Chapter Thirteen
Rangi hated this part. Not the drive. Not the setup. Not even the fact that they were about to walk straight back into a place that chewed people up and spat them out when they stopped being useful.
He hated the distance.
Hated the fact that Keanu was ahead of them—out there alone, even if it was by design. Even if it was necessary and part of the plan.
His hands rested loose on the wheel, but there was nothing relaxed about him.
The engine beneath them hummed low and controlled, the blacked-out SUV eating up the uneven road as they moved without headlights, guided by memory, instinct, and the faint glow of Keanu’s car cutting through the dark ahead.
Ahi.
Even from here, Rangi could feel it. The shift.
The way the world bent slightly around that car, like it recognized what it was before anyone said the name out loud.
Beside him, Alexios sat angled just enough to see past him through the windscreen, one arm braced lightly against the dash, the other resting near his thigh. Calm. Still.
Watching and processing everything. Rangi exhaled slowly, eyes tracking the road, the edges, the movement that most people would miss.
“They’ve tightened it,” he muttered.
“They have,” Alexios agreed.
No hesitation. No delay. That was Alexios.
Rangi glanced at him briefly. “More than last time.”
“Yes. They are expecting disruption.”
Rangi huffed quietly. “Good.”
Because if they were expecting something—they weren’t expecting it from them.
The road dipped, the terrain shifting under the tires as the surface gave way to something rougher, less maintained, more ... intentional.
Rangi knew this road. Not this exact one, but definitely the type. The kind that didn’t forgive mistakes and didn’t give second chances.
Ahead of them, Keanu’s car didn’t slow. Didn’t hesitate. It moved like it belonged there.
Rangi’s grip tightened slightly on the wheel.
“Perimeter density has increased,” Luca’s voice came through the comms. “Multiple elevated positions. Heat signatures—armed.”
Rangi’s gaze flicked to the ridgeline. There.
Movement. Not obvious. But enough.
“Yeah,” he said. “I see them.”
Alexios leaned forward slightly, adjusting his angle. “North ridge. East tower. Rear structure.”
Rangi snorted softly. “You counting that off for fun or—”
“Efficiency,” Alexios replied.
Rangi shook his head. “Yeah. That.”
But his focus didn’t slip. He couldn’t allow it to because now—the circuit was coming into view.
It spread out ahead of them in broken light and shadow, engines revving in uneven bursts, people moving in loose clusters that didn’t feel loose at all once you looked properly.
Cars weren’t just parked—they were placed.
People weren’t just moving—they were directed.
And the drivers—the drivers were being watched.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
“They are selecting already,” Alexios said.
Rangi followed his gaze, and his jaw tightened.
“Yeah,” he said. “I see it.”
A beat.
Then Keanu’s voice came through, low and steady. “We’re not late to the party, at least.”
Rangi’s mouth curved slightly.
“To be fair,” Rangi replied. “It’s really not a party until we turn up.”
This was a system built to break people down and rebuild them into something useful or disposable.
Ahead of them, Keanu rolled into position. And just like that—everything shifted. It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t gradual. It locked.
Ahi.
Rangi felt it ripple through the space even from here—the way attention snapped toward him, the way people adjusted, recalculated.
“Eyes are on him,” Victor confirmed.
“No shit,” Rangi muttered.
Alexios didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But Rangi could feel the shift in him—the way his attention narrowed, the way his entire body aligned toward one thing.
Keanu. Always Keanu.
“Rangi.” Keanu’s voice again.
“Yeah.”
“You see the pull?”
Rangi didn’t need to look again.
“Yeah,” he said, voice rough now. “Far side. They’ve tagged him.”
The kid was already moving. Not willingly. But not fighting either. Because people like that—they didn’t give you something to fight.
They just ... took you.
Alexios spoke, quieter now. “They are accelerating selection.”
Rangi’s grip tightened on the wheel.
“We’re right on time,” Keanu said.
Ahead, the handler stepped up to Keanu’s car. Rangi watched the interaction, tracking every movement, every shift in posture. Then he cast a look around the space, tracking everything and everyone, and then Rangi’s gaze flicked back to Keanu’s car.
To the man inside it. To the one who had just—without hesitation—stepped back into this for them.
His jaw tightened. They would not lose him, not this time. Never again.
“Kael,” Keanu said through comms.
Silence.
Then—“I’ve got visual confirmation.”
Everything in Rangi stilled. He shifted his foot slightly on the pedal, ready to move the second the call came. Beside him, Alexios didn’t move. He was already locked in. Waiting.
Rangi’s gaze fixed on the line ahead. “Say it.”
The weight of what they were about to do settled on him, and there was nothing but anticipation of the violence and the justice they would serve flowing through his system.
Then Kael said it. “Now.”
Rangi didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think. Didn’t wait.
He drove straight into hell.
****
“Now,” Kael said.
The word didn’t need volume. It carried anyway.
In Keanu’s ear, it landed like a switch thrown. He didn’t move immediately. Didn’t reach for the ignition.
He held the man’s gaze across the hood for one fraction longer—long enough to make it look like consideration, like calculation, like he might be deciding whether to step deeper into whatever was being offered.
Then everything broke.
“Contact—north ridge, three,” Victor’s voice snapped over comms. “Snipers setting.”
“Copy that,” Kael replied, already moving. “Take them.”
A suppressed crack split the night—sharp, contained. One of the shadows above the track folded. Then another. The third tried to move to safety but didn’t make it two steps.
