The street is starting to wake up. Lights flicker on above us. A window cracks open somewhere down the block. Voices carry, low and uncertain, people trying to decide if what they heard matters enough to get involved.
It doesn’t. Not for them.
I grab my gun, jamming into the temple of the driver knocking him out cold. The man under my boot has officially lost consciousness. I toss them and the first guy into the back of the van like throw pillows. A folder catches my eye, I open it and see that it is about her.
Olivia Martin.
I grab it and tuck it into my cut, then shut the door. I turn and go to her. She’s exactly where I put her. Unmoving. The second I crouch, everything else drops out again. Not the sounds. Not the movement around us. Just the importance of it. None of it matters the way she does lying there on cold pavement like something abandoned.
No.
That word settles in hard. Not happening.
I slide one arm under her shoulders, the other beneath her knees, lifting her carefully. Too carefully for a man who just broke four others without blinking. Her weight settles against me, light and wrong and completely unprotected in a way that flips something violent in my chest. Her head falls against my shoulder. No resistance. No awareness.
Just…gone.
My jaw tightens. I shift her closer without thinking, angling her into my chest so there’s no space between us. My body blocks her from the street, from the van, from the men on the ground, from everything.No one sees her. Not like this. My phone is already in my hand before I remember pulling it out.
I hit Logan’s name.
He answers on the first ring. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Need cleanup,” I say.
There’s a beat. Then his voices comes out sharp, “What happened?”
“Van moved.”
Silence stretches just long enough to turn ugly.
“Fuck. Where are you?”
“A couple blocks from Ambrosia.”
“Anyone else?”
I look down at her, at the way her breathing is shallow but steady, at the faint mark already rising at the side of her neck. My grip tightens. “Yeah.”
“What kind of problem we have?” Logan asks, voice already shifting into command.
“Grab attempt.”
Another pause. Shorter this time. Colder. “Club?”
“No.”
“Then why the fuck are you still there?”
I look down at her, at the way her breathing is shallow but steady, at the faint mark already rising at the side of her neck. My grip tightens. “They injected her.”
The air on the other end goes cold. “Jesus Christ,” Logan mutters. Then louder, controlled, “Is she breathing?”
“Yeah.”
“Conscious?”
“No.”
