She still held my shirt in a death grip.
Wearing nothing but that tiny excuse for a top, she was fucking freezing, but she didn’t say a word. She merely trembled violently.
I glanced down to find her gaze locked on me. Her pupils were blown wide open. Her vacant eyes were too wide in shock, fear, and trauma. Every nerve she had was maxed out, and now all she could do was cling to me.
The SUV was parked just outside the alleyway. Rory yanked the door open and turned to face the building, gun raised, eyes scanning every inch of our surroundings.
Another DarkMatter car skidded around the corner, tires screeching to a halt.
There was movement behind us.
“Two behind you!” Rory shouted.
I turned in time to see smoke pour from the exit door. Two of Delgado’s soldiers stepped into view, their weapons raised.
Rory shifted, took aim, and dropped one and then the other. This kind of situation was when his special forces training surfaced. He was cold, precise, and lethal.
I swung Lyla into the backseat and growled, “Buckle up.”
Just as Lachlan opened the back door of the DarkMatter car for Henri, another man stepped from the shadows of the street, leveling his gun at him.
I fired.
One shot to the chest, and he dropped.
Henri reached the car and collapsed into the backseat. Lachlan and Julian both darted toward the passenger side, jumped in, and slammed the doors shut. The driver peeled out, and they sped off.
Rory was already in the driver’s seat by the time I slid into the passenger seat of my SUV.
“Drive,” I ordered.
Rory didn’t hesitate. We tore down the street as sirens screamed in the distance.
Behind us, fire bloomed from the roof of The Sacrifice.
“Seatbelt,” I snapped, twisting toward the back.
Lyla hadn’t moved.
She stared straight ahead, chest heaving in fast, shallow bursts.
“Lyla. Look at me.”
She didn’t.
I reached back and yanked the belt across her body. She flinched, then snatched it and buckled it herself.
“Good girl,” I muttered, turning back around.
The place on my side that had been grazed by a bullet stung. Hot blood soaked into the fabric, warm and wet—but it was a shallow wound. I’d live. I couldn’t ever seem to wear a tactical shirt more than once anyway. They always ended up with at least one hole.
I looked in the visor mirror.
Lyla had one leg crossed tightly over the other, and her body was twisted in her seat, practically curled up against the door. Her skin was covered in goose bumps, her makeup was smudged, and bruises were blooming on her thighs.
Jesus Christ.
My jaw clenched so hard it felt like my teeth would crack.
