“I know.”
“She’s not an asset,” Luca said, stepping closer.
“No,” Kol replied.His voice was steady, but there was steel beneath it.“She’s a victim.”
Luca held his gaze a moment longer, then nodded once.“Bring her home.”
Kol picked up the bag.
Georgia announced itself the moment they stepped out of the vehicle.
The heat was immediate and oppressive, thick with humidity that clung to skin and clothes.Sweat formed almost instantly, soaking fabric, making even stillness feel like effort.The sun baked the ground until the asphalt shimmered and the air itself seemed to waver.
The facility sat miles outside anything worth calling a town.Squat concrete.Chain-link fencing.Security lights placed more for appearance than effectiveness.It was the kind of building no one remembered passing, designed to blend into the landscape by being aggressively unremarkable.
Mateo’s voice murmured through Kol’s earpiece.“Cameras are low-grade, and the fucking network’s worse.I’m looping the perimeter now.You’ve got about eight minutes before anyone notices the gap.”
Rafael shifted beside him, hand settling more firmly on his weapon.“Let’s move.”
They advanced from the south, using scrub and shadow to break up their outlines.No rushing.No wasted motion.The guards were bored, posture loose, attention drifting—men paid to watch a place that had never been challenged.
Inside, the air was marginally cooler but stale, layered with the sharp tang of disinfectant and the heavier undercurrent of sweat and fear.Kol moved first, Rafael half a step behind.Mateo dropped to one knee briefly to access the panel, fingers flying as the door locks disengaged in sequence.
The first guard collapsed without a sound.The second barely had time to register surprise.
They moved deeper into the building.The corridor narrowed, walls closing in, the air growing heavier with each step.Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a harsh, unyielding glow.
Mateo tapped Kol’s shoulder, angling the handheld thermal feed so he could see it in passing.“Second door on the left,” he murmured.“Single heat signature.Small.Stationary.No other movement nearby.”
Kol slowed.
On the screen, the heat signature pulsed faintly—hunched, too still.The kind of stillness that came from exhaustion, not calm.
Rafael shifted closer, a silent question in his eyes.
Kol nodded his head once.
He reached for the handle and opened the door slowly.
The room was small and brutally clean.White walls.A table bolted to the floor.One buzzing fluorescent light that never went dark.The air felt used up, thick and heavy, as if it had been breathed too many times already.
A woman sat at the table.
Eliza Reed.
She was thinner than the file photo suggested.Shoulders squared despite the slump of exhaustion.Hair pulled back with a strip of fabric that had never been meant for that purpose.Her hands rested on the table, fingers faintly stained with ink.
She didn’t look up at first.
Kol closed the door behind him carefully, keeping the sound soft.He holstered his weapon and raised both hands, palms open.No sudden movement.No command.
He stayed where he was.
Silent.
When Eliza finally lifted her head, her eyes widened—not in panic, but in sharp, assessing surprise.She looked at him the way people did when they were weighing risk against instinct, threat against possibility.
The force of it hit him harder than any blow ever had.
