Page 43 of Damian
Cyclone closed his laptop and checked his gear. “Thermals show at least a dozen inside. Maybe more. And trucks. Big ones.”
River cracked his knuckles, a grin sharp on his face. “Just tell me which door.”
I parked behind a line of overgrown hedges, cutting the engine. The silence that fell was thick, broken only by the tick of cooling metal and the soft rasp of Roger chambering a round.
I looked at each of them, my voice low but steady. “This is it. We move fast, we move clean, and we shut this down before it spreads further. No mistakes.”
River smirked. “When do we ever make mistakes?”
Cyclone rolled his eyes. “Don’t answer that.”
I checked my weapon one last time, forcing my focus onto the barns. But deep down, all I could think was that Morgan had led us here. And if she was right about this place being the middle of the chain… then the end was somewhere even darker.
And she was already too close to it.
56
Damian
The barns rose against the night like black hulks, their tin roofs glinting under the sliver of moon. I signaled with two fingers and we split—River flanking left, Roger circling wide, Cyclone sticking close with me.
The silence stretched thin as we crept up. Then, the faint thump of bass carried through the air—music bleeding from inside. Wrong kind of music for farmland. My gut twisted.
River’s voice crackled soft over the radios.“Two guards at the side door. Armed. Sloppy.”
“Take them,” I murmured.
Three seconds later, muffled scuffles. Two bodies down. We moved in.
Cyclone worked the lock fast, and the side door swung open to heat and light that didn’t belong in a barn. The smell hit me first—oil, sweat, fear. Crates stacked high against the walls. Trucks idling near the back, blacked-out windows, plates scraped off.
“Jesus,” Roger muttered. “It’s a distribution hub.”
Men moved in the shadows, shifting crates onto dollies,shouting in clipped bursts. Too many to count at a glance. Too many for this to be a simple waystation.
I raised my hand, signaling patience. But then a guard turned, his eyes catching the door, and the whole place exploded into motion.
“Down!” I barked.
Gunfire erupted, bullets ricocheting against metal. River charged in from the flank, dropping two before they could get their rifles up. Cyclone ducked behind a crate, relaying positions to us with sharp commands. Roger’s shots were steady, precise, each one taking down a man before he could take more than a step.
I pushed forward, heart pounding, every muscle burning with the fight. This wasn’t just another skirmish—this was a strike at the core. Luthor’s men were moving product, and whatever was in those crates was the lifeblood of his operation.
River kicked open the back of a truck. Empty cages rattled inside. My stomach dropped.
“Trafficking,” I growled. “They’re running people through here.”
Rage burned hot and sharp, fueling me as I pressed deeper into the barn. Men scattered, some firing blind, others bolting for the exits. We dropped them fast, controlled, but the sheer number meant this wasn’t the end—only proof that Morgan’s breadcrumbs were dead on.
When the last man fell, silence crashed over the barn, broken only by the groan of cooling engines and the hiss of a dying generator.
River wiped sweat from his face, scanning the wreckage. “We hit the middle, all right. But if this is the middle…”
“…then the end is worse,” Roger finished grimly.
Cyclone crouched over a laptop pried from one of the crates, eyes lit by the glow. “We’ve got routes. Dates. Enoughto choke Luthor if we can follow them.” He looked up at me. “But someone had to piece this together first.”
My throat tightened. Morgan.
