Vengeance Wears No Crown

CHAPTER 11

"Cross," I said into the earpiece, already backing away from the door, "tell me you're seeing this."

"Three vehicles, six men each, moving in from the north and east approach." Cross's voice had gone flat and fast, the tone he only used when a situation had gone from bad to critical in a single breath. "These aren't police. Tactical gear, coordinated movement. This is a hit team, Kade, and they're not here to talk."

Daniel was already moving, sweeping the files off the table into a bag, his hands shaking but his motions practiced, the muscle memory of a man who'd spent a decade preparing for exactly this moment. "There's a service exit on the south wall, behind the second row of shelving. I've kept it clear for two years in case this ever happened."

"You knew this was a risk and you called me here anyway?"

"I knew it was a risk and I decided you deserved the chance to know the truth even if it cost me everything," he snapped back, shoving the bag into my hands. "Take this. Whatever happens tonight, that bag has everything I've gathered in ten years, proof of the weapons trafficking, financial records tying Draycott's shipping contracts to buyers on three continents, and the name of the person who actually ordered your mother's death."

My hand closed around the strap. "Who."

"No time." He was already moving toward the south exit, gesturing for me to follow. "Read it when you're safe. I need you alive to use it, Kade, that matters more than me finishing this sentence right now."

The first crash came from the main door, wood splintering, boots pounding across concrete, and I didn't wait to see how many men had breached the entrance before I was moving, Daniel a half step ahead of me, both of us weaving through rusted shelving toward the exit he'd promised.

A decade of training took over before fear had the chance to. I counted footsteps by instinct, at least eight men inside already, more still filing through the broken doorway, voices shouting position calls in the clipped, practiced cadence of men who had done this kind of work before and would do it again without losing sleep over it. Whoever had sent them had not scraped together a handful of hired muscle. This was a trained unit, and trained units did not miss unless something forced them to.

"Cross, I need eyes on that south wall, now."

"Already moving. Wren's pulling the block's traffic cameras to give you a clean route once you're out, but Kade, there's a fourth vehicle I didn't account for, coming in fast from the west. Whoever planned this had more resources than a simple ambush."

Gunfire erupted behind us, sharp and close, and Daniel staggered, a sound tearing from him that made my blood run cold even before I saw the dark bloom spreading across his shoulder.

"Go," he gasped, still moving despite the wound, shoving me toward the exit with strength I hadn't expected from a man who'd looked so fragile an hour ago. "The bag matters more than either of us, Kade. Get it out of this building."

I hauled his arm over my shoulder instead, refusing to leave him behind after finally finding him alive, and together we crashed through the service door into the cold night air, the sound of pursuit close behind us.

The alley outside was narrow, boxed in by warehouse walls on either side, and for one terrible second, lungs burning, Daniel's weight dragging heavier against me with every step, I thought Daniel's promised escape route had led us straight into a dead end.

Then Cross's voice cut through the chaos in my ear. "Left, now, there's a gap in the fence forty meters down. I'm covering your exit."

We ran. Daniel's weight dragged against my shoulder, blood soaking through his shirt and onto mine, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps that scared me more than the gunfire behind us, footsteps and shouted commands closing in from behind, and somewhere above the chaos I heard the distinct crack of Cross's rifle, once, twice, buying us the seconds we needed to reach the gap in the fence and tear through it into the street beyond.

Wren's car screeched to a stop exactly where it needed to be, engine still running, back door already swinging open, and I shoved Daniel inside before diving in after him, Cross materializing from the shadows to fold himself into the front seat as Wren floored the accelerator before either door had fully closed.

"Talk to me," Wren demanded, eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror. "Is he stable?"

I pressed both hands against Daniel's shoulder, trying to slow the bleeding, my mind racing through everything Meridian's training had ever taught me about field medicine, more comfortable in this moment with violence than I was with the fact that my uncle had nearly died for a truth he'd carried alone for a decade.

"He'll live if we get him somewhere safe in the next twenty minutes," I said. "Wren, safehouse two, the one with the medical setup. Now."

She didn't ask a second time, cutting hard down a side street to shave two minutes off the route, and in the silence that followed I let myself feel, just for a moment, the full weight of everything the last hour had cost. My uncle bleeding out in my arms after ten years of believing him a stranger to his own grief. A hit team that shouldn't have known where to find us. A bag of proof that might finally explain the worst night of my life, sitting heavy and unread against my knee while the man who'd gathered it fought to stay conscious long enough to warn me about the very people I trusted to keep me alive.

Daniel's hand found my wrist, weak but insistent, his eyes finding mine even through the pain clearly written across his face.

"The bag," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "Read it tonight, Kade. Before you do anything else. You need to know who you're really fighting before you walk into another room and trust the wrong face again."

"Who ordered the hit tonight," I asked. "Was it Draycott?"

Daniel's eyes fluttered, blood loss and shock pulling him toward unconsciousness, but he fought to hold on long enough to answer, his voice barely a breath.

"Draycott doesn't know you're back yet," he said. "That team wasn't his. Which means somebody else already knew exactly where to find us tonight, somebody who's been watching you since the moment you landed in this city, and Kade, that means the leak isn't coming from outside your organization."

His eyes closed, consciousness finally slipping away, and the car went silent except for the roar of the engine and my own pulse hammering in my ears as I stared down at the bag clutched in my hand, understanding with sudden, sickening clarity that somewhere inside Meridian, someone I trusted had just tried to have me killed.