“Would you listen?” I ask.
Kiera huffs a soft laugh. “No.”
“Then I’m not going to waste my breath.” I hand her the extra magazines, our fingers tangling together around the metal. “But I am going to tell you something, and I need you to hear it.” She looks up at me, her grey eyes wide and unguarded for just a second. The shadow is gone. The girl is gone. What’s left is something between a woman made of smoke and gunpowder, and I’m suddenly terrified that when this is over, there won’t beanything left to hold. “I’m not Wade,” I say, my voice rough. “I’m not Asher. When this ends. When we get Cam and Lila back and burn the rest of this fucking world down, you don’t get to push me away and pretend I was just another tool you used. You don’t get to pretend this,” I gesture between us, the air thick with unspoken things, “didn’t happen.”
She stares at me, the gun heavy between us like a loaded promise. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for,” I say, stepping fully into her space until the back meets the cold concrete wall. “I’m asking for the truth. Even if it cuts.”
Her breath hitches. She doesn’t look away. “And if the truth is that I’m so broken that there’s nothing left but revenge?”
“Then I’ll take the pieces,” I say, my mouth hovering inches from hers. “Let me carry your sins with you. But I’m not going anywhere, Kiera. Not unless you look me in the eye and tell me to leave.” I pause, letting the words settle between us like a vow. “And probably not even then.”
The moment stretches, thin as wire. Outside, the sun sets, painting the room in bruised purples and blood reds. She’s trembling—just barely. The rage is still there, burning hot beneath the surface, but underneath it, finally fear. For Cam and Lila. For herself. Maybe even for me. “I don’t know how to ask you to stay,” she whispers.
“Then don’t say anything,” I breathe. I kiss her like she’s the only air I’ll ever need. It’s not soft. It’s not gentle. It’s two people drowning and choosing to burn instead—all teeth and tongue and the metallic taste of redemption. She gasps into my mouth. Her free hand fists in my shirt, yanking me closer, anchoring herself to me. The gun presses cold and hard between our bodies, a brutal reminder of what comes next. But for this one stolen second, we’re nothing but heat and hunger and the desperate, stupid need to feel alive beforewe walk into the dark. When I finally pull back, her lips are swollen, her eyes glazed. She touches her mouth with trembling fingers, staring at me as if I’ve just rewritten every rule she thought she knew.
“Sterling,” she whimpers. The single word comes out fractured—half warning, half desperate prayer, like she’s fighting herself even as she says it.
“We’ll get them back,” I promise, voice low and unwavering. “And then we’ll finish this. Together. You and me.”
She nods, once, sharply. The mask slides back into place, but her hand finds mine, threading our fingers together as we walk toward the door. The night is waiting. So is Asher. But he doesn’t know we’re coming for him hand in hand. And that makes all the difference.
I slide into the driver’s seat, the leather cold against my back, and the truck rumbles to life with a low growl that vibrates through the floorboards. In the passenger seat, Kiera checks the Ruger's magazine one last time. Her movements are economical now; no wasted motion, no hesitation. She catches me staring. “Eyes on the road, Sterling,” she says, a faint, dangerous smile tugging at her lips. “I need you alive for at least another hour.”
I grunt, shifting into drive. “Your concern is touching. Really warms my heart.”
“It’s self-preservation,” she says, but her hand claims my thigh, fingers pressing hard enough to bruise. “If you die, I have to drive the getaway vehicle. And I really don’t want to do that.”
The safe house disappears behind us, swallowed by darkness and pine trees. I keep the headlights off until we hit the main road, navigating by memory and the faint glow of the dashboard. The industrial district is twenty miles out—past the city limits, where the streetlights thin and the darkness starts to feel hungry. My phone buzzes in the center console. We both look at it.
Cam:You’re late.
Kiera picks it up, her thumb hovering over the screen. “He’s getting impatient.”
“Or he’s tracking the phone’s location,” I say. “Leave it. Let him wonder if we’re coming...” She nods, setting it face down on the console. But she doesn’t let go of her weapon. Her other hand stays on my leg. A steady point of heat that anchors us both, keeping us from drifting too far into the bloodshed waiting ahead.
