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His voice came out gritty. “When I get this lid up next time, you roll onto your hip. You’re going to bear the weight for a few seconds, but you’re a badass—you can handle it. It will give me enough space to get the leverage I need. Ready?”
“Yes!”
He kicked upward. The lid cracked, and she jammed herself onto her side. The weight of the lid and whatever rested on top, trapping them inside, crushed her shoulder and thigh.
Smoke billowed in, black and oily.
“Help me push!”
Using all her strength, she put her shoulder into the action. Boxes hit the floor. The noise of flames devouring everything in their path roared in her ears.
Jennings got his arm up. In one enormous shove, he forced the lid open. He leaped out of the coffin and dragged her out behind him. Her legs wobbled, her knees like water when she saw flames licking the corner where the blaze started. Paint bubbled and melted off the wall. The ceiling was engulfed.
An explosion came from the door. They both whirled as men rushed in.
Jennings swept out an arm and threw her behind him.
His bulky shoulder obstructed her view. Then she heard Julius.
“Jesus Christ, bro. Get out—now!”
He latched on to her hand and whirled her in front of him. “Take her!”
“Livingston, go!” Julius ordered the other man who’d burst in.
Hands closed on her shoulders. She didn’t have time to glance back to see why Jennings wasn’t getting her to safety himself.
When fresh, cold air absent of toxic fumes hit her face, she filled her lungs with gulp after gulp. Then she realized the rest of her senses were going haywire. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision.
She couldn’t be staring at two men rather than three. She swung her head, searching for the man she needed just as much as the precious air filling her lungs.
Then she had her answer.
Julius bolted back inside after Jennings.
Chapter Eighteen
Wren was safe. Nothing else mattered.
Jennings held up his phone and panned it over the drugs and destruction, video recording it all before the evidence was destroyed.
He twisted from the wall of heat. Wren. He had to get to Wren. He wouldn’t be okay until she was in his—
Pain blasted through his skull. A roar hit his lips. Fury back-built like the fire that surrounded him.
Good—he needed that. He clung to it like a lifeline because he refused to pass out.
Weapon raised, he whirled and faced one of the thugs who slipped back in. Judging by the duffel bag he gripped, he’d come to rescue as many bags of drugs as possible.
At such close range, Jennings didn’t need to aim. He squeezed the trigger. The sound was almost lost under the roar of flames.
The man fell with a scream.
Another guy rushed in out of nowhere. Holding steady, Jennings prepared to take the kill shot.
Then he saw who it was and let his weapon swing to his side. “Julius!”
His brother stared at the man writhing on the floor. “Look at you, always making shit harder. Couldn’t you have just killed him? Now I have to drag him out of the burning church and save his useless ass.”
