Chapter 13 Intel Drop
THIRTEEN
Intel Drop
RIOT
The last eighty feet of the climb pass in a blur.
Evie leads, and I follow, and somewhere between the crevice and the top, the world shifts back into focus. The soft edges of what we just shared harden into tactical reality: we're still being hunted, still miles from safety, still running on borrowed time.
But the weight of it feels different now. Lighter. Like I'm not carrying it alone.
We crest the top of the cliff and collapse onto flat ground, both of us breathing hard. The sun is past its peak—we were in that crevice longer than I realized. Long enough for the search to move on. Long enough for everything to change.
"Mitzy." I tap my earpiece, still catching my breath. "You there?"
"Always." Her voice crackles through, sharp with relief. "Jesus, Riot, I was starting to think you'd fallen off a cliff."
"Almost. Evie saved my ass." I glance at the woman beside me—flushed, disheveled, more beautiful than anyone has a right to be after climbing two hundred feet of granite. "We're on top. What's our status?"
"Search teams have pulled back to the main road. They're setting up checkpoints on every route back to Sacramento." Keys clicking in the background. "But I've got good news and bad news."
"Good news first. I could use some good news."
"Extraction bird is fueled and ready. I can have it at your position in ninety minutes once you reach the clearing."
"And the bad news?"
Pause. The kind of pause that makes my stomach drop.
"The intel came through on that license plate. The one the witness remembered from the hit."
I sit up straighter. Beside me, Evie goes still—she can hear the shift in Mitzy's tone even if she can't hear the words.
"Talk to me."
"The plate traces to a shell company called Westbrook Holdings. Westbrook is owned by another shell called Pacific Rim Ventures. Pacific Rim is funded by a PAC that's—" More clicking. "—exclusively dedicated to supporting a heavy hitter in the Sacramento capital."
The air leaves my lungs as CJ’s briefing in the office flashes back to me. The Consortium has friends in high places. Interests in Sacramento reaching into the Bureau. Then I look at Evie, and she's already ahead of me. Her face is bone-white.
"The news alert," she whispers, her eyes wide with the realization. "On Derek’s laptop in the cabin. He swiped it away before I could read the article, but the name was right there in the headline. The latest polls."
"Mitzy," I say, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. "Tell me it's not David Harmon."
A beat of silence, then the sound of a final, definitive key strike. "Bingo. Senator David Harmon. The money trail leads straight to his front door."
The name lands like a grenade.
"Senator Harmon." I've seen him on the news. Clean-cut, family-values type, always talking about border security and law and order. "You're telling me a state senator is connected to a cartel hit on a federal judge?"
"I'm telling you the money trail leads to his door.
Whether he ordered it, knew about it, or just took dirty money without asking questions—that's above my pay grade.
" Mitzy's voice is grim. "But it explains why the FBI field office is compromised.
Harmon has friends everywhere. The kind of friends who can make witnesses disappear. "
Evie's hand finds my arm. Her grip is tight.
"There's more." Mitzy hesitates. "The cartel knows they lost the witness. They're pivoting."
"Pivoting how?"
"Leverage. If they can't get to Evie directly, they're going to try to draw her out." Another pause, longer this time. "I intercepted chatter about ten minutes ago. They're moving on her known associates. Best friend and goddaughter. Sacramento."
The words don't register at first. Then they do, and the blood drains from my face.
"Seraphina." Evie's voice is barely a whisper. "Rosie."
"How long?" I demand. "How long before they reach them?"
"Hard to say. The chatter suggested they're still gathering intel, figuring out the address. But once they have it—" Mitzy doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't have to.
"We have to go." Evie is on her feet, swaying slightly, her face pale beneath the flush of exertion. "We have to go right now."
"Evie—"
"They're going to kill them." Her voice cracks. "Sera and Rosie. They're going to kill them because of me, because I came forward, because I did the right thing—"
"Hey." I catch her arms, steady her. "Look at me."
She does. Her eyes are wild, terrified, the calm competence of the climb shattered by this new threat.
"We're going to help them," I tell her. "But I need you to breathe first. Can you do that?"
She nods. Takes a shaky breath. Then another.
"Good." I turn back to the earpiece. "Mitzy, what's the fastest route to Sacramento?"
