Chapter 19
Dozer
The safe house is supposed to be clean.
Hunter's people vetted it personally, a rental under a shell name three states removed from anything connected to Spartan Elite, the kind of place that shouldn't exist on any list anyone hostile could access. No obvious surveillance or predictable approach. No reason for anyone to know we are here.
Four hours in, I'm starting to believe it. That's my first mistake.
Kenzi is at the kitchen table with the evidence spread out in front of her, photographing documents and making notes in the margins of a legal pad, when she suddenly goes still. Not startled. Still. I've learned the difference.
"Someone's outside."
I'm already moving toward the window before she finishes the sentence.
I don't ask how she knows. Four days ago, I would've. Now I trust the way her instincts work because she hasn't been wrong once when it mattered. She has better hearing than I do and she hears and sees things that most people who aren’t special forces operators, aren’t trained to notice.
I kill the kitchen light and move to the edge of the curtain. Two vehicles with their headlights off. Parked at an angle that keeps them out of the obvious sightline from the front windows. That means one thing, they are professional. My stomach drops. Why the fuck does this keep happening?
"We need to move."
Kenzi is already gathering the evidence. "How did they find us?" she asks. "Hunter said this place was clean."
"It was supposed to be." Which is worse. A compromised route is one thing. A burned lab contact is another. But this is a safe house specifically vetted to disappear us. Somebody has access deeper than I accounted for. Someone has to have access to something. Our phones? Hunter’s phone?
Could his office be bugged? I have no time to think about any of that.
The first breach comes through the back door. This time is different. He’s fast. No announcement this time. No fake badges or attempt to talk. They've learned from the train.
"Kenzi, go. Now."
She grabs the evidence case without needing another word. She doesn't question what stays behind. Doesn't waste two seconds trying to save the laptop or the gear or anything else we brought into this house. She takes the one thing worth getting killed for, the physical evidence.
The door explodes inward. The first man comes through low and fast, weapon already coming up.
I meet him before he clears the frame. There isn't room for hesitation.
I drive him back, strip the weapon, put him down hard enough that he stays down.
The second man is through the opening before the first hits the floor, and this one is better.
Faster. He gets a shot off. It tears through the wall behind me. I close the distance anyway.
For a few seconds, everything becomes movement and sound.
My body goes into muscle memory, this is why we train.
We train hard and we train often so in situations like this we can react without thinking.
My shoulder hits the wall. His elbow catches my ribs.
My fist connects. His weapon clatters. I hear glass breaking somewhere behind me.
"Kenzi?" I call out.
"Still here."
Of course she is. I glance toward the front of the house. She's already moving, case against her chest, eyes tracking the fight without freezing in place. Then I see the third man coming around the side.
"Window."
She doesn't ask why. I cross the room, grab her hand, and pull her toward the back window.
"Go."
I smash the glass with my elbow. She climbs through without hesitation. My hand stays around hers for one extra second as she drops into the dark yard. Then she's gone. I follow.
Behind us, the safe house erupts. Shouting. A flash of orange through the broken windows. They've started burning the place. I don't look back twice.
We run. Not far. Half a mile, maybe less, cutting through a tree line that gives us enough darkness and distance to break the immediate perimeter.
Branches tear at my sleeves. The ground is uneven.
Kenzi keeps pace beside me, still carrying the evidence case.
I don't tell her to drop it. I know she won’t.
When we finally stop behind a stand of trees, both of us are breathing hard. I do the count. We’re both upright and breathing. Still alive. That's enough for now.
"We lost everything," Kenzi says. She's still holding the case. "Car. Gear. Burner line to Hunter." She looks down at herself. "And I'm fairly sure I left my last clean shirt in that house."
"We'll get another shirt."
She stares at me. "That is not the point I was making."
"I know."
I look back toward the distant glow between the trees. The safe house is burning. Hunter's people swore it was clean. Four hours. That's all it took.
"This is bad," I say.
Kenzi's expression shifts. "How bad?"
"Whoever's doing this has access I didn't account for. Deeper than our routes. Deeper than the labs."
"Hunter."
I nod. "Someone close enough to his operation to burn a location built specifically to be invisible."
She looks down at the evidence case. "Which means the leak isn't low-level."
"No." I look at her. "It's not."
The silence that follows is different from the ones we've shared before. We’re stripped down to nothing. No weapons within easy reach, besides the handgun I currently have. We can’t go back for the vehicle or phones. There’s nothing between us and the people hunting us except distance and trees.
And each other.
Kenzi's hands start shaking. She tries to hide it by shifting the evidence case. I catch her wrist gently.
"Hey." I say low. “Look at me.”
"I'm fine."
"I know. Look at me."
She looks at me. I keep my hand around her wrist. Her pulse beats fast beneath my thumb.
"You don't have to be fine yet." I tell her. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Something changes in her face. The fight goes out of her shoulders by half an inch. "I hate this part."
"The shaking?"
"The part where my body realizes what happened before my brain does."
"I know."
Her eyes stay on mine. "Do you?"
"Yeah."
I turn her hand over and lace my fingers through hers. It's not tactical. It's not necessary. It's just the only thing that feels right. She looks down at our joined hands, then back at me.
"We're in the woods," she says quietly, "with no car, no phones, no backup, and people actively trying to kill us."
"Correct."
"And you're holding my hand."
"Also correct."
"You're weird."
"So I've been told recently."
She almost laughs. It comes out shaky, but it's real. I squeeze her hand once.
"We'll figure it out."
"Those are some strange words to bet our lives on."
"It's the only ones I’ve got."
She studies me for a second. Then her fingers tighten around mine.
"Okay." I release her hand reluctantly and look toward the dark beyond the trees. "Which way?" she asks.
I pick a direction. She falls in beside me without argument. For once, I don't walk ahead of her. I keep pace. Shoulder to shoulder. Close enough that our hands brush every few steps.
The evidence case is the only thing we've managed to save. But as I look at the woman walking beside me, I know the truth. The case matters. The evidence matters. The people in those files matter. But somewhere along the way, protecting Kenzi stopped being just part of the mission.
Now she's part of what I'm trying to get home because I want her to be my home.
And that makes everything ahead of us considerably more dangerous. Because, I’ll kill anyone who threatens my home.