Chapter 11 Chapter 11
Enzo
The road curved like a lazy question mark through the mountains, asphalt dark and slick beneath the tires, pine and wet earth pressing close on either side. Fog hung low between the trees, thin as breath, catching in the headlights before dissolving again. It was the kind of road meant to slow you down without ever admitting that was its purpose; no shoulders, no easy turnouts, just switchbacks and drop-offs that disappeared into shadow. Everything up here felt designed to punish momentum. The convoy moved anyway; tight spacing, headlights staggered, engines kept low. The men drove like they’d done this in their sleep a thousand times because they had. The only difference was what waited at the end of the mountain.
And who.
“Y’know,” Gino said over the open channel, voice easy, “I still don’t understand how she managed to drag me into a fistfight when I was literally holding a milkshake.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the convoy, sharp and sudden against the quiet of the forest. It carried through the radios like warmth in a sealed room a brother noise, stupid noise, the kind that made the air inside the vehicles feel less like a countdown.
“That’s because you were smiling,” Rafael replied. “She sees that and thinks, Ah yes. Backup.”
Enzo huffed under his breath, eyes steady on the road ahead. Not on the joke, on the gaps between trees, the darkness beyond the fog, the way the mountain swallowed sound. Still, his mouth twitched once, brief and involuntary.
Dom’s voice cut in next, warm with memory. “You should’ve seen it. She wasn’t even trying to be subtle.”
“Oh no,” Gino said. “She was staring.”
“Full-on,” Dom confirmed. “Not flirting, just assessing. Like she was deciding whether he’d survive the encounter.”
“What encounter?” Rafael asked, like he already knew and wanted the satisfaction of hearing it again.
“Burger joint,” Dom said. “In the middle of the Strip. Dude’s built like a fridge, arms like tree trunks and he’s wearing this absolutely criminal wig. 100% synthetic, crooked of course. It was shiny under the lights, it couldn't have looked worse.”
Enzo smiled despite himself.
“She doesn’t say a word,” Dom went on. “Just keeps staring. Guy notices, thinks she’s checking him out so he comes over all puffed up, says something stupid. I don’t even remember what, because she clocks him so fast, right in the mouth.”
Gino huffed a quiet laugh. "It's so Lola, just coming out swinging."
“Blood everywhere,” Dom added cheerfully. “Mine too, because he swings back. Next thing I know, Lola’s got a split lip, I’ve got a black eye, the guy’s on the floor, and we’re all just sitting there finishing our burgers.”
“She didn’t even stop eating,” Enzo said, and this time the smile in his voice was real.
“Of course not, she's like a rabid raccoon when she's hungry,” Dom replied. “Looks at me, blood dripping down her chin, and just starts laughing. Like hysterical. Manager’s screaming. Dude’s unconscious. She goes, ‘Honestly, Dom, I tried not to stare.’”
The laughter that followed was loud enough to feel dangerous, familiar. The kind that only existed between people who trusted each other with their lives, between men who’d already bled for each other and would again.
Enzo listened and let it happen because it mattered. These moments always mattered.
Because Dom was laughing.
Because Gino was smiling.
Because for a minute the mountain wasn’t a tactical map in his head, it was just road. It was just fog. It was just brothers on a mission.
Then Dom’s tone shifted—subtle, the way the air changes before a storm.
“She wasn’t afraid of him,” Dom said, quieter now, like the memory had shifted into something closer to the bone. “Wasn’t afraid of any of it. Didn’t even ask who he was.”
It's one of my favorite qualities about her, you could be the prince of some far off land and it's not going to change how she treats you. She'll still swing on you.
The explosion came from the road itself.
The force hit and then the fire.
A controlled detonation tore through the asphalt ahead of the lead vehicle, lifting it violently before slamming it back down in a scream of metal and sparks. The blast wave rippled through the convoy, headlights flaring wildly as brakes locked and tires fought for purchase.
“Front vehicle down!” someone shouted.
