“Clear left,” Rafael murmured.
A second guard spun, weapon half-raised.Dominic slammed into him from the side, driving him into the wall hard enough to crack concrete.The man went down screaming.Dominic ended it without ceremony.
Inside, it went loud.
Mateo kicked the door and the world exploded into motion.
Gunfire stuttered through the cavernous space, muzzle flashes strobing between stacked crates and rusted machinery.Luca took a round across the shoulder—burning heat, wet and sharp—but adrenaline swallowed the pain whole.He closed the distance, broke a man’s jaw with the butt of his knife, and buried the blade where it would end the fight fast.
Kol moved like the ghost he was, shots precise, economical.Each pull of the trigger was punctuation.
Rafael took a hit to the thigh and kept moving, teeth bared, blood dark against his pants.Dominic dragged him behind cover long enough to cinch a tourniquet.
“You good?”Dominic demanded.
Rafael spat.“No, Dominic, I am not good.I was just shot in the leg.I am pissed.”
Dominic nodded.“Yep, you’re good.Slow, but good.”
“Fuck you, asshole,” Rafeal muttered, reloading his weapon.
Brotherhood wasn’t words.
It was this.
They cleared the warehouse room by room.
Cages.
Crates.
Women huddled in the dark, wrists raw, eyes wide with terror that hadn’t learned how to hope yet.
Luca sliced cuffs, hauled doors open, voice cutting through the chaos.“You’re safe.Move when we say move, and you’ll get out of this.”
Some flinched.Some cried.Some stared at him like he wasn’t real.
A trafficker rushed him with a crowbar, screaming.Luca sidestepped, drove the blade under the man’s ribs, and let momentum carry the body past him.He didn’t slow.Didn’t look back.
Iron Covenant paid in blood when lines were crossed, and ten brutal minutes later, it was done.
Sirens wailed somewhere far off—someone else’s problem now.The women were wrapped in coats, shepherded into vans with clean plates and false destinations.Medics moved through them, checking pulses, murmuring reassurances.
Luca stood in the doorway, chest heaving, counting heads.
Mateo clapped a bloody hand to Luca’s shoulder.“That’s a win.”
Luca nodded, though the word tasted wrong in his mouth.
His phone buzzed.
Elias.
He stepped aside and answered.“We got them all.”
A pause.
Not relief.
