Page 6 of Hardline Torque
“He can hear us,” Tane muttered.
That ...was not ideal.
Victor had Directorate tech.Tane didn’t need a briefing to know what that meant.Long-distance eyes.Directional audio.Capabilities that had no place anywhere near Black Tide’s operations.
He made a mental note to talk to Luca about shutting that shit down.
Notlaterlater.Hell, no.It would be sooner rather than later.
If Victor could hear them, then so could anyone else using similar tech.And the Directorate didn’t miss opportunities—they harvested them.Tane ran the possibilities automatically, seeing how fast a listening net could turn into a kill box if the wrong ears were tuned in.
Victor thought he was hunting the Directorate.
What he didn’t seem to grasp was that the Directorate never stopped hunting back.
One man, no matter how skilled, didn’t dismantle a machine like that.
He burned out.
Or disappeared.
Tane studied Victor through the contact lens, taking him in properly for the first time.Tall.Lean.Built like someone who spent a lot of time in the water, wide shoulders, strong chest, narrow waist.Dark hair cropped short at the sides, longer on top, stubble shadowing a square jaw.Even at a distance, there was something coiled about him—contained violence held in check by discipline rather than fear.
And Tane was drawn to him in a way that made no sense.
It wasn’t just attraction.He’d felt that before, plenty of times, and this was different.Deeper.Like recognition.
His grandmother’s voice surfaced unbidden, soft and steady, as it had been near the end.
The men in our family know, she’d told him once, fingers curled around his wrist as if anchoring him to the world.When it’s the right person, their person, they know.No hesitation.No doubt.
Tane had been young then.Before he had lost his grandmother to a disease she couldn’t fight and was sent to an orphanage where he met the rest of the team, the weight of too much loss sitting heavy on his shoulders.He hadn’t believed her.
Now, watching Victor in the trees, he wasn’t so sure.
Maybe Victor was that person for him.Maybe.If you believed in that kind of thing.
Or maybe Tane was projecting something he wanted onto a man who’d spent his life running.
Either way, it would take time.Conversation.Proof.
Victor’s camera swung.
Tane felt it before he saw it—the subtle shift in pressure, the instinctive prickle at the back of his neck.He’d learned to trust that sense the hard way, in places where hesitation got people killed.He’d felt it the first night the orphanage doors closed behind him, the first time he’d stepped into a fight that wasn’t his but became his responsibility anyway.
He straightened just enough on the balcony, forearms still braced, posture loose.Ready.He let his breathing slow, his presence settle.
This wasn’t a challenge.
It was an invitation.
The lens settled on the balcony.
Tane didn’t flinch.
He stared straight at the spot where he knew Victor was hiding, held the gaze with the same calm he brought to a fight.Satisfaction flickered when Victor pulled back in visible shock, the sharp little head shake telling Tane exactly what he was thinking.
No way.
