Taken by Force

The phone vibrates once against Luke’s palm, the screen’s warm glow cutting through the dim light of his home office.

UNREGISTERED CALLER

He thumbs ACCEPT before the second ring.

“Luke!”

Adam’s voice is low, frayed at the edges, already bleeding urgency.

“Mate, I’m cashing in that favor. Now.”

Luke’s spine straightens against the leather chair.

He knows that tone; it’s the same clipped voice Adam used as he barked coordinates through gunfire in Beirut when the extraction bird was late and the valley was crawling with hostiles.

“You know I said anything.”

His voice is calm and steady.

“Name it.”

A ragged inhale.

“They know who she is. I can’t shield her from here.”

His pulse kicks—hard.

She.

Adam only has one she worth torching a career over.

“Fuck. How long do I have?”

Adam pauses, the silence thin as cracked ice.

“4 or 5 hours, maybe less. The asset’s compromised—Chloe’s name just landed in the wrong inbox. They’ll trace her before I can surface. I’ve got her phone encrypted; triple layer, coordinates incoming.”

A soft ping lights Luke’s second screen.

“I need you to take her—IMMEDIATELY.”

“Done. Send GPS, plates—everything.”

Luke is already moving—snatching the go-bag from under the desk, the familiar weight of the Glock sliding home, fingers flying across the keyboard to spin up a clean VPN.

“Already pushed. Listen, one more thing.”

Adam’s breath hitches. “If this goes south, I vanish. She can’t know anything that paints a target on her back. Just keep her breathing brother. I can’t lose her too.”

“She’s your sister!”

Luke’s voice comes out rough, “It goes without saying. You have my word.”

A bitter laugh scrapes down the line.

“Yeah, well she’s a goddamn hurricane. Doesn’t listen to me, sure as hell won’t listen to you. Stubborn as our old man and twice as reckless. Dropped out of Georgetown mid-semester, running with dreamers and partying like there’s no tomorrow. She’s only twenty-one and thinks she’s bulletproof.”

He exhales, “She was sixteen when our parents went down in that bombing outside Paris—ever since I’ve kept my cover intact: big brother in the Marines. She buys it.”

“Don’t let her leave your sight. She talks a big game but she’s young and naïve”.

Zipping up the bag, he slings it over his shoulder.

“I’ll leash her if I have to.”

“She’ll fight—but these cartels don’t bluff. They’ll put her in the ground just to send me a postcard.”

Adam’s voice splinters.

“I’m on a burner. Gotta ghost. I’ll surface when it’s safe. Keep her on a short rope—she needs a firm hand. Whatever it takes—you’re the only one I trust.”

“Copy that. Go dark. I’ve got her.”

A pause, heavy as incoming mortar.

“Thanks, mate. Bet you’re glad you punched out of this circus when you did, eh?”

His laugh is a humourless rasp.

“It never ends—you know that.”

The line clicks dead.

Luke stares at the already blinking dot on the map—a sleepy country town near two hours north.

He shrugs into a black field jacket, checking his firearm.

Keys to the matte-black Tacoma in hand, go-bag slung over shoulder, he steps out into the early evening.

Time to collect Adam’s hurricane—and pray he isn’t too late.

*************************************

Already in the driver’s seat, Luke stares at the coordinates, thumb hovering.

Chloe Levoss. 21. 5’5”. Hazel green eyes, slim build, medium-length red hair.

Adam sent a file photo months ago, back when this was still theoretical, her hair spilling over one shoulder, chin tilted in defiance at the camera. A mischievous but innocent face and the kind of body that scrambles a man’s brain.

Luke observes the GPS dot before tossing the phone onto the passenger seat as he connects to the handsfree sat nav of the vehicle. The engine snarls as he punches it out of the long, pine-lined drive of his off-grid country estate, a cloud of dust billowing behind him like a war banner. The approaching sunset bleeds a molten orange across the windshield as he guns it down the empty county road, tires spitting gravel.

1 hour 52 minutes to Turner’s Quarry—an abandoned scar of limestone and rust north-west of nowhere. Chloe’s phone pinged there twenty minutes ago and hasn’t moved since.

Frowning, he mutters “What the hell are you doing in a bone-yard, princess?”

“Call Daz,” he commands the vehicle.

Bluetooth chirps. Three rings. Four.

“Big bro,” Daz finally drawls, voice thick with lazy satisfaction and the faint rustle of sheets whispering through the speaker. “What’s up?”

