Page 51 of Hardline Torque
Black Tide flowed inside.
Laughter ghosted the comms—low, familiar, threaded with absolute confidence.The kind that comes from knowing exactly who is at your back.
Victor stepped over the threshold, weapon up, heartbeat steady.
This is who they were.
And whatever and whoever waited for them inside was about to learn that the hard way.
****
Before Black Tide couldeven think about breaching the house, they had to clear the perimeter.
“Multiple contacts, exterior,” Luca murmured over comms from the van.“Ten total.Spacing’s loose.You’re green to clear.”
They moved through the grounds in staggered pairs, unhurried, confident, weapons carried with the easy familiarity of professionals who had done this kind of work before.Not locals.Not amateurs.Directorate contractors, or close enough to make no difference.They knew how to space themselves, how to use the land, how to look casual while covering angles.
Kael lifted his fist once, flattened his hand out, lowered it, then swept it left to right.
They fanned out.
Drew took the high line first.There was a soft whisper of movement above, a brief, wet sound, and the guard near the tree line folded without a cry.Niko and Keanu moved together, Keanu stepping wide just long enough to draw a glance before Niko slid in and buried a blade between ribs.
Luca from his overwatch position and using his drones, dropped two near the driveway, shots timed simultaneously so as not to raise alarm from one shot to another.The bodies never even hit the gravel hard enough to carry sound.
Victor ghosted past Tane’s left shoulder, Specter living up to the name—one man down in a silent choke, another with a snapped wrist and a suppressed round to finish it.No wasted motion.No noise that carried.
Ten men disappeared into the dark.
Only then did they move to the service entrance.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the air inside the house changed.Sound softened, swallowed by thick walls and expensive finishes designed to impress rather than defend.Every step felt closer, heavier.
“Contact, left,” Niko said quietly.
Tane moved without hesitation, body already shifting as the first round cracked down the corridor.Keanu answered with a suppressed burst, precise and controlled.The man at the corner dropped hard, his weapon skittering across marble.
They flowed forward.
Room to room.Angle to angle.Kael calling cadence in clipped bursts.Luca feeding micro-adjustments from the van as drone feeds flickered across their forearms.
“Two hostiles, second-floor landing.”
“Copy.”
Drew ghosted up the stairwell with Victor right behind him, their movements mirrored so closely Tane felt it more than saw it.Victor cleared high, Drew cleared low, and the room was neutralized in seconds—no wasted motion, no sound beyond breath and impact.
They kept moving.
The interior fights came faster after that, resistance snapping into place in pockets instead of lines.A pair burst from a side office, one already firing blind.Tane pivoted, shoulder brushing the wall as rounds chewed plaster where his head had been a second earlier.He put two shots center mass into the first man and drove forward, slamming the second into a glass display case hard enough to shatter it.The man went down choking, weapon sliding across tile.
“Hallway right, three deep,” Kael called.
Torch answered first, flash popping just long enough to disorient without blowing out civilian-facing windows.Reef and Tane moved through the smoke together, Reef taking the knee, Tane shooting over him.The hall emptied in seconds, bodies collapsing in overlapping arcs.
They advanced through a wide living space meant for entertaining—vaulted ceilings, polished stone, expensive art bolted discreetly to the walls.It made poor cover.Hostiles learned that the hard way.Drew dropped from the upper balcony behind one man, taking him down silently, while Victor engaged another head-on, rifle butt cracking across a jaw before a single suppressed round ended it.
“Clear,” Drew said.
