Chapter 25: Six Hours to Sunrise
Chapter 25
The chapel table had transformed into a war room, maps spread wide under the harsh overhead light, Ghost marking entry points in red ink while Viper cross-referenced old blueprints pulled from the county archive database on a laptop screen.
"Depot’s been abandoned since the eighties," Ghost said, tapping a cluster of structures on the map. "Three main buildings—processing plant, equipment shed, and the old assay office. Multiple entrances, but only two roads in. If Lila and Coyote picked this location, they picked it because it’s easy to watch the approach from a distance."
"Which means they’ll see us coming no matter what we do," Reaper said grimly.
"Not necessarily."
Rowe leaned over the map, studying the terrain markings.
"There’s a wash running behind the processing plant—a dry riverbed, deep enough to keep a rider hidden if they’re willing to go slow and quiet. If a team came in that way instead of the main road, they could get within a hundred yards without being seen."
Viper studied the topography lines, nodding slowly.
"She’s right. Old flash flood channel. Rough ground, but passable on foot, maybe even on a dirt bike if you’re careful."
"I’ll take that route," Ghost said immediately. "Get positioned before dawn, eyes on the depot, the second there’s enough light to see through a scope."
Reaper’s finger traced the main road leading to the depot’s front gate.
"I go in this way. Alone, like the note said. Ledgers and deed in hand, visible, nothing hidden."
His jaw tightened.
"They need to believe I’m exactly as desperate and compliant as they’re expecting."
"And I go with Ghost."
It wasn’t a question.
"Rowan—"
"You said we do this smart, not alone," she reminded him. "Smart means eyes and cover you can’t see from the front gate. It doesn’t mean I sit back at the compound wringing my hands while you walk into a trap with nothing but a box of paperwork and a promise nobody’s going to keep."
Reaper looked like he wanted to argue, every protective instinct in him rebelling against the plan, but exhaustion and the ticking clock finally won out over stubbornness.
"Fine," he said. "But you stay with Ghost until I signal otherwise. No solo moves. No heroics."
"Copy that from the woman who shot her first Disciple through a locked door," Ghost muttered, though there was no real heat in it.
They rode out two hours before dawn, splitting into three groups the moment the depot’s ruined silhouette became visible against the paling horizon.
Reaper took the main road alone as instructed.
Ghost and Rowe descended into the dry wash on foot with rifles slung and night-vision optics borrowed from Doc’s emergency stash.
Viper and four patches circled wide to cover the rear exits and the second road, ready to close the net the instant Reaper gave the word.
The wash was rough going, loose gravel and sharp rock underfoot, but the depth of the channel kept them below the sightline of anyone watching from the depot’s elevated structures.
Rowe’s pulse hammered with every careful step, the strongbox’s weight—currently strapped to Reaper’s bike, empty of anything but decoy paperwork Ghost had mocked up overnight—sitting heavy in her mind even though she wasn’t the one carrying it.
"There."
Ghost dropped low as they crested the final rise before the processing plant.
Through the scope, the depot’s main building came into sharp focus.
Rusted metal siding.
Half the roof collapsed.
Lights flickering faintly through gaps in the walls.
Proof someone was inside and awake.
"I count two vehicles," Ghost murmured. "Lila’s car, and something else. Truck, maybe."
"More than two people," Rowe said quietly, dread pooling cold in her stomach. "This isn’t just Lila and Coyote."
Ghost’s radio crackled low, Reaper’s voice barely above a whisper.
"Approaching the gate now. Eyes on?"
"Eyes on," Ghost confirmed. "Two vehicles, lights active in the main building. Proceed with caution, Prez."
Rowe watched through her own borrowed optics as Reaper’s bike rolled slowly up the depot’s cracked access road, headlight cutting through the pre-dawn gloom, the strongbox visible and deliberate across his lap.
He killed the engine at the gate and dismounted slowly, hands raised slightly, the box held out in clear view.
"I’m here," Reaper called out, his voice carrying flat and steady across the still morning air. "Alone, like you asked. Show me, Piper."
For a long, agonizing moment, nothing moved.
Then the depot’s main door creaked open.
Lila stepped out into the grey pre-dawn light, a pistol held loose but ready in one hand.
Piper was visible behind her.
Hands bound.
A bruise darkening one cheek.
Alive.
Upright.
Furious.
"Look at you," Lila called out, something like genuine delight coloring her voice. "Playing the hero. Very touching."
"Let her go," Reaper said. "You have what you wanted."
"Do I?"
