Max had hauled boxes from the moving truck Andy had rented—while Jac had set up Andy’s computer and internet system.
Emery had played with the girls in the backyard. It had been a normal, if rare, off day for them all that had ended with a backyard barbecue—and Andy’s neighbor coming by to check out the pretty redheaded lady wandering around the place.
The man had wanted Jac’s attention. He’d been persistent.
Max and Andy had enjoyed chasing him off and teasing her about it the next day.
Beautifully normal. It had ended with three little girls and a baby eating hot dogs and marshmallows.
Andy would never have that again. Nothing Max could do would give that to him again.
He documented the basement, then stepped further inside. Andy was meticulous, everything was in its place.
The wires were out of place.
Max moved closer.
There was a timer. And it was armed. It clicked down another eight seconds before his mind processed what he was seeing. Seventy-two seconds remained.
Only seventy-two damned seconds.
Max ran, yelling for the other men to get the hell out of the house.
He grabbed the director of PAVAD from where the man was studying photos in the hallway. They were the furthest from the exits. “Out! Bomb in the basement! Everyone out now! Get outside!”
Both men ran.
They hit the backyard together. Forty feet from where Andy’s body lay.
Next to the same damned grill they’d used to make the girls’ dinner that day.
Fire slammed into Max’s back. He went down.
Max knocked into the director, the force of the blast sending both men to the ground.
He stayed where he was, the ringing in his ears mixing with the roar of the explosion behind him.
Men were yelling. Moving.
But not the man next to him.
Max coughed, opened his eyes, and looked, afraid of what he’d see.
Ed sprawled unconscious next to him, blood at his damned temple. A roar sounded behind them again.
Max didn’t stop to think. They were too damned close.
He grabbed the director, pulled the smaller man over his shoulder, and ran.
Just ran.
To the field behind the now burning house, fifty yards away. The house on the left of Andy’s, unoccupied, was engulfed now. People were yelling from somewhere. Neighbors, coming running.
They’d have to keep them back somehow.
Max lowered his boss to the ground as the rest of the men that had been there crowded around them. He checked quickly: Hellbrook, Mick Brockman, three Lorcan brothers. Max and the director.
They were missing one. There had been eight of them.
Max counted again. “Where’s Mal?”
Mick bellowed his older brother’s name, then swore when he saw the other man lying a few feet from the back porch. Mick and Sebastian ran back and lifted Malachi, almost dragging him away from the flames.
Malachi was mostly walking on his own, but it looked like he’d taken a hit to the shoulder.
Max turned back to the director. Ed was still out.
Hell, it had probably only been a minute or two since the blast.
Seth held a hand to his own bleeding forehead. “We’re all out. But every last shred of evidence was blown to the damned moon now. All we got is what was on our phones.”
“Even the computers were in my car,” Sebastian said, lowering Malachi to the grass next to the director. “It’s burning now; I’d parked it nearest the drive. I don’t know if Carrie will be able to do anything with what is left of the hard drives after the fire’s out.”
They had nothing. Son of a bitch.
Except for the memory cards in the pocket of Max’s Brynlock sweatshirt. And that might be absolutely nothing.
“We need to get him to the hospital,” Hellbrook said, leaning over his father-in-law. The director was starting to come around. “I think he was struck in the head. Malachi needs checked out, too.”
“Who all has injuries?” Max took stock of their people. He had some burns on his back and his arms, but nothing a cold shower and some burn gel wouldn’t fix. Seth was bleeding from a wound near his hairline. Sin Lorcan stood there with a damned piece of shrapnel lodged in his right shoulder, looking like the coldly invincible hunter that he was.
Nothing appeared to phase that guy.
Malachi was propped up against the damned side of Andy’s garden shed. Hellbrook was covered in ash. They all were. But they were all there. Alive.
They’d gotten damned lucky.
Had Malachi or the director been any closer to the house when it blew, Max probably wouldn’t have been able to say that at all.
“Let’s get the director the hospital. We’ll regroup when we can.”
He looked back, to where Andy’s body had been.
It was gone. He’d been right outside his back door.
There would be nothing left of his friend but ashes.
And three little girls who deserved to know what had happened to the father who had loved them so much.
6
Jac rolled over, grabbed her gun instinctively, and checked the clock next to the bed. Someone was pounding on her door, at two a.m. That could never be good.
Jac checked on the little girl sleeping in her guest room—Emery was an extremely deep sleeper—then crept to the front door. She peeked out the window carefully. Jac never used the peephole. She’d seen people get shot that way.
Jac flipped on the porchlight when she saw who was standing there. She’d recognized the tall, muscled man illuminated in the nearby streetlight immediately. Jac threw open the door.
Her former partner stood there, covered in soot, eyes burning with a pain she couldn’t identify. She immediately tensed even more. “Max, what—?”
Before he could answer, or she could say anything else, he grabbed her. Just grabbed her.
Max’s hands went around her waist and he jerked. He scooped her right off her feet and into his arms. His strong, perfect, smoke-saturated arms.
Jac found her face pressed into his rock-hard chest.
At any other time, she would have enjoyed it.
He reeked. She coughed.
He just wrapped his arms around her even tighter and held her. Rocked. Right there on her front porch. Shaking and holding her as
