“SBI! Drop your weapons!”
“On the ground! Now!”
The voices were different. Commanding. Clear. And definitely not Diego. Not any of theothers she’d heard over the last hour or two—or however long she’d been there.
“Hands behind your head!”
None of the words registered at first. It was all a jumbled mess inside her brain.
She lay there trembling, the hood still over her face, her ears ringing, and her heart trying to break out of her chest.
Someone moved close enough that she felt the air shift. Her name was spoken softly, barely audible over the clamor.
Brian?
Oh, please tell me I’m not imagining him!
The hood was quickly but carefully lifted. Fluorescent light stabbed at her eyes, and she blinked against the sudden brightness, her vision swimming. The air was thick with smoke and dust, and she coughed as her lungs searched for clean, fresh air.
And then she saw him. Brian.
Kneeling beside her.
He pulled out a knife and quickly cut through her restraints. Her aching arms and shoulders dropped the second the zip ties snapped, the sudden freedom sending a rush of fire through muscles that had been locked too long. Pins and needles stabbed down to her fingertips, sharp and merciless, and she gasped as blood flooded back into numb hands.
It hurt to move them—hurt like she’d beentorn apart and stitched back together wrong—but beneath the pain was something stronger.
Relief.
She was free and could move, but her stiff legs weren’t ready to be of use yet. She flexed her fingers slowly, wincing, then lifted her arms shakily as if proving to herself they still belonged to her.
His hands were on her now—gentle but urgent—his frantic gaze scanning her face, arms, and legs.
“Tess, look at me,” he said, voice tight with controlled intensity. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, though the movement made the room tilt. “N-no.” Her voice was hoarse, barely audible. “Nothing serious.” At least she didn’t think so.
He still checked her over, his fingers moving carefully along her shoulders, down her sides, assessing for anything he might have missed. He gently lifted her forearms, turning her wrists toward the light.
The skin was torn and raw where the zip ties had bitten in. Blood smeared across swollen flesh.
His jaw tightened, and a low, dangerous sound rumbled in his chest. His gaze slid past her shoulder, and she turned her head to follow it. A man she assumed was Diego lay sprawled on the ground with a small, dark bullet hole centered in his forehead, his eyes open and vacant. The red-and-gray spray fanned across the concrete wall told the rest of the story—there was a far larger exit wound at the back of his skull. She didn’t need to see it to know.
Brian’s expression hardened, something dark and feral flashing there before he dragged it back under control. “I wish I could kill him again for what he did to you—for even thinking of touching you.”
She wished he could, too, but it was bad enough she lived through it once. No way did she want to experience it again. “You came.”
His eyes widened as they returned to her face. “Of course I did, baby.”
For a moment, nothing else existed but the two of them on that cold concrete floor. He brushed his thumb beneath her eye, wiping away a tear she hadn’t realized had fallen. “You’re okay, Tess. You’re okay.”
His voice cracked on the last word, and that was what finally broke her.
A sob tore loose from her chest, raw and uncontrolled. Tears blurred her vision as the terror she’d held back crashed through her all at once.
“I thought—” She couldn’t force the rest of it out, the words catching in her throat.
“I know. But it’s over. You’re safe.”
