Page 28 of Forest Reed
But when I looked back at North.
—he was gone.
Forest
My stomach dropped as I scanned the shoreline. North’s coat, his silhouette, his smirk—vanished. He hadn’t retreated with the others. He’d slipped the noose entirely.
“Eyes on North!” I barked into comms, sweeping my scope across the treeline. Nothing but smoke and sparks.
Zoe cursed under her breath. “He was right there.”
Jason’s voice was tight. “This wasn’t the show. This was the distraction.”
Lane’s tone cracked through static. “If North’s gone, then who the hell was the buyer?”
I chambered another round, every muscle tight. Whoever that man was, he hadn’t just bought weapons tonight. He’d bought time.
And North had just cashed it in.
21
Zoe
Smoke curled off the lake, the air heavy with gunpowder and gasoline. Deputies swept the shoreline, flashlights cutting through haze, pulling half-drowned buyers out of the water. Lane barked orders, Jason paced like a caged wolf.
I leaned against a boulder, Glock still warm in my hands, chest heaving. Forest crouched beside me, his arm brushing mine—solid, grounding, alive.
“You good?” he asked, scanning my face with those relentless eyes. Before he leaned down and kissed me, softly.
I managed a breathless laugh, my eyes closed, I wanted more kisses. “Define good.”
His mouth twitched, almost a smile. Almost. Then he reached out, brushing a streak of soot from my cheek with a touch that was too gentle for the chaos still burning around us. “You scared me back there,” he whispered against my lips.
“You scare easy,” I whispered, but my voice cracked, and we both knew the truth. I’d been one breath from not making it out. I had cuts on my arms, and I was sure a few on my face.
Before I could say more, Jason’s voice snapped across the clearing. “He played us.”
Forest stood, pulling me with him. “Talk.”
Jason stabbed a finger at the map spread across the hood of Lane’s cruiser. “North never cared about tonight’s shipment. Look at the timing, the angles. This—” he gestured at the drowned buyers, the ruined vans—“was smoke and mirrors.”
Lane crossed her arms, jaw tight. “So what was he buying time for?”
Jason’s gaze lifted, sharp and grim. “For whatever’s happening at Mirror Lake’s other side.”
A silence fell, heavy as stone.
I blinked, pulse spiking. “Other side? There’s nothing there but—”
Forest’s face hardened. “The dam.”
Jason nodded once. “Exactly. If North’s got charges set there, he’s not just making a show. He’s rewriting the whole damn map.”
The wordchargesslammed into me harder than the firefight had. My stomach dropped, every nerve screaming.
Forest’s hand closed around mine, rough and sure. “Then we move. Now.”
Forest