Chaos didn’t erupt all at once. It fractured. Small breaks that widened fast.
The handler in front of Keanu flinched—just enough—and that was all Keanu needed.
He dropped his hand to the ignition, and his engine roared back to life.
“Move,” he said.
The two men by the handler reached for weapons. Too slow.
Keanu dumped the clutch and snapped the wheel, the car lunging forward and sideways in the same motion, the rear kicking out hard enough to take one of them off his feet. The other staggered back, weapon coming up—and a shot cracked from the darkness.
The man went down.
“Perimeter’s hot,” Luca said. “Multiple hostiles engaging. Vehicles inbound from the south—fast.”
Keanu spun the car through a tight arc, headlights flaring across the track.
“Rangi,” he said.
“Already moving,” came the reply—low, feral, right where Keanu expected it.
The east side exploded into motion.
Rangi came out of the shadows like something let off a chain—close, brutal, no wasted movement. He hit the first guard at speed, shoulder-driving into the man’s center before his fist followed, hard and decisive. Bone gave. The man dropped.
Another swung.
Rangi stepped inside it, elbow up, then drove the man back into the side of a car with a crack of metal and breath leaving lungs.
“Two down,” he said, not even breathing hard. “Driver’s clear.”
“Keep him moving,” Kael ordered. “Get them to the extraction lane.”
“On it.”
Alexios didn’t crash into the fight so much as he cut through it.
Where Rangi was impact, Alexios was angles—appearing where he needed to be, removing problems before they fully formed.
A man raised a weapon toward the cluster of drivers being pushed toward the far exit—Alexios was there, wrist locking, redirecting, the shot snapping wide as he drove the man down and finished it clean.
“West corridor secured,” he said calmly. “Three drivers moving. Two require support.”
“Victor, cover,” Kael said.
“On it.”
Another suppressed crack and a body dropped near Alexios’s path.
Keanu pushed the car forward again, using it now as more than transport—cover, disruption, force.
He cut across the track, blocking a line of incoming vehicles, forcing them to brake hard or crash.
One clipped the side of his car—metal screamed—but Keanu rode it out, correcting, shoving the other vehicle wide.
“Easy,” Drew’s voice came through, dry even now. “I just fixed that.”
Keanu huffed a sharp breath. “You can fix it again.”
“Not if you wrap it around a truck.”
“Working on not doing that.”
Another vehicle surged in from the south. Faster. Heavier.
“Intercepting,” Keanu said.
“Negative,” Kael snapped. “You stay mobile. Do not get boxed in.”
Too late. The truck swung wide, cutting across the track, trying to pin him between concrete and steel. Keanu didn’t brake.
He dropped a gear and punched through the narrowing gap, the side mirror shearing off as he skimmed the barrier, sparks flaring in a brief cascade of light.
“Jesus,” Rangi breathed. “Show-off.”
Keanu grinned under the helmet. “You love it.”
“Focus.” Alexios’s voice, sharp now.
Keanu snapped his attention back.
The drivers—five of them—were moving across the far side of the track, staggered, unsteady. Two were being supported by Rangi and another of Kael’s team. One stumbled—and a shot rang out from deeper in the compound.
The man jerked, going down.
Everything in Keanu’s chest went cold.
“Shooter,” Victor said immediately. “Rear structure. Second level.”
“I’ve got him,” Alexios replied.
He moved before the sentence finished—cutting toward the structure, low and fast, using shadow and angle instead of speed alone. Another shot cracked—too close to the cluster of drivers—and then Alexios was there.
A flash of movement in a dark window.
A brief, brutal struggle.
Then silence.
“Shooter down,” Alexios said, voice even. “Continue movement.”
“Copy,” Kael said. “All teams—extract. Now.”
This time, chaos did come all at once. Because now Crucible knew.
Keanu swung the car back toward the extraction lane, cutting in front of the moving group.
“Load them,” he said.
Rangi didn’t argue.
He shoved one of the drivers into the back seat, hauled another in behind him, then slammed the door.
“Two more coming,” he said. “Alexios—”
“I’m here.” Alexios appeared at his shoulder, guiding the last two in with efficient, controlled movement.
“Go,” he said.
Keanu didn’t wait. He hit the throttle.
The car surged forward, tearing away from the line as rounds cracked behind them, one pinging off the rear panel, another shattering what was left of the mirror.
“Left,” Luca said. “Take the service road. We’ve cleared it.”
Keanu swung the wheel, cutting hard onto the narrow access road that peeled away from the circuit.
Behind them, the noise followed for a few seconds—engines, shouting—
Then faded. Because Black Tide didn’t just hit. They controlled the exit. Victor’s voice came through, steady.
“Pursuit broken.”
Kael followed. “Status.”
“Five drivers secured,” Alexios said from the back, already assessing. “One critical. Two moderate. Two stable.”
Rangi exhaled slowly. “We got them out.”
Keanu kept his eyes on the road, hands steady on the wheel. But something in his chest eased.
“Not all of them,” he said quietly.
“No,” Rangi replied.
A beat.
Then—
“The ones that are still missing, they will be with the leadership, for sure. We find them. We get to set them free too.”
Keanu nodded once.
The road stretched out ahead of them, dark and open.
Behind them, the circuit burned with noise and light and the beginnings of something unraveling.
But this—this wasn’t the end.
And as Keanu pushed the car faster into the night—one thought settled, sharp and certain.
They weren’t done.
Not even close.