Page 8 of Cold Ignition

The line went dead.

Rangi removed the battery from the burner and snapped the SIM card in half before tossing the pieces across the room.

Alexios leaned back against the pillar beside him.

"Well," he said after a moment. "That was either very clever or very stupid."

Rangi rested his forearms on his knees. "We'll find out."

Alexios glanced sideways at him, a slow smile tugging at his bruised mouth.

"You realize," he said quietly, "that if this works, we're about to start a war."

Rangi met his gaze. "We're already in one."

Alexios studied him for a long moment.

Then he reached out and pulled Rangi closer, pressing a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Not desperation.

Not fear.

Just the quiet reaffirmation of something they had built together over years of shared danger.

Trust.

Strength.

Love.

"Then we survive until he gets here," Alexios said softly.

Rangi nodded once. "We always do."

****

The garage smelled like oil, steel, and sunbaked dust.

Keanu “Torch” Palani preferred it that way.

Outside, the late afternoon heat pressed down over the compound, turning the air thick and slow. Inside the long steel building, the temperature was only marginally better, but the massive industrial fans mounted along the ceiling pushed a steady current of air across the workspace. The noise was a constant low hum, blending with the metallic scrape of tools and the occasional echo of laughter drifting in from the far end of the compound.

Keanu stood beside the almost-finished bus conversion that had occupied his spare hours for the last two years.

Most people would have called it ridiculous.

The bus itself was enormous—an old commercial touring coach he had stripped down to its skeleton when he first bought it. Now the inside was something else entirely. The frame had been reinforced, the insulation replaced, the wiring redone from scratch. What remained looked less like a vehicle and more like a house inside the steel shell.

Three slide-outs were currently extended from the side of the bus like giant mechanical drawers. When fully deployed, they turned the interior into a surprisingly wide living space. The rear section held a bedroom large enough to fit the California King bed he had installed without feeling cramped. The middle section was open plan—kitchen, dining table, and a long couch that pulled out into another king bed if needed.

Two bathrooms.

Because if he ended up living out of it during some ridiculous mission someday, the last thing Keanu wanted was to fight his friends over a shower.

He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm and leaned back from the wiring panel he’d been installing beneath the kitchen counter.

The copper lines gleamed in the late afternoon light spilling through the open garage doors.