Gunner grinned through blood. "Still can."
Gunfire erupted from the far bank. Another wave. Reinforcements.
"They had more," McGuire growled, raising his weapon.
Riven and Cross opened up from the trees, and Stone flanked to intercept the second group. Savvy ducked into cover beside Patch, who had Gunner pinned.
"Get him up!" she ordered.
Patch dragged Gunner to his feet. The man was bleeding, laughing under his breath like a lunatic who thought he still had the upper hand.
"You think this ends with me?" he hissed at Savvy. "You think I’m the only one with teeth?"
"No," she said. "But you're the only one in front of my gun."
She leveled her weapon at his head.
The last of Gunner's backup dropped one by one under the rain of gunfire from her team. Within seconds, silence fell again—only this time, it was earned.
Breathing hard, Savvy met Patch’s eyes. "You okay?"
"I am now."
She turned to McGuire, who gave a sharp nod. "All clear. We got 'em."
Gunner sagged between them, coughing blood, wrists now bound.
The flare sputtered its last breath and died out in the mud.
But the fire was far from over. The fallout from this would reach far and wide.
Savvy found a tree stump and planted her ass on it. She wiped the sweat from her brow and let out a long breath. She glanced up at the remnants of chaos. The end of battle was always bittersweet. The gratitude to still have breath in her lungs somehow never made it to her brain as she processed what had happened.
The adrenaline that she’d been surviving on for the last hour flew from her body, leaving her weak and vulnerable. She hated that sensation.
Her brother barked out orders in true McGuire fashion. She wished she could say she enjoyed working with him—with his team—but part of her didn’t. Part of her hated working with anyone she loved. It twisted her gut into something she wanted to run from—and run fast.
It’s how saying goodbye to Patch all those years ago had been the hardest and easiest thing she’d ever done.
Stone dealt with the carnage, and it was a bloodbath. Not so much by their doing, but by the situation that Gunner had put them in.
Cross was busy with the SATphone. She should be the one making calls, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything but sit on the stump and feel.
And she felt everything.
Patch strolled in her direction. He knelt in front of her, taking her hands. “You look like you’ve seen better days.”
“Just what a woman wants to hear.” Tentatively, she reached out, tracing the bruises on his face, and frowned.
“I’m fine,” he whispered.
“My heart dropped to my toes when I realized they had gotten to you. I thought you were dead. Or dying. I lit that flare because I wasn’t sure anything mattered anymore and where the hell did Riven come from?”
“Riven never made it very far, so McGuire decided to keep her in the fold,” Patch said. “And getting taken by those assholes, well, not my most shining moment, but if those were some of his best men, well, I’m shocked Black Ledger managed to get anything accomplished because it took me all of fifteen minutes to get free.”
“I hate when you make light of bad things,” she managed. “Especially when I have to pile more shitty stuff on top.”
“We can talk about whatever later.”
