Chapter Seven #2
Spade had trusted me with this. With monitoring his brothers.
With their safety. The weight of that responsibility pressed down on my shoulders like a physical thing.
These weren’t just dots on a screen or voices on a comm.
These were men with lives and families. Men who didn’t know if they could trust me any more than I knew if I could trust them. The coffee turned sour in my stomach.
“Approaching Junction Six,” Wildcard announced. “All clear.”
I checked the satellite imagery again. Nothing unusual. No unusual heat signatures. No vehicles where they shouldn’t be. I exhaled slowly, not realizing I’d been holding my breath.
The transport continued smoothly past the junction. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe the traitor hadn’t taken the bait. Maybe --
Movement. North ridge. Just a flicker on the thermal imaging, but enough to trip the algorithm I’d programmed to detect anomalies.
I tensed as I magnified the section, enhancing the resolution.
The ridge overlooked the transport’s current position -- not where an ambush should be if someone had leaked our false route.
This was the real route. The secret one.
Four heat signatures. No, six. Spread out along the ridge in tactical positions.
Exactly where they’d need to be if they knew the transport’s actual location.
My throat closed as the realization hit.
Our plan had failed. Someone knew the real route.
Unless we had another leak we hadn’t identified, someone had access to information only Spade, Atilla, and I had known.
I grabbed the comm unit, heart pounding against my ribs. “Spade, they’re on you -- north ridge!”
The response was immediate. “Confirm position.”
“Half-mile ahead. Six signatures. Tactical formation.” My voice remained steady despite the fear clawing up my throat. Professional. Detached. Like the numbers on a balance sheet instead of lives in danger.
The cameras on the vehicles showed the team’s instant response -- speeds increasing, formation tightening, weapons appearing in hands that had been empty seconds before.
“Transport team, defensive positions,” Spade ordered, his voice cold and precise. I watched the dots on the GPS accelerate, no longer in straight-line formation but executing a practiced maneuver. The lead vehicle dropped back. The tail swung wide, protecting the central truck with the cargo.
The first muzzle flash appeared on screen three -- a bright white star against the darkness of the ridge. Then another. Another. The ambush had begun.
“Contact left!” Wildcard’s voice, tight, but controlled.
I magnified the camera feed in time to see Spade’s bike swerve hard right, avoiding fire from above.
The other bikes followed, executing a defensive scatter I recognized.
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the edge of the table, unable to tear my focus from the unfolding violence.
Each muzzle flash made me flinch. Each shout over the comms made my heart stutter.
“Two shooters at the rock formation!” Ravager called out.
“I see them,” Spade responded. “Stray, flank left!”
The cameras showed bikes skidding on gravel, brothers taking cover behind natural barriers, returning fire with practiced precision.
The attack was smaller than we’d expected -- fewer men, less firepower.
As if the Horsemen had received partial information.
Enough to find the real route. Not enough to bring sufficient force.
I forced my analytical mind to take over, pushing emotions aside. Six attackers. Standard ambush formation. But no vehicles visible for quick extraction. No backup appearing on the thermal imaging. Tactical mistakes that the Horsemen wouldn’t normally make. Unless…
Unless this was rushed. Unless they’d received the information too late to fully prepare.
A bullet struck one of the cameras, sending screen three into static. I switched to the backup camera, heart hammering against my ribs. Through the chaos, I could see Spade directing the defense, his movements calm and measured despite bullets kicking up dirt around him.
“Transport clear!” Ravager’s voice cut through the gunfire. “Moving now!”
The central dot on the GPS began moving again, accelerating away from the ambush site. The transport was breaking through.
“Cover fire!” Spade ordered.
The remaining cameras showed the brothers laying down suppressing fire, creating space for the transport to escape. Methodical. Practiced. Like they’d done this a hundred times before.
Maybe they had.
“Shooter down,” Wildcard reported, no emotion in his voice.
“Second shooter retreating,” came Stray’s update.
I winced as another burst of gunfire erupted, my fingers flying across the keyboard to track the transport’s escape route. The cargo was moving clear now, distance increasing between it and the ambush site. The plan was working, despite the unexpected location.
