Page 45 of Hardline Torque
Tane huffed a groaned laugh.“I never knew you were such a bastard.”
Victor laughed as he continued to drive them both a little crazy.But there was only so much a man could take, and soon Tane had his hips in hand, lifted him off him with a surprisingly hot show of strength, planted his feet against the mattress then began to fuck him in earnest.
Victor cried out as the angle hit him in the sweetest damn spot imaginable, and all he could do was reach down to grasp Tane’s wrists in each hand and hold on.When Tane came inside him, Victor once again came a second time.Not as strong or intense as the first time, but definitely with the same amount of joy and emotion.Once again, as soon as he was able to, Tane took care of him, something that Victor would never take for granted, but appreciated more than he had the words to convey.
Then they were wrapped in each other’s arms as the cabin of the van lightened beyond dawn and deepened into day.And what a start to the day it was.
Not the residual heat of exertion or the sharp edge of adrenaline that usually followed a night like the last one—but something slower, heavier.A weight that didn’t press, didn’t restrain.It simply was.
Victor traced the line of tattoos across Tane’s shoulder with his fingertips, feeling the solid reassurance of muscle beneath skin.The moment didn’t demand anything of him except presence.
Later, much later, they dressed in silence that wasn’t strained.Coffee steamed on the counter and the world resumed its shape.
By mid-morning, the command center hummed with controlled activity.Screens glowed with replays from the night before—compressed timelines, heat maps, interference zones annotated with precision.
Victor stood beside Tane as Kael walked them through it, the low hum of the command center wrapping around them like a held breath.Screens flickered with layered data—thermal replays, drone paths collapsing and reforming, timestamps scrolling in tight, unforgiving columns.The room smelled faintly of coffee and ozone, the after scent of systems pushed hard and fast the night before.
Kael paced slowly as he spoke, one hand braced on the table, the other gesturing toward a freeze-frame of the ridge line.“We know that they were never planning to fire,” he said.“That this was just a bullshit test of what Black Tide can do and then a disciplined withdrawal.”
He tapped the screen, bringing up a split view—Black Tide’s movement vectors on one side, Directorate signatures ghosted in red on the other.“They wanted to see who broke first.”
Victor followed the data without effort, his mind slotting it into place.The pauses.The pressure.The way the net had tightened and then eased.“They were looking for fracture points,” he said.
Tane nodded once.“They didn’t find one.”
Kael’s expression hardened, satisfaction edged with something colder.“And they never fucking will, because that means next time won’t be subtle.”
Before anyone could expand on that, a secure channel chimed—sharp, intrusive, cutting cleanly through the room.
“Surge,” a familiar voice came through the line.“This is Dev.Bateman’s with me.”
Victor felt the shift before the sentence was finished, a subtle tightening behind his ribs as the room’s attention snapped outward.The screen flickered to live and the two men appeared, faces fierce.
“We shut down the gun trafficking node east of us like we talked about,” Bateman said.“Thanks to Victor’s intel, it was a fairly clean op.No blowback to speak of.But ...something turned up.”
A file pushed through the system, resolving slowly on the main screen as if the software itself hesitated.
Victor’s blood went cold.
The image sharpened—a man in his late forties, eyes open and unseeing, body positioned with deliberate care.No sign of struggle.No defensive wounds.Not dumped—placed.A message, not a kill.
Victor knew that face.
Knew the scar at the jawline, thin and pale.The habitual tilt of the mouth, as if caught between amusement and contempt.Time folded in on itself with brutal efficiency.
Dev’s voice came next, stripped of humor.“Name’s Marcus Kade.He was a former intelligence liaison with the military.We found him this morning on Bravo land.No prints left behind.No weapon.No reason for him to be there—except I think he’s a message for you, Victor.”
The room went very still.
Victor exhaled slowly, keeping his voice even.“He is.Kade was my handler when I first started with the Directorate.”
No one spoke.
Tane turned toward him, eyes sharp but steady, searching Victor’s face rather than the screen.“Had you spoken to him recently?”
Victor shook his head once.“Not at all.He was only my handler while I was on probation.Once I completed a few missions, and the powers that be trusted me to do what was needed, I hardly spoke to him.”
Understanding settled over the room like a weight.