"Through the mountains, you're looking at three hours minimum. The roads are—"
"Not the roads. Overland. We hoof it to the extraction point, take the bird to Sacramento instead of HQ."
Silence. Then: "That's... possible. But Riot, if you go to Sacramento, you're going in without backup. Echo team is four hours out minimum. You'd be on your own."
"Wouldn't be the first time."
"Against an unknown number of cartel soldiers who are specifically trying to draw you into a trap."
"Then we don't walk into the trap." I'm already calculating—distance to extraction point, flight time to Sacramento, how long we have before the cartel figures out where Sera lives. "We get there first. Evacuate them before the cartel arrives."
"And if you're wrong? If they're already there?"
Evie's hand finds mine. Squeezes.
"Then we handle it." I meet her eyes. "Together."
Mitzy sighs—the long-suffering sigh of a tech operator who knows she's not going to win this argument. "Fine. I'll redirect the bird to Sacramento. But I'm alerting CJ, and I'm pulling every string I have to get backup to you faster."
"Do it."
"And Riot?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't die. I still haven't gotten my coffee."
Despite everything, I almost smile. "Oat milk. I remember."
The connection clicks off. Evie and I stand on the cliff top, the canyon yawning behind us, the mountains stretching ahead.
"You don't have to do this." Her voice is quiet. "Sera and Rosie—they're my people. My responsibility. You could take me to your headquarters, keep me safe, let your team handle—"
"No."
"Riot—"
"Jon." I catch her face in my hands, make her look at me. "My name is Jon. And I'm not leaving your people to die while you hide somewhere safe. That's not who I am."
"But the risk—"
"Is mine to take." I press my forehead to hers. "You asked me to trust you on that cliff. Now I'm asking you to trust me. We do this together. All the way."
She's quiet for a long moment. Then her hands come up to cover mine.
"Together," she whispers.
"Together."
We break apart. The moment of softness passes, replaced by the cold clarity of tactical necessity.
"The extraction point is about an hour east," I tell her. "Rough terrain, but nothing like what we just climbed. Can you make it?"
"I can make it." Her chin lifts—that stubborn set I'm starting to recognize. "How long once we're in the air?"
"Forty minutes, maybe less. Mitzy will have eyes on Sera's house by then. We'll know what we're walking into."
"And if we're too late?"
The question hangs between us. I don't have a good answer—there are no good answers in situations like this. Only bad options and worse ones.
"Then we make them pay for it." My voice comes out harder than I intended. "But we're not going to be too late. Not if we move now."
Evie nods. The fear is still there—I can see it in the tension of her shoulders, the tightness around her eyes—but she's not letting it control her. She's channeling it, the same way she channeled it on the climb.
This woman. This impossible, magnificent woman.
"One more thing." I catch her hand before she can start walking. "When we get there, you do what I say. No arguments, no heroics, no throwing rocks at men with guns unless I specifically tell you to."
"And if I see an opportunity you don't?"
"Then you tell me, and we decide together." I squeeze her fingers. "But Evie—if I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you hide. Your life is not worth less than theirs."
"They're my family."
"And you're—" I stop. The word that wants to come out is too big, too soon, too much for a relationship that's only hours old.
But she hears it anyway. I can see it in her eyes—the way they soften, the way her breath catches.
"Okay," she says quietly. "I'll follow your lead."
"Thank you."
We start walking. The terrain is rough—rocks and scrub and the occasional steep descent—but after the cliff, it feels almost easy.
Evie matches my pace, her worn Merrells finding purchase on the uneven ground, her body moving with the efficiency of someone who's spent years learning to trust herself in wild places.
I try not to think about what's waiting for us in Sacramento. Try not to think about the cartel soldiers, the unknown numbers, the trap we're probably walking into.
I try not to think about how much I have to lose now.
But the thoughts come anyway, unwanted and relentless. Four hours ago, this was a job. A mission. Get the witness, get her to safety, move on to the next thing.
Now it's personal. Now there's a woman beside me who I'm not ready to lose, and people she loves who I've never met but would die to protect.
Because they're hers. And she's—
Mine, something whispers. She's mine.
I push the thought away. Focus on the terrain, the mission, the next step.
We have an hour to the extraction point. Forty minutes in the air. And then whatever's waiting for us in Sacramento.
No pressure.