“Mia!”
Damon!
CHAPTER 27
ZANE
I move through the trees,the damp earth muffling my steps. The air is thick with early dawn mist, curling between the trunks like smoke. Jason’s men are scattered, their shifting silhouettes barely visible through the haze. They know something’s wrong—they just don’t know how wrong.
My earpiece crackles. “In position,” I say.
I scan the clearing. Jason stands in the open, Mia locked against his chest, his gun pressed to her ribs. She’s shaking, but her face is set. Defiant.
I raise my rifle, sighting him down the scope. One shot. But Mia shifts, her movement throwing off my aim. Dammit.
“Asher?” I murmur.
“North ridge. No clean shot,” he responds, voice tight.
I exhale through my nose, forcing patience. Jason doesn’t know it yet, but he’s already dead. He keeps talking, his grip on Mia tightening. I can’t hear the words, but I see the tension in her body, the way she holds herself rigid.
A shadow moves beside me—Asher, signaling. Wait.
My blood burns. Every muscle in me screams to take the shot, to end this now.
But I don’t. We have only one chance to do this, to make sure we don’t hurt the girls and Mia in the process.
“Do you have eyes on the girls?” Damon’s voice crackles through the earpiece.
I scan the clearing, my pulse pounding. No sign of them. Only Jason, only Mia. My grip tightens around my rifle. Where the hell are they?
“No,” I say, sweeping the area again. “I don’t see them.”
Dread coils in my gut, suffocating. Does Jason have them? Did he find them before we got here? The thought makes my vision tunnel.
“They’re okay, they have to be,” Damon says, his breathing uneven. Man this must be killing him.
“Fuck,” Asher mutters.
I adjust my scope, sweeping the perimeter, searching for anything—a flash of movement, a shadow too small to be a full-grown man. Nothing. Just trees, fog, and the goddamn pounding in my chest.
“Fuck it.” I break cover, moving fast, keeping low. Damon hisses something in my earpiece, but I don’t listen. Mia wouldn’t leave her girls. They’re here somewhere.
Gunfire cracks through the trees. Jason’s men are distracted, their focus on whatever Damon and Asher are stirring up on the other side.
Good. Let them be.I have my own mission.
I scan the ground as I move, searching for signs, for anything—and then I hear it.
A muffled sob. Small. Barely there. But I know something is wrong.
The girls.
I pivot, following the sound, scanning the undergrowth until I spot them curled into a hollow beneath fallen logs, just likeI taught them. Perfect concealment. No easy lines of sight. My chest tightens.
Goddamn, they did good.
I crouch down, keeping my rifle angled toward the clearing, my body shielding them from view. Emma's wide eyes find mine. Ella’s breath is shaky, her little hands gripping her sister’s tightly. Terrified, but holding it together. Just like their mother.