“Status?” I asked into the comm, needing to hear Spade’s voice. Needing confirmation that he was still alive.
“One graze wound. No serious casualties.” His response was clipped, professional. “Transport secure and moving.”
The relief that flooded through me was so intense it left me lightheaded. I hadn’t realized how invested I’d become -- not just in the operation’s success, but in these men’s survival. In Spade’s survival.
I forced my attention back to the screens, monitoring the retreating heat signatures on the ridge. The ambushers were pulling back, their attack failed. The transport was clear, moving steadily toward its destination.
But the victory felt hollow as I stared at the map, the implications sinking in. Someone had known the real route -- information only three people should have had. Either Atilla was compromised, Spade was playing a game I didn’t understand, or…
Unless we’d missed a listening device during our sweep, I was now the prime suspect.
The thought chilled me more than the violence I’d just witnessed. Trust was a luxury none of us could afford right now. Not even with each other.
I swallowed hard and began preparing the operation logs. Spade would want a full debrief when he returned. Evidence. Analysis. Conclusions.
Everything but the emotions churning in my stomach as I replayed those terrifying moments when his life had hung in the balance.
* * *
Spade
I smelled the gunpowder on my clothes before I even closed the door behind me.
The acrid reminder of survival clung to my cut, my shirt, my skin.
The secure room was dim except for the blue glow of monitors, each one replaying some aspect of the ambush we’d just survived.
And there she sat, hunched forward, fingers flying across the keyboard as she analyzed our failure.
Lila hadn’t moved since I left hours ago -- her cold coffee still half-full, protein bar still wrapped beside it.
She was replaying comm recordings, her face ghostly pale in the electronic light.
She didn’t acknowledge my entrance. Didn’t need to. Her entire focus remained on the screens before her, shoulders tight with concentration. With guilt. I recognized the posture -- the burden of responsibility when operations go sideways. I’d carried it myself too many times to count.
“Analyzing the clusterfuck?” I asked, my voice rougher than intended. Adrenaline crash. It always left me raw.
“I missed something.” She didn’t look up, didn’t stop the video playback showing muzzle flashes in the darkness. Brothers taking fire. My brothers. “The ambush location was wrong. They knew the real route, not the false one.”
I moved closer, watching her scroll through timestamp data with methodical precision.
“We all got out. Cargo secured. Destination reached.” I kept my tone flat, factual. “Ravager took a graze to the shoulder. He’ll live.”
“That’s not the point.” Her fingers tightened on the mouse, knuckles going white. “Someone knew information only three people should have had -- you, Atilla, and me.”
I knew what she wasn’t saying. The accusation hung in the air. If the leak wasn’t me or Atilla, then suspicion fell on her. The outsider. The convenient suspect.
“Show me what you’ve found.” I moved to the side of her table, deliberately close but not touching. Not yet.
She pulled up a split screen -- GPS tracking on one side, communications logs on the other.
“I’ve been through every transmission. Every check-in.
Looking for the leak.” Her voice remained steady despite the exhaustion evident in the shadows beneath her eyes.
“The attack was smaller than expected. Less coordinated. Like they got last-minute intelligence.”
The footage continued playing on the largest monitor -- the ambush from multiple angles, captured by bike cameras and surveillance drones.
The violence played in an endless loop. Brothers in danger.
Brothers fighting back. Each flash of gunfire made her flinch almost imperceptibly. A tell she couldn’t quite hide.
I reached past her, hitting the pause button. The screen froze on an image of bullets striking dirt inches from where I’d been standing. Her gaze flicked to my face, then away.
Without comment, I stepped directly between her and the monitors, blocking her view of the violence. A deliberate move. Not discussed. Not acknowledged. Just done. “This isn’t on you,” I said, voice cold and flat despite the protective positioning.
“I was responsible for monitoring. For catching anomalies.” She tried to lean around me to see the screens. I shifted, maintaining the blockade. “If I had spotted the ridge surveillance sooner --”
“You spotted it with enough time for us to respond.” I cut her off. “We all walked away.”
Her eyes finally met mine directly, searching for blame I wasn’t offering. “Someone knew the real route, Spade. Someone we trusted.”