Straight into the blaze.
Right into the fire.
The house had blown open like a wound. Smoke poured from fractured panes of glass, alarms shrieked into the night, and the low hum of the sea was drowned beneath the rising chorus of screams. Guests stumbled over gravel and down the long drive, sequins and silk catching firelight, their glamour stripped bare to panic.
Warren sprinted.
“DS Beckford, going in,” he called into comms.
“Negative, Beckford!” Patel’s voice cracked sharp. “You’re not authorised—”
“Too late.” At the threshold, shoulder to the warped frame of the double doors, he forced his way inside.
The blast had gutted the ground floor.
Clean white walls, pale oak floors, glass balustrades and designer furniture were all scorched and shattered. Smoke bled down from the vaulted ceiling, the air thick with the stench of burning plastic and scorched paintwork. Shards of glass crunched beneath Warren’s boots, every step snapping loud over the hiss and crackle of flame.
He dropped low, training kicking in. Air was clearer near the floor, and he ripped off his waistcoat, buttons flying among the debris, shoving it over his mouth and nose to scan through the haze. The kitchen to his left was gutted, high-gloss units blistered and blackened. To his right, the lounge overlooking the cliff face was a ruin of collapsed ceiling and broken glass doors leading out onto the terrace.
“Talk to me!” Warren shouted into comms. “Where’s Jude?”
Static hissed back. Then a faint crackle. He could hear something. Ragged conversations. Jude, maybe. Radley. Who knew?
“Jude!” Warren’s chest seized. “I’ve got you. Hold on, I’ve got you.”
He was talking to himself, he knew that. Jude didn’t have comms, only a wire pick up. But it gave him a sense of security to call instructions regardless and he forced forward, every sense tuned sharp. His training drilled in: orient on sound, track the path, stay low. He found the central stairwell at the east wing half-blocked by plaster and beams, the banister splintered clean off.
Naomi’s voice broke in through his earpiece.“I’m out. Fire crews en route. You need to hold position, Beckford.”
“Not happening.” Warren wedged his shoulder to a beam, heaved until muscles tore fire down his arms, and dragged it clear. “He’s alive. I can hear him.”
“Warren—”
He cut her off. “Patch me a fix on his wire!”
The tech came through, urgent.“Signal’s basement level. East wing. Three rooms in. Collapse risk all the way.”
“Copy.”
The stairwell burned hot under his palms as he descended, smoke searing his eyes until everything blurred. He stayed low, each breath a scrape in his lungs. Another cough came over thewire and muffled words and conversation he couldn’t make out among the disruption. But someone was speaking, which meant it could be Jude.
“Keep talking, baby,” Warren muttered away from comms, quieter, as if speaking directly to Jude. “Come on, baby. Give me something.”
The basement corridor was an oven. Heat pressed from both sides, plaster blistered and spitting flame, smoke clawing in layers across the ceiling. The polished concrete floor groaned beneath his boots, cracked tiles scattered across the path. He passed a storage door blown clean off its hinges. Inside, shelving had toppled, boxes of files and plastic binders reduced to ash. This had been the heart of it. The blast zone. The purge.
A door further down sagged on twisted hinges, smoke belching out in violent gusts with every shift of air. Warren squared his shoulders and drove into it once. Twice. Wood splintered, frame buckled, the noise deafening in the close heat.
On the third hit, the door gave, crashing inward.
Radley’s basement office had been ripped apart by the shockwave. Bookshelves toppled, leather volumes curled in ash. The oak desk had been knocked sideways under the force of falling plaster and beams. One wall of glass was spiderwebbed with fractures, heat distorting the cliff rock beyond. Smoke hung low and choking, curling around the heavy beam pinning Radley to the floor.
Then there, among it all, Jude crouched beside Radley, hands braced on the splintered desk, straining to shift the beam pinning Radley down.
He’d stayed.
And was trying to save him.
Warren’s heart slammed so hard it felt like it might tear through his ribs.
