Chapter 44
Aftershock
The security office was quiet in the early hours with a stillness that sharpened the senses. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting a sterile glow over the gray-painted interrogation room that they fondly called the Secure Interview Room. Zach called it his Back Office.
It had once been a mundane office, left over from the resort’s early construction contract.
After David and Zach had gotten their hands on it, it had been outfitted for intimidation: blank walls, a straight-backed chair bolted to the floor, and a single desk far enough away to make a man feel like a specimen under glass.
David and Nick strode inside, letting the heavy door seal behind them with a solid thunk that reverberated in David’s ribs. The air stunk of coffee, sweat, and fresh paint—the clean chemical scent of a stage set for discomfort.
Zach leaned against the opposite wall, one boot crossed over the other, arms loose at his sides.
His stance might appear lazy, but the energy pulsing off him was pure coiled threat, the kind that made trained soldiers second-guess themselves.
His dark shirt clung sweat-slick to the edges of his body armor, his jaw shadowed from a day without a shave, and his eyes… ice in a summer storm.
Zach lifted his chin to them as though time were his plaything. “Thought you might want in,” he said, voice measured and easy. Not even winded. “So we waited.”
David’s attention flicked to the prisoner.
Mid-thirties. Sweating bullets. He was handcuffed to the chair; shoulders hunched, breathing raggedly. His eyes darted between the three of them, filled with the uneasy awareness that the rules he thought they were playing by… didn’t apply here.
“I have nothing to say to you,” the man snapped, anger sharp but hollow. “This is false imprisonment. You can’t keep me here. You have no legal—”
Zach simply smiled. Slow. Real. And utterly terrifying.
David saw it strike the man like a punch. Color fled his face, his words dried up, and he shifted, the cuffs rattling. Too late now.
Zach stepped forward with almost theatrical calm, pulling his phone from an inner vest pocket.
His boots were silent on the floor—no stomp, no echo, only the subtle scrape of intent.
He tapped something on the screen, then reached down and grabbed the cuffed man’s wrists, twisting the arms until the guy gasped and flinched away.
“Hold still,” Zach rammed the man’s thumb against the scanner lit on the phone’s surface. The bone-deep groan that followed echoed enough to make Nick wince.
“There. That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” Zach pocketed his phone with a shake of his head, voice almost chipper. “This won’t take long. Anyone want coffee?”
David blinked. “Yeah, I’ll take one.”
Nick grunted his agreement as they stepped into the corridor, the tension peeling off them like damp shirts.
The hallway was narrow and dimly lit, the modern LEDs lowered to night settings, throwing long shadows on the scuffed tile.
The air tasted like industrial cleaner and a hint of oil from the maintenance closet.
Zach propped a shoulder on the far wall and crossed his arms, switching gears now that they were out of earshot.
“I sent his prints off to Ghost.” The clipped quality of Zach’s voice emphasized his total focus. “If that guy’s ever had a uniform, it’ll show. He moves like someone who’s trained, but not elite-trained. Could be ex-military, but no special assignments. He didn’t even twitch when I got close.”
Nick snorted. “Zach, no one hears you coming. That’s a terrible yardstick to use.”
Zach glanced at him, one brow lifting, a smirk teasing the corner of his mouth.
“You know what I mean. Instinct should’ve flared. An edge, some old training kicking in. This guy? Might’ve been good once. Now he’s just lucky.”
“Or desperate,” David added, the lingering tingle of adrenaline buzzing behind his fingertips. “Desperate gets stupid fast.”
“You say that like you weren’t the one hand-delivering a glowing trail right to his doorstep,” Nick said dryly.
David grinned, satisfied. “It worked, didn’t it?” He shifted his attention back to Zach. “You said your guy will hit back soon?”
Zach’s phone vibrated. All three of their heads turned toward the sound. He pulled it free, eyes flicking across the screen.
“Dylan Wilson. Thirty-two. Former Army military police. Dishonorably discharged four years ago. No outstanding warrants, but not squeaky either.”
His fingers moved fast, thumbs flying over the glass as he replied. The screen’s glow lit the rigid lines of his face, from the strong plane of cheekbone to clenched jaw. Then he slid it back in his pocket.
“Ghost is digging into his digital trail now,” Zach raised an eyebrow toward David. “But in case he hits a wall, think you can get into Wilson’s offline records? Stuff that’s not supposed to be public?”
David’s blood quickened the way it always did in response to a challenge. He nodded, eyes narrowing as the cogs turned in his head.
“If he’s got stored data anywhere—even deep, cold storage—I’ll find it.” His voice hardened. “We’ve got a loose end, and I want to know who tied the rope.”
He continued silently, ensuring no one overheard.
I’ll look as soon as we’re done here. I was going to wait until we finished with Wilson.
But you need to know—Lena’s more than just…
Lena. She anchors me. She works like a battery for my talent.
Touch her? I get a boost, a massive one.
Just being in the same room cuts the backlash to nothing.
David slumped against the wall of the hallway, the static hum of adrenaline still sparking in his limbs. The thought had been clawing at the back of his mind since Lena clasped his hand in the server room—an electric clarity that sharpened his focus and left no echoing hangover like usual.
Now he said it out loud. Well, sort of.
Nick straightened. That’s…
A liability if she gets caught up in something, Zach finished grimly.
Yeah, David said. But also—potentially valuable. Nick, remember when your range blew wide for the first time? You were sitting in Lena’s office.
Nick blinked, processing. Holy hell. I thought it was me.
