Lattimer swings a knife, and I catch his wrist mid-strike, twisting until the sharp crack of bone snaps through the hall. He screams but still tries to grab a shard of broken metal from the floor. I pin his arm with my elbow, drag him across the concrete, and slam his head into the ground so hard the shock rattles up my forearm.
“You can’t save them all,” he spits through blood.
I press my weight into him, voice shaking with fury. “I can damn well try.”
Gunfire explodes behind us as the brothers tear through reinforcements. Someone screams. Someone else drops. Smoke thickens until the air tastes like metal and fire.
Then a squad of tactical vests storms the hallway.
ATF.
Special Agent Ramirez breaks through the smoke, face grim as he takes in the scene, the cages, the wounded women, the blood, Lattimer choking beneath my hands. His gaze pins me first, calculating, knowing exactly what the Royal Bastards are capable of and the thin line I’m standing on.
“Step away from him,” Ramirez orders, gun leveled, voice steady but loaded with warning.
I don’t move.
Capone’s voice cuts through the noise behind me. “Tiny.”
This was the move Capone made that protects the club even when everything else is burning. It’s the only path that takes Lattimer out without taking us with him.
Slowly, every muscle screaming in protest, I release my grip.
Ramirez grabs Lattimer by the collar and slams him into the wall to cuff him, not gentle in the slightest.
Lattimer laughs, teeth pink with blood. “War’s not over,” he rasps at me. “You can’t stop what comes next.”
Ramirez yanks him upright. “You can finish that sentence in federal custody.”
I’m already moving, forcing my way through the smoke and wreckage, past broken cages and the faint trail Peanut left behind, every instinct in me sharpening toward one truth. I have to find her.
“Tiny…” Her voice crawls from the burning shelter like a prayer torn raw.
Nothing in this damn world will keep me from her.
21
SYVANNAH
“Tiny!” I scream, choking on smoke.
The world tilts when I reach the end of the hallway. Smoke is burning my eyes, glass biting into my palms. My breath is scraping raw against my chest. The light ahead is too bright, too sharp, and for a moment, I can’t tell if I’m moving toward it or if the shelter is collapsing behind me, pushing me forward.
Boots thunder across the concrete as gunfire tears through the air, and somewhere in the chaos, someone shouts my name, raw with panic, fury, and something that almost sounds like a prayer.
“Syvannah!”
My knees weaken at the sound. I clutch the wall, dragging myself another step, then another. Peanut wiggles beneath my shirt, her frantic little heartbeat thundering against my ribs. I don’t know how much farther I can crawl, how much more my body can give.
Through the haze of smoke, I recognize the broad shoulders, the steady, familiar stride, the blood smeared across knuckles that tell me exactly what he’s done to find me. Tiny.
His eyes find me through the haze, widening. Not with shock, not with disbelief, but with a relief so fierce it nearly buckleshim. His gun drops from his hand. A sound leaves his throat, something cracked open and reverent.
“Baby Girl…”
I’m in his arms before my body fully collapses. He gathers me up carefully but tight, like he’s afraid the world will try to rip me away again. Peanut is still tucked beneath my shirt, her tiny body pressed to my ribs, trembling but alive. Tiny’s arms curve around both of us instinctively, shielding me and the little creature who refused to leave my side.
My cheek presses to his shoulder, and I feel the tremor running through his entire frame.