“Need you ASAP. Extraction. Might need cover fire.”

A low whistle, then a feminine giggle in the background.

“Dude, I’m literally about to go balls-deep in Lia. Can’t your crisis wait till—”

“Can it fuck!” Luke’s knuckles whiten on the wheel, taking a hairpin at ninety, the vehicle’s frame shuddering. “Be outside in fifteen.”

He kills the call before Daz can argue.

“Daz” Donovan—former SEAL, younger brother by three years, co-owner of Obsidian Tactical—is a pain in the ass on a good day. But he can clear a room in four seconds flat and hack a satellite with a paperclip.

Luke needs both tonight.

Obsidian Tactical isn’t just rented muscle for politicians, diplomats, and celebs.

Off the books, the business runs black-bag security jobs for billionaires who pay in crypto and silence—alongside lucrative anti-terrorist government contracts.

Luke—a decorated former Marine who served with Chloe’s brother Adam—climbed the ranks fast, earning a place in special forces.

The CIA soon recruited them both for undercover work.

After retiring from the Agency with a bullet scar and a kill count he never discusses, he and Daz have built something far sharper than the CIA ever allowed.

Luke thumbs the Sig on his thigh—loaded, one in the chamber—then keys the dash comms again.

“Run me a thermal sweep, Turner’s Quarry. Last thirty minutes.” A soft chime. His AI drone, Raven, answers in clipped feminine tones:

“Launching micro-drone. ETA eighteen minutes. Stand by.”

His jaw flexes. Minutes are a lifetime when your name’s on a kill list. The drone will beat them there—give eyes on target, layout, numbers.

They won’t walk in blind.

He pictures Chloe from Adam’s file photos: wavy red hair, stormy eyes, a mouth that looks like it’s made for trouble.

Twenty-one. Zero survival training. Currently holed up in a gravel pit with God-knows-who.

The odometer climbs past ninety. Pines blur into black streaks. His phone buzzes—encrypted text from Adam:

Asset still dark. They’re closer than I thought. Watch the east ridge.

Luke’s posture stiffens. East ridge means overwatch. Snipers or spotters. Maybe both.

Flooring it harder—19 minutes later—he skids sideways into Daz’s driveway, headlights carving across the garage door.

His brother is waiting—bare-chested, army green camo pants, boots unlaced, AR slung easy over one shoulder like a beach towel.

Lia’s silhouette hovers in the doorway behind him, sheet clutched to her chest.

Daz yanks the passenger door open. “You owe me blue balls and a bottle of Yamazaki.”

“Get in,” Luke grunts. “We’ve got snipers—check our eyes.”

Luke hands him the tablet, already streaming Raven’s feed: heat signatures—three, maybe four—clustered near the quarry’s old conveyor tower.

One smaller bloom, isolated.

Checking the intel on screen, Daz’s grin dies.

“Aw, hell. That the sister?”

“Yep, Buckle up.”

The Tacoma roars back onto the road, wasting no time.

Daz racks a round, eyes already calculating angles.

The sun vanishes behind the ridge as night rushes in.

“Plan?” he asks.

“Extract her. Burn rubber. In and out—but if anyone points a barrel, you know what to do.”

Daz whistles low. “Romantic.”

************************************

The quarry glows like a crater on Mars, pastel pinks fading into the sky as the sun slips behind the jagged limestone cliffs.

Chloe leans against the warm hood of a rust-flecked Hilux, boots scuffing dust that smells of iron and rebellion.

A bonfire crackles twenty metres away, spitting sparks into the dusk as silhouettes multiply with every new arrival. More utes roll in, tailgates dropping like drawbridges. Kegs rolling out.

Teens and twenty-somethings spill in.

Someone cranks up a generator—thump-thump-thump—and the bass crawls under her skin, dulling her senses.

She props herself up sitting cross-legged on a tailgate, flicking a match that refuses to catch.

The joint—thick, amateur-rolled, smelling like lawn clippings—trembles between her fingers.

First time.

Of course it is.

Snap. Nothing.

Again. Snap.

The tip crumbles, useless.

“Fuck my life!” she mutters, exasperated, tongue poking the corner of her mouth.

The joint—a gift from some guy named Fernandez who grinned like he was doing her a favor.

She’s never smoked weed.

Tonight is the night to fix that.

New crowd, new rules. No lectures, no curfew, no big brother Adam calling to ask why she’s not ‘applying herself.’

