Chapter 9: The Trap is Sprung

Chapter 9: The Trap is Sprung

The gunshots from the clay pigeon shoot had stopped, but the silence that followed was louder. When Damien returned to the suite, he moved with the lethal grace of a predator, but his eyes were haunted. He stripped off his shooting vest and placed it on a chair with a chilling precision, every movement economical and devoid of warmth. The emotional chasm between them was now a mile-wide canyon of unspoken grief.

Evie’s heart hammered against her ribs. She couldn't let him walk into this endgame blinded by a vendetta that was eight years old. She held up her phone, the screen glowing in the dim afternoon light. On it was the picture she’d taken in Croft’s study: the manifest from C-G Global Logistics, and Croft's damning, handwritten note.

“Asset retired. Loose end tied,” she read aloud, her voice shaking but firm. “It wasn’t a training accident, was it, Damien?”

He froze, his back to her. He didn't have to turn around for her to feel the shock that jolted through his body. It was a physical impact.

“What did you do?” he asked, his voice dangerously low, a growl rumbling deep in his chest.

“What you should have done,” she retorted, stepping towards him, her fear eclipsed by a desperate urgency. “My job. I analyzed the variable. Croft mentioned a name, and I investigated. In his private study. The drawer had a cheap lock.”

He turned on her, his face a mask of incandescent fury. It wasn’t the hot, mocking anger she was used to; this was a cold, terrifying rage that promised annihilation. “You went into his study? Are you insane? You could have compromised everything!”

“You are what’s compromising everything!” she shot back, holding her ground, refusing to be intimidated. Not now. Not when his life was on the line. “This was never just a mission for you. This is a suicide run. You’ve been hunting him for eight years. You didn’t care about the arms deal, or the evidence, or me. You just wanted to get close enough to pull the trigger.”

The truth of her words struck him like a physical blow. He staggered back a step, the fury in his eyes flickering, replaced by the raw, bottomless agony of a man whose oldest, most secret wound had just been torn open for the world to see. “You don’t understand…”

“Then make me understand!” she pleaded, her voice breaking. “Because in a few hours, the real arms deal is going down. The FBI is going to give the signal to move in, and if you go after Croft on your own, driven by this… this ghost… he will kill you. He is expecting it. He is baiting you.”

Before he could answer, a discreet chime sounded from the burner phone on the nightstand—their agency communication line. Damien snatched it up. A single, encrypted text glowed on the screen.

PAVILION. MIDNIGHT. PACKAGE IS LIVE. MOVE ON MY MARK.

It was from their handler. The final act was beginning. The FBI was in position, surrounding the vast estate, waiting for the exchange to happen at a secluded lakeside pavilion. Their orders were clear: observe, confirm the exchange, and wait for the takedown signal. It was a standard, by-the-book operation.

But Evie looked at Damien’s face and knew that nothing about this would be standard. The text message wasn't an order to him; it was a starting pistol. The vengeful ghost she had unearthed had taken complete control.

He checked his sidearm, the slide clicking home with lethal finality. He moved towards the door, his eyes fixed on some distant point only he could see. He was no longer Agent Cross. He was the avenger of Marcus Thorne.

“Damien, no,” Evie said, grabbing his arm. His muscles were like steel beneath her fingers. “Listen to me. We stick to the plan. We wait for the signal. Together.”

He looked down at her hand on his arm, then into her eyes. For a fleeting moment, she saw the man from the penthouse, the one who had confessed his fears and held her as if she were his only anchor. Then he was gone.

“He took everything from me,” he said, his voice raspy with eight years of suppressed hatred. “The plan doesn't matter anymore.” He gently but firmly detached her hand from his arm. “Stay here. That’s an order.”

He was gone before she could say another word.

Panic, cold and absolute, seized her. She couldn’t let him do this. She grabbed her own burner phone and a small emergency transponder—her only lifeline to the outside world—and slipped out of the room. Following him at a distance, she moved through the manicured gardens, the moon casting long, dancing shadows that felt like reaching claws.

