Dean doesn’t look our way—too busy playing soldier in a gunfight he’s already losing.
The guard makes a desperate attempt to bring his knife up, wheezing through a ruined lung, but I catch his wrist mid-lift and slam it into the concrete. Once. Twice. The blade slips free and spins across the floor. Before he can suck in another broken breath, I drop my knee onto his throat. His windpipe folds under the pressure with a muted crunch.
Another guard sprints toward me, murder in his eyes. He gets halfway before Rowan’s shot tears through the room; the bullet cutting a perfect hole through the center of his skull. He drops instantly, dead weight slamming into the floor while his gun tumbles from his hand in slow motion.
The third guard circles wide toward Emerson’s flank. Emerson rolls to the side and fires twice from the ground. Blood sprays the wall behind the guard as he folds, his gun bouncing away across the floor.
Three down in seconds.
But relief never comes. Dean has already dragged Kimber back against him, her small, trembling body locked in front of his as a shield now that he’s realized his men are dropping like flies full of shit. Her breaths come sharp and panicked, tearing in and out of her chest. She squeezes her eyes shut with every gunshot; her face twisting with raw terror as the blasts thunder around her.
“You’re doing good, sweetheart,” I shout to her, trying to keep her anchored. “Keep your head down. I’m coming.”
“Stay back!” Dean yells, his voice hoarse with effort and fury. “One step and I put a bullet in her skull.”
He’s always been a coward—always ready to hide behind someone weaker.
Ronan reshapes his stance beside the doorframe, eyes narrowed, tracking every twitch of Dean’s arm as he searchesfor a window to shoot without risking Kimber. “He’s moving too much,” Ronan mutters. “I need him off her.”
I edge lower, inching across the blood-slick floor. My hands smear through it as I crawl behind the toppled crate stack on the right. The guards we dropped lie in mangled heaps around me, still bleeding, the iron smells heavy and hot.
“Berk, wait,” Rowan hisses. “If you get too close—”
“I’m not letting him hide behind her.” I growl back.
Kimber’s tear-bright eyes flick to me. She’s fighting to stay brave, jaw locked tight, her lip clenched between her teeth hard enough to draw blood.
My chest aches at the sight, but I force myself forward.
A guard appears from behind a cabinet near the back wall, raising his gun toward Ronan’s exposed side. I lunge to my feet, grabbing the dead guard’s fallen knife. I fling it across the room with a snap of my wrist. It embeds itself in the man’s temple before he can fire.
He drops silently.
Another guard emerges from behind a support beam. Emerson catches him with a burst of fire that sends him crashing into the wall.
Another tries to run for the far corner, shouting for any remaining reinforcements. Rowan tracks him and drops him with a single shot that echoes through the room like judgment.
The room goes still except for Dean’s ragged breathing and Kimber’s terrified whimpers.
Dean jerks her tighter against him, his hand shaking with effort. “You think this changes anything?” he spits. “You think you can walk out of here alive?”
My smile is slow. Deadly. My steps are silent as I move along the far edge of the room, circling.
He sees me now. And panic flickers in his eyes.
“Stay where you are, Berkley!” he barks. “I will kill her!”
“No,” I whisper. “You won’t.”
His gun trembles.
Good.
I edge closer, fabric tacky against my body from all the blood I’ve walked through, my last knife still lodged in the corpse behind me. My hand slides to my thigh, unstrapping the next blade with a practiced flick.
The guards are gone.
My guys are closing in behind me.