Page 38 of Cold Ignition

Ahi’s head tilted just slightly. “Find me?”

Rangi smirked faintly. “You’re not exactly easy to track.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.”

“That why you wear the helmet?”

A beat.

Then, “Part of it.”

Rangi’s frustration flared again, sharper this time. “Yeah, well, it’s getting old.”

Alexios’s shoulder bumped his lightly. “Patience, lover.”

“I’ve had patience,” Rangi shot back. “I want to see who just pulled us out of hell.”

Ahi didn’t answer that. But something in the car shifted anyway.

Like the moment was coming, whether Rangi liked it or not.

The road curved, climbing slightly, the terrain changing from open stretch to something more controlled. More ... deliberate.

Rangi straightened as the first gate came into view. Reinforced steel barriers, recessed into the ground. Cameras—visible and not. Motion sensors tracking their approach before they were even close enough to register manually.

The car didn’t slow as he approached the barrier. Ahi tapped something on the console. The world around them shifted.

Lights flickered green.

The first barrier slid back with a low, mechanical hum.

“Jesus,” Rangi muttered under his breath.

“Welcome to paranoid,” Ahi said dryly.

“Or prepared,” Alexios added.

“Same thing,” Rangi said.

They rolled through.

Another gate.

Another layer.

This one biometric—Rangi caught the brief scan, the flicker of red across Ahi’s hand before it turned green and the barrier opened.

“Yeah,” Rangi said slowly. “Definitely paranoid.”

“Definitely necessary,” Ahi replied.

The final stretch opened up into a wide, secured yard.

And then Rangi saw it. A massive building, black, and settled into the landscape. It looked like a massive ground-level garage with another level on top.

Steel and concrete and reinforced glass, built low and wide like something that expected impact and planned to survive it. Multiple bays. Internal lighting cast long, sharp shadows across polished floors.

The car rolled in smooth as anything, engine cutting as they pulled into a marked space near the entrance. Rangi exhaled slowly, tension he hadn’t even realized he was holding starting to bleed out of him.