Page 104 of Rafe’s Future

“Oh, I know it wasn’t you who shot him in the hand. It was Owens’ daughter. But since you’re here, and she’s not . . . do you have any idea what it was like watching my dad live with a mangled hand?” His voice grew strangely calm. “The entire thing is useless, thanks to her.”

Lena stared at him through the thick haze of pain. “She sh-should have . . . sh-shot him . . . t-twice.”

His expression turned to stone before the crazed man’s mood shifted again. “You really don’t know when to stop, do you?”

“S-so I’ve . . . heard.”

It hurt to breathe. To move. To think. But she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of begging him to stop.

Henry stood and looked down at her with a cold, entitled expression. As though her suffering brought him insurmountable joy.

Because it does.

Because he was a twisted freak who got off on other people’s pain.

“Your problem, Lena, is that you still think you’re going to win.”

His smile was pure evil, and she hated that, this time, she wasn’t sure he was wrong.

Maybe this was the one time the bad guys would win. Maybe she’d finally run out of ways to survive.

Lena’s eyes closed, sending a single tear down her cheek. Not for herself, but for the man that she loved.

Please, God. Please let him get here in time.

If he didn’t, she prayed that somehow, someday, he’d find a way to be happy. Fully and truly, the way he deserved. If it couldn’t be with her, then someone else. Someone also deserving of the love he had to give.

Until then, Lena was still alive, and she had every intention of seeing Rafe’s gorgeous face again. But he’d better hurry, because something told her Henry’s mental state was more volatile than she first believed.

“You’re coming up on the south entrance,” Alice—who was in full-Shadow mode now—spoke through Rafe’s earpiece. “Two heat signatures inside the building, west side.”

Rafe glanced through his windshield toward the dark warehouse ahead. The abandoned industrial complex stretched across several acres on the outskirts of Charlotte.

Rows of abandoned buildings stood empty. Their metal roofs and walls were speckled with rust. Windows were broken or boarded. Some were miraculously still holding strong.

Rafe tightened his grip on the wheel. “Copy.”

Digger’s voice came through next. “This is where the team splits,” he spoke from one of the team’s other two SUVs. “Falcon and Apollo will take the east side. Bones and Colt, you stick with me.”

Rafe almost smiled. “And me?”

“You go where you’re needed,” Digger replied.

His way of saying he knew exactly where Rafe would be headed.

To Lena.

The team’s vehicles rolled to a stop without headlights. Rafe and the others slipped into the shadows, moving silently in their quest for justice.

Following Slade’s orders, Falcon and Apollo went one way, while Digger, Colt, and Bones took off in another. Rafe continued straight, staying in the shadows with his weapon raised and steady.

The first guard he spotted never knew he was there. Rafe came out of the darkness, aimed his gun and pulled the trigger. The man jerked before slumping forward and hitting the ground.

One down.

“East side clear,” Falcon whispered.

Another guard stepped out from behind a loading dock to Rafe’s right. He barely had time to register the movement before Colt appeared out of nowhere and dropped him.