Chapter Two
Two days.
That was how long Victor had stayed gone.
Tane stood in the command center with his hands braced on the edge of the main table, eyes fixed on the live site map glowing beneath the plexi surface.
Two days of silence. Two days of the locator beacon sitting stubbornly still, tucked somewhere deep in the woods beyond the perimeter.
Two days of knowing—knowing—that Victor was alone and planning on doing exactly what he shouldn’t be doing.
Enough was enough.
“All right,” Tane said, breaking the low hum of overlapping conversations. “We need to talk.”
The room quieted. Not instantly—Black Tide didn’t snap to attention like that unless it was Kael who called their attention—but the noise thinned as Kael looked up from his screen, Luca rolled his chair back, and Niko leaned an elbow on the table, eyes sharpening.
“He hasn’t come back,” Tane said. “And that worries me.”
Niko snorted softly. “That’s your bar? Because I’ve been worried since he disappeared into the trees.”
Keanu nodded once, arms crossed. “Me too. When I watched the tapes, he grimaced when he climbed that tree, pressed a hand to his side. He’s hurt.”
Tane’s jaw tightened. “Exactly. He’s injured, and he’s running solo against the Directorate.”
That got their full attention.
Kael straightened. “Explain.”
So Tane did. He told them about the tech Victor had used—long-range optics, directional audio, the kind of equipment that put eyes and ears anywhere the operator wanted them. He didn’t sugarcoat it. He didn’t downplay the risk.
Kael’s expression darkened with every word.
“You should’ve said something immediately,” Kael snapped when Tane finished. “We don’t let unknown tech sniff around our perimeter.”
Tane shrugged, not defensive, just honest. “I wanted to give him time.”
“To do what?” Kael demanded.
“To come in on his own.”
Silence followed that. Heavy. Considering.
Niko broke it first, pushing off the table, fingers flexing like he wanted something to hit. “He’s not built to go solo this long. Not injured. Doesn’t matter how good he is.”
“And we all know that he is good,” Keanu said quietly. “Too good. Which means he’s predictable. Directorate will expect him to move alone.”
Luka’s mouth tightened. “If something high value moved, it would move through a controlled logistics hub. Somewhere noisy. Somewhere no one looks too hard unless they know what they’re seeing.”
All eyes shifted to Drew.
He shrugged, one shoulder lifting. “From the outside? This smells like bait. They dangle something loud enough to draw him out, then wait for him to overextend.”
Tane absorbed it without comment, letting the weight of it settle. Different angles. Same conclusion.
“He doesn’t think he deserves backup,” Tane said finally. “Which means he won’t ask for it. That’s where this goes wrong.”
Luca was already tapping at his console. “Doesn’t matter now. I can patch the mic vulnerability. We’ll rotate frequencies, scrub passive listening, harden the mesh.” He glanced up. “I’ll also call Marsh. He’ll want to know someone’s using Directorate-grade ears near us.”
“Good,” Tane said. “Do that.”
Niko pushed off the table. “So, what’s the play?”
“We find him,” Tane said simply.
The tracker blinked.
Moved.
Every head in the room snapped toward the display.
“Well,” Keanu murmured. “About time.”
Tane leaned in, eyes tracking the updated position. “He’s on the move. First time in two days.”
Luca was already moving, pulling up layers of code and signal maps. “I’ll stay,” he said. “I want to get started on upgrading security, close the mic holes, and have a very pointed conversation with Marsh about keeping unwanted ears off our asses.”
“Good,” Kael said. “Lock it down.”
They broke from the table as one.
The back room off the command center held steel cupboards built straight into the wall, nondescript unless you knew what they were. Tane yanked one open and the smell of oil and metal hit the air. Tactical vests. Harnesses. Plates. Mags already seated in accessible pockets.
They geared up fast. No talking. Just hands moving, buckles snapping, weight settling, familiar and right. Kael checked everyone in a single sharp sweep of his eyes. Drew was already shouldering his own kit, calm as if this were just another day.
Less than a minute later they were back at the table, dressed for war.
Tane glanced at the tracker again.
“Where’s he headed?” Drew asked.
Luca exhaled. “Industrial zone. Coastal. Lots of freight traffic.”
That was enough.
They moved immediately, breaking apart with purpose and loading into Tane’s truck as the engine rumbled to life and the gate slid open.
They followed the signal until it stopped again, the bike abandoned a kilometer and a half from the nearest freight access road.
