CHAPTER 5: THE HUNT BEGINS
The air in the living room shattered into pure chaos once again.
“ALL UNITS, SHUT DOWN THE PERIMETER!” Marcus roared into his shoulder radio, turning away from me as he barked commands to his surrounding team. “WE HAVE AN ARMED EXTRACTION ON TRANSPORT ROUTE 4! I WANT ALL ROADS WITHIN A TEN-MILE RADIUS BLOCKED IMMEDIATELY!”
Agents began shouting, grabbing gear, and sprinting out the shattered front entrance toward their vehicles. The calm, controlled crime scene transformed into a war room in a matter of seconds.
I stood up from the couch, the wool blanket slipping off my shoulders and pooling at my feet. The house, which had felt safe just five minutes ago, suddenly felt like a glass box waiting to be shattered again.
Marcus spun back around to face me, his face grim. “Listen to me, Maya. Dean didn't get broken out because the Valentis love him. He got broken out because he owes them over two million dollars in lost inventory and uncollected debts. And now, thanks to our raid, they know his entire operation has been compromised.”
“If... if he owes them money,” I stammered, my head spinning, “why would they rescue him?”
“Because he’s going to tell them that you are the reason his house got raided,” Marcus said brutally, grabbing my coat from the rack near the door and throwing it around my shoulders. “He’s going to shift every ounce of blame onto you to save his own skin. The Valentis don't cut loose ends, Maya. They erase them.”
He pulled a spare, compact semi-automatic pistol from his ankle holster, checked the magazine with a sharp click, and shoved it directly into my hands.
“Do you remember how to use this from when Dad took us to the range?” he asked, looking straight into my eyes.
My hands shook violently as my fingers wrapped around the cold metal grip. “Marcus, I haven't fired a gun in ten years...”
“Safety is off,” he interrupted sternly, placing his hand over mine to steady my grip. “Point and pull. That’s all you need to remember. We are leaving right now.”
We sprinted out the front door into the cool night air. The street was a blur of flashing red and blue lights, idling engines, and shouting officers. Marcus led me straight toward his unmarked black SUV, opening the passenger door and shoving me securely inside before sprinting around to the driver's side.
He slammed the door, threw the vehicle into reverse, and tore out of the driveway, his tires screaming against the pavement as we rocketed down the dark suburban street.
As we sped away from the house I had lived in for six miserable years, I looked into the side mirror. The shattered front door and the flashing police lights faded into the distance, swallowed up by the darkness of the night.
I had thought pressing that button three times would end the nightmare. I had thought watching Dean in handcuffs was the final chapter of my suffering.
Instead, I sat in the passenger seat of a speeding federal vehicle, holding a loaded weapon, realizing that the real war had only just begun.
Marcus’s radio crackled loudly from the dashboard, cutting through the heavy silence of the cabin.
“Agent Reed, do you copy?” a frantic voice squeaked through the speaker. “We just retrieved traffic camera footage from the ambush site. The extraction team didn't head for the highway.”
Marcus grabbed the radio receiver, pressing the button on the side. “Where are they going?”
There was a brief, horrifying pause on the other end of the line before the dispatcher responded.
“They’re heading straight back into your district, Reed... and the GPS tracker on Dean Carter’s cell phone just pinged two streets away from your current location.”
Marcus slammed his foot onto the accelerator, his face turning to stone as the SUV’s engine roared in response.
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Beside him, I racked the slide of the pistol in my lap, feeling the heavy metal lock a round into the chamber.
Dean wasn't running away. He was coming back to finish what he started.
