Page 129 of Redemption

Two deep lines formed over the bridge of Brock’s nose. “You’d pull an op based on your girlfriend’s tone of voice?”

“Forty-five seconds,” Parker said.

Victoria was a warrior woman who wouldn’t cave to a gang threatening her. “Yes. Kill the job.”

Brock yanked his hand across his throat.

Parker radioed in, “Abort mission. Break, break, break. Titan, this is base. Abort mission. Pull back. Do you copy?”

All waited for a response. Parker remained intently listening.

“All operations have been aborted. Mission abort. Confirm. Titan, I need a WILCO.”

Waiting on the ‘will comply’ response heaped pressure into the room. Nothing seemed to register as Parker typed on his keyboard.

“How do you copy?” Parker repeated in five-second bursts.

Ryder would’ve killed for a loud and clear at that moment.

“What’s going on?” Sugar demanded.

Brock held up a hand for everyone to remain silent and calm.

“Radio silence,” Parker said. “I’ve got nothing.”

That wasn’t unexpected. The team was set to go dark as they closed in.

“What the—” Parker switched the screen to a thermal satellite map, and the room’s attention was pulled to the screen as a bright mark lit.

“What was that?” Seven asked.

She was the only one who asked because everyone else knew what an explosion looked like on a heat map.

The cooling color on the heat map did nobody any good. Still, Ryder couldn’t focus anywhere else as tension continued its stranglehold. He had about as much control over his visceral reactions as anyone in the room. Blood pressure. Heart rate. Breath control. But still he struggled to maintain a clear head. Now it wasn’t just Victoria that had his mind in tortured shambles. The radio silence from Titan’s main team was deafening.

Once upon a time, Titan Group had lost an entire team to a helicopter crash. That was who Ryder had replaced. These things happened.But not now. Not like this.Not while they watched...

Sugar took a wary step toward the screen, the first time she’d moved in what seemed like years. He had never seen her scared, never seen Sugar without the tough-as-steel snark and sass that flowed as bright as the vivid pink on her slack lips.

“Titan, come in.” Parker’s requests never stopped. His voice echoed in Ryder’s head on repeat for what felt like the millionth time. “Come in. Respond. Do you read?”

Silence except for the manic typing from the IT genius who was searching for information about an explosion in no man’s land in the heart of America.

“Jax,” Sugar spit out.

Ryder shifted his gaze to her. She was back to the hard-ass machine he was so familiar with.

Her jaw didn’t move as she repeated, “Jax.”

“Jax is with the team.” Brock pulled his chair closer to the table, his eyes narrowing as he seemingly tried to guess her line of thought.

Ryder liked how Brock saidisand notwas. The simple verb tense gave a layer of reassurance that Ryder didn’t want to let go of. Even with that, he tried to figure out what Sugar was talking about and came up with nothing. The way Sugar said his name—it was… accusatory.

“This is Jax’s fault.”

Parker didn’t stop what he was doing, but his eyes tracked to Brock, and he let his confusion contort the already deep lines aging him. “What the hell are you talking about, Sugar?”

“Parker…” Sugar ignored Brock. “Where was Jax before he came to Titan? What wasn’t in the file I saw?” Sugar walked behind Colin and but kept Brock’s attention.

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