“If you get in my way again, I won't stop at them. I’ll come for you. I’ll come to your house. I’ll put Mary in a box just like Elliot.”
John’s voice drops, all pretense gone.
“I will put you in the ground myself. You want to come at me, then do it.”
Grant's mouth twists with rage. “Keep telling yourself that. When I deliver Brooke and Seth, you will be standing there with nothing. And when I decide you go next, nobody will step in.”
John gives a low, humorless laugh. “You haven’t delivered anything. You lost the hotel. You lost the manor. You lost your brother. Stop boasting and start finishing. Until then, you’re just noise.”
The line goes dead.
Grant lowers the phone and feels his hand finally steady. He puts it away and pulls out his department handset, the one tied to the detective badge he has bought.
He opens the bulletin system and pulls up the files on Seth Kincaid and Brooke Sinclair. He adds their suspected roles in the Everspring Hotel massacre, the Portland party shooting, the warehouse mutilation, and the other bodies that will never hit a public report. He tags them as primary suspects in multiple homicides, kidnappings, and organized dismemberment. He notes their history of escaping secure locations and killing armed opponents.
He writes the classification.
Seth Kincaid and Brooke Sinclair are to be considered a psychotic serial killer couple with extreme risk to officers and civilians.
He sets the alert to nationwide. He selects every distribution list he can touch, including city departments, county agencies, state patrol, federal task forces, and cross border partners.
Under engagement protocol he types exactly what he wants.
Officers should treat both suspects as active lethal threats. Use of lethal force upon contact is authorized. Attempted capture should only occurwhen overwhelming tactical advantage exists. If that advantage doesn’t exist, officers are ordered to shoot to stop and are permitted to shoot to kill.
He attaches the warehouse coordinates, the time stamp on the burner message, and a brief description of the scene that will make any cop pay attention.
Then he sends it.
Confirmations start rolling in. Departments acknowledge receipt. Task forces log it. Liaison units tag it active.
Grant locks the phone and leans against the hood of his car. The engine ticks in the cold. The sky over the city looks calm.
Brooke Sinclair is alive.
Seth Kincaid is breathing.
Now every badge in the country has permission to end that, but Grant intends to end them first.
Chapter 54
Seth
Brooke’s voice breaks above me.
My head is still between her thighs. She lies on her back across the bed with her thighs draped over my shoulders while my hands hold her hips in place. The sheets are twisted beneath her and her fingers are buried in my hair while my tongue moves slowly across her clit.
Her hips twitch against my mouth.
I hum quietly against her and let the vibration roll through her while my tongue slides lower.
“Seth,” she moans.
I reach beside the bed and pick up the small vibrating toy.
She feels it the second it presses between her legs.
“Oh my—”