Tane parked, hopped out, and rolled the motorcycle up onto the retrofitted rack with practiced ease. It was a beautiful machine—lean, powerful, well cared for.
“I’m not leaving it,” he muttered. “He’s coming with us, so this is coming with us.”
They took the high ground overlooking the freight yards, settling into observation positions as the sun dipped lower.
From up here, the port spread out in layered motion—container stacks like blunt teeth, cranes swinging in slow, deliberate arcs, forklifts weaving predictable paths between ships and trucks.
On the surface, it was the usual controlled chaos.
The kind of noise and movement that made people stop looking too closely.
Tane looked closer.
He always did.
He broke the port down the way he broke down a battlefield.
Traffic lanes first—what moved where, how often, and who controlled the choke points.
He clocked the guards posted at the main gates, noting which ones were bored and which were alert.
He tracked the rhythm of the cranes, the pauses between lifts, the moments when sightlines opened and closed.
Nothing about the port screamed danger.
That was what bothered him.
Directorate operations never looked sloppy. They looked confident. Like they expected no one to interfere.
Tane adjusted his scope and started reading container numbers, committing strings of digits to memory.
Shipping manifests flashed through his mind—what should be here, what shouldn’t.
High-value military-grade ammunition moved differently.
So did restricted tech. So did things that weren’t meant to exist on paper at all.
Ports were perfect for that kind of movement. Too many hands. Too much noise. Too much plausible deniability.
He shifted slightly, lowering his profile, and watched the unloading patterns. Most containers were moved in tight clusters, straight from ship to staging area. But three of them sat apart from the rest, spaced just far enough to avoid casual overlap, close enough to look incidental.
Deliberate spacing.
That was when Keanu spoke.
“Three containers on the east side of the port,” he said quietly. “Stacked wrong. Set apart.”
Tane followed his line of sight. The markings were subtle, but the spacing was deliberate.
“Directorate,” Kael growled. “Has to be”
Tane swept the surrounding terrain through his scope. Nothing.
Then he dropped lower.
There.
A shadow detached from the edge of the yard. Black-clad. Rifle slung. Blade in hand.
Victor.
“I’ve got eyes on him,” Tane said softly. “Nobody moves. If we spook the guards, he’s dead.”
They watched in stunned silence as Victor went to work.
Tane tracked every movement through the scope, his mind breaking Victor down the way he would any hostile.
Blade choice first—short, utilitarian, designed for speed over spectacle.
Kill order next—outermost guard, then the one with the widest line of sight, then the men clustered closest to the containers.
He moved on breath and timing, not force, using darkness and routine as his weapons.
Too precise.
Victor wasn’t improvising. He was executing a plan he’d already run a dozen times in his head.
That scared the hell out of Tane.
Because this wasn’t desperation. This was resignation.
This was a man who had already decided he was expendable.
Bodies dropped without sound, never registering as anything more than a momentary absence to the rest of the port. Victor flowed through them like smoke, never silhouetted, never rushed.
Impressive.
Terrifying.
And utterly unsustainable.
Tane was already moving.
They flowed down off the high ground, shadows among shadows, circling toward the eighteen-wheeler. Victor stood at the cab, muttering under his breath. “How hard can it be to drive a damn eighteen-wheeler truck?”
“Very.” Tane answered quietly
Victor spun, blade flashing, gun in his other hand.
“Hold,” Tane growled to his team.
Victor froze.
They stared at each other.
“How the hell did you get this close without me clocking you?” Victor demanded.
Tane grinned. “Because we’re just that damn good.”
****
Victor’s heart slammed hard enough inside his chest that for a split second he thought the knife wound had finally killed him.
Four men.
No—five.
He scanned them instantly, brain snapping into threat assessment even as his body stayed coiled and ready. Rifles up but not raised. Spacing tight. Angles perfect. Black Tide.
He swallowed once, pulse roaring in his ears.
“So,” he said, forcing his voice into something resembling casual as he straightened a fraction, blade still loose in his hand. “What now?”
Tane answered without missing a beat.
“I know how to drive the truck,” he said. Calm. Certain. “We’ll take it back to our compound and see what these bastards left us for Christmas.”
Victor blinked.
Of all the ways this could have gone, this was not one of the scenarios he had planned inside his head. Of course, him being able to drive an eighteen-wheeler truck had also not featured in his planning. But what’s a guy to do? He has to make do with the cards fate deals him.
His gaze flicked to the eighteen-wheeler, then back to the team. He felt something inside him loosen—just a touch. Relief, maybe. Or resignation.