Page 33 of Cold Ignition

But Rangi knew.

“About damn time,” he muttered.

The door opened.

And Ahi stepped out of the fire.

****

Inside the helmet, the world reduced to angles, speed, and the clean geometry of violence.

Keanu’s breath was steady in his ears, a quiet metronome beneath the engine’s low, predatory idle. The visor filtered the dust and glare into muted bands of light and shadow, sharpening edges, flattening distraction. Heat rolled up from the hood, bled through the chassis, settled into his bones like something remembered.

“Breaker, talk to me,” he said, voice low over comms.

A beat of static. Then Luca—dry as ever, threaded with focus. “You picked a hell of an entrance, Ahi. We’ve got three additional tangos moving in from the south stairwell, two on the mezzanine. I’m in their system—pulling everything they didn’t want found.”

Keanu’s jaw tightened beneath the helmet.

“Copy that,” he said. “Search every single one of them. Take whatever they have on them.”

“Already moving,” Luca replied. “Victor and Drew are sweeping the lower spaces. Tane’s clearing a path to your position. Kael’s coordinating exit for the rest of the team, as I am assuming you’ll exit the way you came.”

“Hell yes,” he growled.

Good. Family in motion.

He stepped forward, boots crunching over broken concrete, the car idling behind him like a loaded weapon waiting for a trigger.

Rangi stood between Alexios and the threat, body angled protectively in front of him, who was bleeding. But at least he was still upright, and no doubt still dangerous.

Keanu clocked everything in a glance.

Injury, moderate. Mobility, compromised but functional. Threat vectors, closing in around them quickly.

And something else. Something familiar. That pull that had been there six years ago.

“We have to move,” Keanu said, voice flattened by the comms distortion, unrecognizable, stripped of identity.

Rangi didn’t move. Of course he didn’t.

Keanu felt the ghost of a smile touch his mouth beneath the helmet.

“Not without him,” Rangi said, chin lifting a fraction.

Keanu’s gaze flicked to Alexios.

The Greek met it without flinching, eyes sharp despite the pain, assessing, measuring.

Good.

“Wasn’t planning on leaving him here,” Keanu replied.

Gunfire cracked from the upper level.

Concrete burst along the wall behind them.

Time up as men walked into the space they occupied.