Chapter 2 Frost
TWO
FROST
I leave my phone in the truck. Can't risk it buzzing during breach.
Then I move.
Quarter mile on foot across open desert, staying low, using scrub brush and shadow for cover.
The sand is soft under my boots, muffling my steps.
The warehouse grows larger with each careful advance, and I can make out details now—corrugated metal walls, windows lit from inside, three vehicles parked near the entrance.
I pull down my night vision, scan the perimeter. Two tangos outside smoking, their heat signatures bright green against the cool desert. The two men from the bar. They're facing the vehicles, backs to the open desert, talking and laughing. Sloppy.
I switch to thermal, scan through the windows. Three more signatures inside. One isolated in what looks like a back room.
Five tangos total. One potential hostage.
I've fought worse odds in worse places.
I circle wide, approaching from the building's blind side where the exterior lights don't reach. The two cartel members are still outside, now arguing about a penalty call in last week's game, completely oblivious to the fact that someone's closing in.
Both carry Glocks, safeties off, rounds chambered. Sloppy and stupid, but it tells me they're not expecting trouble out here.
Twenty feet. The smell of their cigarette smoke reaches me.
Ten feet. I can hear every word they're saying now.
Five feet. Close enough to see the Glocks poorly concealed at the small of their backs.
I move.
First tango doesn’t see me until the suppressor touches his temple—too late, already dead—I’m catching his weight before his legs remember to give out.
Second tango turns, mouth opening for a shout that never comes. Double-tap. Center mass. He folds like paper.
I drag both bodies into the shadows. Thirty seconds elapsed.
The side door is unlocked. Overconfident. I test the handle slowly, feel it give, ease it open just enough to slip through.
Inside, the air is cooler, heavy with the smell of concrete dust and motor oil. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, casting harsh shadows. I move down the hallway, weapon up, each step deliberate and silent.
First tango at the front door, guard position, but he's watching the vehicles outside instead of covering his six.
Fatal mistake.
I clear the corner, line up the shot. Suppressed round to the back of the head. He drops without a sound, and I'm already moving past him.
Second room—office setup, metal desk, paperwork scattered. Tango sitting with his back to the door, counting money in neat stacks. He never hears me. Double-tap to the back of the skull. Bills flutter as he slumps forward.
The third tango is in what passes for a break room, making coffee at a single-burner hotplate. The smell of burnt coffee fills the small space. I'm on him before he can turn, single shot, and he goes down beside the hotplate.
Five tangos down. Clean. Silent. Efficient.
I clear the rest of the warehouse methodically—storage areas filled with plastic-wrapped pallets, empty offices with broken chairs and old calendars on the walls. Nothing.
Back corner of the building. Closed door with light showing underneath.
I stack on the door, control my breathing, let my heart rate settle. Then I breach.
The woman is zip-tied to a metal chair in the center of the small room.
First thing I notice: blood dried on her temple from a head wound, dark and crusted.
Bruises on her wrists where the zip ties cut in.
But her eyes—that's what stops me. Sharp and alert, tracking my movement the instant I come through the door.
Tactical assessment, not panic. Not relief. Cold calculation.
Not the eyes of a victim.
The eyes of someone who's been in combat.
Papers are spread on a metal table beside her. Legal documents. Printed forms. Numbers. Signature lines.
She doesn't scream. Doesn't beg. Just watches me for three full seconds, then speaks.
"Not that I mind the rescue, but who the hell are you? You bring any back up or just that scowl?" Southern accent, clear and controlled. Arresting.
I blink. Not the response I expected from someone who's been held captive for three days.
I move to her, pulling my knife from the thigh sheath. She holds completely still as I cut the zip ties, doesn't flinch when the blade comes within inches of her skin. The plastic falls away, and she immediately brings her hands up, flexing her fingers, checking circulation.
I sheath the knife, reach for her face to check her pupils. She lets me, but I can feel the tension in her, the coiled readiness to fight if I cross a line.
"How many fingers?" I hold up three.
"Three. I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
"It's dried. I'm a medic. I know triage." She stands without my help, tests her weight on both legs. Steady. No tremor. "You military? Delta?"
No Delta operator advertises it—ever. The word's a ghost, unspoken even in whispers. "Guardian," I say instead, letting her puzzle it out. I look at her. "Can you walk?"
She meets my eyes, and there's steel there. "I can walk. But I'm not leaving."
Of course not. Nothing about this woman is easy.
"You are leaving. Now."
"Not without my brother."
I keep my voice level and controlled. "Intel said one hostage."
"Your intel was wrong." Her jaw sets, stubborn. "They took us from my apartment in Tucson three days ago. They've been keeping us separated. They're holding him somewhere until I sign." She gestures to the papers on the table.
I swept this entire building. Every room. Every closet. "Your brother's not here."
First crack in her composure—a flicker of fear in her eyes before she shoves it down.
"Then they moved him. But he's alive. They said if I signed, they'd bring him back.
They said they need information about what our mother left us.
Some kind of—I don't know, hidden accounts or property or something. They've been interrogating him."
