Twenty-Eight
The mountain went quiet after violence in a way Anya had always hated.
Gunfire echoed for a few seconds after it stopped. Engines faded down the valley. Snow swallowed the last traces of movement.
And then everything simply...continued. Wind moaned, snow fell in relentless sheets, and the trees creaked with the weight of memory and ice.
As if nothing had happened. As if a man hadn’t just died thirty meters below them. As if the war itself hadn’t just reached up and tried to strangle her in the snow.
Charlie Team moved with practiced efficiency around her.
Ice and Frosty half-carried Justin down the reverse side of the ridge toward the service road while Gucci cleared the tunnel approach one last time before falling back to cover their exfil route.
No one wasted words. No one wasted time. But the air had changed—heavier now, thick with adrenaline and the iron tang of what had just happened.
The fight had bled something vital from the mountain and left behind a weight that pressed on every breath.
Anya followed them down the slope.
Justin was conscious, which meant he was already trying to walk under his own power.
Stubborn, reckless idiot.
“You’re bleeding through the bandage,” she said.
“I noticed.” His voice was steady, but the tightness beneath it betrayed the effort.
The bullet had torn through Justin’s upper back, just below the shoulder blade. Frosty’s hands had been quick and sure, but the ugly stain blooming across Justin’s jacket still spelled out the danger in dark, undeniable language.
He shouldn’t have been upright. He was anyway.
Ice shifted his grip slightly under Justin’s arm. “Boss, if you pass out, I’m leaving you here.”
Justin managed a faint smile. “Motivational.”
They reached the service road. The civilian truck sat crooked across the track where it had slid to a stop. The windshield was shattered. The horn had finally died.
Snow was already beginning to settle across the hood.
Gucci stood beside the driver’s door. She didn’t look back when they approached.
“Local rail maintenance,” she said quietly. “Guy had ID in his pocket.”
No one asked the man’s name. Not yet.
Justin looked once toward the truck. Then away. “Get the body covered,” he said.
Gucci nodded once and pulled a thermal blanket from her pack—no ceremony, just a soldier’s quiet respect for the fallen.
Anya watched the blanket settle over the man’s shoulders. Snow crept in to erase him—slow, merciless, implacable. The mountain devoured its dead as if it were starving.
Her stomach twisted. Not guilt. Not exactly.
But something sharp enough to burn. Sokolov had done that.
Not the collector who pulled the trigger.
Not the hunter who shaped the angle. Sokolov.
Because this entire operation had been designed to make one point clear.
She was reachable. And people around her would pay the price for that reach.
Ice eased Justin against the side of the damaged lead vehicle while Frosty reopened the bandage to assess the wound.
Justin hissed softly when the dressing peeled away.
“Still through-and-through,” Frosty said. “But we need a cleaner wrap.”
“Do it.”
Ice crouched beside him. “You’re going to hate the next part.”
“I already hate the current part.”
“Fair.”
Ice braced Justin’s shoulder while Frosty flushed the wound with antiseptic.
Justin’s breath caught hard.
Anya forced herself not to react. She stood a few feet away, rifle across her chest, eyes flicking from shadow to tunnel to the restless churn of falling snow—every muscle strung tight, every breath edged with the memory of violence.
Because if she watched Justin, she might start thinking about the half-second between Irina’s injector and Justin hitting her hard enough to knock them both off the ridge.
The half-second where he had chosen instinct over strategy. Chosen her. Chosen wrong.
Justin exhaled slowly as Frosty tightened the new wrap. “That should hold until we get him to real medical.”
Ice clapped Justin’s shoulder carefully. “You hear that, boss? You get to live.”
Justin glanced toward Anya. “I was planning to.”
Their eyes collided—history, pain, and something raw flickering between them for a heartbeat too long.
Then Ice cleared his throat. “Okay. Emotional moment over.” He stood and stretched his back. “So what now?”
That question hung in the cold air between them.
Justin pushed away from the vehicle with Ice’s help and straightened. “Now we figure out what that actually was.”
Gucci finished securing the civilian’s body and walked over. “Attempted kidnapping,” she said.
Justin shook his head. “Partially.”
Ice frowned. “How is that partial?”
Justin nodded toward Anya. “Because they had her.”
Anya’s jaw tightened. He was right. For one precise second when Irina’s injector had been less than an inch from her neck.
“They didn’t finish it,” Ice said.
“Because they didn’t need to,” Justin replied.
Frosty frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Justin looked toward the tunnel. “They proved they could reach her.”
The meaning settled slowly across the group.
Gucci spoke first. “They wanted the attempt.”
“Yes.”
Ice swore softly. “So the monastery…the convoy…”
“Stage one,” Justin said. “Psychological pressure.”
Anya finally spoke. “They’re conditioning the board.”
The Charlie operators turned toward her.
Justin nodded. “Exactly.”
Ice looked between them. “I hate when you two start talking like that.”
Frosty rubbed her chin. “So Sokolov sends hunters to confirm she’ll respond to the threat.”
“Yes.”
“Then he runs a retrieval window knowing we’ll try to intercept it.”
“Yes.”
