Chapter 1
Clay
The sky was black—quiet above, hell below.
Rounds cracked through the silence, bursts of orange flashing like angry fireflies in the dark. My breath came slow. Measured. Even as the radio in my ear sparked with noise and chaos, I kept my voice calm.
“Alpha-9, hold position. Alpha-8, clear right.”
“Copy that,” Pike muttered, already moving.
To my left, Drovic ducked behind a half-collapsed wall, rifle slung, eyes gleaming. He looked back at me and grinned like this was just another Saturday night.
“You seeing this mess, Alpha-1?” he asked, breathless and laughing. “They really rolled out the red carpet.”
“Less talking,” I said, shifting forward, “more clearing.”
He winked. “Aye aye, Captain Buzzkill.”
He was fast. Precise. Clean sweep of the room ahead before I even gave the order. That was the thing about Drovic—he didn’t just follow commands. He anticipated them. His instincts were sharp as hell, and half the time I felt like we shared a brain.
“Left’s clear!” he shouted, voice cutting through the smoke.
I moved in behind him, heart steady, finger on the trigger. My team was a well-oiled machine. Jackson’s voice came through next. “Back hall secure. Alpha-9 has the stairs.”
“Watch your six,” I replied.
Drovic popped his head back out, blood streaked down his cheek, his smile still in place. “Tell me we get to hit a bar after this. I need something cold and dangerous in my hand.”
“You’ve got a gun, Drovic.”
He barked a laugh. “Not that kind of dangerous.”
I blinked hard, the memory fading like smoke on a breeze. My fingers curled against the steel table as the present roared back to life.
The Commander’s voice was flat. Brutal.
“Alexander Drovic. Former Navy SEAL. Classified as enemy of the state. Your orders are to locate, intercept, and eliminate.”
Silence. The kind that slams down hard and cruel.
My jaw clenched.
No one moved. Not even to breathe.
Barrett was sitting backward in his chair, arms draped over the back. He let out a long, tired sigh. “Hell,” he muttered.
Pike stared at the screen like it had betrayed him. Andrews scrubbed a hand over his face. Jackson didn’t look up. Just froze.
I shook my head slowly. “You’re telling me that the same man who covered my six in Kandahar, who dragged Diaz to safety in Mosul… is now the target?”
The Commander didn’t flinch. “That’s correct. Intelligence confirms Drovic sold encrypted intel to foreign agents. Two confirmed deaths. One missing.”
“No damn way,” Diaz muttered.
I felt sick. My heart beat steady and hollow, like a drum in an empty field. “How the hell did I miss it?” I murmured. “I watched that man take bullets for this team.”
“You’re not the only one, brother,” Barrett said. “None of us saw it.”
The silence came back, thicker this time.
And then I stood.
Because if I didn’t, I’d sink.
“We still have a job,” I said, my voice low. Flat. “And we don’t fail missions.”
Jace finally looked up. “You sure you’re good for this?”
“No,” I answered. “But I’m still doing it.”
Barrett leaned back. “Well, if we’re gonna hunt a ghost, we’ll need bait.”
Pike raised a brow. “You volunteering?”
Barrett smirked. “You wish.”
“We’ll need to split recon,” Will said, stepping beside me. “Two teams. One watches Drovic’s known contacts, the other traces the leak.”
Colton pulled a tablet from his gear and tossed it onto the table. “I already pulled satellite paths. He’s been smart. Always three steps ahead.”
“Not this time,” I muttered. “This time, we catch him.”
Andrews pulled up floorplans of one of Drovic’s last safe houses. “We start here. Quiet. Precise. No assumptions.”
“We move fast,” I added. “But careful. He knows how we think.”
Jace leaned forward. “So we have to think different.”
The table lit up with blueprints, maps, notepads. The tension broke—not from ease, but focus. It’s what we did. What we knew. We were soldiers, even when it hurt.
Especially when it hurt.
Will handed me a comms earpiece. “You good?”
I slipped the earpiece into my pocket. “Nope.”
The room fell into motion—plans forming, maps shifting, voices rising. But beneath it all, my thoughts stayed stuck on one truth:
I trained him. I trusted him.
And now I had to end him.