I look at the papers for the first time, really look. Trust fund documents. Four hundred thousand dollars. Established by Margaret Brooks. Two signature lines at the bottom: Magnolia Brooks and Tyler Brooks. Both blank. Both required to access the funds.
Something's wrong here. The pieces don't fit.
"What's your name?"
"Maggie."
I glance at the document, at the cursive script. "Magnolia Brooks?"
Her jaw tightens, muscles flexing. "Nobody calls me that."
"Copy that."
I study the paperwork, the unsigned lines, the amount. Both signatures are required. They need her to sign. Which means whatever story her brother told her about their mother hiding something—
Outside, I hear it. Vehicles approaching fast, engines roaring, tires on gravel.
Backup. Already.
"We're out of time." I grab her arm. "Move. Now."
She pulls away from my grip, snatches the trust documents from the table. "I need these!"
I don't argue. Don't have time. She'll need to see them later anyway when she realizes what they really mean.
We move through the warehouse fast. I take point, weapon up, scanning corners. Maggie follows closely, and moves right—reading my hand signals without instruction, staying in my blind spot, keeping low. Definitely trained.
Outside, the desert air hits us warm and dry. My truck is four hundred yards away across open ground. The headlights in the distance are closing fast.
"Run."
We sprint. Sand and scrub blur past. Maggie keeps pace with me, breathing hard but controlled, no complaints, no slowing down. Behind us, the roar of engines gets louder, and then gunfire erupts—poorly aimed, panic fire, rounds kicking up dirt ten feet to our left.
We reach my truck, I get her into the passenger seat, slam the door, and slide across the hood to the driver’s seat. The engine roars to life. I slam it into drive just as the first cartel vehicle comes around the warehouse.
More gunfire. Rounds ping off my armored truck bed, spider-web my rear window.
I return fire through my window, three-round burst controlled and precise. The lead vehicle's windshield shatters, and the SUV swerves hard before the driver recovers.
I floor it, and we fishtail in the sand before the tires catch. Desert dust billows behind us, and bullets are still flying, but we're pulling away, faster—my truck is built for this kind of shit.
Highway 82 stretches out ahead, a ribbon of cracked asphalt cutting through the scrub.
I check the mirrors constantly: two vehicles on our tail, black SUVs kicking up their own clouds, closing the gap despite my lead.
I've got the faster rig and more ground clearance, but they're persistent fucks, spraying rounds that ping off the tailgate.
Maggie doesn't freeze. Adrenaline's still pumping through her; I see it in the set of her jaw. She twists in the passenger seat, snatching the AR-15 from the rack behind us—my spare, always loaded for bear.
"Hold steady," she snaps, bracing one elbow on the windowsill as she leans out, wind whipping her hair like a storm.
The first burst from her rifle cracks sharp over the engine roar, stitching holes across the lead SUV's windshield.
The driver swerves, tires spitting out rock and sand, but she adjusts, cool as ice, and fires again.
The vehicle fishtails hard, flips once in a plume of dust and glass, rolling to a stop in a crumpled heap off the shoulder.
The second SUV veers to avoid it, buying her a clean shot. She nails the grille—radiator explodes in a hiss of steam—and follows with a headshot through the side window. The rig slows, veering into the ditch, no more pursuit.
Damn. I've run with some of the best—SEALs, Rangers, you name it—but that was surgical. No hesitation, no spray-and-pray bullshit. She's a force, this woman, turning the tide like it was nothing.
And now, sliding back into her seat like she just finished a range drill, she holsters the rifle and asks, casual as a Sunday drive, "Where are you taking me?"
Not a blink, not a tremor in her voice. If anything, the firefight sharpened her edges. Impressed doesn't cover it; the woman's unbreakable.
We're clear. No more bullets, just the hum of the highway and the fading echo of gunfire. She settles back, fingers tightening on those trust documents, but her shoulders betray her now—a faint quiver running through them like a low current.
Her breaths come quicker, shallower, hitching in her chest as if the air's grown too thick to pull in deep. Blood from her temple wound drips steadily, dark spots blooming on the white paper in her lap like ink from a broken pen.
"Somewhere safe."
"What about Tyler?" Her voice rises. "You have to go back for him."
I glance at the papers in her lap, at the signature lines, at the amount. Four hundred thousand dollars. Both signatures are required. Three hours until pickup after she signs. Ramirez is waiting for his prize.
The pieces are clicking together in my head, forming a picture she's not going to want to see.
Tyler Brooks isn't being held in a separate location, getting interrogated.
Tyler Brooks is making a deal.
But I can't tell her that. Not yet. Not without proof. Not while she's in shock and bleeding and still believing her brother is a victim like her.
"Priority is keeping you alive." I keep my voice flat, tactical. "Then we figure out your brother."
She stares at the blood-stained papers in her hands, and I can see her trying to make sense of it all, trying to force the pieces to fit the story she needs to be true.
I drive into the darkness, checking mirrors every few seconds, already planning our next move.
She thinks she's holding evidence that will save her brother.
She doesn't know she's holding proof he sold her.