She kneels beside it, memorized motions from childhood rising like a ghost. Numbers pressed in sequence, pauses just like he taught her, until—click.
The case opens.
I freeze.
Inside are folders stacked neatly, flash drives labeled in her father’s precise hand, a folded map with routes and safe houses marked, and a list of names that makes my jaw tighten. We sift through it together, fingers brushing over each item, absorbing the weight of every detail.
Then Raelyn pulls out a document, smooth, intentional. I recognize it immediately—Reed’s signature. And next to it, Markov’s complicity outlined in careful, damning language. Confessions. Transfers. Evidence of lies. Proof her father was murdered.
I let out a slow breath, controlled, letting the rage roll through me like ice and fire. Silent. Lethal. Absolute.
She looks up at me, eyes fierce and sharp, her grip on the folder tight. I close my hand over hers, grounding, steadying, letting her know we move as one.
Then the lights flicker—first a warning, then a violent explosion of sparks overhead.
Markov steps into the open like a shadow, flanked by twenty men. I wonder how long he’s been there, and maybe Raelyn’s presence dulled my senses a bit.
Markov’s shoulder and side are bandaged where I hit him before. He glares at me, teeth clenched, and growls something under his breath.
I tilt my head, calm, voice cold. “How’s the shoulder? Here to finish what you started?”
Markov growls and snaps his fingers. Gunfire erupts like a storm. Chaos detonates in every corner.
I shove Raelyn behind a steel beam just as a bullet tears past me. Pain bites my arm, sharp and immediate—but I don’t falter. I return fire, precise, lethal. Three men fall before they can react.
Raelyn doesn’t hesitate. She grabs a metal pipe, swinging with brutal efficiency, smashing a man approaching from the side. She snatches his fallen weapon mid-fall, firing with deadly accuracy.
Her movements are precise, quick, and trained. Did her father teach her? She’s fast, smart, and unpredictable. I don’t doubt it.
I watch her, and something in me shifts. Protective instinct warps into something reverent.
She is not fragile. She is not breakable.
She is devastating.
My brothers join the fight. But my gaze stays on Raelyn.
Every shot she fires, every move she makes, confirms it. She fights like she belongs in this world of shadows and bullets. I won’t let her, but I like knowing she can handle herself.
We move together—covering angles, anticipating each other, cutting through the ambush with a synergy born from fear, love, and fury.
At the far end of the warehouse, Markov steps into view, gun raised, a sneer twisting his mouth. His aim is deliberate, calculated, but not at me.
Not at my brothers.
At Raelyn.
Instinct snaps me forward.
I lunge.
Click.
Chapter 23 – Raelyn
The gunshot detonates.
I feel it reverberate through the air and hurtle toward me—but it isn’t me it hits. Konstantin takes the bullet meant for me, stumbling backward with a low groan. Blood blooms across his shoulder, dark and jagged against the fabric. But he rises again, teeth clenched, eyes alight with a feral, unyielding fire.