Chapter 7 - The Lumber Mill
At 4:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before the sun began to edge over the eastern ridge, three black armored SUVs moved silently through the dense pine forest four miles north of Lake Crestview.
The rain had stopped, leaving behind a thick, icy ground fog that clung to the dirt logging roads.
Inside the lead vehicle, Nikolai sat in the front passenger seat, checking the magazine of a heavy, suppressed tactical pistol. Beside him, Vera sat in the middle row, wearing a thick black tactical coat Dmitri had given her, her dark hair pulled back into a tight braid.
Nikolai had refused to let her come at first, shouting at her in his study until Dmitri had quietly stepped between them, pointing out that keeping Vera inside his armored convoy was actually safer than leaving her at the main house while fifty percent of their guard force was deployed.
Nikolai had finally conceded, but on one condition: Vera stayed inside the reinforced vehicle with two armed guards while he cleared the building.
Through the fogged windshield, the towering silhouette of the abandoned industrial lumber mill appeared—a sprawling, rusting complex of corrugated steel, rotting timber stacks, and broken concrete loading docks.
Four high-powered utility trucks with blacked-out windows were parked outside the main office building.
“They are still inside,” Dmitri reported from the driver’s seat, looking at a thermal imaging tablet connected to a reconnaissance drone hovering above the mill. “Twelve thermal signatures inside the main cutting floor. Two sentries on the catwalk.”
Nikolai clicked his pistol magazine into place with a sharp, metallic sound.
“No survivors,” Nikolai commanded cold and clear over the tactical radio channel connecting all three SUVs. “Julian Vance is to be brought to me alive. The rest are collateral.”
“Understood, boss,” the tactical team replied in unison over the earpiece network.
The three heavy vehicles didn't slow down as they approached the timber yard gates.
CRASH.
The lead SUV slammed through the rusted chain-link gate, splintering the wooden post, and burst onto the gravel yard of the lumber mill.
Before the sentries on the catwalk could even raise their weapons, Nikolai’s tactical team flooded out of the secondary vehicles, their suppressed weapons spitting silent, lethal fire into the shadows.
THWIP. THWIP. THWIP.
Both sentries fell from the high catwalk, crashing onto the wooden stacks below.
Nikolai stepped out of the lead vehicle, his posture calm, his weapon raised, leading four men straight through the splintered double doors of the main cutting floor.
Inside the SUV, Vera sat with her hands clasped tight in her lap, watching the flashing muzzle flares through the dusty windows of the lumber mill.
The muffled sounds of tactical breaching charges, breaking glass, and short bursts of automatic gunfire echoed through the foggy morning air.
Vera’s heart hammered against her ribs. She was terrified—not for herself, but for the man who had walked into that dark, rusting slaughterhouse to burn down the threat to her life.
Two minutes passed. Then three.
Suddenly, the passenger door of her SUV was yanked open.
Vera gasped, pulling her titanium pocket knife from her coat, but it wasn't an enemy.
It was Dmitri, his face flushed, holding his tactical radio.
“Vera, stay low!” Dmitri ordered, turning his body to cover her door. “Vance had a secondary team staged in the drying shed behind us! They are trying to flank the main squad!”
Before Dmitri could draw his weapon, a heavy burst of automatic fire erupted from a nearby stack of timber.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Dmitri groaned, a round catching him in his shoulder armor, knocking him backward onto the muddy gravel floor.
Vera’s eyes went wide as a tall, broad man wearing a dirt-stained coat stepped out from behind the timber stack, holding a heavy shotgun, heading straight for her open SUV door.
It was Julian Vance—the regional director of the Helian Group.
His face was bleeding from a cut along his forehead, his eyes wild with desperate, murderous anger as he recognized Vera sitting inside the vehicle.
“You...” Vance snarled, raising the heavy shotgun toward her chest. “Voss destroyed my entire company for a damn groundskeeper?!”
Vera didn't freeze.
Three years of working with heavy machinery, heavy iron tools, and manual labor had given her physical strength that Vance clearly didn't anticipate from a woman in a velvet coat.
As Vance stepped up to the SUV floorboard, Vera grabbed the heavy steel door handle with both hands and slammed the three-hundred-pound armored door out into his face with all the strength in her body.
CRACK.
The heavy steel door struck Vance squarely across the side of his head, shattering his jawbone and sending him tumbling backward onto the wet, muddy gravel, dropping his shotgun into the dirt.
Vera stepped out of the SUV, her titanium knife snapped open, her posture rigid as she stood over the bleeding, groaning syndicate leader.
Vance looked up through his swollen eyes, spitting blood onto the gravel, staring at her in sheer, disbelief-filled terror.
Footsteps rushed out from the dark lumber mill behind them.
Nikolai emerged into the foggy morning light, his dark shirt stained with powder burns, his weapon held ready.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Vance lying broken on the mud, and Vera standing over him with a bloody steel door edge and a combat blade in her hand.
Nikolai slowly lowered his weapon, a look of profound, stunned wonder washing across his hard face.
“Vera...” Nikolai whispered, stepping forward through the fog.
Vera looked up at him, her breathing heavy, her dark eyes fierce beneath the cold dawn sky.
May you like
“He tried to touch my truck again,” Vera said, her voice shaking with a mixture of residual adrenaline and fierce, dark satisfaction.
A low, deep laugh erupted from Nikolai’s chest—a triumphant, dangerous laugh that echoed through the quiet timber yard as the first rays of morning sunlight broke over the Oregon mountains.
