Chapter 40
Mackenzi paces the house endlessly while we work. Every time she passes the doorway, I can feel her anxiety from across the room.
By the time the sun disappears completely beyond the perimeter walls, the command center feels less like an office and more like a war zone held together by caffeine and determination.
Nearly every screen glows with maps, security footage, shipping routes, and satellite overlays while Mattis works via video conference, looking disturbingly relaxed, considering he spent the entire day doing something that should probably qualify as black magic.
He is fucking terrifying with a computer. I-know-who-shot-JFK and where-Jimmy-Hoffa-is-buried-level terrifying.
Mattis taps a few more times. “There.”
I step closer to the monitor. The screen fills with the screenshot I snapped from the cartel’s video call—a nondescript concrete basement, exposed pipes overhead, industrial lighting, and old water stains along the walls.
Mattis enlarges the image further, then overlays another window beside it of a blueprint.
“You were right about the basement,” he states.
“The exposed utility routing matches older industrial conversions built in the late eighties. Cross-referencing pipe configuration, ceiling height, municipal renovation permits, and CCTV pulls from surrounding districts has narrowed it down to four properties.”
Fucking terrifying.
Hawk whistles. “Jesus Christ.”
On screen, Mattis shrugs slightly.
“Then I ran facial recognition on the cartel guard visible in the reflection of the video.” He taps another key. “Traffic cameras picked him up entering this building six hours ago.”
The screen zooms in on an aging warehouse near the industrial docks. It’s a concrete structure with minimal windows and a fenced perimeter. It looks like exactly the kind of place where people disappear.
Jagger rises from his seat. “That’s our spot.”
Mattis nods once. “Heat signatures show approximately fourteen occupants inside. Five on the upper floors. Most of them concentrated below ground level.”
Meaning the ambassador is almost certainly still alive. For now.
Hawk grabs his rifle from the table. “Let’s go ruin somebody’s night.”
We work diligently to load weapons and check comms. As I pull my tactical vest over my head, I mentally rerun through entry accesses, fallback routes, and choke points. After I’ve tightened the buckle running along my ribs, I look up to see Mackenzi in the doorway, watching me.
Her eyes are raking over me, filled with fear. “I’m scared,” she musters. “This seems dangerous.”
She’s not scared for herself or her father, but for me.
I cross the room, and the second I reach her, she wraps both arms tightly around my waist like she’s been holding herself together by sheer force of will until now.
I wrap around her just as tightly and press my lips to the top of her head.
“You’re going to stay here with Gunnar. I trust him with my life.
” I look at him across the room. “And more importantly, I trust him with yours.”
When I loosen my embrace, her grip tightens, unwilling to let me go.
“I’m coming back, trouble.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.” I cup Mackenzi’s face gently, my thumbs brush softly across her cheeks. “But I can promise I’ll do everything possible to make it back to you.”
Her lips tremble faintly before she nods.
I kiss her slowly. Deep enough to feel her melt against me and long enough that leaving afterward almost feels impossible. When I finally pull away, I rest my forehead briefly against hers. “I love you.” Before she has a chance to respond, I force myself to walk away before I lose the ability to.
I glance at Gunnar as I walk from the room. “Take care of her.”
“As if she were my own.” Gunnar solemnly nods.
The drive to the warehouse takes forty-three minutes.
We’ve all been to this rodeo before. Nobody wastes forty-three minutes pretending this is just another operation.
Hawk spends most of the drive on a call with Reese, his voice quieter than usual.
Jagger talks to Blake and his kids for long enough to tell them goodnight without making it sound like it’s his last one.
I stare at my phone for almost twenty minutes before finally calling Gabriel. He doesn’t answer, not that I expect him to. I haven’t managed to get a response to a call or text since he basically told me to stay the hell out of his life. And honestly, he had every right to.
The voicemail tone sounds in my ear, and I grip the phone tighter.
“Hey… It’s me.” My throat feels rough. “You don’t have to call back.
I just…” I glance out the window at the black highway sliding past us, trying to find the right words and finding there aren’t any.
“I know things are fucked right now. I know you hate me. But I’m sorry for how everything happened.
” Silence stretches for a second before I force the rest out.
“I just wanted to hear your voice tonight. Be safe and…” I swallow hard. “Goodnight, kid.”
I hang up before I can say anything else.
Rain starts as we approach. Drizzle at first, but quickly falling more heavily. By the time we pull into position two blocks from the compound, water streaks across the windshield hard enough to blur the entire world outside into smears of light and shadow. It’s the perfect cover.
Hawk kills the engine. “Visual?”
Jagger lifts binoculars from the center console. “Two guards outside. One elevated near the east entrance.”
“Movement inside?”
“Minimal.” Mattis’s voice crackles through the satellite phone.
We gear up quickly and check our comms one final time.
Rain drenches us when we exit the vehicle, soaking through our clothes and tactical gear within seconds. We move through the alleyways toward the compound perimeter, the warehouse looming larger with every step.
Jagger crouches near the rear fence, cutting through the chain links quietly, while Hawk scans the upper windows through his rifle scope.
“No movement.”
“Too easy,” I chime, my adrenaline already pumping.
After cutting through the fence, our boots stomp across the dark gravel, splashing through puddles on the uneven terrain. Thunder rumbles overhead as we move silently toward the loading entrance.
One guard rounds the corner unexpectedly. He barely has time to inhale, my knife sliding cleanly along his throat before he can make a sound. I lower the body silently to the ground while blood swirls into the rainwater beneath him.
Hawk nods once toward the loading door.
“Breach.”
Jagger plants the charge quickly, arming the charge and counting down with his fingers.
Three.
Two.
One.
