"Negative. I'm pinned down."
I watch through the window as more vehicles pull up. More shooters dismount. They're regrouping, preparing for a coordinated assault.
We're good. But we're not invincible, and if they hit us all at once, from all sides, with overwhelming numbers, we're going to lose.
"Luke." Jake's voice is calm, but I hear the edge in it. "We need to consider fallback. Get Emma and Lily to the storm shelter, barricade, and hold until Hendricks arrives with backup."
He's right. I hate it, but he's right.
"Copy," I say into comms. "Prepare to fall back on my?—"
The sound of engines cuts me off.
Not from the direction of Turner's reinforcements.
From the main road.
I move to the window and look out.
Four—no, six—black vehicles are screaming up the drive. Bulletproof SUVs, moving fast, headlights off.
"Contact, main road," Mason calls out. "Unknown vehicles approaching."
My first thought: Hendricks. Maybe he pulled in federal assets faster than expected.
But something feels off. These vehicles aren't moving like law enforcement. They're moving like operators.
The lead vehicle skids to a stop fifty yards from the main house, and the doors open.
Men pour out—armed, tactical gear, moving with the kind of precision that gives me a special ops stiffy.
And they're not aiming at us—they're aiming at Turner's men.
Mandy’s voice comes back on. “This is what I was working on.”
The fight shifts instantly. Turner's shooters pivot, trying to engage the new threat, but they're outmatched. The newcomers move like a machine—coordinated, lethal, and overwhelming.
Turner's men go down fast.
Harper and I watch from the window, weapons still raised, trying to process what we're seeing.
"Who the hell are they?" Harper breathes.
"I don't know." But I have a bad feeling.
It’s over in two minutes. Turner's remaining shooters are dead or fleeing. The black SUVs hold their positions, engines still running.
And then the door of the lead vehicle opens, and a man steps out.
He's tall, lean, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit that somehow doesn't have a single wrinkle despite everything. Dark hair, sharp features, the kind of face that belongs on a magazine cover.
Or a cartel wanted poster.
He surveys the scene with cold, clinical precision—taking in the bodies, the wreckage, the burning vehicles.
Then his eyes shift to the main house.
To me.