And for the first time, a thought hit cold and merciless.
We might not walk off this ridge.
38
Raine
The barn groaned in the storm, its old beams rattling with every gust. Water dripped through gaps in the roof, pattering on the dirt floor. The boy had finally stopped crying, his head tucked against his mother’s chest, but her wide eyes never left the shadows beyond the doorway.
Boone leaned against a beam, pale but stubbornly upright, his hand pressed to his ribs. “They’ll come,” he muttered. “They won’t let survivors slip away.”
I swallowed hard, scanning the dark through the jagged gaps in the boards. My body screamed for rest, every muscle trembling, but my chest was tight with something sharper.
Gunfire still echoed faintly through the storm. Distant. Sporadic.
Too sporadic.
Adam. His men.
My stomach twisted. I knew that rhythm—the way a fight sounded when ammunition was running dry.
I pressed a hand against the beam, trying to steady my breath.Please, God. Not him. Not now.
Boone’s eyes flicked to me, sharp even through his exhaustion. “You’re thinking about him.”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
He let out a rasping chuckle, wincing as it jarred his ribs. “Stoker’s too damn mean to die. Trust me. He’ll crawl back just to argue with you again.”
I wanted to believe him. But something deep in my gut twisted tighter with every fading shot in the distance.
I turned back to the mother and her boy, pulling a blanket tighter around them. “Stay quiet,” I whispered.
Because if Adam didn’t come back—then we weren’t just stranded in a storm.
We were already surrounded.
39
Adam
Mud plastered my face, rain running in rivulets past the cut swelling over my eye. Hawk dragged me back to my feet, his jaw clenched tight, his eyes wild. Russ was still firing, steady as a machine, but his last mag was running thin. Blade melted out of the dark with blood on his knife, silent as death.
And still they came. Masked. Trained. How many were there?
Where the hell was the cavalry?
This was Texas. Flood zone or not, by now we should’ve had sheriffs, state police, hell—at least a Guard unit moving in. FEMA had been crawling all over these sectors earlier. And if this was bigger than them, if this was organized crime—then Rangers should’ve been on-site hours ago.
But it was empty. Just us.
“Adam,” Russ called, ducking back behind cover, his voice calm but heavy. “We’re not alone out here by accident. Someone pulled the net.”
The words hit harder than the rifle butt I’d taken to the skull.
They were right. This wasn’t neglect. It was deliberate.
“They wanted us here,” Hawk snarled, his chest heaving as he hurled an empty mag into the mud. “Wanted us to bleed.”