She saw him bypass the main path to the pavilion, instead circling around through a dense patch of woods that offered a more direct, more reckless approach to the rear of the structure. He wasn't moving like an agent preparing for a coordinated strike; he was moving like a hunter closing in for the kill.

He reached the pavilion, a beautiful glass and steel structure built out over the dark, still water of the lake. The buyers were there, their faces illuminated by the soft interior lights. But Damien wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at Croft, who stood alone near a back entrance, speaking quietly into a phone, momentarily separated from his men. It was the opening Damien had been waiting for.

Ignoring the FBI protocol, ignoring Evie’s desperate pleas replaying in his head, ignoring everything but the burning need for retribution, Damien burst from the shadows. He moved with terrifying speed, closing the distance in a heartbeat.

But the trap had already been sprung.

As Damien launched himself at Croft, the back door slid open. Croft simply took one step back, a thin, cruel smile on his face. Damien stumbled into the room, his momentum carrying him forward, only to find himself not in a service corridor, but in a reinforced, windowless chamber. The door hissed shut behind him.

The main lights of the pavilion went out, replaced by harsh, industrial floodlights inside the chamber, pinning Damien in their glare. Julian Croft stood on the other side of a thick sheet of bulletproof glass, flanked by two of his largest security men. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t even alarmed. He looked… satisfied.

“Hello, Damien,” Croft said, his voice echoing slightly through a hidden speaker. “Or should I say, son of Marcus? I must confess, I’m disappointed. Marcus was smarter than this. He was cunning. You… you are just a blunt instrument, fueled by a predictable and rather boring sentimentality.”

Damien stared, his chest heaving, his entire plan, his entire life’s purpose, shattering around him. He was trapped. He’d walked right into it.

“Did you really think I didn’t run your prints the moment you arrived?” Croft continued, savoring his victory. “Did you think I didn’t recognize that same stupid, noble fire in your eyes? I have been waiting for you for eight years, boy. I knew one day Marcus’s little stray would come sniffing around my door.”

From the shadows of the woods, Evie watched in horror. Her transponder was active, the FBI knew the location, but they were waiting for the signal, for the exchange. They didn't know the plan had already imploded. She had to do something.

As she crept closer, two figures materialized from the darkness beside her. Before she could even scream, a hand was clamped over her mouth, and a strong arm pinned her arms to her sides. She was dragged, kicking and struggling, out of the tree line and into the harsh glare of the floodlights surrounding the pavilion.

Inside his glass prison, Damien’s head snapped up. He saw her, struggling between Croft’s men, her eyes wide with terror. His blood ran cold. The rage, the hate, the eight years of burning vengeance—it all evaporated, replaced by a singular, paralyzing fear that was a thousand times worse.

Croft followed his gaze and smiled, a slow, reptilian stretching of his lips. “Ah, yes. The analyst. Your anchor,” he mused, tapping a thoughtful finger against his chin. He had seen the kiss. He had seen it all. “This is a fascinating development. A vulnerability Marcus never had. It’s your greatest weakness.”

He gestured, and one of the guards pressed the cold muzzle of a pistol to Evie’s temple. She froze, tears welling in her eyes.

Damien slammed his fists against the bulletproof glass, a raw, inhuman roar of fury and despair tearing from his throat. The glass didn’t even shudder.

“Here we are, Damien,” Croft said softly, his voice a silken thread of pure evil. “The moment you’ve dreamed of. The man who killed your mentor is right here, a few inches away. You can spend the rest of your life trying to break through that glass to get to me. You can try to avenge your precious Marcus.”

He paused, letting the weight of his next words settle.

“Or… you can save her. I’m going to have my men take her away. If you want her to live, you will surrender to my guards when they come for you. No tricks, no fighting. You will become my prisoner.”

Croft leaned closer to the glass, his eyes glinting with triumphant cruelty.

“But you can’t do both. Your revenge, or her life. Choose.”