Page 62 of Danger Close
Chapter Twelve
The woods whisperedaround them, thick with the weight of anticipation.Wind danced through the leaves like breath through clenched teeth—uneven, quiet, waiting.The kind of silence that knew it was about to be shattered.
Ezra crouched near the back of the ridgeline, his rifle slung across his chest, hands steady even though his pulse beat like war drums in his ears.Below, the farmhouse crouched in the valley, squat and ugly, surrounded by a perimeter fence and bad intentions.There was a ragged cliff face on the north side of the house, and it loomed like a threat that needed to be answered.
He stared at the farmhouse with ice in his veins.He would have thought that he would be hot, on fire, raging against the very world itself for keeping his man from him.For putting them all in danger, but it was the exact opposite.
Shadows moved around him—Hogan, Dale, Bateman, Dev, and the rest of Bravo team.Two units that had once trained apart, now moving as one.Guns loaded, faces painted and ready for action.Two halves of a blade forged in different fires but sharpened to the same edge.
Glenn and Maddox had gone on ahead, sniper and spotter ghosts high on the northern ridge, already breathing the cold stillness that came before the shot.
Dev, Riley, and Marcel would be circling to enter into the farmhouse from the south.
Sam, Nick, and Aiden would breach from the west, a three-pronged spear aimed at the compound’s weakest flank.
Ezra, Bateman, and Hogan would come in from the east, straight through the fucking front door.
Ezra would take the rear of their formation, and if anyone approached them or doubled round, they’d find Ezra Navarro waiting like the last mistake they’d ever make.He was a sniper and a storm, grief and fury braided together into something sharp.
No one had argued.Not with the look in his eyes.
But even standing among legends, a part of him felt carved out.Hollow.
One part of their formation should be Marsh.Dry humor, dangerous hands, good heart.
The other part was Ricky.That cocky, sarcastic, stubborn, brilliant man Ezra had come to love so hard it burned.
They were missing.Not dead.Ezra refused to let that thought live.But missing.
Gone from the circle.Wounds in their line.
And it was time to close them.
Bateman raised a closed fist.
Instant silence.
The team stopped at the edge of the ridgeline, crouching low in the thick brush beneath a canopy of stars.Their breath ghosted out in puffs, the cold wrapping around them like a shroud.Boots sank into damp earth.Rifles steadied.Fingers hovered over triggers with practiced patience.
The air stilled.
Even the wind seemed to understand the sanctity of the moment.
Ezra felt the familiar burn of adrenaline under his skin.His hands didn’t shake—Pathfinders didn’t shake—but there was a heaviness in his chest that hadn’t been there since Albania.Since Van.
Since Ricky.
