Valen’s grip tightens on my shoulder. “What did she say?”
“Uh…” Joey stumbles over his words. “Something about the bloom and a rebirth. I wasn’t sure what she meant, so I was Googling rebirth and she just…disappeared.”
“Fuck this,” Valen growls. “We’re done sitting around. Roman.” He spins to find his cousin. “It’s time to go hunting.”
While the Harringtons all nod in agreement, I bite back angry tears.
Terra doesn’t get to do this to us. Not anymore.
It’s time she learns exactly who we grew up to be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
VALEN
The moment Clover enters the war room we’ve set up in Madi’s inn with Wrecks growling at her side, I know something’s wrong.
Her face is so white that I’m not sure any blood is flowing through her veins. I feel her fear—it scratches and claws at my insides, fighting through anxiety and rage.
I’m across the room before I’ve consciously decided to move, reading the text she holds out to me as dread settles into the tightness of my shoulders.
Unknown number: I have the old man.
Unknown number: Come to the Chimney. Alone.
Unknown number: Or you won’t like the condition I return him in.
Chief.
Terra must have Chief.
“Fuck. Roman! Where the fuck is Chief?” The words tear from my throat.
“He went into town,” Pops shouts from the family room.
“That was over an hour ago, and he was only getting charcoal from Huckabee’s,” Madi says, filling the doorway with Braxton right behind her.
“Terra has him,” I seethe. “She texted Clover. She has our fucking guy.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, the room erupts into controlled chaos.
Roman barks orders into his comms. Grant calls our federal contacts. Sterling is pulling up satellite imagery while Chase paces like a caged predator, occasionally flashing sympathetic glances at my girl.
“What the hell is the Chimney?” Sterling asks.
“It’s—it’s…” He can’t hear Clover. Fuck, I’m standing right beside her, and I can barely hear her. But this time, it’s not because she’s afraid. No, this time it’s because her jaw is clenched so tightly the words can’t pass through her teeth.
“The Chimney is a place local high schoolers go to party,” Madi says, swaying from side to side while babywearing her little boy. “It’s an old barn in the woods. Everything has collapsed around it except the chimney.”
Watching her like this has my training kicking in. Threat assessment. Extraction protocols. Tactical positioning. This is what I do. This is who I am. I protect people. I save them.
And I’m fucking good at it.
It’s the only thing that quiets the drums in my chest, that nameless guilt I’ve carried since I woke up in a hospital bed with a hole where my past should be. Every life I save, every person I protect, it chips away at the sensations I couldn’t name.
Tonight, I’ll save them all from the terror my egg donor has waged for over a decade. No one will feel her wrath again.
It’s a vow I silently make to them, to me, to her.
When Clover catches my eye, the world stops for a moment.
