Chapter 14
Irish
By the time the sun rose over Edinburgh, Isla's route had been copied onto three separate maps, photographed into Cipher's encrypted system, translated into operational shorthand, and memorized by every person who would be close enough to Croft House to matter.
I had walked the route in my head so many times that I could see it without looking at the paper: service access behind the greenhouse, concealed corridor, second turn, first door.
Simple directions, if you ignored the fact that every section of the path belonged to an organization willing to lock women behind false walls and move entire families across borders to keep control of them.
The more we learned, the less Croft House looked like an isolated facility and the more it resembled one carefully designed piece of a larger machine.
That changed the rescue. We were no longer entering a building because Skye's best friend might be inside.
We were entering knowing other women were there too, and once I understood that, there was no version of the plan where Isla was the only person we brought out.
Toxic joined the secure call just after eight, his face filling the main screen from the clubhouse while Cipher sat somewhere off camera feeding him updated files.
Steel stood behind him with his arms crossed, and for a few minutes nobody spoke while Toxic studied the layout Trigger had sent.
He had never been a man who filled silence because other people found it uncomfortable.
He looked at the route, the camera arcs, the vehicle patterns, the staff list, and the evidence tying Croft House to Blackridge Hall before finally lifting his eyes toward me.
"You have confirmation on Lennox?"
"Aye."
"Visual?"
"Skye identified her through the west-wing window. Hawkeye got enough footage for Cipher to support the identification."
"And the others?"
I glanced toward Skye. She sat beside Storm with Isla's markings open on her tablet, listening without pretending the question didn't matter.
"Occupied concealed section," I said. "We don't know exact numbers."
Toxic's expression hardened. "Then you don't go in for one woman."
"No."
"Good."
He leaned closer to the screen. "I don't care how clean the route looks or how narrow your window is. If you open that section and find ten people, you bring ten people out. If you find twenty, you adjust. Nobody gets left because the original target was Lennox."
Some of the tension left Skye's shoulders at Toxic's promise that nobody would be abandoned inside Croft House, and I noticed the change immediately because apparently noticing everything about her had become another habit I couldn't break.
"We're building transport for more than we expect," Trigger said.
"Build it bigger."
Maverick nodded from the opposite side of the table. "Already arranging two additional vehicles and a secure temporary property through a solicitor I trust. No Order connections."
Toxic looked toward Storm. "Medical?"
"Remedy's on standby remote. Maverick has a local emergency physician who can meet us after extraction. No questions beyond immediate care unless a patient consents."
"Good."
Toxic shifted his attention away from me and looked directly at Skye, making it clear that whatever came next belonged to her rather than being filtered through me.
"Fraser."
She straightened slightly. "Yes?"
"You know the building. That doesn't make you tactical."
Her chin lifted, and I could practically hear the argument forming.
Toxic continued before she got there. "It does make you necessary. So we're defining your role before anybody gets emotional enough to forget it."
For a second I expected her to bristle at the wording.
Instead, she asked, "What role?"
"Navigation and identification. You get the team through the concealed section, identify Lennox, help interpret any markings or structural problems, and assist the women if they trust you faster than they trust a room full of bikers."
Skye glanced toward me.
I kept my expression neutral.
Toxic wasn't finished.
"You do not clear rooms. You do not chase Croft. You do not go after security. If the route changes, you tell Irish and Trigger what the building is doing and let them decide how to move through it."
Skye considered that for several seconds.
Then she nodded.
"I can work with that."
Raze leaned toward Storm and whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear, "Mark the date."
Skye looked at him. "I agreed to a role, not obedience."
Raze held up both hands. "There she is."
Even Toxic's mouth threatened a smile.
The tension eased just enough to breathe through.
I looked at Skye again.
Two days earlier, I would have fought to keep her out entirely.
I would've called it protection and believed myself.
Now I understood enough about her to know that excluding her would not make the operation safer.
It would make it weaker. She knew how Isla thought.
She could read the building in ways none of us could.
