22. Enley
Enley
The trace hits at eleven in the morning.
I’m in the kitchen drinking the first real cup of coffee I’ve had in nine days when Dean’s phone buzzes and the whole room stops moving. He reads the screen, then reads it again. He walks to the doorway of the operations center and says one word.
“Brownstone.”
Within three minutes every member of the crew is in the room. It’s the first time we’re mostly all together. Still missing Juno, River, and Salem who are all safe in Saint Pierce.
Arrow is leaning against the wall by the window, arms crossed. The cut on his forearm is bandaged and the shadows under his eyes look deep enough to lose something in. But he’s here.
Gage is right beside him, because of course he is. He’s holding a protein bar he hasn’t taken a single bite of, just keeping his hands busy. His jaw is set in that stubborn angle I’m starting to recognize as his default setting.
Knight stands near the door, positioned so nobody can leave without him noticing. Lark’s in the chair closest to him. They’re not touching and they’re not looking at each other, but you can feel the connection anyway. Two people who always know exactly where the other one is.
Ozzy’s on the couch with his knee propped up. The medic replaced the bag of frozen peas with a proper compression wrap. He’s stopped trying to hide the tremor in his hands. Nobody comments on it. These people understand that the body deals with trauma on its own schedule.
Poe’s in the chair at the head of the table.
He insisted on being here. Singh wanted him horizontal for another twelve hours, but he looked at her with his one good eye and said, “My crew is briefing. I’ll be there.
” She let him go. She’s worked with Dean’s people long enough to know some arguments aren’t worth having.
He looks terrible and alive at the same time, and every time I glance at him my chest does something complicated.
Render’s at the table beside me. Not the careful two-inch gap from before. Not pressed right up against me either. Just a steady closeness that feels like a decision we both made without needing to discuss it.
Dean stands at the front of the room with a tablet showing live updates from his contact in financial crimes. The rest of the brAVO crew sits around the table as well. Sawyer, Rae, Miller, Riggs, and a few others that I don’t know their names yet.
“Serafina accessed a personal account forty minutes ago,” he says. “A brokerage account at a private bank in Havenridge that wasn’t connected to Goldenbell at all. She liquidated three hundred thousand dollars and started a wire transfer to a bank in the Caymans.”
“She’s running,” Arrow says. First words I’ve heard from him since the extraction. His voice is rough, but the sharp mind behind it is clearly still working. “Three hundred thousand is travel money. Not rebuild money. She’s buying distance, not a new operation.”
“Agreed,” Dean says. “The transfer takes four hours to clear. During that window she has to show up in person at the Havenridge bank to authorize the final release. They require face-to-face verification for anything over two hundred thousand.”
“So we know where she’ll be,” Gage says. “And when.”
“We know where she’ll be in about three hours. The question is what we do about it.”
The room goes still for a moment. It’s not really a tactical question. It’s about what kind of people we’re going to be. Do we hand the location to the FBI and let Orchid’s handlers handle the arrest? Call the police? Or do we go ourselves?
“Orchid’s already reported to her handlers,” Dean continues. “Federal agents are heading to Serafina’s known addresses. But they don’t know about the Havenridge account. It wasn’t in the evidence package because it wasn’t part of the Goldenbell system.”
Everyone looks at me. The evidence package is my work. The financial map is mine. And this account is a gap in it.
“I mapped everything tied to Goldenbell,” I say. “This one isn’t connected at all. No shared transfers, no overlapping activity. She kept it completely separate on purpose, like an emergency fund that would never show up in any investigation of the company.”
“So the feds won’t find it in time,” Arrow says.
“Not before she finishes the transfer and disappears.”
“Then we go,” Poe says.
Every head turns toward him. He’s sitting as straight as he can with IV tape still on the back of his hand and his face a map of damage. His one working eye is burning with the kind of focus that only comes from two weeks in a cell thinking about this exact moment.
“Poe, you can barely walk,” I tell him.
“I don’t need to walk. I need a vehicle, a radio, and a line to the team. This is my crew. She took my crew. She doesn’t get to just run.”
Dean looks at him for a long second, then nods. “All right. Plan. Who does what.”
This is the moment I’ve been waiting for without realizing it. The moment the crew stops being a list of names and becomes a real team, each person doing what they’re best at.
“Arrow,” Dean says. “I need eyes on the bank. Cameras, alarms, anything happening inside. Get me a clear picture before we arrive.”
