Sinner shifted position, pressing so tight to the wall that he felt splinters bite through his clothes.
The air stopped in his lungs as he got eyes on her.
Opal slumped against the wall, hands bound behind her. Her head lolled to the side.
Rage detonated in his chest, white-hot and all-consuming. He was out of time and the team wasn’t here yet. Con’s orders echoed in his mind—wait for backup—but waiting meant leaving her in there with a terrorist who’d already proven he had no problem hurting a woman.
Fuck orders. Fuck protocol.
Fuck everything that wasn’t getting to herright fucking now.
Sinner moved to the back door. When he tested the knob, he found it locked. He pulled a pry bar from his pack and wedged itinto the frame. One sharp twist and the lock gave with a muted crack.
He slipped in, silent as death.
The house reeked of mold and rot. He moved through the hallway, weapon raised, every sense dialed to maximum. Cipher’s voice grew louder as he approached in quick, stealthy steps.
The steel of Sinner’s weapon was warm in his grip, grounding him in what he needed to do. His finger hovered over the trigger, and he forced his breathing to steady as his focus narrowed to a single point.
Get to Opal. Nothing else mattered. Not his career, not his orders.
Not his life. Only hers.
Because losing her wasn’t a possibility he could survive. And he’d set the whole goddamn world on fire before he let Cipher take her from him.
* * * * *
Pain dragged Opal back to consciousness—a vicious, throbbing pulse that radiated from the base of her skull and made her stomach lurch.
She blinked against the darkness, forcing her eyes to focus even though the room spun like she’d been on a three-day bender. Her body felt heavy and disconnected, like her limbs belonged to someone else.
She was sitting upright. No—strapped to a metal chair. A glance down revealed heavy-duty zip ties binding her forearms to the back of the chair. She rattled her wrists.
Metal handcuffs tight enough to make her fingers tingle.
Her training kicked in automatically, pushing past the nausea and disorientation from that blow to her head.
She scanned the room with a trained eye, noting every detail the way Smith drilled into her until it became second nature.
Junk littered the floor, from deteriorating cardboard boxes to empty beer bottles. Bare walls stained with water damage showed years of neglect. One window on the far wall had blinds, and the slats were closed all but for a couple bent ones near the bottom that let in a dim beam of light. One door, currently closed, was her closest exit.
And her knife was gone.
The realization sent ice spiking through her veins. That blade was her lifeline, her only advantage in a situation that was already stacked against her. Now it was in enemy hands, and she was defenseless.
Through the fog of what was probably a mild concussion, she remembered the thing that lured her here in the first place.
“Mom?”
The word came out as a broken whisper, hoarse and cracked.
A male voice answered from the shadows, so calm that it made her skin crawl. “She’s not here.”
Opal’s blood turned to slush in her veins. Everything rushed back.
Cipher. The voice on the phone, and in the office just before the lights went out.
Of course her mother wasn’t here. It was all a trap—the oldest, dirtiest play in the book. And she’d walked into it with her eyes wide open because what else could she have done? How could she have lived with herself if there was even a slim chance—the most miniscule possibility—that she could have saved her mom?
