"Arden got her out," Victor chokes somewhere behind me. "Olivia—Arden got her out." Relief punches through the noise. I start to ask about Leo.
"Malachi!" Kyle shouts a minute later. "He's still got a fucking pulse!" Everything stops.
Malachi moves through the chaos like it parts around him on instinct, boots steady. Drops to a crouch beside Donovan's body,fingers brushing his neck. I'm at Malachi's side in three strides, inhaling the sour, iron stink of Donovan's blood. Too much. Not enough. I don't know which.
"He should be dead," Nash mutters.
"Yeah," Malachi says, low and lethal. "But he's not."
Rage flashes hot in his eyes, twin to the boil under my skin. We've waited years to put this bastard in the ground. Thought tonight might be it.
"Get me cuffs. Zip ties. I don't care," Malachi growls. "We are not losing him. Not this way."
Nash tosses restraints. Malachi binds Donovan's wrists himself, each pull of plastic a promise. The zip tie bites into torn skin.
I stand there, breathing hard, staring down at the man who's been a shadow in every shitty story we've uncovered. Human trafficking. Auctions. The way Cornelius died. The ghosts that haunt Malachi's ribs. And I know what's coming before I say it.
"You want me to get Sloane?" Already reaching for my phone.
Malachi's gaze flicks up, sharp. No hesitation. "Yeah. Get her to the basement. She keeps him alive. He talks to me."
There it is. The order that's going to wreck my wife. I step back from the blood slick under my boots. The phone barely rings once.
"Knox?" Thin and wired, the voice she only uses when she's already running triage in her head.
"Yeah, it's me." I move away from the worst of the noise, pressing a hand over my other ear. "We're at the Holloway Building. Bomb in the lower garage. It's bad."
"Are you okay? Is anyone—"
"I'm fine. The guys are fine." For now. "We're helping with the injured, but—" I glance at Donovan, at Malachi crouched beside him like wrath incarnate. "We found Donovan. Victor shot him, but he's still breathing."
Silence. Heavy, weighted. When she speaks again, her tone has gone clinical, automatic. "How bad?"
"Through-and-through to the chest. Lot of blood. Malachi's bringing him back to the clubhouse. He wants you to keep him alive long enough to talk."
There's the faintest scrape, like she's braced her free hand against a wall.
"Understood," she says after a beat. She's too calm. Too controlled. "I'll get the basement ready."
"Sloane—"
"I've got it, Knox." A crack under the calm that only someone who knows her could hear. "Just… come back in one piece."
The call cuts before I can tell her I'm sorry. I grit my teeth and turn back toward the chaos.
"You good?" Nash asks flatly.
"No. But we're doing it anyway."
The ride back is a blur of sirens and red lights we don't obey. Donovan is in the back of the van with East and Kyle. East's forearm is braced on the gurney to keep him from sliding with every hard turn. I'm up front, watching the rearview for tails and the side streets for more bad surprises.
Every bump makes Donovan groan. It grates on my nerves.
"Could just hit a few more potholes," East mutters. "Help nature along."
"That call belongs to Malachi," I snap, more at the situation than him.
My phone buzzes. A text from Sloane. Sloane: Basement prepped. ETA?
