Page 136 of The Beast

Chapter Forty

Gabriel killed the engine a half a block away and studied the broken-down building. Two vehicles in the lot—a black SUV that matched the description from the security footage, and a silver Mercedes that probably belonged to Sterling. No visible guards outside, but that didn’t mean anything. Men like Sterling didn’t leave their perimeters unprotected.

Gabriel checked his phone. Leo’s team was fifteen minutes out. The FBI was twenty, maybe more—they were mobilizing a tactical unit, which meant paperwork and protocols and all the bureaucratic bullshit that got people killed while lawyers covered their asses.

Fifteen minutes was too long. Twenty was an eternity.

Bella was in there. Every second he waited was a second something could go wrong.

He got out of the car.

The gun was a comfortable weight at his back—a Glock 19, the same model he’d trained with for years.

He moved carefully to the side entrance, gun in hand, as he checked the door. Unlocked.

Either Hart’s men were sloppy or they were setting a trap.

Gabriel didn’t care either way.

He slipped inside, moving silently through the shadows. The warehouse was cavernous—high ceilings, rusted equipment, the smell of mold and pigeon shit to give it that extra homey feel. And something chemical underneath it all.

Light filtered through grimy windows, casting everything in shades of gray.

He heard voices ahead and pressed his back against a wall, the gun held ready if they came his direction. The voices were low. Male. At least two, maybe three.

He held his breath and listened.

“We need to move.”

“Move where?”

Sterling. That was Sterling Hart’s voice.

“The feds have eyes on every port, every airport,” Sterling continued. “We try to run, we’re done.”

“But they’re out there.” The speaker had a slight accent. The Bronx, maybe. “You’re saying we just sit here and wait for them to kick down the door?”

“We have leverage,” Sterling said. “As long as we have the girl, we have options.”

Gabriel’s hands curled into fists, and the beast stirred within, hungry and eager.

Carefully—silently—he slid away from the door, then moved deeper into the warehouse, skirting pools of light, keeping to the shadows. The voices faded behind him as he worked his way toward the back of the building, where a row of doors lined the wall. Storage rooms, maybe. And wouldn’t those make handy cells?

The first two were empty. The third was locked.

Gabriel tried the handle. Solid. Industrial. The kind of lock you couldn’t kick through, not without making enough noise to bring every guard in the building running.

He pulled out his lockpick set—another skill he’d learned in the years after Aspen, when he’d had nothing to do but plan and prepare and teach himself all the ways a man could destroy another man’s world.

Thirty seconds. The lock clicked open.

He pushed the door inward, gun raised, ready for anything.

Bella was huddled against the far wall, knees pulled to her chest, face streaked with tears. When she saw him, her eyes went wide—shock, then recognition, then something that looked like a prayer answered.

“Gabe!”

His name was barely a whisper, but the love and relief behind it filled him to the brim.