Thirty
The road was too quiet.
Justin felt it before the engines even slowed—a hush so unnatural it prickled his skin and set something cold crawling down his spine.
Mountain roads at this hour carried sound in strange ways. Engines echoed. Tires hissed through snow. Wind threaded through rock cuts like breath through teeth.
But this stretch of the valley held a different kind of silence—a broken hush, heavy with the memory of violence and the promise of more.
Ice eased the truck around the final bend, headlights slicing through drifting snow and painting the trees with restless, searching shadows.
Justin leaned forward in his seat. “Kill the lights.”
Ice didn’t argue. The beams died instantly, leaving the truck rolling forward in darkness lit only by the dull blue wash of snow and the faint glow of the sky above the ridge.
Gucci’s vehicle stopped behind them.
For a moment, silence pressed in—thick, expectant, as if the valley itself was waiting to see who would flinch first.
Justin opened the door and stepped out into the cold. The wind had shifted during the drive. It carried a faint smell now—sharp and metallic beneath the snow.
Gunpowder. And something darker.
Anya joined him beside the truck. “You smell it.”
“Yes.”
Ice climbed out and stretched his shoulders. “That’s not fresh gunfire.”
Justin nodded. “No.”
Which meant the fight had already happened.
Charlie Team fanned out, rifles raised, boots biting into the snow as they moved with practiced precision toward the ridgeline—a line of ghosts stalking the aftermath of violence.
Justin climbed first. The slope wasn’t steep, but the snow had begun to crust over ice beneath it, forcing careful footing. The storm had slowed slightly since the tunnel fight, but the wind still pushed loose snow across the ground in thin white sheets.
At the crest, he stopped.
Ice nearly ran into him again. “What—”
The word died halfway out of his mouth.
Below them, the convoy lay scattered across the road. Or what was left of it.
The lead transport sat half off the roadway, its front axle twisted into the snowbank where it had been forced sideways by impact. The rear vehicle had fared worse. It had rolled once and now lay on its side, one wheel still spinning slowly in the wind.
The third vehicle—the armored escort—burned quietly twenty meters farther down the road. Flames licked hungrily through the shattered rear door, smoke curling into the storm like a signal no one wanted to answer.
Ice exhaled slowly. “Well.”
Frosty stepped up beside them. “That wasn’t subtle.”
Justin studied the scene.
The vehicles hadn’t simply crashed. They had been stopped. Forced off the road with precise violence.
He scanned the surrounding slopes. No movement. No surviving hunters repositioning for a second strike. No retreating convoy. Just wreckage.
Anya moved past him and dropped to one knee at the edge of the ridge, rifle rising to sweep the road below. “I don’t see any hostiles.”
Justin didn’t answer. Because he was looking at the bodies. Three of them lay visible from the ridge. Black-clad. Sokolov’s hunters. One sprawled beside the lead transport. Another near the burning vehicle. The third halfway across the road.
Ice followed his gaze. “Collectors?”
“No.”
Justin pointed. “Hunters.”
The difference mattered.
Collectors carried restraint packs. Hunters carried rifles. The men below had rifles.
Which meant Pierce hadn’t intercepted a retrieval team. He had intercepted the protection detail.
Ice whistled softly. “That’s bold.”
Justin started down the slope. “Stay sharp.”
Charlie Team followed.
Snow crunched beneath their boots as they approached the wreckage.
The smell of burned fuel thickened in the air.
Justin stopped beside the first body. The man sprawled on his back in the snow, rifle loose in his grip. Dead—one bullet, center chest, clean as a signature. The kind of kill that left no doubt.
Ice crouched nearby. “No spray. No panic fire.”
Justin nodded. “Professional.”
Frosty moved toward the second body near the overturned vehicle. “Same here.”
She gestured toward the man’s forehead. Single-entry wound. Execution.
Ice stood slowly. “Alright.” He looked around the ruined convoy. “I’m officially uncomfortable.”
Justin stepped closer to the burning transport.
The rear cargo doors had been blown open. Inside the compartment sat three metal crates bolted to the floor. Empty.
Ice noticed. “Where’s the cargo?”
Justin’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the problem.”
Because the crates hadn’t been forced open.
They had been unlocked. Carefully.
Anya stepped closer. “What was in them?”
Justin studied the interior.
Three sets of restraints were mounted to the floor inside the cargo bay. Heavy. Reinforced. Not designed for transport equipment. Designed for prisoners.
