Sam’s hand dropped to her collar. “Easy, girl. What is it?”
The dog’s attention was fixed on something to the east—not the mill, not the road. The woods themselves.
Jo followed her gaze and saw it. Movement in the shadows. A figure, low and careful, working through the trees toward the mill.
Not approaching the front entrance. Circling. Watching.
“Sam,” Jo breathed.
“I see it.”
The figure paused at the edge of the tree line, and for a moment, moonlight caught the silhouette. Tall. Athletic build. A dog at their side.
Shaw.
Inside the mill,Wyatt heard footsteps.
His heart slammed against his ribs. He forced himself to stay still, to keep his hands visible, to look like a man who’d come to make a deal rather than spring a trap.
The footsteps were measured, deliberate. Coming from somewhere deeper in the building—a back entrance he hadn’t known about. Of course there was a back entrance. These people didn’t walk through front doors.
A shape emerged from the shadows.
Not Shaw.
Not his father.
A man Wyatt had never seen before. Big, broad-shouldered, dressed in dark clothes that blended with the darkness. His face was hard, expressionless—the face of someone who’d done this kind of thing before and would do it again without losing sleep.
Syndicate muscle. A soldier. Nobody important.
Which meant someone else was calling the shots.
“You the cop?” The man’s voice was flat. Bored, almost.
Wyatt nodded slowly. “I have what you asked for.” He gestured to the box on the floor between them.
The man didn’t move toward it. His eyes swept the mill instead, checking corners, exits, shadows. Professional. Careful.
“You alone?”
“Like you asked.”
“Anyone know you’re here?”
Wyatt’s throat tightened. The wire suddenly felt like a brand against his chest. “No. I’m not stupid.”
The man studied him for a long moment. Then he smiled—a cold, mirthless thing.
“Yeah,” he said. “You are.”
Jo and Sammoved through the trees like ghosts, Lucy padding silently between them.
Shaw was fifty yards ahead, still circling the mill, Shadow at her side. She hadn’t spotted them yet—her attention was fixed on the building, on whatever she thought was happening inside.
Whatwasshe doing here?
If she was the mole, if she was working with the syndicate, why wasn’t she inside with whoever Wyatt was meeting? Why lurk in the woods like a spectator?