All I could hear was my labored breathing and the whooshing of blood in my ears.
Until I moved deeper into the house, trusting Saint and Syn to finish up in the main room.
Then I heard it.
A low rumbling.
Dogs growling.
I turned to the side, heading down a dark hallway toward the back of the building.
If I remembered correctly, on Dylan’s map, there was a small, windowless, cinderblock and cement room where people could be kept and beaten without any hope of escape.
Of course, that was where she would be taken.
My hands were curled so tightly my knuckles screamed. Sweat streamed down my face, blood dripped from the gunshot wound in my arm.
I barely noticed it.
Not with the idea of what could be happening to Dylan in that torture room.
I reminded myself that she had my knife.
That she wasn’t defenseless.
That it had only been a few minutes.
Right?
Time blurred in a fight.
What felt like seconds could be a lot longer. It was hard to tell when you were thrumming with adrenaline and anger.
No.
No, dammit.
I wasn’t going to let my mind go there.
She was fine.
She was a fighter.
She could buy herself time.
I was closing in on the door when I heard a roar that had my blood running cold.
I moved into the dim space to see Roach starting to lift a gun.
Behind him, a bloody, bruised Dylan frantically tried to reach for the knife as she stood in front of the rumbling dogs.
Some part of me wanted to get Dylan and the dogs out of the torture room, then come back in and spend a few hours slowly and methodically breaking every bone in the motherfucker’s body.
But greater than my thirst for revenge for what he’d done to her was the need to get her safe, to feel her in my arms again, to check her over and make sure she was okay.
So it was just some of my very basic training that had me grabbing the bastard’s head and chin, then, with one fast, firm motion, breaking his neck.
Then there she was.
