Ronan digs a knee into his back while Berk slides her blade along her thigh, almost casually. Her eyes flick toward the hallway, instructing. “Clear the bottom floor.”
I nod once and move for the stairwell, Ronan falling in behind me without a word. Rowan stays planted beside Berk, anchoring her flank while she leans casually against the wall, her blade catching the dim light like a whispered threat.
As soon as we hit the stairs, the noise is apparent below—chairs scraping, boots stomping, muttered curses. They heard us. Good. Saves us the trouble of hunting them down.
Four men emerge from the shadows of the warehouse floor. They’re armed. Poorly trained. Too slow.
Ronan drops the first with a clean shot through the forehead before the guy raises his gun. I tackle the next, slam him into a steel beam, crack his jaw with a punch that echoes through the high ceiling.
The third lunges at me with a knife. I twist his wrist until it snaps, then put a bullet through his ribs.
The fourth makes it three steps before Rowan shoots him in the back of the head from the top of the stairs.
Silence falls. The kind that smells like gunpowder and death.
We regroup upstairs. Ronan wipes blood off his knuckles on his shirt. Rowan rolls his shoulders, breathing steadily. Berk stands over Bryce, who’s shaking so hard the zip ties dig deeper into his wrists.
Her voice drips with venom. “Looks like you’re the last one left, Bryce.”
He whimpers, “Please—”
“Get him up,” I say, my voice flat and cold. “We’re not done.”
Rowan hauls him to his knees.
Bryce is finally where he belongs.
On the floor.
At our mercy.
Terrified.
We haul him into the center of the room, but that’s not enough for any of us. Ronan kicks the back of his spine but then forces him upright again while Rowan drags a chair across the floor. The scrape of metal on concrete fills the space like an omen. Bryce flinches as we strap him down, wrists bound tight behind him, ankles pinned. He’s breathing hard, eyes shifting between us, trying to figure out who’s going to hurt him first.
He should know better by now. The answer is all of us.
We circle him, slow and deliberate. No sign of Kimber anywhere. No muffled sounds. No locked doors. No tight shadows where a body could be hidden. The space is wrong—too open, too empty—and dread coils hard in my gut. My stomach knots, sharp and violent, and I step closer, already bracing for what that absence means.
“Where is she.” It’s not a question but a demand.
His lips peel back into some mockery of a smile. “No idea. Dean has her tucked away somewhere. Even I don’t get to know everything.”
Ronan laughs under his breath, humorless. I can tell he’s seconds from snapping.
Berk steps forward before any of us can stop her. The surrounding air sharpens, the way it always does when she slides into that cold, lethal part of herself. Bryce watches her approach, chin lifted, still clinging to whatever scraps of pride he thinks he has left.
Big mistake.
She runs the flat of her blade along his cheek in a slow glide, not cutting, just reminding him what is waiting. He flinches despite himself.
“Where’s Kimber?” Her voice is quiet. Deadly. A promise carved from steel.
He smirks again, blood crusting at the corner of his mouth. “I already told you. I don’t know. Dean keeps his little toys wherever he wants.”
Before he can blink, Berk drives the blade downward and buries it into the meat of his thigh. The force makes his entire body jerk. He sucks in a ragged breath that turns into a choked scream, head snapping back.
“Try again,” she murmurs.