I don’t breathe, all happening in the span of three seconds.
The latch gives. The door opens a fraction, and the wind shoves through so hard it sends rain spraying across the floorboards. Everyone turns toward the balcony at the exact moment North and Ace charge inside like the storm has finally decided to enter the room itself.
Oh, about fucking time. This is happening now!
28
ADELAIDE
My chest aches from fear.
Luca’s hand closes around my arm so hard it’s going to leave bruises, but I don’t care. He drags me past the kitchen island, the dining table, and shoves me toward the mouth of the hallway. “Go.” His voice is a low bark I have never heard from him. “Hide. You know where. Now.”
He turns away just as my former boss and ex-lover, Daniel, charges toward me across the open-plan space with a small, tight smile, one hand already outstretched, the other loose at his side. “Adelaide. You’re still mine. Don’t you dare?—”
Luca throws himself at him, tackling him center-mass like a truck, and theoofthat comes out of Daniel leaves me cringing. Both of them go sideways into the edge of the couch and then down onto the wooden floor with a crash that shakes the whole room.
I stumble to catch my footing, tearing my gaze away and running for the hallway.
Behind me, the house explodes.
I get two steps into the hall, and I can’t help it—I glance over my shoulder.
Luca has Daniel on the floor. He pulls him up by the shirt and drives his fist into his face, and Daniel’s head snaps sideways. A spray of red hits the white tile, and Luca hauls him up again like he weighs nothing.
North meets the first of the chief’s men halfway across the living room. The man throws a punch, but North catches it against his forearm and drives his knee up into the man’s stomach so hard the man folds over. North’s other fist comes down on the back of his neck in a single hammering motion, and the man hits the floor and doesn’t get up. The second of them is on North already, a blade flashing in his hand, and North slides sideways with a movement that doesn’t look human and catches the man’s wrist.
Ace takes two of them, dives low under a fist that whistles over his shoulder, shoulders into the man’s ribs, and comes up off the floor in one spring. His foot hits the second man across the jaw, and the man spins sideways into the wall, cracking the drywall. Ace turns on the first one before he’s even landed, and his elbow comes down on the back of the man’s head.
A body, one of theirs, crashes into the couch so hard the couch goes over backward. The lamp on the side table gets taken with it and hits the tile and shatters, glass exploding across the floor.
Somewhere in the chaos, somebody is shouting a word I can’t parse, somebody else is grunting, wet and awful, and a chair gets thrown into the wall and the wall takes it.
My pulse is in my teeth and behind my eyes while there’s ice in the pit of my stomach.
Run.
I run.
My feet slap on the hallway, and the only thing keeping me upright is the sheer animal instinct of a body that has decided motion is better than any of the alternatives. The hall is darkbecause the power is out, and the only light is the gray storm light coming through the skylight above me. The far wall with the surf photo is right there.
I skid to a stop in front of the frame. My hands are shaking, and I frantically press the button beneath it, and the door hisses open. Then I’m rushing toward it, when something slams between my shoulder blades.
I pitch forward off my feet, my heart rising to my throat, and I’m falling. Oh, fuck!
My knee hits the top step. A cry tears out of me. My shoulder scrapes the stairwell wall, and I’m tumbling—elbow, hip, elbow—and I smack against the wooden basement floor on my palms. I sob because it hurts everywhere, and my knee is screaming.
A low white light flickers on. Must be a battery backup since the rest of the house is dark.
Footsteps descend the stairs behind me, and I try to push myself to turn around, when I spot Malia coming down the last two steps, a small black-handled blade held low and angled forward in her right hand.
“Malia.” My voice cracks. “Did you push me down the stairs?What the hell?”
“Up. You’re young and you’ll survive.” The blade lifts, the tip now sitting three inches from the hollow of my throat.
Every part of me goes cold at once.
I scramble up. My knee is pulsing, and my breath rushing out in small, sharp bites.
