Retaking the Ground

​POV: Jarrah 

​The salt water smelled like diesel fuel, rotting seaweed, and old blood.

​I stood on the roof of the crane operator’s cabin at Pier 4, my overcoat heavy on my shoulders, watching the blacked-out shipping containers stack into the rain like rusted mausoleums. Below me, sixteen of my men moved through the shadows with silenced carbines held at high-ready, their breath blooming in small, pale bursts against the midnight chill.

​Ten million dollars. That was the conservative estimate for the shipping manifest locked inside Freight Bay B. Synthetic opiates, untraceable bearer bonds, and three crates of military-grade telemetry hardware that Alastair had paid a small fortune to haul through international waters. Losing this shipment wouldn't just embarrass him; it would break the spine of his liquid capital before the quarter closed.

​"They're running a three-man rotation on the gantry," Malia whispered beside me.

​She was crouched low, her hip pressed against mine, a heavy tactical jacket swallowed around her small frame. Rain slicked her black hair to her neck, tracing the sharp line of her jawline down into the collar of her tactical sweater. She held a night-vision optic to her eye, her hand completely steady despite the fact that forty-five minutes ago she’d had a knife pressed to her ribcage in the back of a van.

​"Three men," I replied, my voice barely carrying over the rhythm of the tide slapping against the wooden pilings. "Where’s the chief of security?"

​"Inside the control room," she said, lowering the optic. Her dark eyes found mine in the gloom. The heat coming off her skin in the freezing air was a quiet distraction, a pulse in the middle of a graveyard. "Grayson took two men down to the water's edge. He’s waiting for your mark."

​"He doesn't fire until we have the hard drives," I said, reaching out to pull the rain-drenched hood of her jacket lower over her forehead. My thumb brushed her cheek, cold and wet. She didn't pull away, but her pulse hammered in the delicate hollow beneath her jawbone. "If Alastair’s men trigger the thermal scrubbers on those servers, this entire night is a write-off."

​"They won't," Malia said, her fingers tightening around the strap of her pack. "I rewired the junction box on the south wall ten minutes ago. If they hit the purge switch, it'll dump power back into the primary breaker and blow the panel."

​I stared at her for a long second. Six months ago, she was an outsider, an unknown variable dragged into my world through a blood-stained debt she hadn't owed. Now, she was standing in the downpour, systematically dismantling a hundred-million-dollar syndicate's logistical nerve center without her hand shaking once.

​"You're a terrifying woman, Malia," I murmured.

​A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips, instantly swallowed by the dark. "You hired me for my mind, Jarrah. Try to remember that when the shooting starts."

​"I didn't hire you," I said softly, my hand lingering near her shoulder before I forced myself to pull back. "You're here because you choose to be."

​She didn't answer. She didn't have to. The quiet between us was already choked with things neither of us had the right to say while carrying weapons.

​Below us, an iron door slammed open. A flash of yellow light cut through the rain.

​"Move," I snapped into the lapel radio.

​We dropped from the gantry in a synchronized rhythm. My boots hit the concrete wet and heavy, the shock reverberating up my spine. Around us, the night erupted into violent, muffled, chaotic sound. Suppressed gunfire clicked through the dark like violent iron typewriters. A man screamed, short, wet, cut off before he hit the ground.

​Malia was already moving toward the server housing near the edge of the bay. I covered her back, swinging the barrel of my rifle toward the north aisle as two of Alastair’s mercenaries burst through a gap in the shipping crates.

​I took the first one in the throat, the second in the chest before he could raise his sidearm. They went down with heavy, wet thuds.

​"Malia! How long?" I roared, turning back to see a third guard lunging out from the shadows behind a forklift, a heavy iron crowbar raised over his head, aimed directly at her back.

​"Malia, down!"

​She didn't flinch. Instead of ducking, she spun on her heel, drove the heel of her boot directly into the man’s knee, throwing his center of gravity completely off. As he stumbled forward, she swept his legs with her left leg, slammed his head against the reinforced steel door of the freight bay, and drove a combat knife cleanly through his forearm, pinning him to the wooden frame.