“And even if the grab fails…”
Justin finished the thought. “…he proves the program still works.”
The wind prowled across the road, sending spirals of snow tumbling through the wrecked convoy. Every gust felt like a hand rearranging the ruins, erasing the night’s violence grain by grain.
Anya felt the final piece settle into place. “He’s not hunting me,” she said quietly.
Justin met her eyes. “No.”
“He’s testing me.”
Ice exhaled. “Well that’s comforting.”
Anya’s gaze drifted toward the tree line where Orlov and Irina had vanished. The hunters had retreated exactly when the objective changed. Not when the fight turned. When the message was delivered.
Her fingers tightened slightly on the rifle sling. “He wanted me angry.”
Justin studied her. “And?”
Anya looked back at him. Her voice was calm. Colder than the snow. “It worked.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Ice clapped his hands once. “Good.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?” he said. “If we’re angry, we stop reacting.” He jerked his chin toward the tunnel. “And we start hunting.”
Justin nodded slowly. “That’s exactly what we do.”
Frosty checked the road. “We can’t stay here.”
“No,” Justin said. “Devon already has a fallback point.”
The comm clicked. As if summoned. “I do,” Devon said.
Ice grinned. “You ever sleep?”
“Occasionally.”
Justin stepped away from the vehicle. “Location.”
“Safe house twenty-two kilometers west,” Devon said. “Old border patrol relay station. Clean signals. Medical equipment.”
Ice nodded. “Works for me.”
Gucci and Charlie Five carefully lifted the civilian into the truck bed. “We’re bringing him.”
Justin didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Anya watched the team move. Efficient. Professional. Controlled.
Charlie Team had seen worse nights. But tonight, the silence wasn’t just aftermath—it was a warning. This hadn’t been an ambush; it was a message, and messages like this always came with a promise: escalation was next.
Justin stepped closer to her. “You’re quiet.”
She didn’t look at him. “I’m thinking.”
“About?”
“Pierce.”
Justin’s brow furrowed. “You think he was here?”
“Yes.”
Devon’s voice came softly through the comm. “I agree.”
Ice looked up. “You people are psychic now?”
Devon ignored him. “The signal we caught earlier was too precise to be accidental.”
Anya nodded. “He was near the rail corridor.”
Justin considered that. “And he didn’t intervene.”
“No.”
Ice frowned. “That’s weird.”
Anya shook her head. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because Pierce hunts differently.”
Justin watched her carefully. “He waits for the moment that matters.”
“And tonight didn’t?”
Anya looked back toward the tunnel. “No.” Her voice dropped slightly. “Tonight was Sokolov’s move.”
The team finished loading the gear.
Ice climbed into the driver’s seat of the damaged lead vehicle while Frosty helped Justin into the passenger side.
Gucci took the second vehicle.
Anya paused beside the door.
Justin looked up at her. “You riding with us?”
“Yes.”
She climbed into the back seat.
The engine coughed once before catching.
Ice eased the truck around the wreckage and pointed it west down the service road.
Behind them, the tunnel blurred into the swirling white, vanishing into a distance that seemed to stretch forever. The mountain swallowed the battlefield without ceremony, as if even blood and violence were nothing new beneath its ancient gaze.
No lights. No bodies except the one they carried. No proof that anything had happened. Just another empty stretch of frozen road.
Justin leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes for a moment. Pain flickered across his face.
Anya watched him in silence.
He felt it. Of course he did. “You’re staring,” he said quietly.
“You got shot.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“You knocked me out of Irina’s strike.”
“Yes.”
She studied him. “Why?”
Justin opened one eye. “Because she was about to drug you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
The truck rolled through the storm.
Ice pretended not to hear them.
Justin looked out the windshield. Then, finally, answered. “Because that’s where I was standing.”
Anya held his gaze.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then she leaned forward, slow enough that he could stop her if he wanted to. He didn’t.
Her fingers touched the edge of his jacket near the fresh bandage, careful of the wound, less careful of the man. The contact was light. Barely there.
The air in the truck shifted—thickening, charged, every word and silence suddenly weighted with new peril and possibility.
“You keep choosing the place between me and the bullet,” she said.
Justin’s eyes stayed on hers. “Yes.”
“That is not strategy.”
“No.”
Ice made a sudden, exaggerated study of the road ahead.
Anya ignored him. Her hand remained where it was, warm against the cold fabric, steady despite the storm shaking the vehicle around them.
“If you die doing it,” she said quietly, “I’ll be very angry with you.”
A faint curve touched Justin’s mouth, tired and edged with pain. “Noted.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
She should have pulled back. Instead, her thumb shifted once, an unconscious stroke against his jacket, close enough to the bandage to feel like both warning and comfort.
Justin covered her hand with his.
Not to hold her there.
To answer.
The moment lasted only a few seconds before she withdrew and sat back, rifle across her knees, face composed again.
But Justin didn’t close his eyes after that. And Anya didn’t look away first. But the truth was already clear between them.
And somewhere deep in the mountains behind them, Orlov and Irina were already moving to the next phase.
The retrieval window had closed. The war had not.
And now both sides knew exactly how far the other was willing to go.