Page 451 of Broken Oath

Rook steps closer. “Sniper.”

I look up.

“If this is a trap⁠—”

“It is.”

Cobra straightens away from the counter.

I continue. “Everything Graves does is a trap. The question is whether he expects us to recognize it.”

“That’s why you’re going,” Cobra says.

There’s no humor in his voice now.

Only trust.

We paid for that trust in blood.

I check my sidearm, extra magazines, two flash-bangs, and the knife secured beneath my jacket. Then I take the keys to one of the vehicles Fathom has kept outside every official database.

Rook stops me before I reach the door.

“Bring her back alive.”

My hand closes around the doorknob.

“I will.”

The answer comes easily.

The truth doesn’t.

There have been people I couldn’t save.

Names I don’t say aloud.

Faces that return whenever I close my eyes.

Men who trusted me to see the danger before it reached them.

A team surrounded on a mountain while I watched through a scope, calculating distance, wind, and bullet drop as one brother after another went down.

Sometimes even the best sniper is too far away.

I step into the freezing night.

The truck’s engine growls to life, and the tires cut through the gravel as I leave the cabin behind.

Evelyn Hart is being hunted by some of the most powerful men in the country.

She heard too much.

Recorded too much.

And trusted Shadow Division enough to send one desperate message.

Walter Graves put a target on her back.