Fire raced across the gasoline-soaked floor like liquid lightning, reaching the walls in seconds.
“Mom!” Huck screamed.
Alden fled through the kitchen door.
“Tip your chair over, Huck! We need to get low!”
Huck was crying but obeying, rocking his chair to turn it over.
Then she heard it—footsteps. Voices shouting over the roar of flames.
“Sierra! Huck!” Rowan’s voice cut through the chaos.
“Here!” Sierra screamed back. “We’re here!”
The front door exploded inward. Rowan burst through, his expression fierce, fury in his eyes. He charged into the room, spotted Sierra, but Tank and Billy spun toward the door, weapons raised.
Two shots. Billy dropped, shouting, clutching his shoulder as blood seeped between his fingers. He scrambled into the kitchen.
Tank had found cover behind a sofa.
Shots from the kitchen pinned Saxon down behind an entry wall.
Rowan advanced on Tank, no armor, just fury on his face. “Drop it.”
Tank fired at him.
A shot tore at his shoulder, and Rowan barely flinched. He barraged the sofa with shots and then rolled behind a chair.
“Sax! Get Huck!”
Billy got up, fired at Saxon, then took off.
Saxon turned to Huck.
Another shot—maybe from Billy, but just like that, Saxon was down.
“Mom!” Huck screamed.
Sierra fought against the zip ties, ignoring the pain as they cut deeper into her wrists.
Smoke filled the room, thick and acrid. Sierra’s eyes streamed tears, but she kept working at her restraints. The chair rocked with her efforts, but the ties held.
The fire reached the ceiling now, hungry flames racing across old wood with terrifying speed.
She struggled in her chair even as Rowan charged for them.
Nope. Tank leaped at him with surprising speed for such a large man.
They collided with bone-jarring force. Tank’s momentum drove them both into the doorframe, which cracked under the impact. Rowan twisted, breaking free, then landed a devastating uppercut that snapped Tank’s head back.
Tank swung wild, his fist whistling past Rowan’s ear. Rowan countered with a precise strike to the throat, followed by a knee to the solar plexus. Tank doubled over, gasping.
Saxon rolled to his knees, apparently down but not out. Blood dripped onto the floor.
“Get Huck!” Rowan roared just as Tank made one last desperate lunge at him, pulling a knife from his boot. The blade flashed in the firelight, slashing toward Rowan’s ribs. Rowan caught Tank’s wrist, twisted hard. The knife clattered away across the burning floor.
A final elbow to Tank’s temple dropped him. The big man hit the floorboards and didn’t move.
