Page 26 of The Lasso Master

It was a message meant for him and no one else. Not because he was the best, but because he was hers.

He picked up the phone.

"Dawson. Get the team together and get the jet fueled. I want us wheels up in thirty—no flight plan, under the radar, and armed to the teeth. We're going to Mexico, and we’re not coming back empty-handed."

"You found her?"

"Not yet," Reed growled. "But I know where she's going to be."

He dropped the phone into its cradle and moved. Fast. Focused. The calm before a hurricane. He unlocked the weapons cabinet in his office, grabbing his SIG, a combat knife, two extra mags, and a suppressor. He’d already packed the go bag in the closet with body armor, burner phones, encrypted comms, a satellite tracker, and a photo of Harper. He shoved it inside the pack like a talisman.

Before stepping outside, he had laced his boots, zipped his chest plate, and pulled his mind taut.

Two SUVs idled at the curb, headlights off. Gavin leaned against the hood of one, rifle slung. Jesse was loading gear into the trunk. Dawson and Hawke sat up front, engines hot.Reed climbed into the lead vehicle.

"Drive," he ordered.

The convoy peeled out, tires spitting grit and exhaust as they surged through downtown San Antonio. Neon signs blurred past the windows as the SUVs threaded through traffic with surgical speed, horns blaring in protest. No one slowed. No one spoke. Everyone knew what was at stake.

They quickly left the city behind, seeing only dark highway and open space. They drove with purpose, two black vehicles racing toward a private airstrip. Reed sat in the back, one hand on his thigh, the other curled into a fist, knuckles white. The rhythm of the tires over the road barely registered. His mind flashed back—training ops in hostile zones, missions where the odds were a coin toss, and that one time in Kandahar, when he'd promised himself if he ever had someone worth saving, he'd never be late.

This time, he wasn't just on time. He was coming in hot, and hell was coming with him. On the edge of Bexar County—one that didn’t ask questions and stayed off the books.

Toward hell. Toward Harper.

Villa Calderon rose like a predator in the night. Its black walls loomed out of the jungle like they had grown from shadow and bone, windowless and silent, the architecture sharp enough to cut. No signage. No movement beyond the perimeter—just the quiet menace of a place that didn’t need to advertise what went on inside.

Security was tight: infrared scanners swept the perimeter in steady arcs, roving guards moved with the precision of ex-military contractors, and high-frequency jammers blanketed the grounds, cutting off every signal not hard-wired. This wasn’t some third-rate cartel hub—it was a fortress-level black market.

Criminal royalty didn’t just visit here. They bought shares in the depravity. They trafficked not only in bodies and artifacts but in favors, secrets, and blood-soaked leverage. They held court over agony dressed in couture, their laughter echoing through chambers that had never known light. They entertained their appetites until the walls themselves seemed to pulse with it. They fed on desperation. On vulnerability. And they bled it dry, drip by drip, deal by deal.

Reed crouched behind the low outer wall, breath slow, heart steady, sweat cooling beneath his body armor.

He scanned the east approach, noting every shadow, every pattern in the guard patrols, every possible path in and out. The jungle around the compound pressed in close, dense and humid, the kind of heat that stuck to the skin and whispered promises of blood.

The villa loomed in his peripheral vision, black and silent, the kind of quiet that screamed. Every instinct screamed too, tensing his shoulders and setting his gut to stone. It was thesilence of a place holding its breath before the kill. The heat of the jungle didn’t reach past those walls—only the cold weight of what lay inside did. Each second he waited felt like a wire strung tighter across his spine, and with every heartbeat, the danger closed in like a noose.

He didn’t need to see movement to know what waited inside. He could feel it. Power. Cruelty. Harper.

His earpiece buzzed."North quadrant clear. You have three tangos at the east gate," Hawke's voice crackled, calm and lethal.

Reed's lips barely moved. "Copy. Moving."

He ghosted through the brush, low and silent, each step measured and deliberate. The leaves barely rustled beneath his boots as he glided forward, a shadow among shadows. Every breath was controlled, every muscle coiled and ready. This wasn't a man stalking prey.

This was a predator invading another predator's lair.

And the closer he got, the clearer the pulse of danger became—sharp and electric, like lightning in his blood. He was close now. Close to her.

And anyone standing between him and Harper was already dead—they just didn’t know it yet.

Silent. Precise. Controlled fury. Reed moved like a weapon forged in the dark—his blade sliding clean through the first guard’s throat, the body dropping without a sound.

He pivoted, firing two suppressed rounds into the second and third before either had time to draw breath. Blood misted the humid air. Boots scuffed the dirt.

He didn’t pause. Didn’t look back. There was no victory in this, no thrill. Just necessity.

These bastards were in the way of getting to her.

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