I thumb back: 5. And I'm staying with you.
Three dots. Then nothing.
When we pull through the compound gate, prospects are already moving as if we've drilled this a hundred times. Oneholds the side door open as we haul Donovan out. Another clears the stairwell, calling down that the basement is ready.
Before we head down, I pause in the main room where the girls are clustered; Maggie, Ruby, Frankie, Candace, Darla. Wide-eyed, waiting.
"Everyone okay?" Maggie asks immediately.
"Yeah. We're okay. Victor's okay. Olivia got out. She's hurt, but Arden got her clear before the worst of it." Relief ripples through them. "Leo…" I exhale. "He took a shot to the neck. Arden got him out, but from what I saw, I don't think he made it."
Frankie goes utterly still. Her face drains of color. Her hand, halfway to setting down her mug, freezes mid-air.
"What?" Ruby whispers.
"Gunshot. Throat. Arden took him before we could get close. I didn't see a pulse."
Frankie's phone is already in her hand, fingers white-knuckled. She stares at the screen as if she's waiting for it to tell her I'm wrong.
"Frankie—" Candace starts.
"I'm fine." Her voice is flat. Too controlled. She shoves her phone in her pocket and stands abruptly. "I need air." Frankie's out the door before anyone can stop her.
Ruby starts to follow, but Maggie catches her arm. "Give her a minute."
"She's not fine."
"No," Maggie agrees quietly. "She's not."
I don't have time to stay. Malachi's already heading for the basement with Donovan, and I need to be there for Sloane. As I turn toward the stairs, the front door opens again. Arden steps in, eyes scanning the room.
"Where's Frankie?"
Ruby points toward the door Frankie disappeared through. Arden nods once and heads that way without another word. Butas I head down the stairs, I can't shake Frankie's face. Blank, shuttered, breaking underneath.
It smells like bleach, coffee, and barely-laundered denim down here on a normal day. Today it smells like blood and adrenaline. Sloane's waiting when we barrel in, already in navy scrubs and sneakers, hair bundled in a knot that's slightly crooked from tying it rushed. Gloves snap around her wrists, armor built out of latex.
Her eyes find mine for half a second. I see everything in that look. Fear. Fury. Resolve.
"What the hell did you bring me?" she snaps, pivoting toward Donovan as East and Kyle swing the gurney into position.
"The reason we're going to blow this whole thing wide open," Malachi answers, voice rough. "He doesn't die until he talks."
Her mouth flattens. She holds back the argument. She never fights it when the job is saving a life, even a bastard's. But her hands tremble for exactly half a second before muscle memory locks everything down.
I've watched her treat gunshot wounds on men who probably deserved them. Watched her dig glass out of kids' palms and stitch Ruby's forehead while Ruby cracked jokes through all eight sutures.
This is different. This is a woman walking back into a nightmare she thought she'd escaped.
"East, keep pressure here," she orders, cutting away Donovan's shirt. "Kyle, get me the second trauma kit. No, the second one. It has the larger-bore lines."
Crisp, precise. Perfectly professional. If you didn't know her, you'd think she was fine. I know better.
She moves around the table, assessing the entry wound, exit wound, depth, trajectory. Eyes sharp, but every now and then a shade too wide as if she's seeing something laid over this scene.Another gurney, another monster, another room that smelled like money and blood.
"Through-and-through," she mutters, more to herself. "Missed the heart by inches. Lucky bastard."
Candace slips down the stairs behind us, quiet as a shadow. She takes the corner, arms folded tight, eyes locked on Donovan. She flinches at "lucky" but doesn't move.
