“The bitch has to piss,” Mickey announced. “Is there a bathroom close?”
Halden waved a hand and the door to the viewing room opened, a soldier coming in to escort me like we expected.
“Afraid I have to keep her close,” Mickey said. “Alexander’s orders. I’ll take her myself.”
“No.” Halden glared between us. “She can go with my guard as we finalize the contract. As you said, time is of the essence.”
My stomach dipped. That wasn’t the plan. Mickey needed to leave with me. How else was he meant to get out? I forced out a whimper, pretending to be terrified to go anywhere without him. He made a scene of trying to shake me off his arm, but I latched to him. “Do you have to go or not?” he argued, but I could see the concern in his eyes. He hid it quickly, and I made sure to fight harder.
“Fine.Fine. Go but hurry,” Halden said, his nostrils flaring as he settled into a chair and lit a fresh cigar.
“Don’t worry. She’ll be punished for this,” Mickey growled. He grabbed me by the back of the neck and towed me toward the door. “Stop fucking touching me you blind cunt.”
I whimpered again, holding onto the act until the guard escorted us a good distance down the hall. We rounded the corner, then the guard slid up the shield on his visor, Thorne grinning. “Everything’s in place.”
Mickey and I let go of each other, smiling too. “Sorry, bella,” he apologized. “I was rough.”
“You had to be.” I patted his arm and threw my cane into a trash can as we passed. Then I looked at Thorne, keeping my stride steady with his. We couldn’t lose any time. “There’s two. Florence and a girl named Grace. They’re both in The Yard.”
He nodded. “Kane and Matthias have the outer wing where the bunks are in case they’re taken back to their rooms beforedelivery. I’ve cut the cameras and looped the feeds, which should buy us about an hour before they notice. Rafe went to the fitness room, and Monty and Heath stayed outside with the guards there. They’ll cause a distraction if we haven’t made it out before the hour is up.” Then he smirked at me. “You’re up, little flame.”
“We’ve got maybe ten more minutes before Halden gets suspicious,” Mickey said.
I palmed open the doors to the fitness center, spotting Rafe. He stood with his back to us, guards shot through the head surrounding him and all the pieces of the bomb laid out in the exact precision I needed them to be. “I only need five,” I promised and got to work.
8…4…3…I stepped back from my work carefully, the code keyed in to start the countdown.Eight minutes and forty-three seconds. It was all the time we allowed ourselves to get Florence, and now Grace, out. I held the detonator in my palm, my thumb skimming over the button to press start. Rafe’s shoulder brushed mine, his dark eyes tracing my profile.
It will be fine, he told me, sensing my worry.
I nodded, took a breath, then pressed the button. I flinched, terrified it would explode right then and there, but instead it let out the tiny beep it was meant to and the countdown began. “Go,” I urged Mickey. “Get out now.”
He jogged away, casting a wary glance over his shoulder at us. “Don’t be stupid,” he said toward us before he disappeared.I tucked my sunglasses away and tore off my wig, letting it fall to the ground as my jaw hardened. My fingers found Viktor’s lighter in my pocket.You should both go to, I told Rafe and Thorne.
But they just picked up guns from the dead soldiers.Lead the way, Mrs. Creed,Rafe said.We have your back.
Then an alarm blared to life.
We stiffened, my heart rate kicking up into the stratosphere. I turned a frantic look back at the bomb. It still had six minutes. We weren’t supposed to be found out until it had already gone off. “Fuck,” I cursed and grabbed one of the guns too. I strode to the double doors of the fitness room and peered out the slim windows, several soldiers jogging our way. I slammed back against the wall, heart pounding so hard it blurred my vision, and the guys mirrored me without a word, bodies sliding into place. Rafe’s gaze met mine, steady and sharp, and he gave a single nod. Thorne shifted behind us, just enough distance to keep our flanks clean. I cocked the gun, the sound loud in my ears, and when the doors burst open and shouting filled the room at the sight of the bomb, we fired.
The first shots cracked through the air like thunder. Radios hit the floor before hands could reach them. Bodies fell fast, hard, hitting the mats with wet, final sounds. We advanced in sync, firing, stepping, firing again, the recoil familiar and grounding, my breath coming sharp and controlled as targets dropped in front of us. Twelve soldiers. Thirty seconds. Dead. Them, of course, not us. I fired again when one of them twitched, the shot clean and final, and only then did I let myself breathe, chest heaving as the smell of gunpowder and blood thickened the room.
I spared one glance at the bomb, making sure it was untouched, still counting down like a promise, before we moved. We cleared each hall methodically, gunfire echoing,black uniforms crumpling like they were made of paper. Blood splattered my face, and sick thrill curled low in my gut, that feral satisfaction I hated myself for even as it fueled me forward. Thorne was at my left, a living extension of my body, anticipating my movements before I made them, covering blind spots I didn’t even have time to register. Rafe stayed just behind, anchoring us, his shots precise and restrained, never wasted, always lethal. He kept us alive the way he always had, knocking out soldiers before they were within a yard of us. We were a single thing moving forward, calibrated by violence, bound by trust so ingrained that death was inevitable for anything in our path.
Halden was close. I could feel it. My pulse thundered in my ears, my grip tightening, senses sharpening until everything else fell away.
That was when it happened.
I saw Thorne stagger and for a split second I thought he’d slipped, that the floor had betrayed him, because Thornedidn’tfall. He didn’t stumble. Never. He was solid and dependable and the calm of Creed. Then his hand came up to his chest and stayed there, fingers spreading, pressing like he was trying to hold himself together. Red came fast, blooming beneath his palm like someone had spilled paint on him.
My brain refused to name it. It kept searching for another explanation. Anything but what it was. He dropped to one knee hard enough that I felt it in my own joints, his teeth gritting, his shoulders locking like sheer will might keep him upright. He looked annoyed. Like he was angry at his own body for failing him at the worst possible moment.
Rafe was on him instantly, hauling him back behind cover with a sound that ripped out of him, something animal and broken. “No!”
Rafe Creed had shoutedno.
No matter the pain in his throat—pain that kept him from screaming during all of our hells—that moment had torn sound from him,demandedit from him. And it wasn't just any sound either. It was the one word that never had any meaning for any of us all our lives, and itstillcouldn't help us.
The hallway seemed to shrink, the walls pulling inward, the ceiling pressing down. My pulse roared, drowning out gunfire and shouting and everything else, until all I could hear was my own breath coming too fast and Thorne’s not coming fast enough.
