Chapter Nine
Kael had not been kidding when he said they were on the offensive. They had been drilling, readying and planning from the moment that call ended two days ago, through to this morning when Luca locked onto the Directorate’s whereabouts in Hawaii.
As soon as they had arrived well after midnight to use the darkness as a weapon, Kael had announced that they were call sign live as they piled silently from the van, and Luca drove out, putting the van and himself in a better position to provide overwatch on their mission.
“Okay, boys,” Luca says, voice coming through from the command van parked half a klick outside the perimeter.
“This is your friendly neighborhood Breaker providing overwatch from the upper driveway to the old McCrea estate, which, as we all know, has been empty for the past three years. If you could all be so kind as to provide me with a comms check. Surge”
“Copy that,” Kael answer immediately.
“Wraith.”
“Eyes on.” Drew’s tone is relaxed, alert.
“Torch.”
“Present,” Keanu replies. “And bored.”
“Reef.”
“Set.” Niko practically breathed as he was close to the main gate and there was no telling if they had ears on that gate.
“Māno.”
“Here.” Tane’s voice was steady, grounded.
“Specter.”
Victor, gun already up, and eyes on the scope, gaze already tracking the east side of the building. “Here.”
Luca didn’t waste time. “We have at least two dozen heat signatures in that house, and another ten walking security around the property. I have three drones in the air, and am mapping those signatures as well as guard patterns, and they will be on your displays momentarily.”
A few seconds later, and the flexible display he wore on his left forearm buzzed against Victor’s skin. Glancing down, he saw the schematics of the house and property and what looked like an awful lot of red dots.
Victor exhaled slowly. “All of this for little ol’ me?”
Tane looked back at him, laughter in his gaze. “I think you’re worth that and more.”
“You would,” Keanu muttered. “All this couple gooey eyes you make at Specter and Surge makes at Wraith is enough to drive a man to drink.”
“You’re just jealous,” Wraith’s voice came over the comms.
“Yes! I am, dammit!” Keanu answered immediately. “When does Torch get a hottie or two of his own.”
The team teased and laughed as they maneuvered into their assigned positions to breech the compound.
The safe house sat on a broad estate tucked into the low hills, wrapped in greenery and distance.
It had a long sweeping driveway with good natural sightlines.
It was the kind of property that had been designed for privacy rather than defense—money buys space, not security.
Too much land. Too many blind approaches.
And way too familiar to the team.
Black Tide used to live near there. Not on this property, but close enough that they all knew the roads instinctively—the way the land rolled, where the trees thin, the places where sound carries farther than it should.
Old habits surfaced without invitation. They knew where the wind would shift at night and which fence lines were older than they looked.
“They picked it because it’s quiet,” Luca had said that afternoon when they had been preparing, pulling up layered overlays on a map.
“No neighbors close enough to hear trouble, and locals mind their business. It’s a private estate that is owned by three shells corporations that appear clean on paper. ”
Through his scope, Victor saw heat signatures bloomed.
There were a number of vehicles tucked under cover and power generators disguised as landscaping features. A small cluster of men who moved like professionals pretending they weren’t, were gathered near the back wall of the property, watching something on a screen one held in his hand.
“It’s not surveillance,” Luca said. “It’s tonight’s football match. Chiefs are up if anyone cares.”
None of them did. Then Niko asked what tactical approach they were going to take.
Torch let out a low whistle. “Big house. Big yard. And there are not a lot of neighbors nearby.” A beat. “We could level it. An explosion or three and everything goes bye-bye.”
Victor didn’t say anything, but he kind of agreed. That move meant less chance of one of them getting hurt, so he was all for that.
“Fastest solution,” Keanu added mildly.
“And loudest,” Niko replied.
“Always my go-to.” Torch said, then his tone shifted, losing its edge. “But this is our neighborhood. Our ohana. We do this right.”
The words settled.
Victor drew his rifle back for a moment and looked over at Tane. “They’d never stop for that. Collateral damage or the potential risk of it wouldn’t slow them down.”
