The courtyard lights flicker as my team spreads out across the gravel, shadows moving quickly, silently. There is a second injured guard near the outer wall. The radio call had come through with clipped panic, but I told myself not to run. Panic is exactly what Adrian wants from me. He wants to see me lose control of my own men, my own decisions, my own mind.
I walk toward the guard now. My footsteps crunch on the gravel. The smell hits me first, iron in the air, sharp and metallic. One of the medics kneels beside the man and shifts only enough to let me see the wound. A deep slice across the side of his abdomen. Not fatal, but vicious. A reminder. A signature. A message.
The medic shakes his head when I crouch next to them.
“He is alive, sir. Unconscious, but stable enough to move. Blo
