52. Blaze
BLAZE
Black Hollow.
The words hit the barn like another gunshot.
Nobody moved.
Rain hammered the roof overhead while thunder rolled across the valley hard enough to shake the beams around us.
Rook slowly stood.
His face had gone cold in a way that made even Trigger straighten a little beside me.
“What is Black Hollow?” I asked.
Eddie coughed blood against his sleeve.
“Not a place,” he rasped painfully. “An operation.”
Wolf frowned. “What kind of operation?”
Eddie looked toward Flick.
Like he hated what he was about to say.
“Your father tried to stop it.”
Her fingers tightened around mine instantly.
“What did he do?”
Eddie swallowed hard.
“Senator Mercer and the others…” His breathing hitched. “They used the ranches. The land. Old transport tunnels under the mountains.”
Trigger’s expression darkened instantly.
“Transporting what?”
Eddie’s eyes flicked toward the floor.
“Girls.”
Silence crashed through the barn.
Flick made a soft broken sound beside me.
No.
No damn way.
Rage hit my bloodstream so fast it burned.
Rook’s jaw flexed once.
Deadly calm.
“How long?” he asked quietly.
“Years,” Eddie whispered. “Runaways. Foster kids. Girls nobody would look for.” His voice cracked. “Sometimes boys too.”
Jesus Christ.
Wolf looked like he was seconds away from punching through the wall.
Trigger muttered a vicious curse under his breath.
Flick stared at Eddie like the world had just split open beneath her feet.
“My father knew?”
Eddie nodded weakly.
“At first… no. Mercer hid everything behind land development deals and private security contracts.” He winced hard from the pain. “When your father discovered the truth… he tried gathering evidence quietly.”
Lightning flashed outside.
And suddenly things started clicking into place.
The threats.
The fake marriage story.
Her father pushing her away.
Not because he didn’t love her.
Because he was trying to keep her alive.
Flick’s eyes filled instantly.
“He knew they’d come after me.”
“Yes,” Eddie whispered.
The tears finally spilled down her cheeks.
I pulled her against my side immediately.
Her body trembled hard against mine.
“He loved you more than anything,” Eddie said hoarsely. “That’s why he lied to you.”
Outside—
automatic gunfire erupted again.
Closer this time.
Rook snapped into motion instantly.
“Positions.”
Shadow Division moved fast.
Wolf killed the lantern near the workbench while Trigger took the loft again.
I kept Flick behind me as Rook crouched near the horse stalls.
“The lockbox,” he said sharply. “Find it now.”
I shoved open the old stall gate.
The smell of wet hay and mud hit immediately.
Midnight’s old stall.
Flick stepped beside me slowly.
Her eyes swept across the faded wood.
Then she stopped.
“There.”
I followed her gaze.
One loose floor plank hidden beneath old straw.
Wolf dropped beside us and ripped the board upward with a gloved hand.
Underneath—
sat a black metal lockbox.
Small.
Heavy.
Old.
Every person in the barn went still.
Rain pounded outside.
Gunfire echoed closer.
But for one second?—
all of us stared at that box.
Eddie’s voice shook from the shadows.
“Mercer will kill everyone to get that back.”
Rook took the brass key from Flick carefully.
Then froze.
His eyes locked onto the engraving beneath the key’s handle.
A raven.
Exactly like the one carved into the beam.
Very slowly?—
Rook looked up.
And for the first time since arriving at the ranch…
he looked genuinely shocked.
“Impossible,” he muttered.
Trigger frowned from above. “What?”
Rook stared at the key another second.
Then looked directly at Flick.
“Your father knew Shadow Division.”
Thunder exploded overhead.
And somewhere outside the barn?—
someone screamed.
Then came the sound that turned every operator instantly deadly again.
The slow metallic click?—
of the barn doors being chained shut from the outside.