Denver stilled. “Seriously.”
“We talked about it on the way down. She has intel we want.” Jory lifted his face to the wind and seemed to listen. “The storm is settling down. We need to move now.” He took one step away, disappearing completely.
“That’s a little freaky,” Ryker muttered, inserting his earbud.
Denver secured the goggles on top of his head. His blood brother scar scratched against the inside of his glove, and he took a moment to feel it. “Guys.”
Heath bumped him with a shoulder. “Got it and ditto. Let’s do this.”
Ryker settled his goggles over his eyes. “If anything happens to me, Zara—”
“Yeah,” Denver said. He’d take care of Zara and Anya as if they were his own sisters, because basically they were. Ryker and Heath would protect Noni and the baby. “All around. We’re covered.”
Then he took a moment and dug deep. “If this is it, I don’t regret a second. Not one moment of everything we’ve been through. We found one another.”
Ryker’s eyes darkened. His tone was hoarse. “Agreed.”
Heath cleared his throat. He pressed a hand to his chest. “Thank you for being my brothers,” he said, his voice rough too.
Denver’s lungs filled. One of them had to make it just to remember, to pass that on. He shook his head to settle into the op. There wasn’t anything else to say. He glanced at his watch. “Let’s go.”
Crouching low, they moved in formation toward the main building, keeping an eye out for scouts. With the storm so brutal, any guards were probably right inside the doors. Running around to the back of the building, they found the rear entrance that had been visible from the surveillance photographs. Ryker moved along the wall and found the right box, flipped it open, and went to work.
Nobody could fuck with a security system like Ryker. Nobody. Within a minute, he gave a short nod.
Good.
Denver moved to a window a few feet from the rear door. Using his goggles, he looked inside. Seemed like some sort of office or storage room based on the boxes piled in the corner. Giving a hand signal, he used his knife and edged the window up. His ribs protested when he slid over the sill, but he ignored them, landing silently.
Within seconds, his brothers had joined him. They moved through the room and out into a hallway with several doors. “We’re in the office area,” Denver whispered.
Ryker nodded. “You go to the second floor, I’ll go down to the lab, and Heath will cover here.”
Denver instantly pivoted and moved quietly down the hall, leaving wet boot prints on the wood floor. He reached a stairwell and started climbing. Hopefully Madison and the baby were upstairs. From the floor plans, it had looked like some bedrooms were up there. Madison wouldn’t stay in the barracks.
He didn’t encounter anybody, his sight strong with the goggles. Reaching a landing, he could see a small vestibule with four doors spaced a distance apart.
His heart beat rapidly, and he took several deep breaths to calm himself. Then he switched on the heat sensors and turned toward the nearest door. A small signature lit up yellow and red. Very small and not moving. Talia? He forced himself to scope out the other three rooms. No signatures. So he turned back to the one room and gently nudged open the door.
The room was small, with a worn dresser, changing table, and crib that had obviously been picked up quickly. The crib looked old and dented. No doubt unsafe. His breath hitched, and he moved forward to see the baby. She opened her eyes and gurgled. For a second, he was frozen. She was okay. His hands trembled.
She smiled, the sight trusting and innocent. Relief nearly took him to his knees. She was healthy and unharmed. Thank God. He reached for her, needing to hold her tight.
The cocking of a gun behind him stopped him cold. He slowly turned.
“Hello,” Sheriff Elton Cobb said, lifting a flashlight to Denver’s face.
The light exploded through the night-vision goggles, completely blinding Denver. Even so, he put himself between Cobb and the baby while ripping them off.
“Oh. This is gonna be fun,” Cobb said with anticipation.
CHAPTER
35
Noni twisted the ring around her left ring finger while sitting at a long table made of what seemed to be redwood. The brownie in front of her looked good, but her stomach revolted. Zara sat across from her while Anya sat at the head to her right.
“We have to be able to do something,” Noni muttered.