Enzo’s vehicle pitched as the driver fought the skid and hauled them to a stop behind the crippled lead car. Enzo’s shoulder jerked against the restraint. The smell of burned rubber and scorched earth flooded the cabin immediately, thick as a fist.
Smoke poured upward—gray, choking, and too orderly.
But still no gunfire.
Too clean.
Too deliberate.
Enzo’s mind moved like a blade—fast, quiet, looking for the next cut.
A front hit without immediate follow-up wasn’t an attack.
It was a stop.
A hand on the throat.
Before Enzo could finish the thought, the rear of the convoy exploded.
Not the road this time.
The last vehicle took the hit directly, a sharp concussive blast that flipped it sideways and sent debris raining across the narrow pass. Shards of metal clanged and skittered across asphalt, vanishing into the trees. A second later the sound caught up;an ugly rolling boom that bounced off the mountain walls and came back distorted.
“REAR HIT—!”
They were boxed in.
Front blocked.
Rear destroyed.
A single ribbon of mountain road hemmed in by steep slopes and dense timber.
A kill corridor.
And now the gunfire started; not wild or panicked.
Disciplined bursts from higher ground. Controlled angles, designed to herd them into the open if they tried to move, designed to pin them behind their own vehicles like coffins on wheels.
“Positions!” Dom barked, already moving. “Out of the vehicles—NOW!”
Doors flew open down the line. Men spilled into mud and wet asphalt, dragging bags, grabbing rifles, moving with the kind of practiced speed that came from too many nights like this.
Enzo hit the ground behind the engine block, weapon up, mind snapping cold and precise. The forest rang with sharp cracks and the heavier thud of rounds striking metal. A bullet punched through a windshield somewhere down the line and the glass burst outward in glittering spray.
This wasn’t meant to scare them it was containment.
Enzo tracked the angles.
The treeline.
The slope.
The rocks that could hide a shooter. The gaps between trunks where muzzle flashes blinked and vanished. Their attackers weren’t firing to kill fast—they were firing to keep them here; to bleed them slowly, to buy time.
Rafael returned fire from the passenger side of his vehicle, calling positions with clipped efficiency, voice sharp and calm like this was just another drill.
“Two left, elevation—watch your high right!”
“Gino, stay low—cover behind the second truck!”
“Reload on my count!”
Gino dragged one of their guys into cover, blood streaking his sleeve as he kept shooting with his free hand. His jaw was clenched hard enough to ache, expression flat with purpose.
Dom moved like he always did—big body, fast mind—hauling wounded men out of open ground, placing himself where others shouldn’t have to be.
Enzo saw him take a hit early; something grazing or tearing, not clean through because Dom’s shoulder jerked and his breath cut sharp. Luckily, it wasn’t fatal.
Dom didn’t even slow.
He slapped a hand over the wound like it was an inconvenience and kept moving.
“Dom—!” Enzo shouted as rounds chewed into the asphalt near him.
“I’m good!” Dom snapped back. “Keep your head down!”
The firefight stretched, seconds blurring into minutes, the air growing thick with smoke and pine resin and the copper tang of blood. Somewhere, the lead vehicle’s engine whined, dying in slow mechanical grief.
Enzo’s world narrowed.
Sightline.
Trigger pressure.
Breath.
The next man he needed to keep alive.
He moved his aim in clean sweeps. He watched Rafael’s position. He clocked Gino’s cover. He counted heads without counting—because if he lost track even once, someone else died.
They pushed back hard.
Too hard.
Because their attackers adjusted.
Because this wasn’t random men in the woods with rifles.
These were Academy-trained. They knew how to bait movement. They knew how to provoke instinct. They knew who to aim at to make a team break.
Then Enzo shifted.
Just half a step; enough to clear his line of sight past a smoking hood, enough to see the ridge.
Enough.
Dom saw it instantly.
“No—!”
Dom lunged like a man who didn’t know how to do anything else but protect. He moved into the open for a heartbeat too long.
The shot cracked louder than the rest.
Too clean.