More importantly, the women behind those doors might see Skye as something they couldn't immediately see when six armed men entered a hidden corridor: a choice. The fact that this mattered as much to me as it did was something I wasn't ready to examine too closely.
We spent the next hour assigning positions.
Trigger would lead the interior entry with me.
Hawkeye would take elevated exterior observation and eliminate cameras only if necessary, keeping his role as quiet as the weapon he insisted on carrying.
Raze and Storm would secure transport and coordinate residents leaving the building.
Maverick would handle the perimeter and local contacts, ensuring that once women crossed the property line they disappeared into legitimate medical and legal care rather than another unknown vehicle.
Cipher and Eli would stay connected remotely, monitoring camera systems, communications, and any movement from Order-owned properties within driving distance.
Skye's primary route began at the greenhouse, which meant the first version of our entire extraction depended on an entrance none of us had physically confirmed yet.
"Let's assume it doesn't," Trigger said.
Skye looked up from the plan.
He pointed toward the hidden section. "What's your second way in?"
She studied the drawing.
"Main west corridor."
"Locked."
"Probably."
"Third?"
She enlarged the historic survey. "Basement."
I leaned closer.
"What about it?"
"The original laundry service route connected to a coal-storage passage below this section. It was supposed to be filled during a twentieth-century renovation, but so was the exterior entrance, and apparently nobody at Croft House believes in actually removing useful spaces."
Trigger nodded. "Access point?"
"Outside the kitchen wing. There should be a low ventilation opening here."
"Big enough for a person?"
"Not without removing masonry."
Raze grinned. "Now you're speaking my language."
"No explosives," Skye said immediately.
His smile disappeared.
"I didn't say explosives."
"You thought explosives."
Storm laughed.
Skye tapped the plan. "Historic lime mortar. If the opening is still behind the newer fa?ade, you can remove enough stone mechanically without bringing the building down, but only if somebody doesn't decide subtlety is optional."
Raze looked offended.
I leaned toward him. "She's talking to you."
"I gathered."
The third route came from the main residential wing.
Worst option. Too many cameras, too much staff visibility, too many residents in the open.
We kept it anyway. Plans failed. Doors jammed.
People panicked. Buildings caught fire. The best operation wasn't the one that assumed every piece worked; it was the one that still functioned when half of them didn't.
That lesson had been written into me long before I joined the Flaming Skulls.
By midday, everyone needed a break whether they admitted it or not.
Trigger took Hawkeye downstairs to check equipment.
Raze and Storm left with Maverick to inspect the additional vehicles.
Cipher stayed connected but muted himself while he worked.
That left Skye and me alone at the table for the first time since Toxic's call.
She was still staring at the route.
"You're going to burn a hole through the screen."
"I was thinking."
"About?"
"How many women might be in there."
I pulled out the chair beside her and sat.
"Could be a handful."
"Could be more."
"Aye."
She traced Isla's marking with one fingertip. "She knew they were there."
"Looks that way."
"Which means she was still trying to help other people while she was trapped."
I watched her profile as she studied Isla's markings, pride in what her friend had managed to accomplish tangled so tightly with fear that it was impossible to separate one from the other.
"Sounds like someone you know."
Skye's expression softened.
"She'd hate that comparison."
"Why?"
"Because Isla thinks she's much more sensible than I am."
"Is she?"
"Usually."
"That's disappointing."
She smiled, but it faded quickly.
"What happens if they don't want to come with us?"
The question mattered.
I answered carefully.
"We give them the choice."
"Even if we know the Order is hurting them?"
"Aye."
Her gaze moved to mine.
"Unless they're children or someone is medically incapable of choosing in the moment, we don't drag adults out because we think we know better. We tell them who we are, what's happening, where we're going, and what their options are."
"What if they're too frightened?"
"Then we give them time if we have it."
"And if we don't?"
"We get them somewhere physically safe first, then give the choice back as soon as we can."
She sat with that.
"I was afraid you'd say we were taking everyone."
