Page 82 of The ARC Unit: Breach

“I’m angry because you disappeared.”

“For forty-eight seconds.”

“Stop saying that like it helps.”

“It does help. It’s forty-eight seconds, not a hostage crisis.”

Wolf’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“You have no idea what forty-eight seconds can cost.”

He managed to shut me up. Raven looked toward the windshield and Wolf looked away from me first.

“Debrief at the compound.”

I folded my arms and turned toward the window as the rest of the drive lasted in silence.

By the time we pulled through the ARC gate, my anger had settled into something dense and unpleasant beneath my ribs. The party had given us more than weeks of passive surveillance, and Wolf had still managed to make the entire operation feel like evidence I was incompetent. Raven went straight to the operations floor.

Within minutes, the main screen filled with the useful parts of the afternoon: Morgenstern Sicherheitslogistik, Südweg Transport, the Ulm reference and Thursday movement. Viper added vehicle plates from the service road. Hawk returned with long-lens images from the ridge, including the clearest photograph ARC had ever obtained of Kade.

I stood beside Raven’s station with the cover-up still over my bikini and my hair beginning to tangle from the wind, listening while the team condensed everything for Wolf. Hawk slid the photograph onto the table.

Kade filled the screen.

The image caught him near the cabana, hair tied back and face turned toward the lower garden. Clear enough now that the grainy photographs in his file felt almost dishonest.

Wolf studied it for a long moment before turning to me.

“You got something.”

“Something?”

“Don’t start.”

“No, please. I’d love to hear how the first clean Kade contact you’ve had in months qualifies as something.”

Jackal had come in through the garage during the debrief. He looked between us and quietly moved his water bottle out of the line of fire.

Wolf’s voice stayed flat. “You got intelligence and compromised the plan obtaining it. Both can be true.”

“You cannot stand giving me credit.”

“This isn’t about your feelings.”

“Nothing is with you.”

The room went still.

Wolf took one heavy step away from the table.

“Upstairs.”

I laughed once without humor. “Seriously?”

“Now.”

“I’m not one of your operators.”