Ice let out a low breath. “Oh.”
Justin nodded. “Yes.”
This had been the real retrieval convoy. Not the decoy at the tunnel. The one Sokolov had actually intended to use.
Anya glanced toward the mountains beyond the road. “They were preparing for multiple captures.”
Justin met her eyes. “Yes.”
Ice ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, I hate that even more.”
Gucci called from the far side of the wreckage. “Boss.”
Justin walked over.
The third hunter lay half-buried in snow where he had fallen. The bullet hole sat directly between the man’s eyes. No wasted rounds. No hesitation. Execution.
Justin crouched beside the body. The hunter’s radio still hung from his vest.
Ice pointed at it. “Think Pierce talked to them first?”
Justin shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
Justin gestured toward the road. “Because they never saw him.”
Ice looked at the pattern of the bodies again. The spacing. The angles. The clean kills. “Ambush.”
“Yes.”
Anya’s voice came quietly behind them. “From above.”
Justin followed her gaze.
The ridge opposite the road. A narrow outcropping halfway up the slope. Perfect sniper position.
He imagined Pierce lying there. Watching the convoy approach. Waiting for the moment when the hunters believed the road was safe. One shot. Then another. Then the third. No rush. No noise. Just a ghost removing obstacles one by one.
Ice crossed his arms. “So he wipes the escort.”
Justin nodded. “Yes.”
“And then what?”
Justin stood slowly. “Then he lets the transport go.”
Ice blinked. “Why?”
Justin looked toward the mountains to the north.
Because Pierce wasn’t hunting a convoy. He was hunting Sokolov.
“He’s following the trail upstream,” Justin said. “To the source.”
Anya watched the same horizon. “Which means he knows where Sokolov is.”
Justin nodded. “Yes.”
Frosty kicked lightly at the snow near the third body. Something slid free. A small metal disc.
Ice picked it up. Turned it over. And went very still.
Justin saw it instantly.
The crescent moon, bisected by a line. Silent Night. But now the symbol was scarred—a savage gash cut across the metal, a message as clear as blood on snow.
Ice looked up. “Well.”
Justin felt something tighten in his chest. Because Pierce had left the message on purpose. Not for Sokolov. For them.
Anya read it at the same moment he did. “He’s ahead of us.”
Justin nodded. “And he’s already inside their perimeter.”
Ice handed the coin to Justin. “So what’s the play?”
Justin glanced from the burning transport to the mountains beyond, the storm’s icy jaws already closing around the road—sealing in the wreckage, the secrets, and the promises of what would come next.
Pierce had already moved the board. Sokolov would respond. Which meant the war had just accelerated.
Justin slid the coin into his pocket. “We keep moving.”
Ice grinned slightly. “Good.”
Charlie Team began checking the remaining vehicles for anything useful.
Justin walked a few steps away from the wreckage.
Anya joined him.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The wind pushed smoke and snow between them, blurring the wreckage behind into something distant and unreal.
“You’re thinking about him.”
“Yes.”
“Pierce.”
“Yes.”
She studied him in the half-light, not his posture, not the weapon at his shoulder—him. The set of his jaw. The way he held himself through the pain he refused to acknowledge.
Her hand came up, brushing briefly along his side—just below the sling, just above the place she knew the bullet had passed through. Not checking. Remembering.
He went still. Not from the touch. From the intent behind it.
“You’re bleeding again,” she said quietly.
“I’ve been told worse.”
Her fingers lingered a fraction longer than necessary, pressing once—light, deliberate—through the fabric. A warning. Or a promise. “Don’t slow down,” she said.
Justin’s gaze held hers. “I won’t.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
A beat.
Snow whispered across the road.
His hand came up—not to stop her, not to move her—but to close briefly around her wrist where it rested against him. Steady. Answering. “I know,” he said.
The contact held for a second. Then she pulled away first.
The wind prowled the road, swirling smoke and snow into restless, shifting ribbons—nature and aftermath tangled together, refusing to let the scene go quiet.
Anya watched the mountains. “If he reaches Sokolov first…”
Justin finished the thought. “…this ends without us.”
She didn’t like that. He could tell. Neither did he.
Justin adjusted the sling on his rifle. “Get the vehicles moving.”
Ice looked up from the transport. “Where to?”
Justin turned toward the north road. “After the ghost.”
Because if Pierce had already entered Sokolov’s territory, then the next fight wouldn’t be an ambush.
It would be a war.