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The blade slid behind the tendon with practiced ease. A soft, sickening snap echoed in the basement as a high, panicked scream ripped from the man’s throat.

Jett didn’t flinch. “There it is. That’s the note I was waiting for. You’re doing great.”

The man writhed, his breath hitching as his eyes rolled back.

“Now,” Jett said, wiping the blade on a towel, “you gonna tell me what you’re feeding the deep? Or do we move to the other leg?”

I stepped forward, ready to take the man’s shoulders if Jett needed the angle. My muscles tightened, anticipation rising. There was a certain point in these sessions when you either joined in or stood back, and I’d never been much for standing back.

Before I reached him, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I frowned and pulled it free. Jett bit his lip in concentration as he positioned the blade again.

“You’re looking at your phone right now?” he said. “You usually love this part.”

The drifter screamed when the knife went in, but the sound barely registered. My eyes were on the message lighting up my screen.

Ryder: somebody broke into ur girl’s room.

I tightened my grip on the phone until the casing protested. Jett looked over, catching the shift in my expression. “What happened?”

“I have to go.” My voice came out more panicked than I intended. “Ryder says someone got into Sienna’s room.”

Jett’s face changed immediately. “How?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.”

The drifter whimpered, sobbing around what was left of his tendons, but the sound felt distant. Unimportant. The room had narrowed to one thought, one direction.

Sienna.

I turned toward the stairs. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah,” Jett murmured, already reaching for another tool. “Let me know what you find.”

I grunted but didn’t look back. I took the steps two at a time, the drifter’s screams rising and falling behind me as if the basement itself were swallowing them whole.

CHAPTER 24

SIENNA

“You called him?” I hissed at Ryder the second Sterling filled the doorway like someone had summoned a very angry wilderness deity.

Ryder didn’t even have the decency to look sheepish. He just smirked, leaning one shoulder against the faded yellow wallpaper. “I needed backup,” he said, shrugging one broad shoulder. “And he’s the…backup-iest.”

Sterling wasn’t listening to us. He was too busy scanning my room like it was a crime scene. Which, frankly, it kind of was.

His gaze swept over everything, while his jaw flexed hard enough I was surprised the bone didn’t crack straight through the skin.

Ryder nudged me with his elbow. “See? He’s an integral part of this operation.”

“Integral?” I whispered harshly. “You’re the sheriff, and there’s no one actually in here. Backup was not needed.”

Ryder continued to grin.

Sterling stalked toward me, his eyes locked on mine, and something hot and electric slid down my spine in a way I absolutely did not have the mental bandwidth to deal with.

“You okay?” he asked.

It was just two simple words, but somehow they sounded indecent. Like he was propositioning me for sex right that very second, in front of the sheriff.