Too close.
Dom took it mid-movement, the impact spinning him hard before he hit the ground.
Enzo didn’t think, just moved.
He covered the distance in two strides and a controlled slide, dropping to Dom’s side behind what little cover his body and the road could offer. Bullets snapped overhead; a round hit the engine block above them and the metal screamed.
Dom’s eyes were open.
Good.
Blood soaked his vest, spreading fast and dark, seeping into the gravel beneath him. It wasn’t a dramatic gush. It was worse—steady, unstoppable, the body quietly giving up ground.
“Hey,” Enzo said, gripping his shoulder. “Hey. Stay with me.”
Dom coughed—a wet, broken sound that didn’t belong in his chest.
“Damn,” he muttered. “That’s… not ideal.”
Enzo pressed harder, fury shaking beneath his skin. “You’re not dying. Don’t you dare.”
Dom’s mouth twitched like he wanted to laugh but didn’t have the air for it.
“She’s gonna be pissed,” he said.
Enzo swallowed so hard it hurt. “Yeah.”
Dom’s gaze flicked—trees, smoke, the road ahead.
Then back to Enzo.
“You get her,” Dom said. “No hesitation.”
“I won’t.”
Dom breathed once, shallow.
“If she asks—”
His gaze locked onto Enzo’s, steady even now.
“—tell her I’d follow her anywhere.”
“She’ll know,” Enzo said, and it was the closest thing to a prayer he’d ever spoken.
Dom smiled.
Just a little.
Then his eyes went unfocused.
The mountain went quiet in a way Enzo would remember forever.
Someone screamed; raw, furious, not caring who heard.
Someone swore like the words could bring him back.
Enzo didn’t.
He didn’t break.
He didn’t shout.
He turned cold.
The Academy team didn’t survive the next five minutes.
Not because Enzo lost control, because he didn’t.
He rose from Dom’s body with blood on his hands and precision in his bones. He called positions without raising his voice. He pointed without wasting motion. He fired without shaking. He pushed them forward through smoke and wreckage the way a blade pushes through cloth.
They cleared the treeline with ruthless efficiency, the last shooter slipping on wet needles near the ravine before Rafael dropped him with a single shot. Smoke drifted through the trees, curling low like fog that hadn’t decided where to settle.
Silence followed.
Not peace.
Just absence.
Enzo stood at the edge of the road, weapon lowered, blood on his hands that wasn’t his. His breathing stayed even, but something inside him had gone razor-cold, sharpened down to one purpose.
Dom lay where he’d fallen; they approached together.
No one spoke at first; like words didn’t belong here anymore.
Gino knelt, fingers finding Dom’s neck, not hope, just confirmation. He shut his eyes once, then straightened Dom’s jacket with careful hands, as if respect could stitch what bullets ruined.
Rafael hovered close, jaw tight, gaze fixed on a point in the forest like if he looked away Dom would vanish.
Enzo stared down at Dom and felt something in his chest crack and seal over at the same time.
The grief was there.
It just didn’t get to steer.
“We take him with us,” Enzo said.
It wasn’t a question and no one argued, no one would’ve dared.
They moved with the kind of reverence men only learn after too much loss. They wrapped Dom carefully, using what they had—clean jackets, spare straps, a thermal blanket pulled from a med kit. Not because it would change the outcome, because it was what you did for your own.
Gear came off next, stripped with discipline—mags collected, weapon cleared, every piece of equipment accounted for like Dom might still be here to check their work.
Enzo didn’t help with the wrapping.
He couldn’t.
He stood close, watching the road, scanning the trees, refusing to look away from the perimeter long enough to let the world take another man from him.
When Dom was secured in the rear transport, strapped tight so he wouldn’t shift, Enzo shut the door himself.
The click sounded final.
Then he turned back to the wreckage and the bodies.
“Strip everything,” he ordered.
They moved fast.
The ambush team had been well supplied, too well. Not scavenger rifles, not improvised gear but reinforced packs, fresh ammo, encrypted comm units and thermal optics. A drone controller stashed in a crushed case that smelled like burned plastic.
