Chapter 428

THORNE

I crouched in the darkness behind an abandoned warehouse on the eastern edge of Jerome's primary operational territory, watching my strike team make final equipment checks, and tried to ignore the crawling sensation between my shoulder blades that suggested something was about to go catastrophically wrong.

"Comms check," I whispered into my radio. "All teams report in."

The responses came in sequence—Alpha Team positioned at the northern compound, Beta securing the western safe house, Gamma ready to breach the southern supply cache. Twelve separate strike forces spread across four territories, all waiting for my signal to attack simultaneously.

It was the largest coordinated offensive operation our coalition...