Page 89 of Dark Reunion

He'd gotten lucky, having found Yasmine, and luckier that she loved him. His heart was full. Dean closed his eyes and waited.

MAEVE

The corridor shook, and Maeve stumbled sideways into the wall, but Wolf caught her and held her steady.

Sprinklers hissed overhead, turning smoke into a damp veil that stung her eyes and tasted like metal. Muzzle flashes strobed along cracked plaster. The floor was a slick of dust, water, blood, and things she didn’t want to look at.

Maeve ran through it anyway—black hoodie up, gun held tight, boots finding purchase, because there was no other choice. They’d found Ricco almost as soon as they stepped inside, helping servants and other innocents escape the blasts.

“Where’s Dean?” she yelled over the noise.

“They took him to the office, but all of Carlos’s guards are in the hallway, protecting the door,” Ricco yelled back.

“I’ll take care of them, you get to Dean,” Wolf said.

“I’m coming with you.” Ricco waved over one of the guards a little further down the hall. “Instruct all those coming this way to head to the tunnels and stay there.” The guard nodded.

“Let’s go, I’ll take you through a shortcut.” Ricco started marching down the hall.

Wolf protected Maeve’s left, Ricco and another loyalist covered their rear, their bullets disciplined, precise. Nothing went to waste.

“Two more,” Ricco called, tilting his chin toward the bend. Wolf answered with a nod. He got low and slid out into the next hallway, two shots, perfectly aimed. Silence folded back over them.

“We’re good,” he said, slowly standing up.

It had been Wolf’s idea to distract the guards and separate them, and it had worked. He and Ricco handled the setup, but the whole time Maeve only cared about getting through the door to Dean and killing Carlos.

The office door waited at the far end, old wood set into concrete, paint blistered by heat. The four of them moved slowly, not sure how many were still inside the office. Wolf pointed to the smear of red that came out of the office and then disappeared.

“Someone was injured and they were carried away,” Wolf explained.

Wolf’s eyes found Maeve’s. The look wasn’t a question. It was a promise, we finish this tonight.

“You ready?” Wolf asked, and the small group of them nodded. He glanced at Maeve one more time, his eyes saying I love you and always will.

Checking the knob, she looked to Ricco who gave a nod. Maeve took a deep breath to steady herself. Her hands didn’t shake. Not for this. Not anymore.

Wolf kicked.

The door didn’t open so much as it surrendered. It slammed inward, ricocheting off the wall, and the room came at them in fragments as they burst inside. Smoke curling in through shattered glass, papers burning scattered on the floor, a desk lay on its side. Dean was chained to a chair at the room’s center. His eyes closed, but his lips were moving, like he was speaking to someone only he could see. He was bruised, but not dead.

Five guards remained, and they were all surrounding Carlos, the snivelling piece of shit he was, crouched down, hiding behind the wall of flesh. He looked at them with shock and then a fiery rage.

“You should’ve stayed lost.”

Time seemed to stand still. For one heartbeat she was five again, bare feet on cold tile, the warm sounds of her home, laughter tickling her ears. The smell of cigars braided with rich food, and the smell of a crackling fire. Her mother’s soft voice singing to her or reading a bedtime story, her father kissing her forehead goodnight, and then…fear.

The smell of leather as a glove was clamped over her face, ropes biting into her wrists, and tears stained her cheeks. In a blink, all her memories came rushing back. Parents she’d long forgotten or blocked out, the fear she felt during the kidnapping. How she longed for home. The only bright spot was Dean.

The world tunneled. Carlos’s face, her hands, the old helplessness snarling to be let back in.

“Maeve!” Wolf’s voice barely cut through as she moved without thinking.

Guards raised their weapons. Wolf and Ricco dropped them, bullets flying around the room, but Maeve didn’t care. Her eyes were on Carlos. Only him.

A guard lunged from behind a low wall. Ricco’s shot clipped his shoulder, and Wolf finished him off. Maeve dove behind the overturned desk and peered around it at Carlos, their eyes locking amid the chaos.

Carlos was covering his head as blood splattered the walls and his guards dropped around him. He was a coward at heart.