Arrow pushes off the wall. “I’ll need a clean connection and about an hour.”
“You’ve got forty-five minutes.”
He nods and heads straight for a laptop on the side table, fingers already reaching for the keys like they’ve been waiting for this.
“Knight. Same job as last time. You own the outside. Nobody leaves that bank without you knowing about it.”
Knight gives one short nod. Most efficient communication in the room.
“Gage. You’re driving. Three vehicles. Get the positioning and the exit routes figured out.”
Gage tosses the uneaten protein bar onto the table. “How many ways out of the building?”
“Three. Front door, back service entrance, and the underground parking garage.”
“I’ll need the garage layout. And something heavy enough to block the ramp if she tries to leave that way.”
“Diaz can get you a vehicle.”
Dean turns to Rae. “Your team provides support outside. This isn’t a full raid. It’s an interception. Presence, not force.”
“Rules of engagement?” Rae asks.
“Non-lethal unless she forces it. We need her alive. The evidence package doesn’t do much good if the person it’s built to prosecute ends up dead in a parking garage.”
“Ozzy.” Dean looks over at the couch. Ozzy glances up, clearly surprised to be included. “You’re on communications. You can’t walk right now, but you can listen. Every channel comes through you. You’re the switchboard.”
Ozzy’s hands steady a little. Not completely, but enough. Having a job helps. “Copy that.”
“Poe. You’re in the command vehicle with Ozzy. Strategic oversight. If the situation changes, I want your brain on it.”
Poe nods. He knows the assignment is designed to keep him off his feet while still keeping him in the middle of things. He accepts it anyway. Being left behind isn’t something his pride or his sense of duty would survive.
Dean turns to me last. “Enley.”
The room waits. I’m the newest person here. The unknown. The sister who wasn’t supposed to be in any of this.
“What’s the bank’s security look like?” he asks.
“Pretty standard commercial stuff. Cameras, motion sensors, electronic locks on the important doors. Arrow can handle watching the cameras. But the wire transfer needs a digital confirmation between the Havenridge bank and the one in the Caymans. If I can intercept that confirmation, I can put a short delay on it without her noticing. She’ll just think the bank is slow.
That happens all the time. It buys us a little extra window to get everyone in position. ”
Dean looks at Render. Render looks at me.
“She can do it,” Render says, nodding his head.
“Then do it,” Dean says. “You run the delay from the command vehicle. Once the team is in place, you release it and we take her when she walks out.”
I nod. The assignment puts me right in the middle of the operation, not sitting on the sidelines. In the command vehicle with Poe and Ozzy, holding the digital piece of the trap together.
“Render,” Dean says last.
“Inside,” Render answers before Dean can assign him. “I go in. When she walks out after the authorization, I’m the one who meets her.”
Dean studies him for a second. Whatever he sees in Render’s face seems to answer the question he was about to ask. “Inside,” Dean confirms. “Non-lethal. We want her breathing.”
“She’ll be breathing.”
Gage leans over toward me and mutters, just loud enough for the table to hear, “You two are gonna be unbearable after this, aren’t you?”
Render doesn’t even look up from the tablet he’s checking. “Probably.”
I shoot Gage a look. “You’re one to talk. I’ve seen the way you hover around River.”
Arrow, still typing, says without turning around, “He loves that girl. I’ve never seen him so in love.”
Gage grins for the first time since we got here. “I really do.”
“We know. It’s a bit nauseating,” Arrow says, but there’s a faint smile in his voice.
“Oh, you’re one to talk. You’ve been chasing Juno since we were kids.”
Arrow smiles. “Yeah, sometimes love takes a while.”
The briefing ends. The room breaks into focused movement. Arrow is already deep in the laptop, fingers flying. Gage is standing with Diaz lining up vehicles. Knight has already headed for the car. Ozzy’s testing the radio gear with hands that still shake a little but less than before.
I climb into the back of the command vehicle with a laptop and the portable router and start setting up the delay on the wire transfer.
The confirmation process between banks is pretty standard.
All I need to do is insert a ten-minute hold that will look like ordinary processing lag to anyone inside the bank.
Ten minutes. That’s the window I’m building. Ten minutes to get nine people into position around a bank in Havenridge and wait for the woman who tore my brother’s face apart to walk out the front door and straight into the arms of the man I love.
Yes, I said it. I love him. With all my heart.