The explosion rocks the entire building, gunfire erupting as we enter.
A cartel soldier rounds the shelving units, firing wildly. I put two rounds directly through his chest before he hits the ground. Another appears from the catwalk above, and Hawk drops him with a single headshot.
“Left side!” Jagger shouts just before another burst of gunfire tears through the darkness.
Bullets slam into the metal shelving beside my head. I pivot hard around the cover and fire back twice. A body crashes over the railing above. The warehouse is chaos—shouting in Spanish, boots pounding across the concrete floor, and muzzle flashes exploding in the darkness.
We move, fast but lethal, through the main floor, clearing room after room while cartel soldiers pour from deeper inside the building.
One comes at me from behind a doorway with a machete. I catch his wrist mid-swing and slam him face first into the concrete wall, hard enough to crack bones, before driving my elbow directly into his throat. He collapses, choking to death from his crushed windpipe.
Another cartel soldier charges from the side. I fire once, and blood sprays across stacked crates behind him.
Thunder shakes the building overhead.
“Stairs!” Hawk barks through the comms.
We converge near the back hallway, where two guards rush from the stairwell.
Jagger kills the first. The second slams into me before I can fire.
We crash hard into the wall together. His fist catches my jaw once.
Twice. I drive my knee directly into his ribs, hearing something snap before wrenching the pistol in his hand beneath his jaw and firing. He drops instantly.
“Move!”
We push into the basement stairwell, finding heavier resistance.
Three cartel soldiers open fire from below, and bullets ricochet violently off the concrete walls around us.
Hawk leans around the corner, firing controlled bursts, as Jagger tosses a flashbang down the stairwell.
The explosion detonates seconds later, and we move.
Two disoriented gunmen stagger blindly through the smoke. I shoot both before they recover.
We make our way down the corridor, concrete cells lining one side. At the far end, we find the ambassador. He’s alive. Barely. His face is swollen beyond recognition, one eye completely shut. Blood coats half his shirt, and he sags weakly against the restraints.
“Jesus Christ,” Hawk mutters, providing cover for any threats we may have missed.
I cut the bindings around his wrists. The second his arms come free, he nearly collapses outright. I catch him before he hits the ground, pain tears visibly across his face as he struggles to stay upright.
“Easy.”
His remaining good eye finally focuses properly on me, and I see a flicker of recognition. Followed by disbelief.
I sling his arm heavily around my shoulders while wrapping mine around his waist, assessing his injuries. Broken ribs. Severe bruising. Possible internal bleeding.
“Time to move,” Jagger snaps through the comms, a burst of gunfire echoing overhead.
I haul the ambassador with me as fast as his injuries allow. Holding his arm around my neck and pulling him into me, I lead him limping up the stairs, toward the extraction point, while Hawk and Jagger cover our advance through the warehouse.
More cartel soldiers flood the upper level before we reach the exit. Hawk drops one immediately. Jagger takes another through the shoulder prior to finishing him with a clean shot to the head, and I shove the ambassador behind the concrete as bullets rip through the wall above us.
“Go!” Hawk barks.
We break from the weak cover of the warehouse, rain exploding down on us as soon as we burst outside. The SUV waits down the alley from the breached fence, an ungodly distance in the ambassador’s shape.
Another gunman appears near the loading dock, and I pull my hand from Bradenburg’s waist, firing twice without slowing.
The gunman drops instantly as the ambassador stumbles hard beside me.
“Let’s go,” I snarl, grabbing him again hard enough that he winces in pain as I practically drag him the final distance toward the vehicle.
He groans sharply when he lands against the leather interior, with me scrambling in after him. Hawk jumps behind the wheel as Jagger slams the rear door shut. More gunfire erupts from the warehouse entrance as we peel away into the storm.
The injured man struggles weakly to sit upright, rainwater and blood dripping steadily from his face.
“You’re the last person I expected to come for me.”
“I shouldn’t be,” I answer grimly. “There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for her.” I roughly check his most prominent injuries. “That includes bringing you home because she asked me to. I would walk through fucking hell for her.”
Hawk glances into the rearview mirror, rain hammering violently onto the windshield as the SUV tears through the flooded streets. “Going to them was fucking reckless.”
The ambassador lets out a strained breath that almost sounds like a laugh, then it twists into pain. “I didn’t go to them.”
Jagger looks back from the passenger seat.
I stare at the ambassador sitting beside me, blood still dripping steadily down his throat and soaking into the collar of his ruined shirt. “If you didn’t go to them,” I say slowly, “where the fuck were you going?”
His swollen eye shifts toward me. “The DEA.”
Hawk’s head snaps slightly in the reflection of the rearview mirror. “What?”
The ambassador leans back in the seat, exhausted beyond measure.
“I left the note because I knew Mackenzi would find it after I was gone.” He winces when the vehicle hits a pothole.
“I was on my way to meet with DEA contacts, off-book. I had enough evidence to start dismantling the cartel operations tied to the embassy.”
Jagger stares at him. “You were turning yourself in?”
“I was trying to clean up the mess I’d made.” The ambassador drags a trembling hand across his mouth, smearing blood further across his skin. “They intercepted my vehicle less than ten minutes from the meeting point.”
The ambassador’s head lolls against the headrest before his gaze falls on me. “Is she okay?”
“She’s terrified,” I answer honestly. “But, yes, she’s okay.”
Pain flickers visibly across his battered face. “I never wanted any of this near her.”
“No,” I huff. “You just spent ten years feeding the people responsible.”
He doesn’t argue. After a weak nod, he stares at his blood-covered hands and mutters, “I can’t go home.”
“What?”
His working eye slowly shifts over to me.
“I still have to make this right.”