Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
It wasn’t relief that we were all feeling about this—not even close. What we were experiencing was the kind of silence that coiled in your gut like a snake before it struck. A predator circling, watching, waiting for the perfect moment to sink its fangs in. The Knights felt it too. They were used to shit like this, too long stretches of unease before everything went sideways, but even they were getting twitchy. Their movements were sharper, their tempers shorter. Everyone knew the hit was coming.
It was only a matter of when.
But while we waited for that bomb to drop, we’d gotten something else, a location. Demingo had been found. We knew where he was holed up, and if things weren’t already tense enough, Hunter and the rest of Valiant were about to join in on the fun. That should’ve been a win, but there was bad blood between Hunter and Preacher.
Hunter’s prospects had been on watch the night Piper was taken, but instead of doing their fucking job, they’d gotten distracted trying to find shelter from a storm. Basically, they’d fucked up, and in this world, fuckups cost lives.
I ignored the tension thickening the room and unrolled an aerial photo of the property Demingo was hiding in. Time to get to work.
“Data ran a search on high traffic movement in the area,” I started, voice steady. “Then isolated the ones tied to Demingo. Twenty minutes ago, we sent drones to three locations and got this shot back from Charlie Drone.”
I pointed at the massive sheet of paper on the table. The image looked like a generic forest clearing, if you didn’t know what you were looking for, but I knew.
“At oh-nine-hundred hours, this was taken,” I continued, tapping an area that looked empty to the untrained eye. Except it wasn’t. Beneath the netting designed to blend in with the surrounding terrain, a faint outline of rotor blades could just barely be made out. “There’s a helo here.” I moved my finger across the image, stopping at another spot. “And here,” I pointed at a freshly flattened path in the tall grass, “is where they’ve been parking their vehicles. Poorly camouflaged but camouflaged nonetheless.”
I gave them a second to take it all in.
“They’ve got someone posted here,” Jagger spoke up, tapping at a wooded area where a barely visible barrel of a long-range rifle was peeking through.
“Oh, goody,” Hunter growled, cracking his knuckles. “They want to play rough.”
I smirked. I liked that look on him and my words coming out of his mouth.
Unrolling a second sheet, I laid it out over the first.
“Charlie Drone is a prototype created by the Ghosts,” I explained. “We haven’t pitched it to the government yet. Frankly, we probably won’t.”
I clenched my jaw, reigning in my thoughts before I got too sidetracked with my own issues on that.
“So,” I continued, clearing my throat, “Charlie Drone is a fucking beast. This was the most complex of the three locations, which is why we sent it in. It’s basically the stealth bomber of military drones. It carries extra charging cells distributed evenly throughout the frame, extending its range. Its camera’s stronger, higher-powered than Alpha or Beta models. It stays at an undetectable altitude while still getting us crystal-clear, high-res photos like these.”
I pointed down at eight sharp images. Demingo caught in various intimate moments. Two were of him in the bathroom, one of him peering worriedly out a window. Another two showed him on the porch, smug as hell, eating breakfast while two guards stood watch.
But the next ones were the golden tickets. One of him looking nervous as hell as his guards stepped away.
It was the last one that was my favorite. Him, dead asleep in his bed. That was the photo that would fuck with his head the most.
Hunter chuckled—a dark, hungry sound. “I might have a plan,” he muttered.
I loved working with this guy. Unfortunately, Jared was gone, called away on some job, but something about him still felt off. I’d wanted Hunter’s read on him, but for now, we had bigger problems.
One of Demingo’s so-called "orgy houses" had contained more than just bodies and secrets—it had housed a stash of weapons, and we had made sure to keep some. In our world, you never knew when something would come in handy, and tonight, we were about to put one to the test.
Hunter and his team were locked in position while Data had us patched into an untraceable system, every feed secure, every line clean. I was stretched out at my own vantage point, watching and waiting, my pulse steady as the cool night air wrapped around me. Overhead, Charlie Drone hovered silently, capturing everything in real-time.
The first text landed on Demingo’s phone, and I watched the moment unfold through my scope. A single photo of him, asleep in his bed. His reaction was instant. He lurched upright, the phone slipping from his grasp and bouncing onto the floor as he scrambled to his feet. Panic flickered across his face as he ran a hand through his hair, pacing, trying to steady his breath. Then another text arrived. He hesitated, staring at the phone like it might explode before cautiously picking it up. His expression shifted as panic gave way to something sharper—rage.