The lock disengages. The door opens. Tiffany is pale, phone in her hand, Tyra pressed against her hip. Tyra is half-asleep, the grey wolf clutched against her chest. Jude’s eyes in a small face blink up at me.
“Nick?” Sleep-rough. Confused. “Where is Mama?”
“Right outside, kid.”
Behind me, through the bakery’s front windows, headlights sweep across the parking lot. Two vehicles. Dark. Moving fast. Pulling in.
Ferraro.
I put my hand on Tiffany’s arm. “Stay in this room. Do not come out.”
The door closes. The lock clicks.
I turn. Jude is in the hallway. His weapon is up. His face is blank. Surgical. Ready. Behind me, through the back door, Rafe has already moved to a flanking position along the bakery’s exterior wall. Silent. Invisible. A shadow with golden eyes and a loaded weapon.
Lucia is at the back entrance. Weapon in her hand. Her dark eyes are not afraid. They are calculating. Running the angles. Running the exits. Running the math that will keep her daughter alive.
Two vehicles in the front lot. Doors opening. Four men. Maybe five. One of them will be Ferraro.
Headlights cut through the bakery’s front windows. Shadows moving across the flour-dusted display cases. The smell of chocolate and the sound of boots on pavement.
I check my weapon. Full magazine.
Rafe’s voice on comms. One word. “Ready.”
Jude’s nod in the hallway. The surgeon’s hands wrapped around a pistol, steady as the day he held a scalpel.
Lucia’s eyes on mine from the back entrance. The woman I burned the world for. The mother of a child who is sleeping ten feet behind a locked door with a grey wolf under her chin and no idea that her entire family is standing between her and the darkness.
Her family. Not just Jude’s biology. Not just Nick’s command. Not just Rafe’s silence.
Ours.
The front door of Sweet Pine Bakery rattles.
I raise my weapon.
23
RAFE
Three miles.
The mountain road drops beneath the tires and the number shrinks with every switchback. Two point seven. Two point four. The headlights are off. Jude drives by moonlight and the muscle memory of a road he has run three times this week bringing supplies up from town.
I am in the back seat. My rifle is across my thighs. My sidearm is in the holster on my right hip. The blade is on my left. I am not thinking about which weapon I will use. The weapon will choose itself when the time comes. It always does.
Two miles.
Lucia is in the back seat beside me. Her phone is pressed against her ear. Tiffany picked up. Lucia’s voice is giving instructions with the flat command register of a woman who grew up in a house where hesitation gets people killed. Lock the doors. Take Tyra to the back storage room. No windows. Do not open for anyone.
The phone call takes eleven seconds. Lucia hangs up. Her hand drops to her lap. Her knuckles are white around the phone casing.
I lean forward. My hand finds her shoulder. One grip. Firm.
“We will get there.”
I mean it. The words are not a guess. They are not hope. They are a tactical assessment based on speed, distance, and the fact that I have never arrived too late to anything that mattered to me.