Page 36 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

I stare at the name. The neon light of the corridor seems to dim. The noise of the Bangkok street fades to a dull roar.

Arthur Masters.

I look up.

Lily stands three feet away, shivering in her soaked clothes beneath the shell, the Kevlar weighing her down. Her father died three months ago in a hit-and-run in Chicago. A tragic, random accident. That's what she believes.

Lily Masters.

The pieces detonate into place.

The Consortium didn't want a ballerina for their trafficking ring. They were tying up loose ends.

Arthur Masters wasn't a civilian accountant. He was a Consortium accountant. He built the ghost accounts that funded the trafficking rings, the arms deals, the assassinations.

And three months ago, the Consortium decided he was a liability. The hit-and-run wasn't an accident. It was an execution.

They came for Lily because she's the pressure point. Or worse—because Arthur Masters knew he was going to die, and he left the master encryption keys to his empire with his only daughter. The Consortium isn't trying to sell her. They're trying to extract the keys.

It's a leap. Lots of assumptions. But it's the only thing that makes sense.

I look back down at the screen. The name burns into my retinas.

The weight of it settles over my chest.

She doesn't know.

She's mourning a father who loved her, a man who gave her diamond earrings and paid for ballet lessons. She has no idea the money came from the exploitation and murder of thousands. She has no idea the nightmare she's trapped in was engineered by the man she's grieving.

If I tell her now, it breaks her. It shatters the resolve she built in the relay den. It destroys her focus, and focus is the only thing that will keep her alive when the bullets start flying in the jungle.

"Dax?" She steps closer, her eyes tracking the change in my face. "What is it?"

I look at her. The urge to protect her is a current in my blood. I have to protect her from the Consortium. From the crossfire.

And now, from the truth.

I tap the power button. The screen goes black, burying the ghost of Arthur Masters in the darkness.

"The compound is heavily fortified." I slide the pad into the waterproof case and shove it into the duffel. My voice is flat. Unreadable. "Twelve guards on rotation. Automated perimeter defenses. We hit them fast, we breach the holding area, and we extract Andrea before the QRF mobilizes."

I say nothing about her father. Nothing about the financial routing.

A tactical lie of omission. The only way to keep her moving forward.

"Can we do it?" She meets my gaze. The fear is still there, but she refuses to let it break her.

"I can do it." I sling the duffel over my shoulder. "But you follow my orders to the letter. If you hesitate, you die. If you break formation, you die."

"I won't hesitate." She drops her hand to the grip of the M17 holstered at her waist.

The gesture is meant to project confidence, but it only twists the knife deeper into my gut. She's carrying a weapon into a war funded by her bloodline.

Her father built the cage she's trapped in, and I'm the one who's going to have to break her out.

"Let's move." I push past her, walking toward the iron gate.

We step back out into the chaotic neon glow of the Bangkok night.