The one thing he’d sworn he didn’t have room for. The one vulnerability he’d avoided because loving someone meant risking everything if you lost them.
But it was too late. Tess had claimed his heart, whether he’d been ready to admit it or not.
His mind conjured up her face. The steady eyes that always seemed to see too much. The stubborn set of her mouth when she dug in. The way she’d looked at him like he was something solid when her world started to fracture.
He’d told himself it was temporary. Proximity. Stress. Adrenaline.
That lie was gone now.
Tess wasn’t a moment or a mistake. She was the woman he wanted a life with—one he was done pretending he hadn’t already chosen. And he’d be damned if he lost her tonight. If it came down to it, he’d take the bullet—because the alternative, a life without her, wasn’t one he was willing to face.
As he shifted the vehicle into Drive, Rafe ended his call and tossed his phone onto the console between them.
“SRT is on their way,” he said. “Eight guys. No lights, no sirens. Total radio silence.”
Brian glanced at him. “You cleared it with the AD?”
His partner nodded. “Johanssen signed off personally. Communication is through cell phones until we get to the scene, then low-range encrypted radios. It won’t go anywhere near dispatch.”
“Good.”
Brian pulled away from the curb, the tires biting hard as he accelerated. The engine climbed, and so did the stakes—Tess, Rafe, SRT, himself—every possible outcome colliding in his head. His mind went back to the shootout in the warehouse—the echo of gunfire, the smell of dust and gunpowder, and the split second when he thought death had looked him in the eye. And if that bullet had been an inch to the left, his life would’ve been snuffed out before he ever realized he’d found the woman he wanted to spend it with.
“They’ll meet us at a DOT lot about a mile from the target site,” Rafe continued, cutting off Brian’s rampant thoughts while plugging the address into the truck’s dashboard GPS.
Brian didn’t respond. His hands were tight on the wheel, grip locked, knuckles whitening as the speedometer climbed. The road ahead blurred into a narrow tunnel of asphalt and shadows as he followed the directions spat out in a far-too-cheerful female voice.
All he could think of was Tess.
Of her bound. Frightened. Wondering if anyone would rescue her.
The thought gave his gut a feral twist. Fear clawedits way up his spine, cold and vicious. His elevated pulse throbbed in his neck and temples. He’d faced guns, knives, men who wanted him dead—but none of that compared to the idea of arriving too late to save her.
Failure was not an option.
The words weren’t bravado. They weren’t optimistic. They were a fact.
He didn’t slow down.
Rafe glanced at him, sharp-eyed, reading the tension rolling off him in waves. “We get one clean shot at this, partner. We don’t rush in blind.”
Brian nodded once. “I know.”
But inside, every instinct screamed at him to go in guns blazing and slaughter every gang member involved in Tess’s kidnapping.
Hold on, sweetheart. I’m coming.
A glance at his watch told him he needed to haul ass to the rendezvous point. They were still miles away.
00:42:30
He pressed harder on the gas, and the truck surged forward, the engine growling. Ahead of them waited violence, uncertainty, and a reckoning Brian knew would change everything—one way or another.
He didn’t care.
He would tear the world apart for Tess if that’s what it took.
Because she was his.
