeling. "In position. Distraction team approaching target. Hold for signal."
Axel keyed his radio twice—acknowledgment without words.
The seconds stretched into minutes. I pressed myself against the damp concrete wall and listened to the sounds above—guards talking in Spanish, something heavy being moved across the floor, a burst of laughter that seemed impossibly normal.
These men had no idea we were beneath their feet.
No idea that seven Phoenix members were crouched in the darkness below them, ready to emerge like demons from the earth.
I checked my weapon. Checked it again. The familiar weight of the rifle in my hands was grounding, something solid to hold onto while the rest of the world spun with uncertainty.
Tank shifted beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched.
In the dim light filtering through the grate, I could see his profile—jaw set, eyes focused, every line of his body radiating controlled tension.
He glanced at me, and something passed between us in that look.
Not words, not even really a message. Just acknowledgment.
I'm here. You're here. Whatever happens, we face it together.
"Distraction team engaging." Hawk's voice again, tighter now, the professional calm strained at the edges. "Hostiles responding. Multiple vehicles approaching the front entrance. Wait for it."
Above us, the voices changed. The casual conversation vanished, replaced by shouts in English and Spanish. Boots running across concrete. Someone yelling orders. The guards had heard the vehicles, had seen Blade's team approaching.
The trap was springing—they just didn't know which side was doing the springing.
"Heavy fire at the front," Hawk reported. "Distraction team taking cover behind vehicles. Hostiles fully engaged. Insertion team, stand by."
We crouched lower, ready to move. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure the others could hear it, a bass drum rhythm that matched the distant staccato of gunfire from the front of the building. This was it. This was the moment everything came together or fell apart.
Then the world exploded.
The blast shook the concrete around us, dust and debris raining down from the grate like gray snow.
Not just an explosion—a detonation, something massive and hungry that seemed to swallow all other sound before vomiting it back as a wall of noise that pressed against my eardrums and rattled my teeth.
The signal. Hawk's signal. Whatever he'd brought, it was bigger than an RPG. Secondary explosions followed, a chain reaction that lit up the warehouse above us with flickering orange light. Something had caught—fuel, maybe, or ammunition. The guards' shouts turned to screams.
"That's our cue." Tank's voice was iron, no room for hesitation. "Go, go, go."
Axel hit the grate with his shoulder, and it gave way in a shower of rust and debris. He was through in an instant, rifle up, sweeping the space above. Declan followed, then Vega, then Santos and Marco, each man flowing up through the opening with practiced efficiency.
Tank grabbed my arm. "Stay close to me."
I nodded, and we went up together.
The warehouse had become a war zone.
Half the front wall was gone, torn open by Hawk's signal—I could see daylight through the breach, see Blade's vans parked at angles outside, muzzle flashes winking from behind them like angry fireflies.
Flames licked at the edges of the wound, spreading quickly across something flammable that had been stored too close to the entrance.
Smoke hung thick in the air, acrid and choking, turning the industrial lighting into hazy orange halos that gave everything a hellish, unreal quality.
The smell hit me first—burning plastic, cordite, the copper tang of blood already spilling. Then the sound: gunfire crackling from every direction, men screaming orders in Spanish and English, the groan of metal as something structural gave way near the front.
Men were running everywhere—some toward the breach, some away from it, some just staggering in shock from the explosion. The guards who'd seemed so confident moments ago were now scrambling, their carefully rehearsed positions abandoned in the pandemonium.
"Fan out!" Axel's voice cut through the noise. "Clear the west side! Tank, Tyler—center! Push toward the shipment!"
Our team dispersed into the smoke, each man finding his own path through the maze of shelving and debris.
Axel and Declan peeled left, their rifles speaking in sharp, controlled bursts.
Vega, Santos, and Marco went right, disappearing into the gray haze.
Tank grabbed my arm and pulled me forward, toward the center of the building. Toward the shipment.
I had my rifle up, stock tight against my shoulder, moving the way I'd been trained at Quantico—quick but controlled, scanning corners, checking angles.
A guard emerged from behind a crate, weapon raised, mouth opening to shout a warning.
Tank put him down before the sound could form—two suppressed shots that punched through the man's chest and dropped him like a puppet with cut strings.
Blood sprayed across the concrete. We stepped over the body and kept moving.
Another guard, this one facing away from us, shouting into a radio. I squeezed my trigger—a three-round burst that stitched up his spine, the impacts jerking his body like electric shocks before he collapsed. No hesitation, no thought. Just action. The guilt could come later, if there was a later.
We worked through the maze of shelving and crates, boots splashing through puddles of something I didn't want to identify.
Tank moved ahead while I covered, then I moved while he covered—a leapfrog rhythm drilled into me during FBI tactical training.
Clear left. Clear right. Contact ahead—take him. Move.
A bullet snapped past my ear, close enough that I felt the heat of its passage, and I dropped to one knee, returning fire at the muzzle flash. The shooter stumbled back, clutching his throat, and went down gurgling.
The training was taking over now—years of FBI drills and range time, the muscle memory of a hundred simulated engagements. My body knew what to do even when my conscious mind couldn't keep up. Sight picture. Breath control. Squeeze, don't pull.
We found the shipment near the loading dock.
Pallets stacked five high, wrapped in industrial plastic, exactly where Vince had said they'd be.
Thousands of pills—fentanyl-laced poison that would kill addicts across three states if it reached distribution.
The sight of it should have felt like victory.
My gut screamed that it was wrong. "Tank." I grabbed his arm, pulled him behind a forklift. "Something's off."
He scanned the area, rifle up, eyes sharp. "What?"