The unmistakable noise of shots being fired precedes panicked screaming.
I lock my eyes forward, knowing I can’t afford to freak out and question where Kai and Ramses are. I feel them through our bond, but can’t see them, and I can certainly feel Dare behind me, chasing after me. His presence surrounds me, forming a solid shield.
From the corner of my eye, Douglas moves, each step towards me is full of surging aggression. Not at me but in helping me escape.
More gun fire, but that’s not what stops me.
It’s the dead weight that slams into me from two directions—my side and my back.
I go down screaming.
ChapterFifty-Four
RAMSES
My eyes should be locked on Heidi, but they’re not.
Kai’s aren’t either.
It happens without intention, but we flick straight into our usual communication method when we’re on a job, being The Phoenix Group. This way, we don’t use any words, instead we utilise lots of hand signals and a fuck tonne of trust.
Triple checking with Darius, he’s already felt Kai and me peeling away from the side of the stage. Ronnie follows because there’s a growing unnatural stillness in a part of the crowd, but I wave him back towards Heidi.
Kai makes a noise with his tongue that echoes through the small comms unit my brothers share, letting me know he’s going past me.
No one notices us moving or the growing stress blossoming under their noses, they’re lost in the rousing speech Heidi’s given, or they’re soaking in the realisation of what the phoenix flowers mean. Either way they’re distracted which is good, because it gives us less stimulation to sort through.
It’s primal the way my thinking becomes—feel the threat, find the threat, destroy the threat.
Unease races up my spine. As much as I want to clear the room to find the source of what’s pulling such a sudden and violent response from my Alpha, I maintain a facade of neutrality despite being on the verge of starting a violent revolution to save my mate.
Retrospectively, that is exactly what I should have fucking done.
As soon as Kai starts sweeping the room, walking up the centre aisle, I start towards him. The both of us locking on the same area, the both of us scanning the faces of those sitting there, watching.
Part of me hopes it’s just Ayden, along with our new bond making us overprotective, but it’s not. The second my gaze scours the next row I lock on the target. Kai’s whisper in my ear lets me know he’s seen the same person I have; a beta, looking shrewd as fuck.
Kai and I pull weapons at the same time as the room explodes into applause.
I yell at everyone to get down, but the noise made by the over enthusiastic crowd eats our shouted warning, giving the beta the chance to act.
My brother gets so close to the fucker. But the beta stands, raises his arms in opposing directions and fires round after round. Kai flails backward, hit. The woman sitting next to the shooter is his next target and she falls from her seat into the aisle.
And that’s when people notice.
It’s like a bomb detonates; people blast outwards trying to escape without drawing the shooter’s attention.
But that’s not my issue, not yet. Because this cunt hasn’t lifted his finger off the trigger of the gun he has aimed at Heidi.
I’m half a milli-second too slow in blowing his fucking brains out the backside of his head, he’s already done so much damage. Way too fucking much.
Our bond is full of carnage.
How I don’t turn feral, I don’t know, or maybe I do and just don’t realise.
The void made from the absence of gunfire is filled with terror and panic, and pain.
But all I can focus on is Heidi.
