Page 46 of Ghost

“Rear runner’s moving.”

“Put him in the ditch,” Hawkeye answered.

Metal crashed hard enough to rattle the building. Then Nomad reported the truck was on its side in the drainage cut and the driver was crawling out through the passenger window.

My attention stayed inside where men were trying to turn Bellamy property into something they could carry or destroy. One of them came through the center aisle with a case under each arm. He dropped one when he saw me, reached for the pistol at his waist, but he never cleared leather. I drove him into the concrete, trapped his wrist beneath my boot, and took the weapon. Wraith hauled him away while I checked both cases for obvious damage and ordered them left exactly where they had fallen.

“Hands off every Bellamy case until I clear it,” I barked into the comm. “Anybody gets curious, I break the hand before the fucking device does.”

A man near the rear shelving spun away from Smoke and lunged toward a small black controller sitting on a workbench. I crossed the distance before his thumb came down, knocked the controller onto the floor, and drove him over the bench with my forearm across the back of his neck.

He fought until I twisted one arm high enough to grind his shoulder against the edge.

“What’s it tied to?” I asked while his boots scraped uselessly across the concrete.

“Fuck you.”

“Wrong answer.” I bounced his face off the workbench, then passed him to Trigger when the brother reached us. “Keep him breathing for now.”

The controller stayed where it landed while I examined the room. Bellamy cases crowded the center aisle, close enough for one blast to ignite the rest. I pulled out the surveillance photograph, matched the damaged corner to a dark case on a low pallet, and found the newer latch Tamsin had noticed from the grainy image.

“Clear this section,” I ordered, pointing toward the side entrance. “Wraith, hold the door. Nobody crosses it unless I call them.”

He shoved the last unsecured man into Breach’s hands and planted himself at the opening. Gunfire still cracked beyond the walls, mixed with engines, shouted orders, and the ugly impacts of brothers putting down men who had chosen the wrong territory to work in and were stupid enough to try to face off with a Black Crown. I let the noise fall away while I crouched beside the pallet and studied the damaged panel without touching the case.

The bowed corner had been altered rather than crushed. A narrow gap revealed a receiver behind the panel, and the case rested against an anti-handling switch that would react if someone lifted or opened it. The controller was only one path to the device, one careless movement could finish the job.

I slowed my breathing and let years of EOD training narrow the world to the case. The first trigger died cleanly, but the setup still felt wrong beneath my hand. I checked again and found the concealed backup.

“Ghost?” Stryker’s voice came through the comm.

“Working.”

“That room’s yours. Yard’s almost locked.”

I did not answer again until I had neutralized the backup and separated the trigger from anything capable of setting off the material around me. My hands remained steady while sweat tracked beneath the collar of my shirt and the wound at my ribs pulled every time I shifted. Tamsin’s face stayed in the back of my mind—not as a distraction, but as the reason failure had never entered the list of outcomes I would accept.

I checked the altered corner one final time, then sat back on my heels and let air fill my lungs. The device was dead, and the word every brother had been waiting for went out over the comm. “Clear.”

Wraith stepped into the doorway but stopped where I had told him. His gaze moved from the case to the photograph beside my knee, and one brow lifted. “Your girl caught that shit from one picture?”

I rose and retrieved the controller from the floor. Pride in Tamsin colored my voice, and I did not give a shit who heard it. “She’d be pissed you sound surprised.”

“Wasn’t surprised.” His mouth twitched as he glanced toward the case. “Fucking impressed.”

“Better.”

The device was dead, but the men who had placed it were still making noise outside. I turned the secured section over to Wraith and Breach, ordered every case photographed and left in position until we had a complete count, then followed the sound of a fresh struggle through the rear door. Smoke had one man facedown beside a truck while Trigger traded punches with another near the fence, and Skyfall was moving down from the ridge now that the outside guns had gone quiet.

A third bastard broke from behind the damaged truck and ran toward the rear road. He had one hand pressed to his side and panic in his stride. I cut across the yard, caught him before the gate, and drove him shoulder-first into the fence hard enough to make the chain links rattle.

He swung wild. I slipped the punch, buried one fist in his stomach, and dropped him with an elbow across the jaw when he folded. Nomad appeared from the road, looked down at the unconscious man, and shook his head.

“Could’ve left me one,” he grumbled.

“You got the truck,” I reminded him, jerking my chin toward the drainage ditch.

Nomad glanced back at the wreck and shrugged. “It didn’t complain as much.”