Chapter 48
Ronan
Location: Eastern Europe — Forward Operations Vehicle
The feeds light up fast.
Too fast.
Warehouse fire. Convoy ambush. Two dead drop sites burned within thirty minutes of each other.
Aaron leans forward from the passenger seat, eyes hard. “He’s lashing out.”
That’s what it looks like.
That’s what Malenkov wants it to look like.
I stare at the satellite imagery, jaw tight, something cold sliding down my spine.
“No,” I say slowly. “He’s performing.”
Miles glances up from the tablet. “You think it’s theater?”
“I know it is.”
The convoy ambush is sloppy—poor angles, too many shooters, zero follow-through. Malenkov doesn’t waste men like that.
Which means—
“He wants us to move,” I say. “Right now. Fast.”
Aaron swears. “And we were about to.”
I nod once. “That’s the trap.”
I pull up the map overlay—routes, response windows, extraction timing. The red zones form a neat funnel toward the Romanian border.
Too neat.
“He expects Delta Five to surge here,” I continue, tapping the screen. “Hit what looks like a collapsing node.”
Miles’ eyes widen. “And while we’re tied up—”
“He relocates the prisoners again,” I finish. “Or worse.”
Silence fills the vehicle.
Aaron exhales sharply. “We were seconds from rolling.”
I lean back, forcing myself to breathe through the adrenaline screaming in my veins.
He almost had me.
Because the instinct to respond—to strike back hard when someone burns assets in your face—is powerful. It’s personal.
It’s emotional.
And Malenkov counted on that.
“Abort the surge,” I say. “Now.”
Aaron relays the order immediately.
A second later, Lena’s voice cuts into the channel—calm, sharp.
“I knew you’d see it.”
I close my eyes briefly. “You were already on it.”
“Yes,” she says. “The fires are misdirection. He’s not reacting—he’s clearing noise.”
“Clearing for what?” Miles asks.
There’s a beat.
Then Lena answers quietly, “For a move that requires silence.”
My grip tightens on the console.
“He’s moving Jonah,” I say.
“Yes,” Lena confirms. “And possibly the others. But Jonah first—he’s already broken once. He’s leverage.”
Aaron curses under his breath. “He wants you chasing smoke while he disappears.”
“He wants me angry,” I say. “Because angry men stop thinking.”
I look at the map again—then toggle a different layer. Logistics. Old rail spurs. Subterranean access routes no one uses anymore.
There.
A thin gray line.
“Stop the convoy,” I say suddenly.
Aaron looks up. “Which one?”
“The one that hasn’t left yet,” I answer. “Because it’s not meant to.”
Silence.
Then Miles inhales sharply. “Decoy convoy.”
“Yes.”
Lena exhales softly. “He expects you to hit the decoy hard and fast.”
“And when we do,” I add, “he’ll know exactly where we are.”
The vehicle hums beneath us, engine idling, waiting for the order I almost gave.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, staring at the screen.
“You were close,” I murmur—to Malenkov, to the ghost of his strategy. “Closer than I like.”
But not close enough.
I straighten.
“Delta Five,” I say into the comm, voice steady now. “We don’t take the bait. We go quiet. We shadow.”
Aaron nods. “We let him think we bit.”
“Yes,” I say. “And then we hit where he doesn’t expect.”
Lena’s voice softens just slightly. “You okay?”
I glance at the darkened window, my reflection staring back—controlled, furious, focused.
“He tried to use my instincts against me,” I say. “That’s the last mistake he gets.”
Outside, the world looks calm.
Inside, the war just shifted again.
And Malenkov came within seconds of catching me in a trap that would have ended everything.