My stomach flips. Rowan swears softly.
She points to one ruined body. “That one touched Kimber. Pulled her hair. Licked her face. So I cut out his tongue, then took his fingers.” Her voice is flat—casual, like she’s commenting on the weather.
I could kiss her senseless, wrap her in bubble wrap, or throttle the shit out of her for scaring us like this. Hard to tell which instinct screams louder.
Her expression shifts suddenly—fierce, sharp, urgent. “Have you found her yet?”
All three of us shake our heads.
Her entire face hardens. “She’s in the room at the end of the hall. Dean’s been setting up a buyer for both of us. We need to move.”
Rage roars through my bloodstream.
Rowan grips her shoulders. “We’re getting her. But when we get home? You’re in so much fucking trouble.”
“Massive trouble,” Emerson echoes.
I growl low, “You’re not pulling this shit again. Ever. You understand me?”
Her eyes soften, guilt cracking through her bravado. She nods. “I know. I deserve it. I’m sorry. But it was the only way to get to Kimber.”
I kiss her forehead once, quick and fierce, blood and all. “We’ll deal with it later. Right now? Let’s finish this.”
We form up without another word. Emerson and Rowan take point, while I keep Berk anchored to my side, refusing to let her slip even half a step behind us.
We approach the last door—the one at the very end of the hall.
The room behind it should hold Kimber.
And Dean.
Or something we’re too late for.
My grip tightens on my gun.
“Ready?” I ask.
Three voices answer with the same cold, lethal certainty.
“Ready.”
Chapter Nineteen
Berkley
The door at the end of the hall creaks open only an inch before the world detonates into gunfire.
Metal screams as bullets slam into the doorframe, ricocheting off steel and concrete in sharp, sparking bursts. The sound is so violent it punches straight through my ribs. Kimber jerks in her chair, a small helpless flinch that guts me because Dean’s pressed right behind her, one arm braced over her shoulder, his gun angled past her ear as he fires at my guys like she’s nothing more than a human shield.
Ronan shoves the door wider, just enough for us to return fire without revealing too much of ourselves. Emerson drops low, sliding inside on his knee to get an angle under Dean’s line of fire. Rowan takes the highest angle he safely can, diagonal to Ronan, creating three firing arcs without endangering Kimber.
My pulse spikes hard enough to make my vision pulse.
Dean is shouting orders at the top of his lungs. “Kill them, you fools! Kill them!”
Three guards surge from the shadowed corners at once. Dean finally grows a spine, shoving away from Kimber to take a shot at Em and his sons—and the second he does, it creates an opening. One of his men gets the same bright idea, breaking for Kimber with a knife like he plans to turn her into a shield too.
I’m already moving. I slip fully into the room and catch him before he reaches her, my shoulder slamming into his ribs with a wet, cracking snap. The impact drives my blade forward, sliding clean between bone and muscle until it buries itself in his lung. We hit the floor hard, his breath tearing out in a strangled choke.