Page 23 of Charged By the Razorbacks

Jarek stepped closer to Tamsin. “We’re not letting you play martyr, sweetness.”

She didn’t look at him. “If I need to do something to save Naomi, then I will.”

Aleksy stepped in beside her. Close.

“Then we do this right,” he said. “And we will be either standing in front of or beside you.”

There was no give in his tone, no compromise at all. It was a line in the sand, clear and simple.

Tamsin nodded once. “Yeah, I get that. And I am not stupid enough to turn down bodyguards that shift into fuck off big boars.”

Then her gaze sharpened.

Something colder settling in.

Something that matched the weight now sitting in the room.

“They don’t get to keep Naomi,” she practically growled.

Aleksy held her gaze.

“No,” he said quietly. “They don’t.”

****

The air shifted the moment they stepped onto the site.

It wasn’t something she could see, not clearly, not in a way she could point to and explain, but it pressed against her skin all the same. Wrong. Too still in places it shouldn’t be, too quiet in ways that didn’t belong in an active structure. It prickled along her instincts, tightening something low in her chest.

Trap.

Not subtle. Not clean. Layered.

Good. She preferred it that way.

Jarek didn’t slow. Of course he didn’t.

“We’re burning time,” he muttered, already moving toward the structure.

Tamsin’s lips twitched despite herself. Reckless. Predictable. Useful.

Aleksy followed a step behind him, but not in the same way. Where Jarek pushed forward, Aleksy calculated, his gaze sweeping, mapping, absorbing everything before committing to the next step. It was quieter, more controlled—and just as dangerous.

Tamsin moved between them, not behind, not ahead, exactly where she needed to be. Her body had already shifted into something sharper, cleaner. The distraction from earlier was gone. The pull, the awareness, the complication of them—pushed down, locked away where it couldn’t interfere.

Focus.

“They’ll have her somewhere in the center of the building,” she said, her voice low, certain.

Aleksy nodded once. “Most likely in a secondary containment area.”

Jarek huffed. “Then we break it.”

No argument from her.

They didn’t take the front entrance. They never did. Aleksy reached the side panel and overrode it in seconds, the lock disengaging with a quiet, almost polite click that didn’t match what waited on the other side.

The door opened, and the world snapped into motion.