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We didn’t hesitate. The decision was made. From that second, we were all in. We spread out, keeping low as we crossed the sprawling yard, checking each direction.
Stillness echoed back, no sign of movement, no sign of life.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t feel it, that turmoil that thrashed and convulsed. A violence that held fast to the air.
And I prayed…I fucking prayed that we weren’t too late.
We all hit the front wall, pushing our backs against it, our ears tuned, listening for any sound.
Nothing.
We moved to the front door, our breaths shallow and hard, panting as we looked at each other.
This was it.
I stood and punched in a set of numbers I’d found next to the drawings into the pad at the side of the door. I held my breath, then heaved it out when the lock gave, spinning open and disengaging the security system.
“Thank you,” I mumbled under my breath.
To Brianna, I guessed.
She’d cast so many wrongs, but she’d led me here.
I pushed inside, my gun drawn, and I swiveled from left to right as I searched the entry room.
An eerie stillness echoed back, and I edged forward, attention darting in every direction.
The house was as old as the town, in Jack Harris’ family for years, though he’d had it remodeled. Everything was sleek and contemporary lines.
My crew came in behind me, coming up to my side, like they promised.
“Now where the fuck is this kitchen?” Ryder grumbled.
It was also in the journal. The diagram leading us to the kitchen where there was a room hidden at the back.
We wound around an over-the-top dining room, the whole time vigilant, on edge, breaths so shallow we were hardly breathing, keeping our footsteps quiet as we moved.
“Jackpot,” Cody said as he looked through a doorway.
The kitchen reeked of arrogance, this fucker living like royalty, and I knew he’d come from money…but this? I had a sense Jack Harris’ greed went so much deeper and darker than any of us knew.
Well, no one except for Brianna.
We eased through the kitchen, and I went directly for the door tucked off to the side of a built-in refrigerator.
I opened it and stepped into what looked like a butler’s pantry.
I moved right to where a rug had been shoved aside, revealing a hole in the floor, covered by a slat of wood.
I reached for the hook and lifted it to reveal a staircase that led down into the bowels of the house.
My stomach fisted.
Red-tinged lights lined the steps, lighting the way to the sickness below.
I knew it, without question, that she was here.
I could feel the energy that flailed in the atmosphere. That connection that called. The lure that had led me to her from the start.
The four of us quieted our feet as we edged down. Deeper and deeper. Far below where a typical basement would lie.
Finally, we came to another door.
It was locked, but this one didn’t have a code.
I glanced back at my crew. “Stand back,” I said before I fired.
Fired and fired until the wood was splintered, and I lifted my foot and kicked in the door as I hurried to change the mag on my gun.
We burst inside, smoke clouding our vision. It took a second for it to clear enough that I could make out the enormous room.
All the way across it, I found that Jack Harris had whirled around and had a gun pointed our direction.
But it was Samson standing there with his own gun drawn that nearly had me stumbling. Mind so mucked that it took me a second to realize he hadn’t gotten there first but instead was involved. I knew it with the way he stood next to the mayor. The way something vile slid into his features.
Betrayal split me through.
But I didn’t have time to let it affect me, not when I saw the four women who were facing away on their knees on the floor.
Savannah was on the right.
Rage blistered, a firestorm that consumed all thought.
“Motherfucker,” Cody wheezed as he took in the scene, while Ryder and Caleb toiled, antsy to let loose as we caught up to what clearly went down in this room.
I tried to keep it together when Jack Harris took Savannah by the hair. Not to go running across the room to get to her.
I had to play this right if I was going to get everyone out of here alive.
My jaw snapped in restraint as he jerked her around, and she cried out as he dragged her across the floor to position her in front of him, still on her knees.
I nearly pulled my trigger on the bastard when I saw her face. Bloodied and beat to shit. Her eyes nearly swollen closed. The dress she wore ripped and tattered.
Her sorrow was so stark and deep that I nearly choked on it. Like she’d already accepted this fate, thinking life was going to let her down once again.
