My heart slams against my ribs so hard I taste metal.
Two cars tear into the drive. Kaden climbs out of the first, shirt soaked dark, clinging to his chest and arms. Christian and Tiernan follow, faces grey. Then John Flanagan steps from the Mercedes like a king surveying fresh corpses.
We bolt for the door.
The second it opens, the smell hits me: gunpowder, iron, death. Kaden walks in, and the world tilts.
Blood. So much blood.
“Kaden?” My voice is barely air.
He won’t look at me. That’s how I know before anyone speaks.
My knees hit the floor. The impact jars up my spine, but I don’t feel it. I can’t feel anything.
Viviana’s broken question about Declan is lost under Christian’s choked words.
“They didn’t make it.”
He lunges to catch Viviana as her legs give out. She folds like paper, a raw, animal sound ripping from her throat.
I stay on the ground, palms pressed to the cold tile, staring up at Kaden through a blur of tears. “Where is he?” It comes out small, childlike.
Kaden’s jaw works. He still won’t meet my eyes. “We… we were going to call medics, but there was nothing left to save. Flynn’s men took the bodies—”
John cuts in, voice smooth as oil. “No one can know the leaders were gunned down like dogs. We keep this quiet. For now.”
There it is, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Pride. Victory. He thinks he won.
Flynn was right about him. Every poisonous word.
My legs shake so hard I nearly collapse again, but rage, white-hot, alive, drags me upright. “How exactly did you survive?” I ask, voice trembling with something that isn’t just grief.
John shrugs, casual as Sunday brunch. “We were already inside. Declan’s men held the doors. We tried to get out—”
Tiernan’s voice cracks. “We fucking tried.”
The difference is night and day.
Christian and Tiernan look like someone scooped their souls out with a rusty spoon. Eyes bloodshot, cheeks wet, hands shaking so badly Christian can barely keep hold of Viviana. Every word fractures on the way out.
John? Not a tear. Not a tremor. His eyes are flat, shark-dead. He’s working so hard not to grin it’s almost funny.
I drag in a breath that tastes like ash. “What happens now?”
Christian answers, voice raw. “We bury them. We find who did this. We burn the world down until they’re ash.”
He looks at me over Viviana’s unconscious form. “We keep you both safe. Always.”
Kaden swipes at his eyes with the heel of one bloody hand. “I promised Flynn,” he says, and the words break something open inside me.
A sob tears loose, ugly, loud, unstoppable. My knees buckle again, and this time I let the floor take me. I curl forward, arms wrapped around my stomach like I can hold the pieces together, and cry hard enough that my ribs ache.
They watch me shatter.
“We need a meeting,” Flanagan says, voice clipped and eager. “I need to decide what to do next.”
Tiernan spins on him so fast that the air moves. “Now?” The word rips out of him, raw and vicious. He stalks forward until they’re chest to chest. “Their bodies aren’t even cold, and you're already taking their place?” His roar echoes off the walls.
