Jax’s POV
The hunt was a dead end. A ghost story.
The "Aegis Consulting" warehouse was empty. Clean. Too clean. Not a fingerprint, not a stray shell casing. Just the faint smell of bleach and a whole lot of nothing. They’d been there—Silas’s intel was right about that—but they were gone before we’d even left the canyon. Frank was in the wind, held by professionals who knew how to disappear.
We’d lost them. And the feeling of being one step behind, of having an enemy you couldn’t see or shoot, was a poison in my veins.
I rode back to the fortress with the taste of dust and failure in my mouth. My body ached from the ride, from the tension, from the fresh stitch in my side that had pulled tight during the search. All I wanted was a bottle of whiskey, a dark room, and five minutes where
