Page 45 of Shadow's Edge

Right now, I had a shot to line up.

Lying prone, I adjusted the sight on my rifle, factoring in wind speed, direction, and drop. Every movement was precise, every breath measured. When I was locked in, I double-clicked my throat mic. Tonight, this was Hunter’s call. His fiancée had been taken, his world nearly ripped apart by the same bastards holed up inside that building, so this was his show.

Through the scope, I tracked Demingo’s movements. He was still pacing, still caught up in the mindfuck Data had orchestrated, his phone playing his own humiliation on an endless loop. Then, I heard the click, my signal.

I squeezed the trigger.

The round fired with deadly precision, striking the side of the house just as Jagger and the team detonated the explosives we’d wired minutes earlier. The world fucking shook. A shockwave blasted outward, rattling the ground beneath me, sending debris and smoke into the air.

And then, I fell out of the fucking tree, and the landing was not graceful.

I hit the ground with a hard thud, the impact knocking the wind from my lungs. “Fuck me,” I groaned, coughing as dust filled my throat.

My hand instinctively went to rub my neck, and I realized I’d forgotten about my throat mic. The open line meant my moment of humiliation had just been broadcasted to every single person on comms.

There was beat of silence, then, “Kyle!”

Jagger’s voice, sharp with alarm, cut through my earpiece. I groaned again, half in pain, half in sheer fucking embarrassment. Boots pounded against the dirt as he and Preacher ran toward me, but the real insult was Duke. The big, smug bastard stood near the base of the tree that had just betrayed me, arms crossed, shaking with laughter.

“How much C4 did you use?!” I croaked into my mic, still wheezing from the impact. Duke’s laughter only got louder. “Warn me next time, you dickheads.”

That’s when the pain in my arm registered, a sharp, radiating burn that made me hiss out a string of expletives. Jagger and Preacher reached me then, their hands immediately checking for injuries. I hated being fussed over, hated feeling like I needed help. And I sure as hell hated the fact that I had fallen like a fucking amateur.

Swatting their hands away with my good arm, I grumbled, “Fuck off.”

Jagger scowled. Preacher grunted. And Duke was still laughing his ass off.

That son of a bitch was going to pay for this.

JAGGER

Things had finally started to settle. The Valiant team had returned to their compound, the Ghosts were back at ours, and for the first time in a long time, we had breathing room.

For exactly five minutes, then the shit storm we’d all been waiting for hit. It started with a call from Data, and the news was bigger than any of us could have expected. The leak in the MC was the President of the 412 MC.

Turns out, the bastard had a twenty-eight-year-old daughter—Olivia. I vaguely remembered hearing about her, but what we hadn’t known was that he had sold her out to traffickers. To the same fuckers we were fighting.

We had trusted him, let him into our conversations, given him intel on our operations. All the while, he had been lining his pockets with blood money, feeding information straight to the enemy.

We barely had time to plan our next move when the first rounds of gunfire struck the side of the building. They had snuck up on us. Somehow, they had gotten past our guards. Worse, they knew the layout of our compound—knew exactly where to hit, where we were vulnerable.

Preacher’s roar split through the air. “Fucking shit!”

We ran for the armory, grabbing our assault rifles as standard defense protocols kicked in. Kyle, Duke, and the Ghosts, they knew what to do. But the fact that Kyle wasn’t at my side was a distraction I couldn’t afford right now. I had to trust her. She was lucky her arm hadn’t been broken that night, just bruised, so she could still fight and defend herself.

And fuck, was she fighting.

The second we took position, I got a good look at the sheer number of men that had breached our perimeter. This wasn’t just a warning, it wasn’t intimidation, and they weren’t here to scare us. They were here to wipe us out.

The first shots rang out from inside the building. The Ghosts were already picking them off, moving with practiced precision. I barked orders to the MC, and together, we unleashed hell. Bullets tore through the night, bodies hit the ground, the air thick with gunpowder and blood.

Then, Gauge’s voice cut through the chaos. “Anyone else notice they’re not shooting at us anymore?”

I blinked, my grip tightening on my rifle. Then, I saw it—their firepower had shifted. They weren’t firing at random, they had a target.

And then the explosions hit. I didn’t need to look to know it was Kyle.

She had brought out the prototype weapon we’d taken from Demingo’s men, and it fucking worked. The force of the blast sent bodies flying, the sheer destruction of it making the attackers hesitate. They realized, too late, that they were outmatched. One by one, they turned tail, bolting for the open gates, scrambling over each other to escape.

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