"The contract was for a specific recovery." Kian's voice stays level. "I delivered exactly what was agreed upon."
Dimitri pulls out his phone, checks something on the screen. His expression doesn't change, but his position is altered. The guards tense.
This is going wrong.
Behind me, Finn curses softly. Grayson is already moving, lifting the first selkie with careful strength.
Then Dimitri's phone rings.
He answers in Russian, his expression shifting from bored businessman to something lethal. I don't speak the language, but I recognize the tone. Someone is reporting a problem.
Kian hears it too. His entire body coils, ready to move.
"Stop." Dimitri's voice cuts through the night, loud enough to carry through the window. He's staring at Kian now, the phone still pressed to his ear. "My men at north entrance report movement. Vehicles. You said this warehouse was private tonight."
"It is." Kian doesn't move. "Your intel is wrong."
"I think not." Dimitri ends the call, and suddenly every Russian guard has a weapon drawn. The guns are pointed at Kian, at the warehouse. "I think you play dangerous game, O'Donnell."
Everything spirals in the space of a heartbeat.
"Get down!" Finn's hand catches my shoulder, pulling me away from the window as gunfire erupts across the loading dock. I shake his hand off and resume my position.
The sound is deafening even through the walls. Glass shatters. Bullets punch through metal and wood. Someone is screaming.
I hit the floor behind a crate, Finn's body shielding me as Grayson moves to cover the selkies. Through the broken window, I can see Kian.
The shift happens in a heartbeat. One moment he's a man. The next, silvery mist erupts around him like a detonation, and thunder cracks loud enough to rattle my bones. The air pressure changes, making my ears pop. Then a massive tiger launches across the loading dock, eight hundred pounds of muscle and fury moving with impossible speed.
I've seen him shift before. I watched the transformation in the alley and then from a safe distance, in controlled circumstances. It doesn't make the sight less terrifying or magnificent. The attack in the alley didn’t really prepare me for witnessing what a predator this size can do to human bodies.
The tiger hits the nearest enforcer first. The man tries to bring his weapon up, but he's too slow, too human. Claws as long as my fingers rake across his chest, opening him throat to stomach in one fluid motion. Blood sprays in an arc that catches the loading dock lights, turning the concrete slick and dark. The enforcer's scream dies before it fully forms. He goes down without making another sound, and the wet thud of his body hitting the ground makes my stomach clench.
Another guard fires. The shots crack loud across the loading dock, bullets sparking off metal where the tiger was a split second ago. He moves like liquid violence, impossibly fast for something so massive. The beast flows around the gunfire, muscles rippling under striped fur, and closes the distance before the guard can adjust his aim. The man's screams start high and terrified, then end abruptly when massive jaws close around his throat. The crunch of vertebrae carries across the loading dock. Blood pours down the tiger's muzzle, drips from white fangs as the body collapses.
Dimitri is running. It's a smart choice but has terrible results.
The tiger wheels toward him, blood-soaked and magnificent, but silvery mist erupts again mid-stride. Thunder cracks. Then Kian is there, human and naked, covered in so much blood itstreams down his chest and arms. He snatches a fallen weapon from the ground with the same fluid grace the tiger showed, and the shot cracks once. Dimitri jerks forward, the bullet taking him high in the back. The Russian goes down hard, sliding across concrete that's already slick with violence. His hands scrabble for purchase. They find nothing. His body goes still.
I drop to the ground behind the crate, my back pressed against rough wood, trying to process what just happened. Kian killed three men in seconds. Tore them apart or shot them down without hesitation, without mercy. My brain keeps stuttering over the fact that I'm not horrified. I should be screaming, should be sick, should be anything except what I am. Instead I'm calculating. Assessing threat levels. Counting the remaining guards through the broken window. My training kicks in even as my hands shake against my thighs, even as the copper smell of blood reaches me through the shattered glass.
The warehouse's north entrance explodes open. The crash of metal hitting concrete makes me flinch. Finn and Grayson leave carrying bundle-wrapped forms, the selkies they've been hiding for weeks. Declan and Rafe flank them, weapons raised, and their shots are precise and devastating. Two guards go down before they can bring their weapons to bear. A third tries to take cover behind a crate, and Declan's shot punches through wood and flesh with equal efficiency. The guard drops. Doesn't get back up.
The remaining Russian guards don't stand a chance. They're outgunned, outmaneuvered, caught between the brotherhood's coordinated assault and the spreading carnage Kian left in his wake. The gunfight is brief, brutal, and entirely one-sided. Bodies fall. Blood spreads across concrete in patterns that will stain this place forever.
It's over in minutes. The selkies are loaded into waiting vehicles, already moving toward their pod in the harbor. Thebrotherhood is preparing to evacuate, moving with military precision through the wreckage. Evidence of violence covers every surface. Shell casings glitter under the loading dock lights. Blood pools dark and spreading. Bodies lie twisted in positions that no living person could achieve.
I force myself to stand. My legs shake, but they hold.
Kian disappears into the back of the warehouse for a moment. Grabbing clothes from wherever he keeps them stashed. When he returns, he's dressed in dark pants and a shirt, blood still streaking his face and hands. "Footage. Did you get it?"
I check the camera. The small device survived the gunfight, still recording. It captured everything. The Russians arriving, the crates, Dimitri giving orders, the moment everything went to hell.
"I got it." My voice sounds distant, disconnected. "All of it."
"Good." He catches my arm, and I realize the camera is still running. I deactivate it with shaking fingers. "Now we run."
But I'm staring at the loading dock, at the line we crossed that can never be uncrossed.
