Page 143 of Vows of Ruin

But when the three of us look up again, everything stops. Riot swears loudly. Max goes rigid beside me. Torque whispers curses behind us. And me, my lungs stop working.

“Please,” I whisper, voice cracking. “Please tell me that is not a bomb strapped to my husband.”

But it is. A vest. Wires. Metal casing. A timed device strapped across Liam’s torso. And a light is blinking softly. Slow. Patient. Waiting.

Riot moves closer, eyes narrowing, scanning the vest, the wiring, the floor, the ceiling, everything. He’s gone deadly quiet. When Riot is quiet, it means we’re in real trouble.

Max steps toward him, “What do you see?”

Riot doesn’t answer at first. He crouches, eyes locked on the floor just in front of Liam, and then the wall.

His voice, when it finally comes, is calm in a way that makes my stomach drop. “This room is a kill box.”

Torque swears behind us, vicious. Max goes still.

Riot points with two fingers, never touching anything, tracing invisible lines across the floor. “Tripwire there. Pressure plate under the bedpost. Another one under that shitty rug. Probably a motion sensor near the bookshelf, disguised in the vents.” He pauses, leaning slightly to look at Liam’s left side. “And the vest? That’s military-grade. Not homemade.”

My blood goes cold. He’s right. Of course he’s right. Sebastian didn’t improvise this. He designed it.

Riot keeps talking, voice shifting into that technical, clipped tone he only uses around bombs. “Three triggers minimum. Maybe four. This isn’t just a suicide vest strapped to him—it’s part of the room. Meaning if you cut the wrong wire? It blows. If you pull the wrong strap? It blows. If someone breathes too hard and hits a laser trip-line? It blows.”

I stare at Liam’s chest, at the blinking light that feels like it’s ticking down my sanity.

Max steps in front of me again, grounding me. “Sparrow,” he murmurs. “Let him work.”

I nod, but my lungs feel too small.

Riot stands, rolling his shoulders, eyes still cataloging every angle. “I need thirty seconds to map this,” he says. “Nobody move. Nobody tries to talk to him. Don’t take another step inside that threshold.”

Torque mutters. “Thirty seconds is a lifetime right now.”

Riot doesn’t look away from the bomb. “Then pray he’s got thirty seconds in him.”

I swallow hard, nodding even though everything inside me feels like shattering glass. “Riot,” I whisper, “You can disarm it, right?”

He glances up at me, not reassuring, not soft, honest. “I can try,” he says. “But this is Sebastian. He wouldn’t have designed this to be disarmed.”

The words hit like a punch. My vision blurs. But I force myself to stand still. To breathe. To not run to Liam and set off everything in this nightmare.

Max’s hand finds mine and squeezes once, hard. “We’re getting him back,” he says, voice steady even if his eyes betray him.

Riot kneels again, fingers hovering inches above the tripwire. “Give me silence,” he orders. No hesitation. No emotion. Just a man staring down death and treating it like a mechanic’s puzzle. Torque steps behind me. Wrecker lowers his weapon, watching Liam like he might wake up any second. I stand there, staring at one of the men I love strapped to a bomb in a replica of my childhood bedroom. Silent. Shaking. Breaking. Until finally…

Riot mutters, “Okay. I’ve got something.”

I hold my breath.

Riot is still mapping the triggers when a soft sound breaks the silence. A quiet click. Metal shifting. Wood scraping.

Riot’s head snaps up. “Everyone—stay still—something just—”

A figure steps out from behind the bookshelf. Not from a door. Not from a visible panel. From the shadows themselves. The nightmare. Sebastian. He moves like the floor is his, careful, precise, stepping only on specific tiles, like a dance he memorized years before he built this trap.

Torque and Wrecker raise their gun immediately.

“NO!” Riot snaps. “If he falls, we ALL go. LOWER THEM!”

They obey, but barely.