Chapter 12
The man in scrubs moves through the hospital as if he clocked in hours ago.
The fabric hangs over a body that doesn't belong in a hospital uniform. His shoulders are broad, his chest thick and powerful, and his arms fill the sleeves with the dense muscle of someone built for violence rather than medicine.
The surgical mask covers the lower half of his face, but his eyes are impossible to ignore. They hold a cold focus, the kind of steady attention that makes people instinctively uneasy without understanding why.
A clipped ID badge swings lightly against his chest, catching the harsh hospital lights as he moves.
No one questions him.
Nurses hurry past with charts clutched in their hands. Orderlies push gurneys down the corridor without looking up. Doctors speak into phones while walking quickly between rooms, too distracted by their own urgency to notice the danger moving calmly among them.
He slips into the rhythm without hesitation.
That is his talent.
He can mimic any environment, match its pulse, and disappear inside it.
He steps into the elevator and presses the button for the third floor. The doors close behind him with a soft hiss, sealing him in with his reflection. Sun-warmed skin. Eyes calm and undisturbed by the violence he is minutes away from unleashing.
He rolls his shoulders once, muscles shifting beneath the scrub top, and adjusts the extra set of scrubs in his hands.
The doors slide open.
The third-floor hallway is quiet except for the soft beeping of monitors behind closed doors. Two FBI agents guard the room at the end of the corridor.
The intruder approaches with a clipboard tucked under his arm, posture loose and unbothered.
“Wound check on the detainee,” he says, muffled through the surgical mask.
One of the agents steps in his path, eyes hard. “Bullshit. We didn’t authorize shit.”
The other cocks his head, already sizing him up. “What are you, new? You think we don’t check credentials?”
The first agent jabs a finger toward the badge. “This look real to you? Doesn’t look real to me.”
“You’ve got about five seconds to explain who the fuck you are before we put you face down,” the second adds, his hand hovering near his holster.
The intruder doesn't answer.
Instead, he shifts the scrubs in his grip, unfolding them just enough. A large hunting knife slides free from the fabric. The blade flashes under the fluorescent lights.
He steps in before either man fully understands what is happening.
The knife tears across the first agent’s throat in one brutal sweep.
The blade opens him from one side of the neck to the other.
Skin splits wide, and the cut peels open as blood surges out in a thick, violent rush.
The man’s voice collapses into a wet choking sound as he grabs at his throat.
Blood pours between his fingers, spilling down his chest and splattering the floor as his knees give out.
The second agent finally moves, his hand dropping toward his weapon.
He doesn't get it out.
The intruder drives the knife straight into the man’s eye.
The blade punches through the socket with a sickening crack of bone. The agent’s body convulses as the knife sinks deep into his skull. Blood and fluid stream down his face as his legs buckle beneath him.
The intruder wrenches the blade free. Both bodies hit the floor. He steps over them without even looking down. To him, killing is not an event.
It is a task.
He pushes into the room without hesitation and closes the door behind him.
The third guard inside the room stands up immediately, his chair scraping hard against the floor. “Hey, who the fuck are you supposed to—”
The intruder’s hand slides behind his back again and pulls a pistol fitted with a suppressor.
He raises it and fires.
The muted shot pops through the room, the bullet punching straight through the guard’s skull before he can finish the sentence. The impact snaps his head backward and blows blood and bone against the wall behind him.
The guard collapses back into the chair and slides sideways, his body folding awkwardly as blood runs down his collar and drips onto the floor.
Now the room is silent except for the rhythmic beep of the cardiac monitor.
Seth lies on the hospital bed, pale beneath the harsh lights. Wires drape over his body. Bandages wrap his chest. A handcuff bites into his wrist, chaining him to the bedrail.
His eyes open slowly, tracking the intruder with a mixture of pain, recognition, and relief that he doesn't waste energy trying to hide.
The man lowers his mask, revealing sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw dusted with dark stubble, and eyes that are colder up close. His hair is swept back in a loose tie, a few strands falling around his temples. The clean cut disguise hasn’t dulled the lethal energy he carries like a second skin.
“Wow. You look like shit,” the intruder says dryly.
Seth’s lips twitch despite everything, the faintest ghost of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Missed you too.”
The intruder crosses the room with the calm of someone walking through a grocery aisle instead of a hospital room with three fresh bodies. He bends over the dead guard, pulls the keys from the man’s belt, and unlocks the cuff around Seth’s wrist. The latch snaps open with a quiet metallic click.
He straightens, flicks the blood from the knife onto the floor, then gathers the extra scrubs in his hand and tosses the folded bundle onto the bed.
“Get changed.”
Seth stares at the clothes for a second, then forces himself to swing his legs over the side of the bed.
Pain rips through his side immediately. His body folds forward, breath leaving him in a rough grunt as the bandages across his shoulder and ribs pull tight.
He tries to stand anyway.
His knees wobble under him, and for a moment it looks like he might collapse back onto the mattress.
The intruder catches him by the arm before he can fall.
Seth shakes him off and forces himself upright again. Every movement looks stiff and wrong, his body fighting him with every step as he strips off the blood-stained hospital shirt and pulls the scrubs over his bandaged torso.
Seth steps into the scrub pants, bracing one hand against the bed as another spike of pain shoots through his ribs. When he finishes changing, he looks down at the floor.
