Page 396

The front door rattles.

I jump so hard my chair scrapes backward.

Cole is on his feet instantly.

His hand goes beneath his jacket.

“Easy,” Doc calls from the kitchen. “That's probably Wolf.”

Wolf?

Before I can ask, someone pounds on the door.

“Shaw, open the damn door.”

Cole looks through the window before unlocking it.

One man walks in.

Then another.

Then another.

And another.

I stare.

Good Lord.

They're all huge.

The first man has dark hair and the kind of presence that fills a room before he says a word.

His eyes go immediately to me.

Then Sophie.

Then the blood on my sleeve.

His expression hardens.

“Who's hurt?”

“Claire Donovan,” Doc says as he returns carrying a plate piled with pancakes, eggs, and bacon. “Nathan Donovan's widow.”

Every man in the room changes.

Not dramatically.

But I see it.

Recognition.

“Damn,” one of them murmurs.

The first man looks at Cole.

“You want to tell us what's going on?”