The stolen sedan’s engine ticked as it cooled in the dark parking lot of a gas station that had closed at ten. Wade sat with the burner phone in his hand, the plastic shell cold and cheap. Truenai watched him from the passenger seat, her face pale in the green glow of the dashboard lights. He had cleaned the blood from his knuckles with a wet wipe from the glove box, but the ache in his ribs from the fight remained, a persistent throb that matched the one in his skull.

“You have to call him,” Truenai said, her voice quiet but firm. It wasn’t a suggestion.

“I know.”

“Wade.” She reached over, her fingers brushing the back of his wrist where it rested on the gear shift. “You’re bleeding through your shirt.”

He looked down. A dark bloom, small but spreading, had seeped through the tan fabric near his lowest rib. He hadn’t even felt the cut. The adrenaline was gone, leaving only a hollow, shaky fatigue. Her touch was a point of warmth in the cold car. He turned his wrist, letting her fingers slide into his palm. He held them for a second too long, then let go.

He dialed the memorized number from the burner. It rang twice.

“Reed.” The captain’s voice was a graveled rasp, wide awake.

“It’s me.”

A sharp exhale. “Status. Now.”

“Safe house is burned. Two hostiles, neutralized. No fatalities. We’re mobile. No tail.” Wade kept his eyes on the empty road beyond the gas pumps. “My phone was compromised. I’m on a burner taken from one of them.”

“Christ, Dunn.” Reed went silent for a moment. Wade could hear the faint sound of a pen tapping on paper. “The nurse?”

“Secure.” Wade’s gaze flicked to Truenai. She was staring straight ahead, listening. “She’s with me.”

“You trust the burner?”

“No.”

“Then listen close. There’s a place. The Starlight Motel, mile marker seven on the old county road. It’s a dump. Pay cash. You remember the procedure?”

“Yes, sir.” A cold procedure. A protocol for assets.

“Get her there. Get her inside. You do not stay. You drop her and you go. There’s a warehouse district off the riverfront, old textile mills. Building fourteen, the one with the collapsed loading awning. You be there at two a.m. Sharp. You come alone.”

Wade’s grip tightened on the phone. “What’s at building fourteen?”

“A chance to see what Sokolov is really moving. A chance to end this. But I can’t have her there, Dunn. She’s the trigger. You understand? Where she goes, he follows. We use that. We put her in a box, and we draw him to the real prize.”

“You’re using her as bait.” The words came out flat.

“I’m keeping her alive by putting her somewhere he won’t look while we cut the head off the snake. Now, do you have a problem with your orders, Deputy?”

Wade closed his eyes. The throb in his ribs sharpened. “No, sir.”

“Two a.m. Building fourteen. And Dunn?” Reed’s voice lowered. “Watch your six. This stinks.”

The line went dead.

Wade lowered the phone. The silence in the car was absolute. Truenai was looking at him, her hazel eyes wide and unreadable. “He’s putting me in a motel,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“It’s a protocol. A safe location.”

“And you’re leaving me there.”

“Yes.” He started the car. The engine’s growl split the night. He didn’t look at her as he pulled back onto the road, heading for the old county route. The headlights cut through a fine, misting rain that had begun to fall.

Twenty minutes later, the Starlight Motel emerged from the darkness—a single-story L of peeling aqua paint and flickering neon. Office light off. Vacancy sign buzzing. It was the kind of place that existed between places. Wade parked around back, in front of room eleven, as instructed. He killed the engine.

“Wait here,” he said, his voice rough. He got out, the mist cold on his face, and went to the office. A key was in an envelope taped beneath the ledge of the window. No names. No faces. He took it, the metal cold in his hand.