His boots are gone.
All that waits there are the thin gray hospital slippers.
Seth stares at them with visible irritation before stepping into them anyway.
The intruder looks down at Seth’s feet and huffs out a quiet laugh.
Seth shoots him a glare.
“They took her,” Seth says. “We have to get her back.”
The intruder studies him for a moment. Seth can barely stand without bracing himself against the bed, sweat already gathering along his hairline.
“You can barely stand.”
“I don’t care,” Seth snaps. “We’re finding Brooke.”
The intruder lets out a slow breath that sounds halfway between annoyance and reluctant amusement.
“Alright, let’s go before the entire Bureau realizes their agents are dead.”
He slides Seth’s arm over his shoulders and hauls him upright with practiced ease. Seth forces his legs to cooperate, the hospital slippers dragging against the floor for a moment before he manages to move.
They head for the door.
Two more armed agents round the corner at the far end of the hallway.
They stop the moment they see them.
Their eyes move past Seth first, then shift behind him. Both men spot the bodies in the hospital room and the blood spreading across the floor just beyond the doorway. The recognition hits their faces all at once. Hands drop toward their holsters.
The intruder doesn't hesitate.
He raises the pistol and fires twice in quick succession.
The first bullet strikes the nearer agent high in the chest, snapping his body backward into the wall. The second shot hits the other man a fraction of a second later, punching through his throat and blowing blood across the pale hallway tiles.
Both men collapse almost immediately. One slides down the wall, leaving a thick smear of red behind him. The other drops straight to the floor, his weapon clattering uselessly from his hand.
Seth barely glances at the bodies.
He steps over one of them without slowing.
They turn the corner toward the stairwell. That is when the nurse steps out of a side room.
She stops cold. Her gaze drops to the blood streaking the tile. Then to the agents sprawled across it. Then to the gun in the intruder’s hand. Her mouth parts. In her hands is a clear plastic belongings bag.
Inside it, coiled at the bottom, is the necklace. The vial catches the light.
For a second, no one moves.
Seth’s pulse kicks hard in his throat. He steps toward her.
She flinches, back hitting the wall.
“I was just bringing this to—” Her voice trembles. “They told me to log it, but I thought—”
Seth doesn’t answer.
He takes the bag from her hands. His fingers tear the plastic open. The thin hospital seal snaps. He pulls the necklace free.
The chain is cold against his skin as he loops it over his head. The vial settles against his sternum, right over the bloody bandage.
He looks at the nurse. She is staring at the bodies again, shock overtaking her training. Her hands shake. She looks like she might drop.
Seth doesn’t offer reassurance. He doesn’t threaten her either. He simply walks past her.
The intruder follows, stepping over another agent without breaking pace.
Behind them, the nurse slides down the wall slowly, still clutching the torn plastic bag, staring at the blood pooling across the sterile floor.
Seth doesn’t look back.
They enter the stairwell. The intruder clears each landing with methodical precision. Seth stays quiet, conserving strength for violence.
When they reach the bottom exit, he pushes the door open and guides Seth into the cold night air.
A dark SUV idles near the curb. Travis is in the driver’s seat, wide-eyed, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turn white.
“Shit—Seth—get in—quick,” Travis shouts, voice cracking.
The intruder eases Seth into the backseat. Seth collapses against the upholstery with a sharp hiss of pain.
Travis looks back at Seth. “Is he okay? Is he—”
“He’ll live,” the intruder closes the passenger door. “Drive.”
Travis hits the gas so hard the tires screech.
The intruder leans back, finally letting the tension leave his shoulders. He looks back at Seth, whose eyes are half-lidded but still burning with purpose.
“You’re welcome,” the intruder says.
Seth hisses as he adjusts in the seat.
“Thanks, Beau.”
Beau nods once.
Seth watches Beau reassemble his pistol with effortless precision and feels a cold, focused clarity settle in his chest.
They had once turned entire operations into rubble when they worked side by side. They had once wiped out threats their commanding officers swore were “unmanageable.”
There were reports that never made it past internal review. Photos that were sealed. Debriefs that grew quiet when certain details came up.
Men left gutted in alleyways after refusing to talk.
One insurgent found without his scalp because Beau needed the others to understand he was done negotiating.
Interrogations that ran long enough for other Marines to step outside and light cigarettes they didn’t even want, just to avoid hearing what was happening in the room.
Other Marines called it excessive. Seth and Beau called it efficient.
Command called it a problem.
They were not discharged for incompetence. They were removed because mercy had never been their strength.
Beau checks his weapon without looking down and slides it back into place.
“We’ll get her, Seth. Those motherfuckers are in for a rude awakening.”
Seth stares out the windshield, the night reflecting faintly in his eyes. The panic that had nearly drowned him in the hospital has burned off. What remains is cold and focused.
His jaw tightens. “They have no idea what hell they just brought into their lives.”
It is not a threat. It is a promise already set in motion.
They had once been warned to rein it in. To remember optics. To consider consequences. They didn’t. They adapted.
Whoever has Brooke believes they are holding the leverage. Believes they have the upper hand. They don't understand what it means to corner men who no longer care about survival, reputation, or aftermath.
Restraint had been the only thing that ever kept Seth and Beau contained.
And restraint is gone.