His gray eyes were hard and fierce, dude worn and burly. He jutted his chin. “You clear?”
“We’re clear.”
He looked behind us again before he worked through the rest of the locks and edged the door open a fraction.
The second we stepped inside the gloomy house, he worked back through the locks and then turned to look at us. Could almost see the weight of a thousand lives riding on his shoulders.
“She hasn’t shown?” The question grunted from my throat on a vicious plea.
His head shook. “No, Richard. I’m sorry. She hasn’t.”
I scrubbed a palm over my face, and I started to pace, only to stall when I felt the movement in the hall.
Horror and misery.
It bound and shook and filled the room with dread.
Slowly, I shifted around.
Liliana Marin stood in the archway.
Stringy black hair tied in a twist.
Face still thin but so much healthier than the night I’d brought her here.
Eyes the same color as Violet’s staring me down. Though they’d been dimmed. The hope and joy drained from the depths that had once sang of mischief and playfulness.
My fault.
My fault.
That old agonized guilt wailed and screamed.
Knowing there was nothing I could ever do to take it back.
No way to erase her scars.
Only thing I could do was give her this.
Freedom.
Pray to God in it would be a future.
“Have you heard anything?” she begged.
My lips trembled at the side. “No.”
She pressed a hand over her mouth, and she dropped her head, trying to subdue the sob that ripped up her throat. “Oh god. Richard, I can’t—”
I surged forward. “We’re getting her back.”
She looked up at me. “What if we don’t?”
My spirit howled, refusing to even contemplate the idea, and those nerves were scattering over me again when my phone buzzed. I hurried to check it.
Unknown: Told you I was gonna end you, bitch. That I was gonna end you and all your friends.
Panic seized me when I read the words, and my widened eyes flew to Royce and then to Kade before I rushed for Lily, shouting, “Get down!”
I dove at her, wrapping my arms around her waist.
We toppled to the floor, and I scrambled around to create a shield.
The window at the front of the house shattered as a spray of bullets flew through, same as the one in the kitchen in the next room.
I reached around to rip out my gun.
I was wrong.
We hadn’t been walking into a trap. It was an ambush.
A crash banged against the front door. Wood splintered and the chains creaked. Kade whipped around with his rifle drawn.
Royce pushed his back up against the wall, his gun drawn as he started to angle down the hall. “Where are the rest of the girls?” he hissed.
“Back room,” Kade growled.
Rhys was behind him, both of them heading toward the back room to protect what we’d always wanted to save.
These innocent women who’d been stripped of it.
The front door busted open at the same second a man burst through the window.
Gunshots rang out.
Deafening.
Me pulling the trigger and fucking hating it, but still knowing this was the duty I’d promised myself to.
The promise that I would stand up and fight.
That I would protect.
No matter the cost.
The guy went down in front of me, falling face-first to the floor. Blood pooled around him, saturating the white carpet.
Lily screamed.
Horror and fear.
“I’ve got you, Lily. I’ve got you. Just stay down. Don’t move.”
I looked to Kade who’d taken down the man who’d kicked in the door, and he angled his head that way and pressed himself tight to the wall as he peeked out, clearly anticipating there would be more.
Two guys came rushing in just as I was climbing to my feet.
Kade fired.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
They fell.
And I was gasping, trying to see through the storm of agony and chaos that filtered through the air.
But all that air was gone when the dust cleared, and Violet was suddenly there.
Her body pinned against the monster who dragged her inside with a gun pushed up under her chin. An arm locked around her chest as she struggled to find footing. Her hands clawing at his arm.
Thunderbolt eyes found me in the turmoil.
Terror.
Sheer, absolute terror.
So gutting that I felt it stab through the middle of me.
The girl whimpered, and then she choked back a sob when she saw Lily behind me on the floor.
I’m sorry, she mouthed.
My head slowly shook.
In caution.
In encouragement.
In this stunning determination that we were going to overcome this.
Our love was too big for those who wanted to steal it.
Two more men entered through the window, and I could feel another approaching from where he’d come in through the kitchen.
I straightened, gun drawn, turning slow, and Kade was doing the same as we were surrounded on all sides.
“You see what happens when you make the wrong choices, Richard Ramsey?” the bastard sneered, wrenching Violet closer to him, glaring at me from over her shoulder. “You were offered the world. Everything you could ever want. Money. Fame. Fortune. Your every fantasy.”
I wanted to spit.
Curse that fucking twisted thought-process. These sick bastards who used and abused and debased.
He huffed the air from his nose like I was the one who disgusted him. “And you had to go and make a mockery of it. Now we’re going to have to take it from you.”
Violence skated across my flesh.
Singeing.
My hand trembled on the trigger, and I gulped, trying to keep aim, Kade tracking behind me.
He kept glancing at me, and I wondered just how many of these motherfuckers he could take out if I made a move.
If I just started running straight for them.
A decoy.
A distraction.
As long as Violet and Lily got to safety it would be a small price to pay.
He gave me a slight shake of his head.
A warning.
It was too risky.
“And then there’s the small matter of
