39. Killian #3
She leans into me, a small, tired sigh escaping her as she rests her head against mine. We stay like that until the water starts to cool, the weight of the moment settling into a silence I haven't felt in my entire life.
I help her out of the tub, the cool air of the bathroom chilly against our damp skin. I wrap a towel around her, pulling her back against my chest and hold her while the steam clears. She’s still trembling, but it’s the good kind of adrenaline.
"We can't stay in the steam forever," she whispers after a moment, though she doesn't pull away. "Not while he's still out there."
The softness from the tub vanished the moment we stepped out. The woman who was unraveling in the water is gone, and the hunter is standing in her place.
She pulls the towel tighter around her, her gaze turning sharp. The moment we just shared is still there, but it’s shifted, turning into a different kind of armor. "I don't want to wait any longer, Killian. Let's go finish it."
"Gabe’s already on it," I say, reaching for my own towel. "Go get dressed. I’ll meet you in the main room in ten minutes."
The room is quiet. Gabe is against the wall, cleaning his nails with a knife tip.
Kai is checking the seal on a drug bag, his silver lip ring catching the light.
Jackson is rubbing the bridge of his nose, staring at the screens next to an abandoned, half-empty cup of coffee.
No one is talking. There’s nothing left to say.
"He has nowhere left to run," I say, and the room goes still. "Wyoming is the end of the line."
I pull up the satellite images on the large screen.
The estate is a reinforced compound carved into the granite north of Teton Pass.
It’s isolated, defensible, and expensive.
It sits right at the edge of where the law ends.
There's a five-mile dead-zone surrounding the ridge; no signal, no witnesses.
Jackson tracked the shell companies straight to the front gate.
Gabe stands in front of the screen, his shadow cutting across the layout. "The ridge is steep on the north side. If we hit it during the storm they are forecasting, the wind will swallow the breach noise. We go in silent and wait for the panic."
Jackson doesn't look up from the data. "I’ve been sitting on a back-door for their local relay since Tuesday. I’ve already seeded the loop on their outgoing feed. Julian will be watching a recording of a quiet forest while we’re coming through the front gate."
Ellie leans over the map, her hair falling across one shoulder as she traces the ridge lines.
The room goes quiet. They listen because they know she’s spent her life dissecting the minds of people like Julian.
Three months ago, I thought my job was to shield her from the blast radius of my world.
Watching her now, I realize her insight is the most dangerous weapon in the room.
"Julian is arrogant." She doesn't lift her eyes from the map. "He picked the Pass because he wants to look down on the world. He thinks he’s a god, and that’s why he’s going to miss us. He’ll have escape routes, but his primary path will be the tunnels near the boathouse, the same way he slipped out of Munich in 2017. "
I watch her as she continues, breaking down Julian's psychological state.
"He'll be expecting a frontal assault," she concludes. "Because that's what he would do. His narcissism makes it difficult for him to anticipate strategies that differ from his own."
The planning continues, more conversation than briefing. Ideas flow, contingencies build upon contingencies. This isn't a military operation, it's personal for every person in this room. Each has their own debt to settle with Julian.
Jackson's fingers freeze mid-keystroke. "Shit. We just got pinged."
I lean over his shoulder. "Julian?"
"A probe from the Wyoming hub," Jackson says, his voice flat. "He's trying to map our relay. He knows we're out here, but he's hitting a wall he wasn't expecting."
Gabe stands up, checking the slide on his weapon. "He's blind. He knows we're coming, but he doesn't know from where."
"Good," I say. "Let him wonder. He spent ten years teaching me that information is power. Now it's his turn to sit in the dark."
I look at the clock, then at the hard, ready faces of the men in the room. This is what Julian made us for. This is the only way the cycle breaks.
"Ninety minutes," I say, and the finality of it settles over the room like a shroud. "If he wants a front-row seat to his own execution, I’m happy to provide it. Let's go."
We load into the SUVs in silence, the short drive to the private strip blurred by the hum of the engine and the weight of what’s coming. By the time we reach the hangar, the jet is already waiting, the turbines spooling up into a whine that drowns out the world.
I follow Ellie up the stairs and into the pressurized quiet of the cabin. The engines are a low vibration through the soles of my boots as we taxi out. We don't talk or plan. We wait for the wheels to hit the Wyoming tarmac.