Chapter Fourteen
The old mill sat in darkness, exactly where Trooper had predicted.
He crouched in the treeline two hundred yards out, night-vision optics pressed to his eyes. Single vehicle parked by the loading dock. Faint light from a second-floor window. Movement behind grimy glass that suggested at least one occupant.
"Positions confirmed." Ghost's voice crackled in his ear. "I've got eyes on the north exit. One guard, armed, minimal awareness."
"Forge?"
"South approach covered. Vehicle's a late-model sedan, Virginia plates. Matches the secondary vehicle from our intel."
Trooper had disabled the primary vehicle three hours ago—a cargo van parked behind a gas station twelve miles from here. Cut the fuel line, removed the distributor cap, made it look like mechanical failure. When Briggs ran, he'd run toward a vehicle that wasn't going anywhere.
Now he'd run toward this one. The secondary option.
Which was exactly where Ghost was waiting.
"Static, you're on overwatch. Call out any movement we don't expect."
"Copy."
Trooper checked his weapon one more time. Full magazine. Round chambered. Safety off.
Briggs had killed Scott Webb. Had probably killed Diana Crawford, though they hadn't found her body yet. Had smiled while describing how he'd hurt Jessica, how he'd take his time, how she'd beg before the end.
Tonight, Briggs learned what it meant to threaten someone under Trooper's protection.
"On my signal. Three. Two. One. Execute."
The guard at the north exit died without making a sound.
Ghost materialized from the shadows, blade across the throat, body lowered to the ground before the blood finished flowing. Clean. Professional. The kind of work that didn't leave witnesses.
Trooper moved through the loading dock entrance, weapon up, scanning for threats. The mill's ground floor was empty—rusted machinery, scattered debris, the kind of abandoned industrial space that attracted squatters and criminals in equal measure.
Upstairs, something scraped against wood.
He signaled Forge to cover the stairs, then started climbing.
The second floor was a single open space, divided by support columns thick enough to hide behind. Trooper moved between them, checking angles, following the faint light to its source.
A lantern. Battery-powered. Sitting on a makeshift table next to a chair bolted to the floor.
The chair had restraints. The restraints had blood.
Diana's blood, most likely. Or what was left of it.
Movement to his left.
Trooper spun, weapon tracking, and found himself face to face with Colton Briggs.
The cleaner was smaller than he'd expected. Average height, forgettable face—the kind of man who could walk through a crowd without anyone noticing. But his eyes were wrong. Flat. Empty. The eyes of someone who'd disconnected from human emotion so completely that cruelty felt like routine.
"The planner." Briggs's voice was mild. Conversational. "I wondered when you'd show up."
"Where's Diana Crawford?"
"The grandmother?" Briggs smiled—that same dead smile Jessica had described. "She didn't last long. Heart gave out during our conversation. Disappointing, really. I had more questions."
Something cold settled in Trooper's chest. Not rage—that would come later. Just clarity. The absolute certainty of what needed to happen next.
"You killed two innocent people."
"I eliminated two potential sources of information." Briggs shrugged. "Nothing personal. Vance wanted to know how much you'd learned, and they were the easiest access points."
"They didn't know anything."
"I figured that out eventually." Another smile. "But by then, the damage was already done. Hard to undo that kind of thing."
Trooper's finger tightened on the trigger.
"You're not going to shoot me." Briggs's voice was confident. Certain. "You need to know what I told Vance. What he's planning next. Kill me, and you're blind."
"I don't need your information."
"Everyone needs information. That's how you operate—patterns, analysis, contingencies." Briggs took a step forward. "You're a planner. I can see it in the way you move, the way you positioned your team. You don't act without knowing every variable."
"You're right." Trooper lowered his weapon slightly. "I don't."
Briggs's smile widened.
"Which is why I already know everything you could tell me.
" Trooper raised the weapon again. "Vance is regrouping at his warehouse headquarters.
He's bringing in additional muscle from his Raleigh contacts.
And he's planning to move the remaining weapons within seventy-two hours before we can identify the buyers. "
The smile died.
"I've been tracking his communications for two weeks," Trooper continued. "Pattern analysis on his logistics network. Cross-referencing purchase orders with delivery schedules. By the time you grabbed Scott Webb, I already knew more about Vance's operation than you do."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because you threatened my woman." The words came out cold. Final. "And that's not something I can plan around. That's something I have to eliminate."
