Saving Sami

Chapter 15 Into The Fire



ACE-
The map was laid out again, pins jammed into roads and buildings like wounds. Reaper stood over it calm as ever, but Ace could barely breathe.
He kept rereading the text. Cat and mouse. She lost.
It played in his mind like a threat and a confession all in one.
Grimm shoved a burner phone into his chest. “Burner’s clean. Our guy on the border confirmed Ghost sent coordinates. Some abandoned hunting ground in the hills past Marker’s Peak.”
Ace’s voice was hollow. “You really gonna walk in there?”
Reaper lit a cigarette. “I’m not walking in. I’m giving them the illusion I am.”
Grimm pulled back the tarp to reveal one of their modified transport trucks. Reinforced cabin, bulletproof glass, fake floor compartment. It was already loaded with weapons.
“We go full recon,” Grimm said. “You stay back, Ace. Reaper goes in with a mic. We extract fast once we know she’s there.”
Ace’s hand twitched. “And if she’s not?”
Reaper exhaled smoke. “Then we burn the place to ash.”


SAMI-
Her shirt was soaked in sweat and blood as she moved through the narrow hallway beyond the crawlspace. The guards hadn’t found her yet, but their voices were getting louder.
She ducked into a side room and crouched low behind a stack of crates. Her ears were ringing from the earlier gunshot. But she listened—focused.
Two voices. One was Ghost.
The other was new. Older. Cold.
“You shouldn’t have taken her. She’s not cartel property.”
Ghost laughed. “She’s emotional leverage. You know what that’s worth?”
“Not if she escapes. And you already let her slip once.”
Sami froze.
She was in deeper than she thought. These men weren’t allies. They were barely partners.
Ghost hissed, “I’ll handle it. Reaper’s already on the hook.”
The other man snorted. “And what happens when Reaper doesn’t take the bait?”
“Then I kill the girl,” Ghost said plainly. “But not before she watches me put her boyfriend in the ground.”


ACE-
The truck was rolling by dawn.
Ace sat in the back with his fists clenched tight, blood beneath his fingernails. Every bump in the road felt like a drumbeat of war.
Grimm rode shotgun with Reaper, who was wired and playing his role like a man going to execution. But his eyes held fire. He wasn’t walking into death. He was walking into vengeance.


Crow’s voice crackled over the comms. “Perimeter’s hot. Two guards at the tree line. Trucks in the clearing. No visual on the girl.”
Ace leaned forward. “We go in?”
“Not yet,” Grimm said. “Let them show their hand.”
Ace stared out the tinted glass at the forest ahead, and for the first time since Sami vanished, he felt something else.
Fear. Not for himself.
For what he’d do if he didn’t get her back.


SAMI-
She was running out of places to hide.
Her legs trembled. Her ribs burned. She still had the switchblade gripped tight in her hand, and she could hear the guards closer now—one calling out her name like it was a joke.
“Saaaamiiii… Come out and play.”
But ahead of her, a light flickered—an emergency exit sign.


A door. Rusted. Locked, probably.
She sprinted for it anyway, crashed into it with her shoulder, blade jamming at the lock. The metal screeched.


A bullet struck her back, then her leg.
She shoved harder. The lock gave.
The door swung open—and Sami stumbled out into a clearing surrounded by thick trees and morning fog.
And she heard it. The engine of a truck
Coming closer.


GHOST-
“Where do you think your going little red?” He says wrapping an arm around her neck.
Sami quickly tries to use the switch blade, but ghost is quicker. He plunges it deep in her side.


“Bad girl,” he muttered, and without hesitation—
he plunged the blade into her side.
The breath flew out of her body.
White-hot pain shot through her ribs. Her legs gave out. Her mouth opened in a choked scream that barely made it past his hand.


Her knees hit the dirt as Ghost yanked her up against his chest, holding her like a rag doll.
“You thought you could run,” he whispered into her hair. “You really thought they’d save you?”
She was fading—vision tunneling, body shaking—but she fought to keep her eyes open.


Because through the agony…
She heard them.
Engines. Shouts. A gun cocking.
Then—
“SAMI!”