Chapter 2 - Echoes of the Past"Boss, we have movement at two o'clock," Victor hissed, his weapon tracking a shadow shifting through the pine trunks fifty yards away.
Ramon pocketed the silver medallion, his expression hardening into absolute ice. He stood up slowly, towering over the unconscious woman. The brief, eerie stillness of the woods was shattered by a low, mechanical hum echoing from the road they had just left behind—the heavy thrum of approaching engines.
"They're circling back," Diego growled, shifting the whimpering little girl tighter against his chest. "We're boxed in."
"Not yet," Ramon said smoothly, though his mind was racing. He hadn't brought his full battalion into these woods—just three men and two vehicles. If an opposing faction had tracked them here, or if this clearing was a designated killing zone, they were vulnerable.
He crouched back down and slung the unconscious woman over his shoulder with effortless strength. "Victor, get on the radio. Tell the backup unit at the perimeter gates to move the second convoy off the main road and flush out whatever vehicles just entered our sector. Diego, carry the child. Matteo, you're with me. We move fast."
"And her?" Matteo asked, nodding toward the woman draped over Ramon's shoulder.
"She stays with us," Ramon replied, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, predatory glint. "Whoever hung her wanted her dead. But whoever dropped that medallion wants me to know who's coming for us."
They broke back into the dense foliage, tracing their steps by broken twigs and mud tracks. The fog seemed to thicken, turning a bruised, suffocating purple as the morning sun fought in vain to pierce the canopy. Every shadow looked like a sniper; every snap of a dry branch sounded like a cocking hammer.
As they neared the edge of the clearing where the black cars were parked, the sound of gunfire suddenly cracked through the quiet morning.
Pop. Pop-pop.
Suppressed rounds. Professional. Close.
Ramon slammed to a halt, pressing his back against the wide trunk of a cedar tree. He lowered the woman gently to the moss, motioning for his men to fan out.
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"Ambush," Diego whispered, setting the little girl down behind a dense fern thicket. "They hit the cars."
Ramon drew his own weapon—a custom-weighted Sig Sauer P226—and checked the magazine with a practiced, metallic click. The rules of the game had just changed. Someone didn't just want to eliminate a stray mother and child; they wanted to test the ghost of a dead syndicate by drawing Ramon Ortega directly into the trap.
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