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“You always walk like you don’t exist?” I gestured to him. “I barely heard you.”
His eyebrows just lifted as he started past me, but I slammed a hand against his chest to stop him.
A harsh, shuddering breath ripped from him. “Get your—”
“Shh—shut up,” I hissed, my eyes wide but unseeing as I struggled to think—to breathe—around everything else.
Blood was always strongest to me, and the wind was blowing it toward me. But I was sure...I was so goddamn sure...
I slowly looked behind me to where Kieran was crouched beside one of the bodies, staring intently at it, then past him to the tree line again.
“I don’t think we’re done,” I said under my breath as I released Jentry.
“What do you mean?”
“You in this with us, five-oh?”
Another harsh, irritated exhale left Jentry. “I’m not in anything with y’all. But if you’re asking if I just killed a bunch of people for y’all, then, yeah...I did that. Because this protects my sister in ways I failed to do for a long time. This protects my family and innocent people—something I will always stand behind. But I’m not one of you.”
“Great speech from a guy who was ready to turn us in this morning and is now standing comfortably beside us after being thrown into a mafia ambush.”
“Four tours overseas prepare you for unexpected shit like this.”
Fuck if I didn’t hate that I understood that and him a little more.
I cleared my throat and pretended to check my rifle over, switching out the magazines as I did. “Well, I’m about ninety-nine percent sure we’re being watched from the tree line you’re facing.”
Jentry didn’t ask how I knew; he just lifted his gun enough to let me know what he was talking about when he said, “I’m out.”
Pulling one of my handguns from my holsters, I handed it to him and said, “Now you aren’t.”
As soon as I saw Maverick coming around the far side of the lawn, I subtly gestured in the direction I’d continued being drawn to. If anyone was actually waiting in the trees and watching me, at most, it would look like I was gesturing to Kieran.
But Maverick would understand.
And as soon as he fell back and started drifting toward the tree line, I turned and started toward Kieran with Jentry beside me.
“You need to see this,” Kieran muttered as we got closer.
“Not yet,” I said on a breath and watched Kieran change in an instant. Everything went on high alert as he stood, palming knives like they were extensions of him.
But I faltered.
Because I saw what he wanted me to see. Just a glimpse, but it was enough.
I didn’t know the man Kieran had been crouched next to, but I knew the one beside him. Even if I hadn’t, the gray symbol tattooed into his neck would’ve been enough.
He was a Borello. Ex. One of the ones who’d chosen to find a new family when Dare disbanded.
“Shit.” I cleared my throat, head shaking as I forced the sight and realization from my mind. As I tried calling back that hyperfocus. “Trees,” I said after clearing my throat again. “Think there are more in there, right in front of us.”
“Think they’re everywhere,” Kieran countered, a whisper of rage leaking into his next words when he said, “That’s an ex-Holloway at my feet.” With a barely-there glance my way, he needlessly informed me, “They’ll know how to get inside.”
My finger twitched closer to the trigger as my heart slowed to that hard, steady rhythm.
Stop them from getting in.
Stop them from getting Willow.
