CHAPTER NINETEEN

Rachel crouched, her boots sinking silently into the damp underbrush of the Texan forest. Night enveloped the woods, a thick blanket of darkness that turned every shadow into a potential threat. The ridge loomed ahead—a stark silhouette against the lesser black of the sky. Her breath formed faint clouds in the cool air, dissipating quickly as if afraid to exist.

She waited.

Time passed—minutes, maybe hours. Trees stood like silent sentinels, their branches swaying gently in a wind that seemed to touch everything but Rachel. She was a statue, a part of the landscape, as motionless as the earth beneath her.

A branch snapped. Soft. Distant. To any other ear, an insignificant sound lost in the nocturnal chorus. But not to Rachel. Her eyes narrowed, pupils dilating as she absorbed every scrap of light that the night grudgingly offered.

There it was again. A rustle. The faintest displacement of leaves. Something—or someone—was out there, moving with a caution that mirrored her own. Her hand gripped the butt of her service weapon.

Her focus sharpened, instincts honed from years of tracking fugitives through terrain just like this. She cataloged every potential hiding spot, every angle of approach. Rachel Blackwood didn't believe in luck. She believed in preparation, in skill. In knowing the land better than those who dared to tread it with ill intent.

The subtle shift came again. This time closer. A shadow within shadows, a darker patch that hadn't been there a heartbeat before. Her fingers twitched, ready to fire. But she held back. Patience. It could’ve been bait.

He was looking for her the same as she was looking for him. She needed confirmation, needed to see more than just a wisp of movement.

"Show yourself," she whispered to the night, voice barely above a breath. It wasn’t a command, just a quiet acknowledgment of the game of cat and mouse they were playing. Her words were for her alone.

Rachel's body tensed, every muscle coiled like a spring. She breathed out slowly, letting her heart rate settle into the stillness of the forest.

The movement had ceased on the ridge line, but she remained still, hidden by her own foliage.

She’d wait as long as she had to. He was out there, up there.

He was waiting for her to make a mistake.

Rachel's hand slid to the radio clipped at her hip. It had been given some time to dry now.

“Come on,” she whispered.

A thumb pressed the power button. A tiny click, almost lost in the forest's ambient noises, signaled life. The screen flickered, then steadied. A soft glow bathed her fingers—subdued but defiant against the darkness. She exhaled, not realizing she'd been holding her breath. Working. The word echoed in her mind like a silent victory chant.

She angled the radio away from the ridge, shielding the light with her body. No chances taken. Not tonight. Fingers, trained and steady despite the adrenaline threading through her veins, found the volume control. A faint beep accompanied each press, the sound decrescendoing until it was barely audible. Only then did she stop, the volume at its lowest setting.

Eyes lifted to pierce the darkness once more. Rachel's grip on the radio tightened. Communication was restored, yet her position remained a secret. Every sense stayed alert, waiting for the next move in this deadly quiet chess game.

Rachel’s fingers danced over the radio's keypad. She entered Ethan's number, digits familiar as her own heartbeat. Her thumb hovered over the send button for a fraction of a second before she pressed it. The radio crackled softly in her palm.

She waited. The forest around her seemed to hold its breath. Even the nocturnal creatures paused their chorus. Seconds stretched like hours, her pulse a drumbeat in her ears. Anticipation twisted in her gut, sharp and demanding.

"Blackwood." Ethan's voice cut through the static, clear despite the low volume. “Where the hell are you?”

“Found him.”

“Wait, who?”

“Simon.”

“Is that the thug’s name?”

“Yeah. Found him.”

“Where is he? text me your coordinates.”

“Catch-and-release,” she said simply. “He’s gone.”

A long, staticky pause. “Why? Where are you, Rachel?”

“It's Sherlock Hargreaves," Rachel said without preamble. Facts, not feelings. That was what mattered now.

“Wait, the dad? He’s on a trip, isn’t he?”

“Check airports.”

“On it. Hang on. Shouldn’t take long, I’m at the command center. One sec.”

She heard the sound of

keys tapping in the quiet background, a steady rhythm broken only by Ethan's occasional murmurs of affirmation as he worked. Rachel's eyes stayed fixed on the ridge, noticing every subtle shift in its shadowy outline. The adrenaline coursing through her veins refused to let her relax, even as her partner's familiar voice offered a thread of normalcy in the silent forest.

"Rachel," Ethan's voice echoed back into their channel. His tone harbored a thread of disbelief. "You're right. His flight to Mexico was cancelled last moment."

Her fingers tightened on the radio. The quiet words crawled up her spine, a cold affirmation of what she already knew.

"He never left," she stated, not bothering to hide the grim satisfaction in her voice.

“Stay there, Rachel,” Ethan commanded. “Keep your eyes open. Backup is on its way.”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she tucked the radio back onto her belt and rose ever so carefully from her crouch, eyes never leaving the ridge. She gripped her weapon tighter as she approached it.

The ridge loomed ahead, a silhouette against the charcoal sky. Dark shapes melded with shadows, indistinguishable yet threatening. Rachel's gaze did not waver; her eyes, sharp as arrowheads, dissected every inch of darkness.

A branch snapped. Subtle. Perhaps a deer, perhaps not. Rachel's hand moved to her holster, fingertips brushing the butt of her service weapon. Her thumb flicked off the safety, a click swallowed by the forest’s whispers.

"Movement at ten o'clock," she informed Ethan, her words clipped.

"Confirmation?"

"Negative. Waiting for visual."

"Stay down, Rae. Don't engage."

"Negative."

An army of lawyers. Infinite resources… But he’d come out into the woods. He’d had his shot. Now it was her turn.

She lowered the radio, hooking it back onto her belt. And then she began to move, keeping low, quiet, sticking to the shadows, her eyes never leaving the ridge.

He was up there… she just needed to find where.

***

Lazarus, he called himself. A man who'd returned from the dead.

As he crouched in the dark, on the ridge line, his fingers massaged his neck, touching the ridges where he’d once been bled…

They'd left him to die. He could remember that night nearly thirty years ago.

The cold edge of a blade against his throat, the wet trickle of his life draining out onto an unfeeling concrete. He'd been in the wrong alley, caught by the wrong men. Vicious men who dealt not in law but power. Two sharp words had slipped from their mouths, "Sherlock Hargreaves". His name, a sentence in itself. Then they'd left him in the filth and shadows.

They’d known who he was. They’d been sent, he’d found later, by a small business rival.

His pulse had echoed, slow and deadly, in his ears. The world around him fading to black as he fought against the darkness. Then silence. Nothingness…

But death hadn't claimed Sherlock Hargreaves that night. He'd clawed his way back from the precipice of the void, fueled by rage, thirst for vengeance, and a resolve stronger than steel. He’d survived.

And it had taught him the law of the jungle.

Power was the only real currency.

Power and loyalty.

And the disloyal?

They paid the price in blood.

He scowled towards the darkness below, searching for movement, for motion.

And then he spotted it. A shift of a figure in the dark, darting from one tree to the next.

He lowered his rifle, exhaling. He’d hunted in African Safaris. He’d hunted big game.

He knew how to pull a trigger when the time was right.

He waited, watching the figure through his lens.

Who was it?

Simon?

No… no, the flash of a thin figure darted from tree cover, taking shelter under the ridge-line.

It was that damn ranger.

He’d looked into Rachel Blackwood.

And now here she was, hunting him on his own land.

He raised his gun, aimed…

Fired.