Tane turned his head slightly, meeting his gaze. “Which is why it does slow us down. If we win like them, we lose anyway.”
No one pushed back or argued. Victor held still for a second, then nodded. “Agreed.”
Victor lifted his rifle once more, the familiar ritual grounding him. There was no tension in his chest—only focus. This was the work he did and what he was good at.
“Positions,” Kael murmured across comms.
“Set.”
“Ready.”
“Specter, Wraith,” Tane said. “You’re up.”
Victor ghosted forward with Drew at his shoulder, the two of them slipping through the outer perimeter like they belonged there. Drew glanced sideways at him and grinned.
“After you,” he murmured.
Victor smirked. “Try to keep up.”
They waited at the service entrance, Torch already working the secondary lock, hands fast and sure.
“Quiet breach,” Torch said. “Because apparently we’re being classy tonight.”
Luca snorted softly.
The door opened.
Black Tide flowed inside.
Laughter ghosted the comms—low, familiar, threaded with absolute confidence. The kind that comes from knowing exactly who is at your back.
Victor stepped over the threshold, weapon up, heartbeat steady.
This is who they were.
And whatever and whoever waited for them inside was about to learn that the hard way.
****
Before Black Tide could even think about breaching the house, they had to clear the perimeter.
“Multiple contacts, exterior,” Luca murmured over comms from the van. “Ten total. Spacing’s loose. You’re green to clear.”
They moved through the grounds in staggered pairs, unhurried, confident, weapons carried with the easy familiarity of professionals who had done this kind of work before.
Not locals. Not amateurs. Directorate contractors, or close enough to make no difference.
They knew how to space themselves, how to use the land, how to look casual while covering angles.
Kael lifted his fist once, flattened his hand out, lowered it, then swept it left to right.
They fanned out.
Drew took the high line first. There was a soft whisper of movement above, a brief, wet sound, and the guard near the tree line folded without a cry. Niko and Keanu moved together, Keanu stepping wide just long enough to draw a glance before Niko slid in and buried a blade between ribs.
Luca from his overwatch position and using his drones, dropped two near the driveway, shots timed simultaneously so as not to raise alarm from one shot to another. The bodies never even hit the gravel hard enough to carry sound.
Victor ghosted past Tane’s left shoulder, Specter living up to the name—one man down in a silent choke, another with a snapped wrist and a suppressed round to finish it. No wasted motion. No noise that carried.
Ten men disappeared into the dark.
Only then did they move to the service entrance.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the air inside the house changed. Sound softened, swallowed by thick walls and expensive finishes designed to impress rather than defend. Every step felt closer, heavier.
“Contact, left,” Niko said quietly.
Tane moved without hesitation, body already shifting as the first round cracked down the corridor. Keanu answered with a suppressed burst, precise and controlled. The man at the corner dropped hard, his weapon skittering across marble.
They flowed forward.
Room to room. Angle to angle. Kael calling cadence in clipped bursts. Luca feeding micro-adjustments from the van as drone feeds flickered across their forearms.
“Two hostiles, second-floor landing.”
“Copy.”
Drew ghosted up the stairwell with Victor right behind him, their movements mirrored so closely Tane felt it more than saw it. Victor cleared high, Drew cleared low, and the room was neutralized in seconds—no wasted motion, no sound beyond breath and impact.
They kept moving.
The interior fights came faster after that, resistance snapping into place in pockets instead of lines.
A pair burst from a side office, one already firing blind.
Tane pivoted, shoulder brushing the wall as rounds chewed plaster where his head had been a second earlier.
He put two shots center mass into the first man and drove forward, slamming the second into a glass display case hard enough to shatter it.
The man went down choking, weapon sliding across tile.
“Hallway right, three deep,” Kael called.
Torch answered first, flash popping just long enough to disorient without blowing out civilian-facing windows. Reef and Tane moved through the smoke together, Reef taking the knee, Tane shooting over him. The hall emptied in seconds, bodies collapsing in overlapping arcs.
