Not wild.Not frantic.
Measured.
Controlled.
Professional.
Mara felt it in her bones before she understood it.Her breath hitched—not in fear this time, but in hope.
Havelock spun toward the sound, fury stripping the last of his composure, his mouth opening to shout orders that hadn’t mattered yet.
Mara smiled through the pain, slow and certain.
“Told you,” she said softly.“Your time’s up.”
****
The first breach chargeexploded.Steel screamed as the lock failed inward, the sound tearing through the warehouse like a warning bell that came too late.Luca was already moving, rifle up, boots eating concrete, the world narrowing to angles and targets and the single name beating behind his eyes.
Mara.
Gunfire answered them from inside.Short bursts.Defensive.Panicked.
“Left!”Mateo barked.
Luca cut right, shoulder slamming through the doorframe as splinters and sparks rained down.Dominic took point behind him, Elias moving at the rear with lethal calm, weapon steady, presence anchoring the formation.
Kol’s voice threaded through their comms, calm as a metronome.“Two hostiles on the catwalk.Third behind the generator.Moving.”
Shots rang out.A body pitched from the catwalk and hit the floor hard enough to shake dust loose from the rafters.
“Clear,” Kol said.
They moved deeper.
The warehouse was a maze of cold metal and shadow.Chains rattled overhead, stirred by concussion.Luca clocked everything without seeing it—angles, exits, places where a body could be dragged or hidden.He stepped over blood that wasn’t fresh enough to be theirs.
A guard lunged from behind a crate.Luca fired once, center mass, then again when the man didn’t fall fast enough.He didn’t slow.
“Where is she?”Mateo snapped into a fleeing man’s ear.
The answer came with a scream and a wet thud as Dominic put the man down.
“Office,” Kol said.“North side.Reinforced.”
Luca felt it then—pressure behind his eyes, a tight coil of fury and relief fighting for space.
They hit the office door together.
Mateo kicked.Dominic followed.Luca was through the gap the second it opened, weapon sweeping, finger steady.
Havelock was there.
He’d dragged Mara’s chair closer to the desk and had positioned himself half behind her, one arm hooked around the back of her shoulders like a shield.Like a threat.His grip tightened when he saw them.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Havelock snapped, voice sharp with sudden panic.“This was contained.This was private.The Covenant doesn’t touch this kind of business.”
Elias stepped forward a fraction, calm as a blade laid flat.“How do you know that name?”
