Page 28 of Avenging Jessie
An hour later
The rain had softenedto a whisper, threading down the windshield, much like the nervous sweat trailing along his spine. A gray veil hung over the old industrial zone below, transforming the warehouse compound into a ghostly landscape of concrete and shadow.
From their perch on a crumbling overlook road—half hidden by brambles and forgotten fencing—Spence could just make out the dull glint of floodlights above the eastern loading dock.
He adjusted the laptop’s angle on his knees, then switched between the drone feeds. Still nothing. Static. The occasional gust of wind rattled a piece of rusted signage somewhere down the hill, but the compound itself remained locked in stillness. A sleeping beast.
Jessie sat beside him in the passenger seat, watching the same nothingness through a pair of binoculars through her half-opened window. She hadn’t spoken in twenty minutes. Which, for her, was restraint.
He exhaled, slowly and quietly. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, but his mind wasn’t on the screen anymore.
It was on contingency plans.
Not for the drones.
Forher.
If this was a trap—if Brewer was playing the kind of game Spence feared—then Jessie was the real target. She always had been. Brewer loved leverage, and nothing got under a person’s skin faster than someone they couldn’t save.
He’d studied Brewer’s psychological profile and seen it in his own rearview mirror more times than he cared to count.
If things went sideways—if hell cracked open tonight—Spence had two escape plans mapped out. One along the old train route that veered south toward Czechia. Another through the forest trails, using gear Bellringer had provided to scramble heat signatures and jam tracking.
But both routes only worked if Jessie listened to him. If she didn’t rush in headfirst like she always did.
He glanced sideways at her. Damp wisps of hair clung to her cheekbone, and her mouth was drawn tight in that focused, bulletproof expression she wore like armor.
God help him, he was starting to see cracks in it.
And that scared him more than the drones.
He tapped a key. Zoomed in. Nothing but two parked trucks and a stack of empty shipping pallets near the side entrance.
Low activity, high defenses. The worst kind of combination.
“You see anything?” she asked, finally breaking the silence.
He shook his head. “Not yet. You?”
She lowered the binoculars. “Just a looming headache on the horizon.”
Spence leaned back in the seat. He didn’t say it out loud, but it circled his thoughts like a shark…If this is a trap, I need to be the one who walks in first.
Because he’d failed once before.
And he wouldn’t let history repeat itself.
Another twenty minutes went by. His muscles ached from stillness. From the anticipation that never quite exploded. He closed the laptop and rubbed his eyes before he took a few swigs from the thermos they shared.
Jessie was still watching the compound, but out of the corner of her eye, she was watching him, too. She’d noticed the laptop closing. The way his fingers hovered, then curled. The way he didn’t quite settle. She finally said it. “You’re exceptionally quiet.”
The air was humid, and the rental stank like gun oil now. “Just focused.”
“Bullshit,” she countered calmly. As if she already knew what was really going on.
He let the silence stretch for a moment, debating saying what was on his mind. “It’s strange.”
“What is?”
