Page 11 of Savage Surrender

Bianca

Tristan presses a wet cloth to my cheek and wipes away the guard’s blood like I’m a child who fell on the playground. “Hold still, sweetheart.”

I step out of his reach and head for the fireplace.

“Bianca.” Freddie follows with his palms raised, his voice like he’s bartering with a tiger. “Baby, sit down. Let us look at you.”

The iron poker hangs beside the grate. Its handle is cool and solid, the weight perfect when I wrap my hand around it. All four alphas are collared. The guards just threatened to take me away from them. When I blink, Mom is still sitting on the couch with mascara beneath her eyes, saying a few semesters. A fun fling. She didn’t consent to what Montgomery did. She still lied to me. I hugged her before I left, and I’m still so fucking angry I could bite through another ear.

I walk toward the hallway leading to our bedrooms - the rooms where Montgomery watches us sleep and fuck and fall apart. The first camera is mounted above the doorframe, a tiny black eye blinking red. I swing the poker like I’m driving a nail through its skull. Plastic shatters and skips across the floor.

The sound is so satisfying that I immediately want to do it again.

Their hesitation ripples through the bond. The guards just threatened to separate us, and destroying the cameras might hand them an excuse. But if they want to take me, they will. Being obedient hasn’t protected us yet. “We’re not fucking hamsters.” I spent the entire drive screaming those words inside my head. “We’re not fucking pets.”

I destroy the next camera, then another. One sits too high, and the poker buries itself in the drywall beneath it. Plaster crumbles onto the floor. The living-room camera is within reach. I smash that one and take out the smoke detector in case a lens is hidden inside. A fire is not currently high on my list of problems.

“Bianca, stop.” Weller catches my arm. I spin with the poker raised, and he releases me.

“Stop? Why? So I can sit on the couch while you handle everything behind my back?” My voice cracks, which only makes me angrier. “He watched me grow up. He watched me suffer. He watched me kill. He has every data point anyone could collect on me. He stole years we should’ve been together. You want me to stop?”

“That’s not what I meant. We don’t want them to take⁠—”

“Then help me. If you won’t help, move. I’ll handle it.”

Owen reaches up, hooks his fingers through the ceiling vent, and tears down the entire grille. A camera drops onto the floor. “There’s another by the thermostat,” he says.

That’s all it takes. Tristan drags a chair beneath the camera I couldn’t reach. Freddie rips the bookshelf camera out of its mount with his bare hands. Weller stands still for half a second longer, one arm tight against his side, then crosses to the window, finds the lens inside the curtain rod, and crushes it under his heel.

We tear the room apart together. No alarm. No guards. Nothing.

I’m still holding the poker when Owen catches my wrist and pries open my fingers. The zip ties and lighter sit in my palm. I forgot I was clutching them. Red lines mark my skin where the plastic dug in.

“Where did you get those?”

“Off the guard.” I shrug.

Tristan laughs, low and surprised. “You picked his pocket while you were biting off his ear?”

“I’m very good at multitasking, Tris.”

There’s one more stolen item they don’t know about. It isn’t on me. It’s damn near inside me at this point, and I need to retrieve it before it works its way somewhere no phone was designed to go. “I’ll be back. I need the bathroom.”

I’m pulling out the burner when the door opens and Freddie slips inside like he’s attached to my spine. “Holy fuck.” He looks at the phone, then at me, then back at the phone. “Where was that?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Bianca.”

“You really, truly don’t want to know, Sunshine.”

His mouth opens and closes. “Was it⁠—”

“Needed to hide it somewhere the guards weren’t allowed to search.”

I turn on the phone. Winston’s number is saved under DOMINO’S, because apparently my brother found time to become a comedian. I type a message.

testing.