Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
19
AXLE
Edge worked the table like a tailor with a very illegal sewing kit. Pistols laid out in two rows. Mags stacked in fours, and suppressors lined up. He tossed me an extra mag pouch without looking up.
“Hydraulics?” Kane asked.
“In the van,” Edge replied. “Spreader and a mini pump. Nitro, stop petting the C-4 and load the breach charges.”
“Don’t kink-shame,” Nitro said mildly, sliding a shaped charge into a padded sleeve. “Besides, these are fucking art.”
“You’ll get to sign it later.” I checked the red dot sight on my sidearm, then snapped it down. “Piston and Fury on the rear. Nitro driving the van. I lead front with Kane on my six. Edge, you hug the panic room once we’re inside.”
Edge’s smile was thin and pleased. He loved a locked door the way I loved a tuned engine. He liked a challenge before catching his prey.
“Jax,” I called without looking, “you’re our eyes.”
He nodded, fingers already moving. “I’ll kill the mains and the backup on your mark.”
Then we rolled into the dark, the sky still lit by the moon even as the rays of dawn were fast approaching. We were cold and focused, but ready to burn shit down. Nitro took the van with his toys. Kane, Edge, Piston, Fury, and I rode. A small, deadly crew.
We killed the lights two miles out and ran black. When the road broke, we split—the van to the tree line Jax had scouted on satellite, our bikes fanned low behind palmetto so the fence line screened us from any eyes.
A fence ringed the safe house—eight feet, topped in angled wire. Nitro handed Piston a hook and line. Piston went up like he’d been born on it, silent and fast, then eased it for the rest of us.
We dropped into the yard like wisps of dark smoke.
“On me,” I murmured.
Two men were puffing on cigarettes under the eaves on the east corner, guns slung wrong and fingers sloppy. What kind of private security were these motherfuckers?
Edge silently took the left while I went for the nearest one. He saw me too late. Mine got his gun halfway up, and I put him down with a suppressed double-tap that made less noise than a dropped wrench. Edge’s blade flashed once, and his man folded sideways.
Nitro flowed from the shadow of the van, set a small charge on the gate latch, practically breathed on it with a micro-det, and the gate sighed inward like it had never wanted to be closed. We were through and moving.
“Jax,” I clipped over comms, “lights out.”
“Copy,” he replied. “Killing mains…and backup. Three, two—”
The low hum that had been threading under the night cut off. The security floods tried to flare and failed. The little LEDs at the eaves guttered like dying fireflies. Somewhere deep in the house, a generator whined, but Jax knocked it fully out with a pulse that made my teeth sting.
“EMP kiss delivered.” Jax’s voice was almost cheerful.
We entered the structure, already knowing the floor plan with precision. A wide hall, two thick doors on the left, one on the right. Edge’s hand slid across the nearest pane. “Steel core.” He smirked. “The kind of hinges you sell to scared men.”
Footsteps thundered above—someone obviously realizing dark meant danger. Nitro tossed a flash down the hall without breaking stride. The world popped white, but we were already past it, sweeping rooms with the efficiency of men who had practiced clearing spaces more than most.
Two more guards were at the end of the hall. Kane put a hole through one, and the second tried to run for stairs, but Edge tripped him with a slash across the Achilles that turned the sprint into a thud.
We moved toward the center where the panic room door was located. Inside a reinforced office with a built-in bookshelf that wasn’t a bookshelf. It slid aside to reveal a steel door and a keypad. A tiny LCD read: LOCKED.
“Jax,” I said, breath even. “Your turn.”
“Copy. Their system’s throwing a tantrum,” he grunted. “Killed the failover, and”—there was a flurry of clicking in my ear—“it’s trying to lock tighter. Cute. Okay, slight hiccup. Give me thirty seconds before it bricks the damn door shut forever.”
Edge was already unpacking the spreader and setting the shoe under the lip where the frame met wall. Nitro taped a flat directed charge over the main lock, and Kane’s eyes were on me. I nodded once.
“Twenty seconds,” Jax counted down. “Twelve. Seven. Okay—now.”
The keypad went dark. Edge pumped the lever, and the frame bent, hairline shifts that meant the seal would break any minute.
“Breaching,” Nitro announced happily and tapped the lead.
The charge bucked the lock, and it practically melted as smoke curled from it. Kane braced on the opposite side of the spreader and counted with his fingers—three… two… one.
We hauled like the fucking door had insulted our mothers. It tore with a sound so loud and hellish that I might have thought we were breaking the gates of hell.