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“She’s here,” Rafe grits. “That bitch has the nerve to show up again. Well, this time she won’t get away.”

The woman who put a blade into him darts across the yard. Rafe checks his magazine and presses his back against the wall.

“Rafe,” Saint shouts. “Hold the line. Don’t go anywhere.”

“That bitch fucking stabbed me,” he snarls. “I’m going after her.”

“Not on your own, Rafe,” I yell. “We secure the main gate first and then take the fucker down together.”

The Crowe butcher slips behind the barn and a knot twists in my stomach. Rafe has never listened to anyone, and never let anyone off with wronging him.

Dane fists Rafe’s jacket, keeping him close. “She wants ya to follow her. You know what she did last time.”

“And this time I’ll put a bullet in her.”

Rafe glares at Dane, fury burning in his eyes. “This is my chance.”

Before anyone can stop him, he runs after her.

“Rafe!” I shout. “Get back here!”

“My boy can handle himself,” Ma says, coming up beside me as Rafe disappears out of sight.

Gunfire tears across the yard. Ma and I both take cover behind Dane’s Ford.

One of our lads sprints across the paddock. “They’re through the lower fields!”

Shay looks toward Saint. “They’re trying to flank us.”

“If they get behind us, we’re finished.” Saint points across the yard. “Shay, with me.”

He turns to Dane. “You hold the gate. Don’t let anybody in.”

Saint looks at me next. “Stay with Ma and don’t let anyone in the barn.”

I nod before he and Shay disappear through the machinery sheds with half a dozen armed men.

Overhead, the thwapping of chopper blades reaches us through the gunfire.

It flies low over the lower fields, the dark shape banking over Black Heath.

“Incoming!” Dane roars.

Out of nowhere, a petrol bomb sails through the rain and smashes against the side of the main barn.

Flames rush across the timber where spilled fuel catches the dry hay stacked inside. For one suspended heartbeat, fire clings to the wall in a thin orange sheet before it surges upwards.

Keira.

The second I move, Ma snares my arm and wrenches me backward.

“No.”

I angle into her. “Keira’s in the hayloft. I have to get her out.”

“The bitch can burn.”

For a second, I think the roar of the fire has twisted what I heard.