Page 57 of Tag
Tag’s gaze cut to mine, hard as steel. “Then Graves finally learns what fear feels like.”
Somewhere deep inside, I knew—he wasn’t talking about fear for himself. He was talking about fear for the man who’d hurt so many and thought he’d never be caught.
For the first time in hours, I let myself breathe. But not too deep. Because this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
47
Graves
Graves hated interruptions.
Especially when they came in the form of a knock on his office door, followed by the hesitant shuffle of a man who clearly didn’t want to be there.
The messenger stopped three feet from his desk. “Sir… it’s Sable.”
Graves leaned back in his chair, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “Go on.”
“She’s dead. One of her own… took the shot.”
The whiskey burned down his throat as he swallowed, slow and deliberate. He set the glass aside and steepled his fingers. “And the drive?”
The man swallowed hard. “The Golden Team has it.”
Silence. Heavy enough to crush a spine.
Graves’ smile was slow, cruel. “Then they think they’ve won.”
He rose, moving to the massive map on the wall, pins and red string crisscrossing continents like a web. His hand drifted to a section marked with a single black pin.
“Tell our people to stand by,” he said, voice calm as a snake sliding over stone. “And put every resource we have on them.Tag. Aponi. The whole damn team. I want their movements, their safehouses, their weaknesses.”
The messenger hesitated. “Sir, if they—”
Graves turned, his gaze a blade. “If they what? Think they can come for me?” His smile widened into something far too cold to be human. “Let them try. I’ll make them wish they’d left Sable alive.”
He went back to his desk and picked up the glass, the whiskey no longer burning—it was ice in his mouth.
Because this was no longer about business.
It was personal.
48
Aponi
The drive sat on the table between us like it could explode at any second.
We were in one of the Golden Team’s satellite safehouses—quiet, nondescript, and hidden deep in the desert. The kind of place that made the world outside feel a thousand miles away.
But I knew better. Graves was out there, and he’d feel us breathing down his neck the second Intel touched this drive.
Tag leaned forward, forearms braced on the table, his eyes locked on the small piece of metal and plastic. “Intel team’s en route. As soon as they’ve got it, we’ll know where Graves is hiding.”
“And if we don’t?” I asked, my voice quieter than I meant.
His gaze slid to me—sharp, assessing, like he could read the thoughts I was trying to bury. “Then we keep looking. We don’t stop until he’s done.”
I hated the thought of Graves slipping away again, disappearing into the shadows like smoke through fingers. But what I hated more was the look in Tag’s eyes. Controlled. Focused. Hiding the storm he didn’t want me to see.
