Page 37 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

Ten minutes later, I hot-wire a rusted Toyota Hilux parked in a dark alley behind a noodle shop. I strip the ignition column with the tip of my combat knife and cross the wires. The engine turns over with a sputtering cough, a cloud of black exhaust kicking out of the tailpipe before the idle settles into a rattling hum.

"Get in." I slide behind the wheel.

Lily climbs into the passenger seat and drops her soaked gym bag onto the rusted floorboards. She pulls the seatbelt across her chest without a word about the stench of cheap tobacco in the torn upholstery or the springs poking through the vinyl, secures it over the Kevlar, and stares straight ahead through the rain-streaked windshield.

I throw the truck into gear. The transmission grinds in protest. I hit the accelerator and pull into the frantic flow of Bangkok traffic.

The city is a blur of neon and braking taillights. I navigate the congested arterials, cutting off delivery trucks and weaving through swarms of mopeds. Every intersection is a potential ambush point. Every lingering headlight in the rearview mirror is a potential Consortium tail. I check my mirrors, scanning the chaos, but none of it drowns out the oppressive silence in the cab.

It takes forty minutes to clear the outer city limits.

We leave the neon labyrinth behind. The towering skyscrapers and illuminated billboards give way to dilapidated industrial parks, and then to the dense, unbroken darkness of the Thai countryside. We hit the rural highway heading north.

The transition is jarring. The claustrophobic noise of the city vanishes, replaced by the roar of the storm. Rain hammers the thin metal roof of the cab in a relentless rhythm. The wiper blades squeal against the glass, struggling to clear the deluge.

Beyond the narrow beams of our headlights, the world ceases to exist. There's only the slick asphalt and the impenetrable wall of the jungle pressing in on both sides of the road.

The drive is silent.

Lily hasn't spoken since we left the lockup. She sits rigid in the passenger seat, her hands resting in her lap, fingers curled inward. Exhaustion pulls at the corners of her mouth, dark shadows bruising the skin beneath her eyes. She's running on empty, sustained by the need to find her friend.

I keep my eyes locked on the slick road, my knuckles white against the steering wheel.

Somewhere behind us, four men are moving toward this road. Hutch signed the release ninety minutes ago. Hammer will have had them wheels-up inside of twenty—he has never once needed the second phone call.

The encrypted field pad in my duffel burns like a coal against my spine. I possess knowledge that will shatter her reality.

Arthur Masters.

A Consortium accountant.

Architect of the cage she's trapped inside.

If I tell her the truth now, if I expose the man who raised her as a criminal architect, the betrayal will break her when she needs a clear head and a steady pulse to survive the breach. But concealing the darkest secret of her existence violates the fragile trust we've built over the last twenty-four hours. An unforgivable omission.

I hold the power to destroy the last sanctuary in her life—the memory of a loving father. And I choose to bury it. I choose her physical survival over her emotional integrity.

We're heading straight into the heart of the Consortium's operation. The compound ahead is fortified, protected by sentry guns and a dozen mercenaries. A guaranteed firefight that will test every instinct, every reflex, and every round of ammunition I have left.

But as the darkness of the jungle swallows the truck whole, the real threat isn't the mercenaries waiting in the trees.

It's what happens when the dust settles, when the guns go quiet, and Lily realizes the man who saved her life is the same man who chose to conceal the darkest secret of her existence.

The sniper's distance is gone for good. No high ground left to retreat to. Only the truth, the collision, and the fallout coming for us both.

10

The Truth

LILY

The engine of the rusted Toyota idles in the suffocating darkness.

The torrential rain stopped an hour ago. It left behind a heavy humidity that clings to my skin like a wet shroud. The jungle presses against the windshield, a wall of black vines, twisted roots, and strangling foliage. The headlights cut a narrow beam through the darkness, illuminating nothing but mud and the mist rising off it.

I sit in the passenger seat. The Kevlar plate carrier constricts my chest, forcing my breath shallow. The plates dig into my collarbones, and the tactical nylon smells like old sweat and gun oil. The M17 sits in the holster on my vest, a hard, cold weight against my ribs.

He left ten minutes ago.