Page 56 of Hardline Torque
The lie lingered.
Not as truth.As a bruise.
The door opened again.
Different footsteps this time.Slower.Heavier.Someone who did not need to hurry.
Victor opened his eyes.
The man who entered did not carry a tablet or a syringe.No gloves.No pretense of civility.He wore the confidence of someone who believed the room, the building, and the hours themselves belonged to him.
“So,” the man said, looking at Victor as if assessing damaged equipment.“We cannot bring you back into the Directorate, you have lost that privilege, and you give us nothing on these Black Tide people.You’re useless to us.”
Victor said nothing.
“That’s disappointing, Victor” the man continued mildly.“But not unexpected.You were always more valuable as leverage than as an asset.”
He leaned closer, just enough that Victor could smell coffee on his breath.
“You’ll be executed in the morning,” the man said.“Outside the gates of the Black Tide compound.Public enough to be understood.Clean enough to send the message.”
He straightened.“Back down.Or this is what happens.”
The door shut.
Victor’s pulse stayed steady.
And somewhere beneath the doubt, beneath the chemical haze and the carefully planted lies, certainty locked into place.
They were out of time.
Victor closed his eyes and waited.
****
From the moment theyreturned from the mission without Victor, the compound felt too small and was way too quiet.
Black Tide spaces were never silent—not truly.There was always the low hum of generators underfoot, the whisper of air moving through vents, boots crossing concrete, someone laughing softly in a corner or swearing at a screen.
Now, there was a hollow in it.
Victor’s absence sat in the center of the compound like a missing load-bearing wall.Everything else remained upright—screens glowing, lights steady, people moving—but the balance was wrong.Subtly.Precisely.The way a structure could stand for days before collapsing.
Tane paused just inside the command floor and let his eyes track the room.Kael at the central table, shoulders squared, posture unchanged.Torch leaning against a console, arms folded, jaw tight.Reef standing near the far wall, weight carefully off his injured leg.Luca half-buried behind a forest of screens in the tech pit, fingers moving nonstop.
Tane hadn’t slept properly since the estate.
He had closed his eyes when protocol demanded it.He had lain still, breathing slow, body resting even as his mind refused to follow.Every time he drifted, the same images surfaced—the corridor, the softthunkof the tranq, Victor’s body folding as if gravity had suddenly doubled.
So, he stayed busy.
Every system was running hot.Drone feeds cycled continuously, overlapping patterns layered on top of each other.Encrypted channels stayed open longer than they should have, Luca pushing latency limits without apology.Search parameters updated every few minutes, then again, and again.
“Any change?”Tane asked, his voice even.
Luca didn’t look up.“Nothing clean,” he said.“Plenty of noise.Too much noise.”
That tracked.
