Raven came down the east corridor.

Dante clocked it the second she stepped through the door. His eyes flicked from her face to the corridor behind her, then back. A slow grin tugged at his mouth.

"East corridor today, Raven?" Dante asked, voice low and knowing. He didn’t wait for an answer. Just opened his summary and started reading like nothing had changed.

But it had.

Adrian gave her a nod that lingered a beat too long. Sebastian didn’t even glance up from his station—already filed it away. Leonid sat stone-faced. Matteo wandered in still reading something. Lucian arrived and said zero words. Everything looked normal. Except it wasn’t. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Val had been making breakfast for two every morning since the day after the desk. Raven had stopped pretending she didn’t notice.

Raven dropped her files on the table, uncapped her pen, and the briefing kicked off.

Vincent came through the door last, same as always. His eyes found Raven across the room. Heat slammed into her chest. She felt it before she even looked up—that heavy, familiar weight of his stare. The one that still made her thighs press together under the table. She met his gaze. Three raw seconds. No masks. No performance for the crew. Then she forced her eyes back to the map and ran the damn briefing.

Forty minutes of sharp numbers and tighter plans. When it wrapped and the room started clearing, Raven stayed planted at the map. Her fingers traced the lines she already knew by heart. This was hers now.

Sebastian didn’t leave.

He waited until only the three of them remained—Raven, Vincent at the head of the table, the air still thick—then crossed over and slapped a file down beside her Leni stack.

"The routing discrepancy," Sebastian said, voice low and tight. "I pulled the chain back six months. It’s not a one-off. It’s a pattern."

Raven’s stomach dropped. She flipped the file open. Timestamps. Request origins. The clean fingerprints of someone who knew exactly how to twist the system. Six months of it.

She looked at Sebastian. Jaw locked. Eyes hard. Same suspended beat they’d shared in the corridor three days ago.

"How long until you have enough to bring it to the table?" Raven asked.

"A week. Maybe less." Sebastian’s hands flexed at his sides. "She had full access. Because I gave it to her."

Raven held his stare. "A week. Quietly."

Sebastian snatched the file and walked out.

Vincent hadn’t moved. Raven could feel him watching the whole exchange, that laser focus burning into her back. She started stacking her materials, pulse thudding in her ears.

"How long have you known?" Vincent asked.

"Not that long. Shape of it. Not the proof." Raven lined the files up with sharp snaps. "Sebastian needed to find it himself. If I’d handed it over he would’ve fought me on it."

Quiet stretched between them. She felt Vincent turning it over—not the intel, that was easy for him. The part where she’d waited. Patient. Letting Sebastian come to it on his own.

"I don’t want you in the field without a second until this is closed," he said. Flat. Operational. But she heard the real words underneath: I can’t lose you.

Raven looked at him then. Really looked. His shoulders tight, jaw set, eyes saying more than his mouth ever would. The first time he’d let strategy crack open and admit she mattered.

"Sebastian’s close," she said. "A week."

Vincent nodded once. "Stay close to me until then."

She grabbed her files and left before the heat in her chest could spill over.

Lucian’s priority ping hit Raven’s comm at seventeen hundred.

Raven was deep in the armory, counting rifles, when the alert buzzed against her hip. She read it standing between the cold metal racks. Read it again. Her grip tightened on the rifle until her knuckles went white.

Raven bolted for the war room.

Vincent was already there when she shoved through the door. Map glowing huge across the central table—southern sectors and the Falcone corridor lit up red. Lucian stood at the screen. Adrian burst in right behind her. The room snapped tight in seconds.

Raven crossed straight to the table, heart hammering.

"Troop movement in the Falcone corridor," Lucian said. "Three staging positions lit up in four hours. Coordination screams Caruso. Falcone’s just supplying the meat."

Raven traced the positions fast, finger dragging across the glowing grid. South approach. Eastern flank. The port road she’d flagged earlier. She’d built the counter for this exact play.

"Timeline," Raven snapped.

"Seventy-two hours. Maybe less if they shift the eastern point—it’s exposed," Lucian answered.

"They want us to see the eastern point," Raven said.

The room went dead quiet.

Vincent stepped up beside Raven. Shoulder brushing hers. Solid. Warm. The contact shot straight down her spine. Vincent studied the map from the exact same angle, breath steady next to her ear.

"The eastern position is the decoy," Vincent and Raven said at the same time.

Adrian’s eyebrows shot up. He didn’t speak. Just gave a small nod like something had finally clicked into place.

Raven’s pulse roared in her ears. She marked the real route—the tight secondary freight corridor two blocks south. "They’ve watched our patterns. They know we like wide deployments. This corridor’s too narrow for our usual line. That’s why they picked it."

"We adjust," Vincent said.

"We adjust." Raven’s hand moved fast, sketching new positions. "Give them the eastern show they expect—just enough to look real. Same play as the Tracker. Feed them the pattern they’re hunting."

Sebastian had slipped in behind her. "Bounty hunters at the northern choke?" He tapped the spot.

"Confirmed," Lucian answered. "Four contracts active. At least two aren’t Caruso regulars."

Raven’s mouth went dry. The bounty had jumped again. Professionals now. She knew exactly how those men thought—she used to be one.

"I’ll take the northern position," Raven said.

"Adrian," Vincent said at the exact same moment.

Two seconds of locked eyes. Heat. Challenge. Something deeper.

"Adrian on the northern position," Raven corrected. "I’ll run the main approach."

Vincent didn’t fight her. "Good."

The briefing stretched another hour. When it finally broke, the room emptied fast—Adrian to tactical, Lucian to feeds, Sebastian already pulling schematics. Dante paused at the door, shot Raven that warm look again, then vanished.

Just Raven and Vincent left at the map.

City lights glowed through the narrow windows. Southern sectors burning against the dark. Seventy-two hours. Maybe less.

"We’ve had worse," Raven said. Voice flat. Steady. But her fingers trembled once on the edge of the table.

Vincent heard the "we." She saw the way his shoulders shifted, the way his hand flexed like he wanted to reach for her right there.

"Yes," Vincent said. He stepped closer, voice dropping. "But this time you’re not doing it alone."

Raven picked up the marker again. Kept drawing. Shoulder still pressed to his. The milestone from Ch 71 wasn’t a milestone anymore. It was just where she stood now. Solid ground.

Outside, the city kept moving like it didn’t give a damn. War building in the south. Clock ticking.

Raven kept working. Jaw tight. Heart loud in her chest.

Seventy-two hours.

She had a war to win.