They advanced through a wide living space meant for entertaining—vaulted ceilings, polished stone, expensive art bolted discreetly to the walls.
It made poor cover. Hostiles learned that the hard way.
Drew dropped from the upper balcony behind one man, taking him down silently, while Victor engaged another head-on, rifle butt cracking across a jaw before a single suppressed round ended it.
“Clear,” Drew said.
A stairwell opened off the far side of the room. Tane took point, back pressed to the wall, breath controlled. A shadow moved above.
“Contact—”
The man lunged too early. Tane caught him mid-step, drove him backward down the stairs in a tangle of limbs and gunmetal. They hit the landing hard. Tane came up first and finished it before the echo could carry.
They flowed upward.
Second floor resistance was desperate. Two men barricaded behind a heavy door tried to hold the line. Torch burned through the hinge with brutal efficiency, and Reef dragged one out into the open while Victor put the other down through the frame.
No pauses. No hesitation.
They were everywhere at once, pressure collapsing inward, room by room, floor by floor. The enemy tried to regroup twice and failed both times. Black Tide did not give them space to think.
The estate was larger inside than it looked from the outside. Wide hallways meant to impress. Too many corners. Too many places for arrogance or danger to hide.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
“Moving.”
Bodies fell. Some fought hard. Some never got the chance. Every death was fast, intentional, and clean. Black Tide did not linger.
“South wing secure,” Tane reported.
“Copy that,” Kael replied. “Push inward.”
They were winning.
Tane felt it in the rhythm—the way resistance collapsed, the way the enemy tried to reset and failed. This should have been the end of it.
Then Niko went down. “Hit!” Niko grunted, pain sharp and ugly in his voice. “In the vest, I’m okay, but fuck that hurt.”
Tane snapped toward the sound just as Niko stumbled, his recently healed leg giving out beneath him when a man slammed into him from the side, driving him hard into the wall. Another stepped in, weapon rising.
“Reef!”
Tane moved to assist, but was engaged by two fuckers looking to die, but Victor was already there.
He dropped his rifle and went in barehanded, fast and vicious. The first man took a blow to the throat and crumpled instantly. The second caught Victor’s elbow across the jaw—bone crunching, body folding.
A third came from behind. Tane shouted a warning even has he fought desperately to get to him.
Victor spun, blood slicking his knuckles, breath steady, eyes cold. He absorbed the hit and answered with a knee that drove the man back into the doorframe.
For a heartbeat, it looked like he would win.
Then the corridor opened.
A man stepped into view like he had been waiting for this exact moment.
He didn’t rush. He raised a weapon Tane didn’t have time to identify before the soft thunk sounded.
Victor stiffened.
“No—!” Tane shouted.
The tranq hit clean, and Tane could see the colored dart end sticking out of Victor’s neck. Victor swayed once, tried to correct, then his knees buckled and he hit the floor hard, already unconscious.
The man gestured and two others surged in, hauling Victor up with practiced efficiency.
“Specter is down!” Niko yelled
Rage detonated in Tane’s chest, and he slammed his fist into the last man he was fighting’s face, and he felt bone give way to force.
Then he was running toward where they had taken Victor.
Tane fired, dropping one of them, but it was already too late.
Smoke bloomed at the far end of the corridor, thick and disorienting. When it thinned, Victor was gone.
“Luca!” Tane roared into comms.
“I’ve got them,” Luca answered instantly. “Black van, west drive. I’m painting it now.”
The team moved as one, sweep abandoned without need for discussion.
They ran.
Tane tore through the estate, breath ripping from his lungs, vision narrowed to the open night beyond the doors. He could already hear the engine, see the taillights flaring as the van peeled away.
“I’m not letting this happen,” he snarled. “I will not lose him!”
Kael was right behind him. “You won’t. And you sure as hell won’t be alone.”
They spilled into the darkness, weapons up, fury leashed just tightly enough to keep them lethal.
Somewhere ahead, Victor was being taken.
And Black Tide was coming.