She squints, shielding her eyes, as headlights flare from another ute reversing in. Kegs clank like war drums,

Guys in hoodies and glow-paint haul speakers.

A guy with dreadlocks climbs the makeshift DJ booth like a shaman ready to summon the dead.

A squeal cuts the air.

Anya bounds over, neon crop top glowing under the pontoon lights strung between excavator arms. Two sloshing plastic cups swing from her hands.

“Oh my God, this rave is gonna be SICK,” Anya yells over the opening synths. “DJ Valley—he did my twenty-first—played till the cops showed and still wouldn’t stop!”

She vaults onto the flatbed, legs swinging, and shoves a beer at Chloe.

“Drink up, Chlo-Chlo. Tonight we gonna get fucked up!”

Chloe raises the cup in mock salute, foam spilling over her knuckles.

“You don’t have to tell me twice, girlfriend!”

She giggles as she throws the beer back in one long pull—just getting into her second (or maybe third, who’s counting) drink of the night—cheap lager, lukewarm, burning a reckless line to her stomach.

Gasping, she comes up laughing, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist.

Sick of living under her older brother’s controlling eagle eye—she’s dying to let loose and go wild.

Heat blooms in her cheeks; the bass crawls deeper, dulling everything, syncing with her pulse.

Anxiety, emotions—who needs them?

Anya whoops, already swaying. “That’s my girl! C’mon, light that thing, virgin lungs!”

Chloe laughs, cheeks aching, and strikes another match. The flame finally ignites. She cups it, brings it to the joint—inhales too fast.

Cough, cough, sweet mother of -

Anya pounds her back, cackling.

“Easy, tiger! You’ll hack up a lung before the drop.”

Chloe wipes her eyes, smoke curling lazily around her face. The high burns soft at the edges, colours sharpening, quarry walls pulsing like they’re breathing with the music.

She feels weightless.

Free.

Taking another drag, slower this time, she smiles around the smoke.

For the first time in months, the noise in her head quietens, and the pain of her emotions dissipates into a haze of numbness.

Fuck Adam—let him stew!

He’s deployed somewhere “classified” as always, so what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

She switches her phone off and throws it onto her discarded hoodie in the back of the pickup truck.

It’s a warm evening, she’s wearing a cute sundress and cowgirl boots.

Lying back, tucking her jumper underneath her head, she stares up at the velvet sky and sighs.

Tonight, I’m not running—from anything!

**************************************

Luke and Daz roll the vehicle to a silent stop on a dirt service track half a mile out, engine cut, lights killed.

Moonless dark swallows them whole.

Luke steps out first, boots crunching softly on shale. The air carries distant bass—like a heartbeat under the earth.

Daz stays in the passenger seat a moment longer, tablet on the dash and laptop balanced on his thighs, fingers dancing over keys.

The micro-drone—Raven—whines overhead, a mosquito in the night, its night-vision feed streaming green ghosts across the screen.

Luke pops the tailgate and pulls out the go-bag: med kit, zip-ties, suppressor, night-vision goggles, two spare mags, orange-capped syringe.

He shrugs into a black plate carrier and tosses the syringe and a dark-green Henley at Daz.

“Cover the ink. Low profile. In and out.”

He threads the suppressor onto his Sig—the metallic snick swallowed by the dark—and tucks it at the small of his back.

“No bodies unless they force it.”

Daz catches the shirt one-handed, already slipping it on.

“How hot is this, exactly? Cartel? Spooks?”

Luke’s checks the chamber of his pistol.

“If we’re late, she’s a shallow grave in Sonora by sunrise. That hot enough?”

“Jesus.”

Daz glances at the feed. Raven skims the quarry lip now—thermal blooms of bodies dancing around a fire, silhouettes popping glow sticks.

“Looks like Spring Break in there—not a kill zone.”

Luke leans in, eyes narrowing. The smaller heat signature sits on a truck bed, legs swinging, smoke curling from something between her fingers.

Chloe.

Laughing. Oblivious.

“Christ, she has no clue,” he mutters.

“Dancing in the crosshairs and doesn’t even know it.”

Daz zooms in. “East ridge—two watchers. Rifles. Not partying.”

The hairs prickle on the back of his neck.

“Spotters. They’re already here.”

“And if little sis kicks up a fuss?” Daz taps the orange cap on the syringe as he shoves it in his pocket.

“Screams bloody murder?”