Lila’s smile turned sharp even at this distance.
"Set the box down. Slide it forward. Then we’ll talk about what happens next."
Reaper complied slowly, setting the strongbox on the cracked pavement before sliding it forward with his boot.
Through the scope, Rowe watched Coyote emerge from behind the truck, moving stiffly, his shoulder clearly still healing from the gunshot wound days earlier, but mobile enough to retrieve the box and drag it back toward the building.
"Careful," Reaper warned. "Those documents are old. Damage them, and you lose whatever leverage you think you’re holding."
Coyote flipped the lid open, rifling through the mocked-up papers with visible confusion.
His expression soured fast.
"This isn’t right," he called toward Lila. "These aren’t the originals. Look at the paper stock. It’s wrong—"
Lila’s expression darkened instantly, her gun swinging back toward Reaper with lethal focus.
"You brought us decoys."
"I brought exactly what was necessary to get you talking," Reaper said, his voice gone hard and cold. "The real documents are somewhere you’ll never find them without my cooperation. And that cooperation just became a lot harder to earn."
"Wrong move, Jaxson."
Lila’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Beside her, Piper flinched, bracing herself against a shot that hadn’t come yet.
"Now," Ghost breathed into the radio, so quietly that Rowe barely heard it.
Gunfire erupted from three directions simultaneously.
Viper’s team closed in from the rear.
Ghost’s rifle cracked once from their elevated position in the wash.
Reaper dove sideways behind an old fuel drum as Lila’s shot went wide, missing him by inches.
Rowe’s finger found her own trigger, tracking Coyote as he scrambled for cover with the decoy box still clutched in his good arm.
She held her fire.
Waiting.
Watching for the clean shot that wouldn’t risk hitting Piper caught in the chaos between them.
"Piper, down!"
Reaper’s voice roared across the depot yard.
Piper dropped instantly, years of survival instinct overriding the bindings still cutting into her wrists.
In the half-second her guard’s attention split between the incoming gunfire and her captive’s sudden movement, Reaper surged from behind the fuel drum and closed the distance in three brutal strides.
His fist connected with Lila’s jaw hard enough to send her sprawling.
The gun skittered from her grip across the cracked pavement.
Coyote turned to run, the decoy box abandoned, sprinting for the truck with the kind of desperate, cornered speed that told Rowe he knew exactly how badly this had gone wrong.
She had the shot.
She took it.
The bullet caught him in the leg, dropping him hard into the gravel ten feet short of the truck.
His scream tore through the pale morning air as Viper’s team closed the final distance and hauled him upright, his weapon kicked well clear of his reach.
By the time Rowe and Ghost scrambled down from the wash and crossed the yard, Reaper had Lila pinned face-down against the pavement, cuffed with a zip tie from his own cut.
Piper was upright again, wrists freed, Viper’s jacket draped protectively over her shoulders against the cold.
"You alright?" Reaper demanded, checking Piper over with rough, urgent hands.
"I’ve been better," Piper admitted, managing a shaky, exhausted smile. "But I’m alive. Thanks to whatever plan you actually ran instead of the one you told them about."
Reaper’s eyes found Rowe across the yard.
Something fierce and relieved and utterly devoted passed between them even amid the wreckage of the ambush.
"Told you," he said. "We do this together. Every time."
Rowe crossed the distance and stepped into his arms, breathing him in, letting the adrenaline finally begin to drain from her limbs now that the immediate danger had passed.
But as Ghost hauled Lila upright, her face bloodied and furious, something in the woman’s expression stopped Rowe cold.
Not fear.
Not defeat.
A strange, brittle satisfaction.
Like a woman who had already accepted losing this particular battle because she knew something the rest of them didn’t yet.
"You think this ends with us," Lila spat, blood dripping from her split lip as Viper forced her toward the waiting truck. "You have no idea how deep this actually goes, princess. Coyote and I were never the ones giving the real orders. We were just the hands doing the work."
"Then whose orders?" Rowe demanded, stepping forward despite Reaper’s warning hand on her arm.
Lila’s bloodied smile widened.
Terrible.
Knowing.
"Ask your girlfriend’s cousin," she said, jerking her chin toward Piper. "Ask her who she’s really been reporting to for the last six months, before you start trusting that pretty sob story about revenge and buried ledgers."
Every head in the yard turned toward Piper.
And for the first time since the fire...
Since the confession...
Since the fragile trust they’d all begun building around her...
Piper Kane’s face went utterly, unmistakably pale.
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