But that was my brother. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Even though he was different now, at his core, he was still the same man I’d always known. The same guy I’d grown up with. Even though he’d never admit it, he’d lay down his life for me. And now that extended to Devyn and my kid.
I wasn’t sure how we made it to Sophie’s place without getting pulled over—or dying because I wasn’t exactly drivingcarefully—but I was parked in front of the house and off my bike before I realized it. Swearing under my breath, I took in the inferno. The fucking thing was already up in flames. And I didn’t see Dev or Sophie outside.
“Call the fire department,” I told Relay. They had to be on their way already. Glitch would have called them after hanging up with me. But I didn’t see them here, so someone needed to get their asses moving.
“Where the fuck are you- Bolo!”
I ignored his call and rammed the front door at full speed. The wood gave way without protest and I stumbled inside. I had to pat at my clothes to put out the fucking flames that had transferred to me when I’d run through the fire engulfing the porch. “Devyn!”
Yelling had been a bad idea. I instantly inhaled a mouthful of smoke. Coughing, I made my way back down the hallway toward the guest room I’d left her in earlier. I couldn’t think about the condition she might be in. Not her. Not my baby. And not Sophie. If I did, I was going to lose my shit and there wasn’t time for that.
“Dev!” My eyes were burning from all the smoke and I could hardly take a breath. I was almost at the door to the first room when I saw the figure laying on the floor in the hallway.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Please be alive.
I didn’t need to check to know it wasn’t Devyn. Even from just her outline, I’d recognized her. Falling to my knees, I put two fingers to Sophie’s neck and breathed a sigh of relief when her pulse thumped against them. Then I immediately began coughing because of that damn breath.
“Hold on, Soph,” I said, lifting her into my arms. It was killing me not to keep charging down the hall to look for Devyn, but I couldn’t leave Sophie here to die. Dev would kill me, oncewe all made it out the other side of this, if she found out I left her sister lying unconscious on the floor and didn’t help her.
Turning, I swore and squatted down, curling my body around Sophie’s as a bat swung out of the smoke and nearly clocked me in the head. Shifting my and Sophie’s weight onto my left foot I kicked out with my right.
The thump hitting the floor told me that whoever had just taken a swing at me was down for a minute. And that was about all I had to get Sophie out of here.
Lurching to my feet, I moved past the figure on the floor and ran for the door. Relay met me at the front of the house, taking Sophie in his arms as I handed her over. “Get her an ambulance! Someone just went after me inside.”
“I didn’t come here to play emergency coordinator, Bolo. Bolo!”
Once again, I left my brother yelling my name and swearing after me as I ran back into the house. Whoever was in there wasn’t going to stay put, and I was guessing he was the one responsible for setting this fire. I was going to kill the bastard for coming after my family. Didn’t matter who he was.
Not to mention I still had to get Devyn out of there. She was probably back in the bedroom. It was two in the morning and both women had been asleep when this damn fire had started. There was no way Devyn would have made it out and left Sophie behind. She was still in the house.
The hallway was clear. Swearing, I looked around, holding up my arm to shield my eyes from the bright flames. Their movement and the smoke rolling through the house was making it fucking impossible to see.
Later, I’d blame that for the reason that bat hit me in the damn back. Grunting, I stumbled forward, then jerked to the side and into the kitchen as the fucker wound up and swung again. He missed this time, hitting a vase sitting at the front ofthe hallway on a small table. It shattered as I swung around and faced my attacker.
“Bowers,” I bit out. The police detective was standing there with that fucking bat, grinning at me like a lunatic. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Getting your attention, Dunn,” he said as he started to shift from foot to foot. He didn’t have the time to swing that bat now that I had him in my sights. If he tried, I’d take him down. The little fuck must have realized that because he pulled out a pistol at the same time I drew my own weapon.
“Why the fuck would I pay attention to you?” I asked, trying to goad him into doing something stupid.
He just smiled at me. “And yet, here you are.” He was coughing about as much as I was, which made me feel a little vindicated. It’d be even better if the fucker choked on all the toxic air.
“Why would you do this shit?” I asked. “You’re going to lose your fucking badge for this.”
“You pissed off some very important people. You all did. And you’re all going to pay.”
“Are you fucking shitting me?” I muttered. “You’re working for The Collective?”
Bowers hadn’t done anything that triggered our suspicions. Not about that anyway. We just figured he wanted to nail our asses for breaking the law. In fairness, we were making a lot of paperwork for the cops. But dirty cops were a different level of scum.
“I like having friends in high places,” Bowers said with a shrug. He tossed the baseball bat to the side. It rolled into the hallway where it wouldn’t get in the way. Neither of us were going for the bat when we had our guns. “Badge won’t matter much, once they reward me for killing you. Then I’ll go after therest of your brothers. Take them out like the fucking garbage they are.”
“You’re not going to live long enough to enjoy those rewards,” I warned him.
He chuckled then hacked out a cough. I considered my options. Time was running out for Devyn. Hell, time was running out for us too. We weren’t going to be able to stay in this house much longer.
Sirens caught my attention and I wondered if they were for the ambulance—they’d better be—the fire department, or the cops. Either way it wasn’t looking good for Bowers. “You’re not getting out of here,” I told him. “Even if you get through me, my brother will be outside waiting for you.”
