Avery lunged forward, grabbed the young woman by the arm, and yanked her back from the fight. Riley stumbled, half falling against Avery, her whole body trembling. Avery wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hauled her toward the trees.
“You’re okay,” Avery murmured to her. “You’re okay. Stay low.”
Behind them, Jackson grunted, a hard, vicious sound as he fought to keep the man down. The kidnapper twisted beneath him, kicking wildly. Jackson slammed him back into the mud, the gun skittering out of reach.
Through the haze, Noah appeared, moving fast despite the slick ground. His weapon was up, aimed squarely at Darian.
Darian wasn’t moving toward them. He’d sunk to one knee, his face pale, eyes glassy. His right hand was bleeding where Avery had shot him. The wound ugly, raw, blood dripping down his wrist and mixing with the rain. There was blood on his sleeve too, dark and spreading.
He looked less like a soldier now and more like a man who’d just realized he’d lost everything.
“Stay down,” Noah barked. “You make one move, and I’ll drop you where you stand.”
Darian didn’t answer. He just stared at his ruined hand, chest heaving, the rain washing streaks of red into the mud.
Avery tightened her grip on Riley, pushing the woman behind her. Her pulse thundered in her ears, every instinct on high alert.
Jackson still had the kidnapper pinned, rain running off both of them in sheets. The man was fighting like an animal,desperate, but Jackson had him locked down, his expression grim and controlled.
Avery’s chest ached with adrenaline. The rain, the blood, the echoes of the flashbang, it all blurred together, a single moment balanced on a knife’s edge.
Jackson and the kidnapper were a blur of movement and violence in the rain. Avery held Riley tight behind her, her gun up, but she couldn’t get a clean shot. The two men rolled through the mud, locked together, grunting, fists connecting with dull, sickening sounds. The ground around them was chewed up, rain mixing with blood and dirt.
The kidnapper drove an elbow into Jackson’s ribs, twisting to get free, but Jackson slammed him back down hard. The man kicked, clawing for the pistol buried in the muck, and Jackson grabbed his wrist, wrenching it sideways until bone popped. The scream that tore out of the kidnapper was raw and furious.
Avery’s breath caught. “Jackson—”
“I’ve got him,” Jackson growled through his teeth. He drove a knee into the man’s shoulder and pinned him flat against the ground. The masked man bucked once more, desperate, then went still except for the heaving of his chest.
Rain streaked through the air, catching on Jackson’s gloves as he reached down and tore the ski mask away.
Warren.
Avery’s stomach lurched. His face was pale beneath the mud, eyes wild and bloodshot. He spat, the sound feral.
“You think this ends with me?” Warren snarled, his voice hoarse and ragged. “You think any of you walk away from this? You’re dead, Avery. You hear me? You’re dead!”
He twisted, trying to lunge past Jackson, reaching toward her, his fingers clawing at the mud as if he could crawl through it to get to her. “You ruined everything,” he shouted, voice cracking with rage.
Jackson shoved him back down, pressing his forearm across Warren’s throat. “Stay down!”
But before Avery could move, before anyone could speak, a deepboomrolled through the ground beneath them.
She felt it in her chest first. A heavy, concussive thud that sucked the air from her lungs. Then came the sound.
The explosion ripped through the rain-soaked night, shaking the earth, turning the air into fire and noise. The building behind the bunker went up in a flash of orange and white, a roaring ball of flame and smoke. The shockwave hit a second later, flattening the grass, hurling debris through the clearing.
Avery ducked instinctively, dragging Riley down with her, arms over the other woman’s head. Heat washed over them, choking, blinding.
Jackson’s shout barely cut through the roar. “Get down!”
Warren laughed—a wild, broken sound—as the firelight lit his face. “Told you,” he shouted. “You’re all dead.”
Avery’s heart slammed against her ribs as the bunker’s roof groaned and the rain turned to steam.
The world was falling apart around them.
Chapter Twenty-one