This had been planned.
This had been timed.
This had been communicated.
Gino lifted a comm unit and swore under his breath. “These were live,” he said. “Recently.”
Enzo’s jaw tightened. “Get Jake on it.”
Gino was already dialing, hands still shaking just slightly as adrenaline bled out and grief tried to crawl in.
Jake came on breathing hard, like he’d been waiting for the call. “Talk to me. The fog has really blocked our visuals.”
“We need into their comms,” Enzo said. “Now.”
Keys clacked in the background, rapid-fire.
“Send me the unit IDs.”
Rafael tossed the devices over. Gino relayed the numbers, voice flat and clinical to keep himself from sounding like a man who’d just watched his brother die.
“Thirty seconds,” Jake said.
Wind whispered through scorched branches. Somewhere, metal creaked as the rear vehicle cooled and settled, like the mountain itself was exhaling.
“I’m in,” Jake said.
Everyone stilled.
“They were relaying to a hub—short-range bursts,” Jake continued. “Academy perimeter system. They know you’re inside restricted terrain.”
Enzo closed his eyes once.
Not to grieve.
To focus.
“How much did they see?”
“Enough,” Jake said grimly. “And—there’s a drone overhead.”
Rafael’s head snapped up, eyes searching the fogged sky. “I don’t hear it.”
“It’s high,” Jake said. “Quiet prop. Passive until now.”
Enzo’s mouth went hard. “Can you take it?”
“Yeah, in eight, seven, six, five; it's our now.”
They waited, all of them staring upward like the sky had teeth.
Then the faint hum overhead vanished.
“I’m looping its last clean feed,” Jake said. “From his end, this looks exactly how it’s supposed to but Lucian will know the alarm sounded.”
“I know,” Enzo said.
Which meant Lola was now at risk; which meant time had become a weapon. He looked down the mountain pass and saw the truth with brutal clarity: this wasn’t just a trap to slow them down. It was a message: we can touch you before you even reach us and if Lucian knew Enzo was close, he would tighten his grip on Lola until it left bruises.
Enzo’s fingers flexed once around his weapon.
He didn’t feel panic.
He felt certainty.
They redistributed captured gear: fresh mags loaded into vests, optics passed out, comms fitted into ears. The men moved with quiet aggression, grief packed away like a blade tucked into a sleeve. They pulled the hidden vehicles from the trees next—ATVs and narrow mountain trucks camouflaged under netting and wet needles. Fast-response machines meant for pursuit and perimeter patrol, not ceremony. Whoever planned the ambush had expected to slow them down, bleed them, maybe scatter them.
They hadn’t planned for vengeance.
They hadn’t planned for Enzo’s men to adapt.
They hadn’t planned for Enzo to become something colder than anger.
The wounded were handled quickly—pressure dressings, tape, morphine if someone couldn’t keep their hands steady. No dramatics. No speeches. A few hard looks. A few hands on shoulders that didn’t linger.
Enzo watched it all like a commander and a brother at the same time.
Then he glanced once toward the rear transport.
Dom was there.
He wasn’t being left behind.
And neither was Lola.
“Jake,” Enzo said into the line, voice low. “Stay in our ear. Anything on the perimeter, anything at all—you tell me before the mountain does.”
“Already on it,” Jake said. “And Enzo… I’m sorry.”
Enzo didn’t answer that.
Sorry didn’t change the road.
He went radio silent.
Engines turned over again, lower now, kept tight and quiet, like the convoy had learned to breathe through its teeth. The fog thickened ahead, trees closing in tighter as the road twisted upward. The air felt colder, sharper, as if elevation itself was a weapon.
This was Academy land and the Academy had just declared war.
Enzo’s mind ran two tracks at once.
The men he still had.
The woman he was taking back.
Lucian knew they were coming.
Which meant Lola was being watched.
Which meant Enzo would not slow down.
Not now.
Not ever again.