Seth shook his head. “No. That son of a bitch is mine.”
Matt hesitated, then nodded.
Nik looked less convinced, so Seth got in his face. “This is just business for you. This asshole destroyed my life twice. He killed people I love, so it’s fucking personal for me. I’m the one who ends this. You got it?”
For a moment, Nik glowered. Then he rolled his eyes. “You steal fun.”
But the big Russian had given in.
Seth clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll make damn sure he pays, one way or another.”
Nikolai’s phone buzzed quietly. He glanced at it, then typed something back. He’d barely hit Send when it buzzed again.
As Nik’s thumbs flew across his screen, worry gripped Seth. “Problem?”
He shook his head. “My men intercept Specter’s backup around neighborhood. They take nap in trunk of car.”
“That was fast.” Matt was clearly impressed.
Nikolai flashed his brother a toothy smile. “No one wishes to disappoint me.”
Seth knew that was true. “Beck, you up to filling everyone in, like you did me?”
A glance at the good doctor’s gray face and jaw clenched in pain worried the hell out of him.
But Beck nodded, clearly determined to help however he could. “Carl is locked in the basement. Gene has Grace, Heavenly, and Hudson in the living room. And as you can see”—he pointed to his shoulder—“he has a gun, and he’s not afraid to use it. This was an ‘attention-getter.’ Spoiler alert: it worked.”
“If we’re going to get inside the house without more bullets flying, we need a diversion to pull Gene’s attention away from the hostages. Then we can rush in through different points of entry, surround him, and free everyone.”
Matt shifted his weight. “What kind of diversion?”
Seth shrugged. He hadn’t gotten that far. “I’m up for?—”
A gunshot cracked through the air.
From inside the house.
The hope that he could extract everyone without bloodshed shattered in that one sound.
Seth stopped breathing. Ice flooded his veins, followed immediately by white-hot terror that threatened to obliterate him.
Heavenly.
The woman Seth loved more than anything. The mother of his unborn child.
If Gene was going to kill someone, he’d choose her first. The son of a bitch knew it would destroy Seth fastest.
He gripped the gun in his fist as his vision tunneled.
The time for talk was over. The time to destroy that cocksucker was now.
“Go. Go. Go!” he roared.
Seth didn’t wait for confirmation, didn’t look back to see if Matt and Nik were moving.
He ran straight for the door, his boots pounding the pavement. Adrenaline screamed through his system, drowning out everything but the primal need to get inside.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Matt veer toward the side of the house, pointing in the direction of the mudroom. Nik split away, heading for the patio door around back.