​The man howled, dropping the iron bar.

​I closed the distance in two strides, dragging him off the blade and cracking the butt of my rifle across his temple. He went limp on the wet concrete.

​Malia wiped a streak of dark grease and blood off her cheek with the back of her sleeve, her chest heaving violently. Her eyes met mine, wide, wild, and dark with adrenaline.

​"Junction secured," she panted, leaning her weight against the steel door to catch her breath. "The servers are alive."

​Behind us, heavy footsteps echoed off the iron walls of the pier. Grayson and six of my senior lieutenants, men who had bled for my father and looked at Malia like she was an inconvenient civilian up until an hour ago, swept into the bay, their weapons raised, eyes darting across the body-strewn floor.

​Grayson stopped dead, staring at the pinned guard, then at the lit status lights on the main freight terminal.

​"The cargo?" Grayson demanded, his tone rough, suspicious. "Did they burn the manifests?"

​I stepped out into the middle of the bay, letting my weapon hang from its sling. I looked around the wet, vast room at my men, men who had questioned my judgment when I let a female analyst sit in on executive briefings, men who waited for her to fail.

​"The manifests are intact," I said, my voice echoing off the steel ceiling, deep and iron-clad. "Alastair just lost his entire Eastern Seaboard distribution network. Pier 4 is ours."

​A murmur went through the line of lieutenants. Grayson narrowed his eyes, looking directly at Malia, who was trying to pull a pair of heavy leather gloves over her cold, cut fingers.

​"Who bypassed the server lock?" Grayson asked gruffly. "Alastair’s tech guys use military encryption. Our tech team said it would take four hours."

​I walked over to Malia. Slowly, deliberately, I reached out and took her hand in front of every senior commander in the Calaby Syndicate. I didn't care about the optics of affection; I cared about power, and right now, she was the reason we weren't fleeing a pile of ash.

​"She did," I said, my voice cutting through the damp air, carrying to every ear in the room. "Malia bypassed the locks, rerouted the emergency dump, and held this bay while you were still clearing the perimeter. From tonight, when she speaks on logistical operations, you listen as if the order came directly from my throat. Am I clear?"

​Grayson looked at her, then at our joined hands. The old lieutenant swallowed hard, inclination of his head slow, begrudging, but final. "Understood, boss."

​Malia stood frozen beside me. Her hand trembled inside mine, not from fear, but from the sudden, suffocating weight of twenty ruthless men suddenly bowing their heads in silent deference to her. Her eyes darted up to mine, searching my face for some protection, an explanation, or perhaps just confirmation that she wasn't hallucinating.

​I squeezed her fingers gently before letting go.

​Before anyone could move to secure the crates, a long, high-pitched squelch tore through the open bay from the street outside.

​Then another.

​Then a choir of them wailing, rhythmic, echoing off the surface of the harbor water.

​Police sirens.

​Not a standard patrol. Dozens of them. Federal vehicles, tactical units, coming down the narrow access road toward Pier 4 from both directions, cutting off the landward exit completely.

​"Shit!" Grayson yelled, racking his slide. "Someone dropped a silent alarm! We're boxed in!"

​"It wasn't a silent alarm," Malia said suddenly, her voice dropping an octave as she stared down at the glowing terminal screen she had just unlocked. Her face drained of all color. "Jarrah... look at the network traffic."

​I stepped beside her, leaning over her shoulder. The monitor was flashing red, thousands of files transferring out to a remote server at blistering speeds.

​"What is that?" I snapped.

​"It’s an automated ping," she whispered, her hands flying across the mechanical keys, trying to sever the connection as the sound of screaming sirens grew deafeningly loud outside the iron gates. "The moment the server was bypassed, it didn't burn the data. It sent an automated location marker directly to the Melbourne Police Department's Major Crime Command."

​She looked up at me, her skin ghastly pale in the crimson glow of the terminal lights.

​"Jarrah... they didn't come because of the pier. They came because this terminal was hard-coded to call them the second my access code was entered."