Akilov didn’t yank.
He stepped sideways.
The torque ripped her free.
Her nails tore down the wood, skin splitting. She hit the floor, slid, breath punched from her lungs.
She twisted, kicked, caught his knee. He grunted but didn’t release her.
Akilov dragged her into the dark.
43
Wyatt reachedthe bottom of the stairs. His breathing was controlled. His pulse wasn’t even close. He climbed them sideways, ready to pivot at an instant’s notice, each step placed on the outside edge where the wood wouldn’t creak.
He cleared the upper hallway.
Light spilled out from the bathroom, the door wrecked, hanging sideways. The lock was blown inward, metal shredded by a close-range shot. Wood splinters fanned across the tiled floor. The door hung drunkenly from one hinge.
No Jen.
He swept the muzzle into the room, and the smell hit him. Aftershave. Glass on the floor. Fragments of the bottle glinted in the half-light.
Blood on the tile. Not much.
Enough.
The Glock 43 lay against the base of the bathtub.
His grip hardened on his gun.
He cleared the door. The shower curtain. The tub.
He knew. His gut had known since the door slammed. But training doesn’t let you skip steps. Training makes you look even when every second costs.
He’d seen worse.
This hit deeper.
The bathroom was empty.
He crouched. Read the floor. Drag marks through the glass and blood—knees, not feet. The marks led to the doorframe, where the splintered wood was gouged in parallel lines.
Fingernails.
She’d held on. Until she couldn’t.
His chest seized. He forced it back before it became a sound. Not now. Not yet. He could break later. He could break for the rest of his life if that’s what it cost.
Right now she was alive. The drag marks said alive. The fingernails in the wood said fighting.
He slipped back into the hallway, flexing his broken hand until the pain flared white and grounded him.
The house was silent except for the small settling sounds of a building that had absorbed violence—a creak in the frame, something dripping in the kitchen.
Below. Left.
A scuff. Boot sole on concrete.
