THE RAID!
The lights were low and red, the music throbbing like a pulse through the underground walls of the secret club. Neon glared across gold-draped booths. Men in suits smoked fat cigars, sipped whiskey, and passed thick envelopes across the table. No one noticed the quiet woman in black at the far end of the room—until the first gunshot cracked through the air.
Pow!
The room exploded in chaos.
“Move! Federal Agents!” someone screamed behind Camila as glass shattered and men dove behind leather couches. The agents had breached the side entrance. Camila was already moving.
A guard reached for his waistband.
Pow!
Camila dropped him with a clean shot to the chest before his fingers even touched metal. She slid across the slick marble floor, using a tipped-over chair for cover as bullets ricocheted off tables and the bar.
One man—big, sweaty, one of the top laundering lieutenants—jumped on a table and shouted, “Kill them!”
He flung a whiskey glass at her.
Camila ducked. The glass slammed into the wall behind her, shattering like a burst of stars. She didn’t flinch. She came up from the floor fast, gun raised.
Bang!
The man dropped.
“On the ground!” someone shouted behind her. Another agent, heavy gear, helmet—shoving a gunman into the floor.
Camila moved toward the back booth, where the real target was: Marco “Ironface” Herrera, the man who’d funneled $80 million through fake nonprofits in the last six months.
She kicked open the booth curtain. Marco raised a pistol.
Too slow.
She fired.
Boom!
He crashed into the back wall, blood painting the velvet curtain behind him.
“Area clear!” someone shouted. Camila didn’t stop to breathe. She turned, checked her six, moved again.
The DJ had dropped to the floor. The club’s other half—gamblers, women, traffickers—were screaming, running, trying to disappear through fake doors.
She pressed her earpiece.
“This is Ghost. Upper lounge cleared. Target down. Moving to assist west wing.”
“Copy, Ghost,” Agent Perez’s voice crackled. “Cage team incoming.”
Camila holstered her weapon, pulled plastic cuffs from her vest, and started binding wrists. The agents swarmed in—full tactical gear, barking orders, sweeping the area. The criminals were face down, coughing, bleeding, moaning.
She found a man hiding in the bartender’s cabinet. One shot near his head and he spilled out screaming. She cuffed him without emotion.
Camila moved like a shadow, efficient, cold, unbothered by the c*****e. Her black combat gear was smeared with blood and broken glass. Sweat beaded her brow, but her eyes stayed sharp.
By the time they dragged the last man out, the floor was littered with weapons, bodies, and shattered crystal. Red and blue lights flashed outside the club’s hidden exit. Vans waited.
Camila shoved a coughing man into one of them. The agents slammed the door.
“Good work, Ghost,” Perez said, pulling off his helmet. “Fourteen arrests. Two dead. All major targets secured. You just earned us six months of peace.”
Camila gave a dry nod. “Peace doesn’t last.”
She turned away from the flashing lights and walked toward the shadows behind the van. Her hands trembled slightly, not from fear—but from the high. The kill-high. She never admitted it, but it was always there.
She pulled off her gloves. Blood was splattered on her left wrist.
She didn’t wipe it.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She glanced at the screen.
AGENT CALEB.
Her stomach clenched.
Agent Caleb never called. Not unless something was burning down or about to.
She stared at the name for a long second. Then the phone buzzed again in her hand. Still him.
“Sh*t,” she whispered.
She looked back at the agents loading up the vans, at the half-dead men groaning on the ground.
She looked at the phone again.
AGENT CALEB. Incoming Call.
What now?