We drive in silence for ten minutes. The city gradually gives way to warehouses, then to nothing but skeletal buildings and rusted chain-link fences. I kill the engine two blocks from the coordinates, coasting the last few yards on momentum alone, tucking the truck behind a derelict shipping container. The industrial district looms ahead—a maze of corrugated metal and shattered windows, black against the slightly less black sky. No lights. No movement. Just the wind whistling through broken glass, singing a warning.
Kiera is out of the truck before I’ve even pocketed the keys, pressing her back against the container, weapon low and ready. I follow, moving to her six, covering our rear. We’ve done this before—in different lives, for different reasons—but the choreography is the same: trust, space, violence held in careful reserve. She signals with two fingers…move up. We cross the open ground in a low sprint, boots crunching on gravel that sounds like gunshots in the silence. We flatten against the wall of the main building. I test the door. Locked. The frame is rusted out. One sharp kick and it swings inward, screaming on hinges that haven’t seen oil in years.
Darkness swallows us whole. I flip on the tac-light mounted under my Glock, sweeping the beam across stained concrete floors and oil-slick stains. The air reeks of iron and mildew. Kiera moves ahead of me, a shadow withinthe shadow, her own light off, navigating by memory or pure instinct. Then I hear it. A cough. Muffled. Male. Kiera freezes, head tilting like a predator catching scent. She points left, toward a stairwell descending into the basement. The sound came from below. We move toward it in perfect sync, stepping over debris that could betray us with a single crunch. My heart hammers against my ribs, but my hands stay steady. I’ve done this a hundred times. Never with this much riding on the outcome. The stairwell is a pitch-black mouth. Kiera pauses on the top step and glances back at me. In the faint spill of my light, her eyes are wild, luminous, and utterly fearless. She mouths the words:Ready?I nod. Together, we descend into the dark.
Chapter Twenty-One
The zip tie bites deeper into my wrists, cutting off circulation somewhere around hour three. I’ve been counting seconds in my head—eleven thousand, four hundred and change—since the trunk slammed shut and Lila stopped screaming. She’s been quiet for the last twenty minutes. Too quiet. I shift against the concrete pillar they’ve chained us to, straining to see her in the pitch-black. The basement reeks of rust, standing water, and something chemical that burns the back of my throat when I breathe too deeply. My left eye is swollen shut, courtesy of the stocky bastard with the brass knuckles who didn’t appreciate me trying to keep Lila out of the van. Every inhale feels like broken glass grinding between my ribs. “Lila,” I whisper. My voice cracks. I try again, louder. “Hey. Blondie. Stay with me.”
A rustle of fabric. A shaky exhale. “I’m here,” Lila says, her voice small and stripped of its usual laughter. “Just… thinking about how much I hate basements. And kidnapping. And men in general right now.”
Despite everything, I almost smile at Lila’s small attempt at normal. “Yeah. Solid list.”
My fingers are numb, but I keep working the zip tie behind my back, rotating my wrists in small, grinding circles. The plastic is industrial grade. Asher didn’t cheap out, but I’ve got a razor blade tucked into the seam of my boot. Old habit from years of learning how to survive when no one was coming to save you. Never thought I’d need it for an actual kidnapping, but here we are. I’ve already mapped the room: twelve by sixteen feet. One metal door was deadbolted from the outside. No windows. A single overhead bulbbuzzes on a timer that clicks every forty-five minutes. Two guards upstairs,heavy footsteps on the floorboards. One favors his left leg. Three sets of lungs breathing in the dark earlier, which means Asher’s been down here at least twice. He’s not what I expected. When he walked into the house smiling like he was picking up a pizza instead of binding our hands, I thought he’d be older. Meaner in a more obvious way. But he looks like a finance bro: clean-shaven, soft hands, eyes that don’t blink quite enough.
“You think they’re coming?” Lila asks, knees drawn tight to her chest. Her yoga pants are torn at the knee, blood dried brown on her shin. She’s shivering despite the sweatshirt they threw over her shoulders. Shock, probably. Or fear. “Sterling and Kiera?”
“They’re coming,” I say, making sure it sounds like fact, not hope. My phone buzzes in the corner where Asher tossed it, screen cracked but still glowing. The light pulses in stuttering flashes across the basement. I can see the text preview from here.You’re late.My stomach drops. He’s using my phone to text Sterling. Taunting them, leading them straight into whatever trap he’s already set.
“He’s drawing them here,” I say, the pieces clicking together despite the fog in my head. “The industrial district, this building—it’s a trap, not a hideout.”