Luke’s stare is winter steel.

“She comes quiet or she comes unconscious.”

“Clock’s ticking.”

He shoulders the pack, checks comms—earpiece in, mic hot. “Raven, hold geostationary over the truck bed. Mark tangos.”

“Marked. Two armed, ridgeline. Four civvies near kegs. Target isolated.”

Daz slams the laptop shut, racking his Glock.

“Let’s go ruin a party.”

**************************************

Chloe’s buzz is shimmering at the edges, but the name on her tongue tastes sour.

“Do you think Caden will show?” her mind wandering as she kicks her boot against the Hilux’s tire.

Anya snorts so hard, beer foam dots her lip.

“Who cares about that prick? Did the dirty, ghosted you—he’s a cheating nutsack—probably sticking his dick in some Tinder chick right now. If he shows his face, I’ll wring his nuts like a wet towel and chuck ’em to the wolves!”

She mimes the twist of his balls with theatrical violence.

Tears well up in Chloe’s eyes, but she can’t help giggling at Anya.

“I’ll Venmo you for front-row seats to that show!”

“Hold that image,” Anya laughs, sliding off the tailgate. “Gotta pee. Grab refills?”

She presses the empty cups into Chloe’s hands and vanishes into the swirl of bodies and multicoloured pontoon lights.

Chloe jumps down—boots crunching gravel—and strolls over to far side of the bonfire, where the keg sits on the flatbed of an old pickup truck, its tap glinting like a cheap crown.

She angles both cups under the spout—clunk, hiss, foam—when a hand clamps her left ass cheek and squeezes. Hard.

She yelps, spinning so fast the beer spills over her wrist.

Caden!

Same smug smirk—same cologne that used to make her stomach flip and now makes it curdle. His gaze sweeps down the thin straps of her sundress like he’s pricing a piece of meat.

“Hey, sexy,” he drawls, voice syrupy with liquor and entitlement.

“Don’t—” Her voice catches; she hates how broken it sounds.

“Don’t touch me!”

He chuckles, low and ugly.

“C’mon, Chlo. Don’t play coy.”

He plucks the cups from her grip before she can react, fills them with lazy swagger, foam cresting the rims.

“I think you wore this dress for a reason—am I right?.”

Caden eyes her body up and down with a creepy, suggestive gaze as he shoves one cup back at her.

“Drink. Loosen up.”

She steps back, refusing the drink, heel skidding on loose stone.

“I said get LOST!”

His grin widens, predator-sweet as he steps forward and lowers the spaghetti strap off her shoulder.

She smacks his hand away.

Caden’s mouth curves slyly, undeterred.

“You’ll change your tune once—”

A shadow detaches from the tree line bordering the quarry—tall, silent, moving like a closing trap.

One second the space beside her is empty; the next, a brick wall of a man looms at her shoulder.

His hand seizes Caden’s wrist mid-reach, twisting until the plastic cup crumples and beer explodes across the dirt.

Caden’s smirk dies with a choked gasp.

The stranger’s voice sounds like winter gravel.

“She said no.”

Chloe’s heart stutters in her chest.

Up close, he looks older—early thirties, maybe—a faded scar cutting through one brow, dark hair, black jacket stretched over a chest carved from the quarry itself.

His eyes are locked on Caden, flat and lethal, like a sniper deciding windage.

Caden tries to yank free. “Who the fuck—”

The stranger twists harder.

Something in Caden’s wrist *pops*. He drops to his knees, face blotching red.

“Apologize,” the man demands. Calm. Terrifying.

“S-sorry,” he wheezes.

“Louder!”

“I’m sorry, Chloe! Fuck—sorry!”

The stranger releases him. Caden scrambles back, clutching his arm, then bolts off into the crowd like a kicked dog.

Chloe’s breath saws in and out. Beer soaks her dress; adrenaline tasting metallic.

She glares up at her rescuer—or captor, she’s not sure yet.

He steps towards her.

She shrieks—the sound cutting like a whip, swallowed almost instantly by the pounding music.

Her pulse jackhammers so hard she feels it in her teeth.

“Um… what the HELL was that!”

Who… who are you?” she stammers her chin high, even as her knees begin to shake.

His intense stare pins her in place—dark brown eyes meeting hers.

For a second, the bass vanishes, the fire vanishes, the whole damn quarry shrinks to the heat crackling between them.

“Name’s Luke,” he says.

“And you’re coming with me.”

“NOW.”