David nodded. Might not have been. I think she amplifies abilities. I think that’s why you peaked then.
Nick gave a low whistle through his teeth. Well. Make sure not to piss off the one person who can turn you into a functioning supercomputer without the nosebleeds and blackouts.
David grinned, quick and feral. Wouldn’t dream of it. The smile faded into something quieter, more certain. I have every intention of keeping her, amplifier or not. She’s mine.
Zach’s mouth curled upward at one corner.
He didn’t say anything, but the approval in his eyes said it all—acceptance without judgment, the only way warriors gave it.
Nick gave David a quick nod, his usual sarcasm dialed into something genuine.
They’d seen it—long before David admitted it.
But it felt good to say it out loud. Solid. True.
“All right,” David said, sliding that steel resolve into his voice. “Let’s talk to our buddy Wilson.”
The three of them moved—efficient, synchronized, all residual lethality hidden under smooth motion. Their boots struck the tile in a rhythm that echoed down the corridor like a countdown.
Zach opened the door without ceremony and strode through, taking his place in the bare interrogation room like he’d been born in it.
He crossed to the far wall and leaned against it, his presence enough to color the air with threat.
The bright light glinted off the lethal blade strapped to his leg and the throwing knives on his chest.
David stalked in behind him, claiming the shadowed stretch to the left of the door.
Nick mirrored him on the right. All three still wore their tactical gear—not out of necessity but for the visual impact.
Camouflage became armor. Gear became intimidation.
And the man sweating in the center? He would break against that wall.
Under the harsh overheads, his skin gleamed where the salt traced his temples. His cuffs clinked as he shifted, trying for bravado, but failing in the hard face of what stood around him.
Zach’s voice broke the stillness, smooth and sharp like a blade sliding from its sheath. “Mr. Wilson, care to share with the class what you were up to tonight?” One brow arched slightly, but the look cut.
Wilson’s eyes twitched. He licked his lips, probably without realizing it, and looked from Zach to David to Nick and back again—as if hoping one of them would be the ‘good cop.’ None of them moved.
“I have nothing to say to you,” his voice cracked on the last word.
David tilted his head, watching the man speak like someone observing a lab experiment.
Every tic, every slight change in posture—it all painted a picture.
Wilson was bluffing. Badly. The desperation crackling off him smelled like fear, which was good.
Fear made people sloppy. And they could work with sloppy.
The knife slipped into Zach’s hand like an extension of his own will—Emerson Sheepdog, black, angular and ominous. David recognized the design immediately. He’d once run security diagnostics for one of Emerson’s suppliers.
“Are you sure about that?” Zach drawled.
Wilson smirked. For a blink, his jaw jutted stubbornly—maybe he thought the knife was for show.
It wasn’t.
In fast motion, Zach slid behind him, cut the cuffs with a practiced flick—and without missing a beat, had Wilson down on the cold tile floor, knee grinding into his spine. A grunt escaped him a second before Zach pinned his hand to the ground and drove the blade straight down.
Through Wilson’s hand.
The scream tore the air open.
David’s jaw clenched. He didn’t flinch—he never flinched—but the sound scraped against something inside him, something he kept locked up tight.
Beside him, Nick shifted minutely, his shoulder brushing David’s in a silent pact of endurance.
The coppery tang of blood and the hard stench of urine struck his nostrils as a golden puddle began to spread across the tile.
“You don’t understand!” Wilson whimpered, his voice ragged. His body heaved beneath Zach’s crushing weight, his cheek mashed against the cold floor. “It’s not me! I’m just a grunt! I was just doing my job!”
There it was—confirmation, ugly and raw and shaking with pain.
David’s thoughts snapped into overdrive. He accessed his tablet and opened mental file after file—Wilson’s profile, the LLC network hits, Lena’s tracker data, the offshore accounts they’d flagged last month—patterns coalescing in the dark corners of his mind.
Zach didn’t move. “By whom?” His voice was ice and precision.
“I don’t know his name,” Wilson sobbed. “Never met him. Only received instructions. Electronic payment through an offshore LLC—Cayman-based. It’s called something like Emerald Ridge Holdings—I don’t know!”
The name struck a chord. He’d seen it recently. He’d find it.
Zach wiggled the blade slightly. “What were your instructions?”
The man was spiraling now—words falling out of his mouth in stuttering, panicked chunks.
“Sabotage. Utilities. My job was to break things that made the resort vulnerable. Circuits, water, backup power. I don’t even know why.
Just… cause confusion—evacuate people or something. Utility tech is my specialty.”
Bile crawled up the back of David’s throat. This wasn’t random chaos. This was orchestration.
He glanced at Nick, who gave a slow nod. He felt the pressure too—something systemic, building.
“How many others?” Zach asked.
“Two. No—three? I think,” Wilson said, breath hitching. “I met one of them at a drop point. Girl. Redhead. She looked like a tourist but knew her way around the back.”
“And the others?”
“A hacker. The guy who wrote all the fancy code. And a staffer who got us access—Andy.”
David sucked in a tight breath. That would explain the instability and failure rates in their internal comms system last week. Diversion? Or overlapping assignments?
Zach’s voice dipped into full-on thunder. “What name did he use?”
“Mark!” Wilson twisted vainly under the grip. “He said to call him Mark. That’s all I know, I swear. Please help me!”
He tuned into Nick’s energy, understanding rippling between them without either of them saying a word. This whole thing was only the beginning. They hadn’t found the puppet master, but they’d tipped the first domino.