The Warehouse Gambit

~CASSIAN’S POV~

I crushed the phone under my heel. Glass splintered beneath the weight, but the fury in my chest didn’t subside.

“Fan out,” I ordered into my comms. “I want every surveillance angle pulled, every drone launched, and every exit from this alley sealed. Shadow Team Prime - full deployment.”

The team moved like a well-oiled machine. But I didn’t wait.

I stormed through the swinging door into a back corridor that reeked of damp concrete and rust. There were three exits, but no cameras.

They planned this. They knew how we’d respond. Someone fed them intel.

Inside job.

My jaw clenched.

“Report,” I barked.

Vaughn’s voice came through. “All surrounding feeds disabled. Four-block blackout. No public cameras either. This was coordinated.”

“Get me schematics on nearby buildings. Track her device's last ping. Scrape all motion sensors we’ve installed downtown.”

“Already working on it. We’ve got a signal that is weak and mobile. Heading north.”

I pushed back outside and climbed into the SUV as it skidded to a stop. “Drive. Keep tight on that signal. Route all data to my tablet.”

The second I was in motion, I switched comms.

“Trace Sienna. Tap her phone. Get surveillance on her. I want everything. Don’t ask me for clearance - do it.”

They had what belonged to me. I didn’t know where, or how, or for what end yet, but I’d find out.

And when I did, I’d tear the city apart and paint it red if I had to.

—-

~ARIA~

I woke up to cold.

Concrete beneath my skin. My wrists were raw, and tied behind a metal chair. My throat was dry, and my head pounded like it was being cracked open.

On the ceiling, a single bulb buzzed and flickered, barely illuminating the gray walls around me. Industrial. No windows. One steel door.

A warehouse.

I shifted slightly and winced at the pain. My body remembered more than my mind - I tried to remember what happened - Sienna’s voice in the alley, the crunch of footsteps behind me, the sharp sting at my neck.

Then nothing.

Someone had drugged me. 

Fear coiled low in my stomach, but I shoved it down. No. I couldn’t afford to panic. Cassian had to be looking for me. He’d seen the message. He’d be tracking my phone. He…

Wait. My phone.

They’d left it. On purpose.

They wanted him to find it.

Just then, the door opened with a slow creak.

I froze.

A figure stepped inside. Not Sienna. A man -  tall, masked, dressed in dark clothes. Not a brute, but surgical in his movements and calm.

He walked to me, crouched like he had all the time in the world.

“I was told not to hurt you,” he said, his voice unreadable. “Yet.”

I stared back without blinking. I didn’t speak. 

He tilted his head. “You should be flattered. Most don’t get this kind of attention from these people. But you? You’re a complication. One they are about to resolve.”

I met his eyes - or the black slits where they should’ve been.

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” I said, my voice low. “He’ll find me.”

The man chuckled. “Your husband? That's exactly what they… we want, so we're counting on it.”

He stood and turned toward the door, but before he left, he added, “Ask yourself one thing, Mrs. Ravenwood… or rather Mrs Wolfe now” his voice filled with mockery. “What if he’s too late?”

Then he left, chuckling softly, as he slammed the door shut.

I squeezed my eyes shut, exhaling hard and forcing myself not to shake.

He wouldn’t be too late.

He couldn’t be.

___

~CASSIAN’S POV~

The signal was still moving. Then it stopped-dead-in an industrial sector on the edge of the city grid. A gray zone: no police jurisdiction, no functional surveillance, barely a blip on the city’s infrastructure map. The kind of place built for secrets and made perfect for anyone looking to silence someone permanently.

We arrived fast, tires screeching across broken asphalt. Shadow Team Prime was already in motion, ghosting through the shadows, black gear blending into the concrete night. Their presence was silent, deadly. Efficient.

Vaughn’s voice crackled through my earpiece, sharp and low.

“Warehouse. Northeast corner. Two heat signatures inside. One matches Aria’s size and posture.”

My blood iced and boiled in the same breath.

I was out of the SUV before the tires finished rolling, boots slamming the gravel as I sprinted toward the looming structure.

“Any guards?”

“None outside. Inside? Unknown. Could be silent heat traps, could be real bodies. We can’t tell yet.”

“Prep breach, but wait for my word,” I growled. “I’m going in first.”

The warehouse loomed ahead - iron and rust, a fossil of war buried in plain sight. Broken glass winked in the moonlight like old shrapnel. The air was thick with the stench of oxidized steel, grease, and something coppery underneath. Like blood soaked into concrete long ago.

One front door was chained and welded shut, but the side access? Kicked in. Deliberately.

I stalked through the gap.

A narrow corridor swallowed me whole, darkness thick and oily. The echo of my footsteps followed like a second heartbeat.

The scent hit me then - faint but familiar.

Gun oil, damp wood, and perfume.

Her perfume.

And something else. Something wrong.

I knew this place from years ago and someone had intentionally dragged the past back into the light.

They knew I’d recognize this place.

They wanted me off balance. They wanted me lured and predictable, but too bad for them, I was done being predictable.

At the end of the hallway, a rusted steel door blocked my path. Two agents were already there, crouched low, working fast to crack the oxidized lock with a silent rhythm born from repetition and war.

Click.

The lock popped.

I kicked the door open with a violent snap.

And there she was.

Slumped against a chair, wrists bound, lip split, eyes wide with shock.

“Cassian…”

I crossed the room before the word left her mouth, cutting the zip-ties, catching her as she collapsed forward. Her body was warm but limp, breath shallow and uneven.

Alive but barely.

I cradled her face in my hands, my fingers brushing over her bruises. The one I hadn’t been there to stop.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered, voice raw and ragged. “You’re safe now.”

But she shook her head weakly, her voice hoarse and laced with fear.

“No… You don’t understand. They wanted you to come. They left the trail on purpose…”

The hairs on my neck lifted and a chill slid down my spine.

I looked up.

A faint beep pierced the silence.

Then another.

And another.

My eyes locked on the red light blinking above the central support beam. Small, hidden until now. A timer, counting down.

Fuck.

Vaughn’s voice exploded in my ear.

“Cassian! Building’s rigged! Thermite and pressure sensors. You have seconds! GET OUT…”

The floor jerked violently beneath us. A sound like thunder ripped through steel and air.

Explosion.

A wave of force slammed me backward, my arms locked around Aria’s body as the world turned into fire and splinters. The walls roared. Glass and iron screamed. The last thing I saw before the flames ate the room was her face - pale and terrified - and mine, reflected in her eyes.

Not afraid.

Just furious.