Chapter 24 Carter
Carter
The warehouse rose out of the dark like a scar on the city—rusted siding, chain-link fence, shadows pooling where the lights had burned out long ago.
From the passenger seat, I could see it all: the van parked crooked near the bay doors, a man smoking by the fence, another pacing the loading dock. Predators pretending to be guards.
Harper was inside. I felt it in my bones.
“Two on the perimeter,” River murmured, sighting through his scope. “Movement on the roof.”
“Signals are scrambled,” Aponi added from the back, her laptop alive with fractured feeds. “They know we’re coming.”
Good. Let them.
Faron’s gaze cut to me, sharp as a blade. “Robinson—you don’t break formation.”
I strapped my vest tighter, Glock already warm in my hand. “If she’s in there, nothing keeps me from her.”
“Carter—”
“She’s mine.” The words came out like a growl, low and lethal. “And I’m not leaving without her.”
The silence that followed was short, brutal, broken only by Gideon’s dark chuckle. “Then let’s clear a path.”
We moved.
The fence came down in seconds, cutters snapping steel links. The first guard didn’t even see me before my forearm crushed his windpipe, dropping him like dead weight. I dragged him into the shadows, pulse hammering, vision narrowing to one point: the door.
Every sound sharpened—the creak of a boot on gravel, the hiss of a lighter, the click of River’s suppressed shot taking down the man on the roof.
Faron signaled, three fingers raised, then dropped.
We breached.
The bay doors rattled open under Gideon’s charge, metal screaming against metal. Flashbangs clattered inside, detonating in white fire and sound.
And then the storm broke.
Gunfire erupted, shouts slicing the dark. I pushed through smoke and chaos, every muscle wired for one thing—Harper. My boots pounded against concrete, my eyes cutting through bodies and bullets, searching, hunting.
“Second floor!” Aponi’s voice cracked in my earpiece. “Thermal’s got three heat signatures in a side room. One matches her size.”
That was all I needed.
I took the stairs two at a time, rage burning hot enough to sear the edges off my fear. A man stepped out, weapon raised, but I was faster. Two shots, center mass. He dropped.
I hit the hallway running, every instinct screaming that I was close.
“Hold on, Harper,” I muttered, teeth gritted. “I’m coming.”
And God help anyone standing between me and that door.