“We’re getting our girl,” Ronan vows. “We’re getting our sister. And we’re ending the last monster.”
My smile cuts wide—sharp, feral, hungry for blood.
“Let’s finish this.”
Chapter Sixteen
Emerson
Our target is twenty minutes away. Twenty minutes between us and whatever nightmare Berk walked into alone. Twenty minutes between me and my sister. Twenty minutes between me and the woman I love more than my own damn life.
Guilt crawls up my spine, the familiar kind, the kind that has eaten at me from the second Kimber was taken. I keep replaying it in my head: the ugly truth I never wanted to face. If it came down to a choice, if someone forced my hand, if the world demanded a sacrifice… I knew I would crumble. I knew I would break. I would stand in the middle and fail both of them.
How the hell does someone choose between their sister and their soulmate? You don’t. Not if you’re human. And maybe that’s the biggest point of all.
Berk knew that. She knew we would destroy ourselves trying to make the call, so she made it for us. A decision carved out of pain, loyalty, and that unshakable part of her that refuses to let anyone else suffer what she did. She would walk into hell barefoot if it meant keeping Kimber from facing even a shadow of what happened in that video.
I want to worship her for that. I want to drag her into my arms and bury my face in her neck and tell her she is everything. But I also want to shake her until her fucking teeth chatter for doing this alone. For taking the choice from us. For choosing death if it means sparing Kimber.
My heart is splitting open. And judging by the looks on my brothers’ faces, I’m not the only one drowning in that impossible duality. Their eyes flicker between rage and love, furyand fear. Kiss or kill. Hold her or tie her to the fucking bed until she understands she never gets to do something like this again.
A low growl tears out of me before I can choke it back. It rips right from my chest, raw and frustrated.
Ronan laughs under his breath, gripping my shoulder hard enough to ground me. “I know the feeling, brother. She’ll be punished for this.”
The spark in his eyes is wicked, dark, and exactly what I need to see. It promises that punishment will involve every one of us, and none of it will be gentle.
Rowan catches the look and his mouth curves into a lethal smirk. It pulls one from me in return—sharp, vicious. Because we might be terrified. We might be furious. We might be fractured in ways that will never fully heal.
But we’re coming for her.
And when we get her back—alive, breathing—she will never walk into a fire alone again.
Luckily, Berk didn’t take the van when she left. If she had, we’d be sprinting down the highway like lunatics or calling an Uber to a hostage exchange. The thought alone almost makes me laugh, except nothing about this morning is remotely funny.
We move quickly, muscle memory and dread guiding our hands as we strap into what Ronan loves to call the good china. Our best weapons, our cleanest blades, our most reliable gear. Tools we saved for this exact moment, the final chapter none of us ever thought we’d actually reach.
Once we’re loaded into the van, Ronan snaps the portable tracking unit into place. Wires click, screen glows, and he’s instantly synced to the war room system. Even out here, miles from home, he can track Berk and Dean in real time. If either of them moves, we’ll know.
The silence stretches between us until Ronan finally cuts through it, voice low but certain. “This is it. Years of planning. Years of hunting. It all ends today.”
A chill slides through me, settling deep in my bones. “It’s strange,” I breathe. “We’ve lived in survival mode for so long, I don’t know what the world feels like without it. If we make it through this… I don’t know if peace will feel real anymore.”
Rowan shifts in the back, checking the slide of his gun, counting magazines by touch. “Guess we’re about to find out.”
Ronan drives like he’s trying to bend the laws of physics, and honestly, none of us complain. The sooner we get there, the sooner this nightmare can end. It takes less than twenty minutes before the pier comes into view, the rusted warehouses casting long shadows in the sunlight.
Ronan slows just enough to talk. “We’re going in blind. I’m pulling up the blueprints before we move in. We’ll go over them quickly, but I hate this. I hate not having eyes inside. I hate knowing Berk and Kimber are in there with these sons of bitches while we’re sitting here planning.”
I nod, picking up where he leaves off. “Dean will have more men than Bryce ever did. He took the larger cut, the better weapons, the heavier protection. We should expect double—maybe more. With only three of us, brute force won’t work. We have to be smart.”
They grunt in agreement, though it’s more frustration than acceptance. They know I’m right. We all do.
Ronan parks half a mile away, killing the engine. The world goes still for a moment, only the distant echo of water slapping the docks.
“By aerial view, there’s only one entry point,” he says while tapping the screen. “If we drive any closer, they’ll hear or see us before we’re out of the van. We’ll need to finish our approach on foot.”
I let out a rough groan, impatience coiling tight beneath my ribs, but I lift a hand to stop Ronan before he can start lecturing. “I know. I get it. I’m not arguing. I just…” My voice dips, rawer than I mean it to be. “I want her back. Both of them.”