Briggs moved.
Fast—faster than expected—lunging for a weapon Trooper hadn't seen. A knife, hidden in his sleeve, the kind of blade that cleaned itself when you pulled it out of flesh.
Trooper fired twice.
Both shots took Briggs in the chest, center mass. The cleaner staggered backward, disbelief spreading across his features. The knife clattered to the floor, followed by the man who'd wielded it.
"You—" Briggs coughed blood. "You said you don't act without knowing every variable."
"I lied." Trooper stood over him, weapon still raised. "Some variables don't require planning. They just require pulling the trigger."
Briggs opened his mouth to respond.
Trooper didn't give him the chance.
The third shot was insurance. The fourth was for Scott Webb. The fifth was for Diana Crawford, dead of a heart attack in this very room because a man with empty eyes had asked her questions she couldn't answer.
When the magazine was empty, Trooper finally lowered the weapon.
"Clear." He keyed his radio. "Target eliminated."
"Copy that." Ghost's voice came back immediately. "Exfil in five. Forge is bringing the vehicle around."
Trooper looked at Briggs's body. At the blood pooling on the wooden floor, spreading toward the chair where Diana had died.
He felt nothing.
That would worry him later. Right now, it was exactly what he needed.
They found Diana's body in a storage room on the ground floor.
Trooper made the identification himself. She looked peaceful—more peaceful than she should have, given what she'd been through. Heart gave out, Briggs had said. Quick, at least. Quicker than he would have preferred.
"We're taking her home." Trooper's voice left no room for argument. "Her family deserves to bury her."
Ghost nodded. "I'll handle it."
They loaded the body into the vehicle, covered it with a tarp, and drove away from the mill without looking back. Behind them, Forge was already setting charges—another location that would burn to the ground, another piece of Vance's operation erased from existence.
The ride back to the compound was silent.
Trooper sat in the back, watching pine forests blur past the windows, thinking about the message they'd just sent. Briggs was dead. His cleaner, his fixer, the man who made witnesses disappear—gone.
Vance would know by morning. Would understand that his operation was being dismantled piece by piece, that every asset he deployed came back in a body bag.
Good. Let him understand.
Let him know what was coming.
Jessica was waiting when they rolled through the compound gates.
She looked like she hadn't slept—dark circles under her eyes, hair pulled back in a messy knot, clothes wrinkled from pacing. But when she saw Trooper climb out of the vehicle, something in her expression shifted.
Relief. Fierce, desperate relief.
"Diana?" she asked.
Trooper shook his head.
Her face crumpled. Just for a moment, just long enough for him to see the grief break through. Then she pulled it back, locked it down, became the woman who managed chaos instead of succumbing to it.
"And Briggs?"
"Dead."
"Good." The word came out hard. Certain. "Good. He deserved—he deserved worse, but good."
Trooper crossed to her, pulled her against his chest. She went without resistance, arms wrapping around him, face buried in his shoulder.
"I'm sorry about Diana," he said quietly. "I'm sorry I couldn't get there in time."
"You tried. That's—" Her voice cracked. "That matters. That you tried."
"Vance knows we're coming now. Briggs was his last protection, and we just eliminated it." Trooper pulled back, meeting her eyes. "He'll either run or dig in. Either way, we end this within the week."
"And then?"
"And then we rebuild. Your facility, your life, everything Vance tried to destroy." His hands cupped her face. "Together. The way we planned."
She kissed him. Soft and desperate and full of everything she couldn't say.
When they pulled apart, Legion was waiting in the compound courtyard.
"Church in thirty minutes." The president's voice carried across the space. "Full operational brief. We're planning the final assault."
Trooper nodded. "I'll be there."
Legion's eyes moved to Jessica, standing beside Trooper with her hand in his. Something shifted in his expression—not quite approval, but close.
"Bring her. She's earned a seat at the table."
The president walked away without waiting for a response.
Trooper looked at Jessica. At the woman who'd reorganized his supply rooms and run ammunition through a firefight and stood beside him while he hunted the man who'd threatened her life.
"You heard him."
"I heard him." She squared her shoulders. "Let's finish this."
They walked into the clubhouse together.
Briggs was dead. Vance was exposed. And the brotherhood was riding to war.
The endgame had begun.