"That's not rescue if you replace one kind of control with another."
Something shifted in her expression as she absorbed my answer, and whatever approval I saw there was accompanied by something more important: trust.
"You've thought about this before."
"We've learned the hard way."
The club had made mistakes. Anyone pretending otherwise wasn't worth trusting. Every rescue had taught us something about how little freedom meant if you handed a survivor a new set of orders the second they escaped the old ones.
Skye leaned back.
"That's why Toxic said nobody gets left."
"Aye."
"And why he was careful about my role."
"Aye."
She studied me for a moment.
"You were expecting me to argue."
"I'd prepared myself."
"How brave."
"I've been through worse."
"Debatable."
I smiled, and Skye answered with one of her own before the humor faded and her expression turned serious again.
"You're really going to let me go in."
The phrasing caught me.
"Let isn't the word I'd use."
"It's the word you would've used two days ago."
She was right.
I rubbed one hand over my jaw.
"Two days ago I thought you were a civilian chasing a missing friend into buildings she didn't understand."
"I did understand the buildings."
"That's the part I got wrong."
"And now?"
"Now I know you're still a civilian."
Her eyes narrowed.
"But you're also the reason we know where half the doors are."
That calmed the coming argument.
I continued. "I trust you to do what you said you'll do."
Skye went very still.
The room seemed quieter after the sentence left me.
"What?"
"You trust me?"
"Aye."
"That's a big word for you."
She probably had no idea how much the word meant coming from me, although the longer she watched my face, the less certain I was of that.
"I don't use it casually."
Her gaze held mine.
For one dangerous second, I remembered the churchyard and the second kiss, slow enough that neither of us could blame fear for it. Skye remembered too. I saw it in the way her attention dropped briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes.
"We're not doing that right now," I said.
Her brows lifted. "Doing what?"
"You know exactly what."
"I was sitting here."
"You were looking."
"So were you."
I exhaled.
She smiled.
"Still retreating."
"Still alive."
"Those aren't the same thing."
"No, they aren't."
The smile faded slightly.
I knew she heard what I hadn't meant to say.
Survival had become a habit for me, and so had leaving before wanting someone had enough time to become attachment.
Before she could ask, my phone vibrated.
Trigger's name appeared on the screen, and I checked the message before Skye could ask the question I wasn't ready to answer.
Entry equipment ready. Hawkeye wants west-wall confirmation before dark.
I stood.
Skye watched me.
"Saved by the phone."
"Saved you."
"Keep telling yourself that."
The echo of her words from the first kiss almost pulled me back toward her.
Instead, I reached for my jacket.
"Come on."
"Where?"
"One last look at the western approach from distance. Hawkeye wants to confirm the greenhouse angle."
She stood immediately and collected her tablet.
Before we reached the door, I stopped her.
Skye looked up.
"What?"
"When we go into Croft House, you stay close enough that I can reach you."
Her expression sharpened.
I raised a hand before she could object.
"Not because I think you can't do your job. Because if the building changes or the route gets blocked, I need to know where the person reading it is."
That took the argument out of her.
"How close?"
"Close."
She considered me.
"Within reach?"
"Aye."
Her mouth curved faintly.
"That sounds suspiciously convenient."
"Skye."
"I'm agreeing."
That surprised me enough that she laughed.
I opened the door.
She stepped past me, then stopped in the hallway.
"Callum?"
"Aye?"
Her voice lost the teasing.
"I trust you too."
There were a dozen things I could have said.
Most would've been easier than the truth.
So I nodded once and followed her downstairs.
For years, trust had meant giving someone the exact location of the knife that could hurt me most and hoping they never reached for it.
Somewhere along the way, Skye Fraser had changed the definition.
Tomorrow night, I would walk into Croft House with her beside me because I trusted her to read the walls, trusted her to find Isla, and trusted her to tell me when the building stopped matching the plan.
The one thing I no longer trusted was myself, because whatever distance I had once been able to maintain around Skye Fraser was disappearing faster than I knew how to stop it.