Chapter Twenty-Seven
NITRO
Nothing good ever comes from a call at this hour.
“Yeah,” I rasp, sitting up so fast the room spins.
“Nitro.” It’s Martha, the night nurse at Sunset Manor.
Her voice is wrong.
All wrong.
Shaking. Terrified.
“There’s a fire. The building, oh God, the building is—”
The rest of her words disappear into a wall of sound. Screaming. Sirens. The roar of something terrible and hungry.
My blood instantly turns to ice.
“Queenie,” I choke out, already moving, my legs carrying me before my brain fully processes what’s happening. With my phone pressed to my ear, I grab my jeans, yanking them on with one hand. “Where is she? Is she out?”
“I don’t… I can’t… There are so many people, and the smoke—”
Suddenly, the line goes dead. My phone nearly cracks in my grip, and for half a second, I can’t move.
I can’t fucking breathe.
The clubhouse walls close in, and all I can see is Queenie’s face. Her smile when I visited yesterday. The way she’d squeezed my hand and told me she was proud of me. The woman who raised me. Who sacrificed everything for me. Who taught me what love actually means.
And she’s in a burning building.
“No!” The word tears out of me, primal and raw, and then I find the strength to move again, stumbling into the hallway, my hands shaking so badly I can barely pull up my contacts. I hit Sin’s number.
It rings once. “Brother?” His voice is alert immediately. Sin doesn’t sleep deeply. Presidents never do.
“Sunset Manor is on f-fire.” My voice cracks. I don’t care. “Queenie’s inside. I need… I need everyone. Now. NOW!”
“All right, wake everyone, we’ll ride with you.”
“I’m not waiting.”
“Nitro—”
I end the call, heading for the clubhouse door, not waiting for my brothers to flank me. Each second Queenie is in that building is a second too long.
I’m out the door and on my bike before I’ve fully registered, grabbing my keys. The engine roars to life, a familiar thunder that usually soothes me, but tonight it’s noise. Background static to the screaming in my head.
Move.
Faster.
FASTER.
The Vegas streets blur past, nothing but streaks of neon and darkness.
I don’t see red lights. I don’t see other cars.
I don’t see anything but the road ahead and the destination I have to reach.
My speedometer climbs, sixty, seventy, eighty through a thirty-five zone.
I don’t fucking care. They can arrest me later.
They can throw me in jail. None of it matters if Queenie dies because I didn’t act fast enough.
My bike screams around corners, my tires protesting. My heart hammers against my ribs like it’s trying to escape my chest. Every breath tastes like copper and fear.
Please. Please, God, or whoever the fuck is listening. Please let her be okay.
I’m not a praying man. Haven’t been since I was a kid and my parents died despite every desperate prayer I sent up. But I’m praying now, begging and making deals with whatever deity might be listening.
Take me instead. Take anything. Everything. Just let Queenie live.
I hear them before I see them, the scream of other engines behind me. My brothers. They’re trying to catch up, but I’m too far ahead. Too fast. Too desperate.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I ignore it.
Nothing matters except reaching her.
The smell hits me first.
Three blocks…
I can taste the smoke. Acrid and toxic. The kind of smell that coats your lungs and doesn’t let go. My stomach lurches, but I swallow it down.
No time for that.
No time for anything but moving forward.
Two blocks…
The sky ahead glows orange, an unnatural dawn against the pre-morning darkness.
One block…
I round the corner, and the world ends.
Sunset Manor is an inferno.
Flames pour from the windows like liquid fire, reaching up into the night sky with greedy fingers.
The entire west wing is engulfed, and the fire is spreading, crawling across the roof, eating through walls, devouring everything in its path.
The heat hits me even from here, a physical barrier that makes my skin prickle.
Emergency vehicles are everywhere. Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, all of them with lights spinning, painting the scene in hellish reds and blues. Firefighters are shouting, dragging hoses, working with desperate efficiency.
But it’s not enough.
It’s not fast enough.
People are scattered across the parking lot and lawn. Residents in nightgowns and robes, wrapped in blankets, coughing, crying. Paramedics move between them, checking vitals, administering oxygen. I scan the crowd frantically, searching for white hair, for that tiny frame, for any sign of her.
Nothing.
Terror claws up my throat.
I don’t turn off my bike.
Don’t even think about it.
I’m off and running before it’s fully stopped, the engine still rumbling as it tips sideways onto the concrete.
I don’t hear it fall.
I don’t fucking care.
“QUEENIE!” Her name rips out of me, loud enough to hurt. “QUEENIE!”
A paramedic tries to stop me. “Sir, you need to stay back.”
I shove past him. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that he stumbles. I scan faces, counting heads, running calculations that all end in the same horrifying conclusion.
She’s not here.
She’s still inside.
“No, no, no, NO!” My legs are moving again, carrying me toward the building. Toward the flames. “Queenie!”
“Sir…” A firefighter appears in front of me, hands up. “You can’t go in there!”
“My grandmother is inside.”
“We’re doing everything we can—”
“It’s not enough!” The words come out half roar, half sob. “She’s on the second floor, east wing, room 214. I have to—”
“You’ll die if you go in there.” His voice is firm but not unkind. He’s probably had this conversation before and probably lost count of how many desperate family members he’s had to restrain. “The structure is unstable. The smoke alone will kill you before you—”
“I don’t give a fuck!”
I’m not listening anymore.
I can’t listen.
There’s only one voice in my head, and it’s Queenie’s.
Every conversation we’ve ever had.
Every piece of advice.
Every ‘I love you, sweetheart,’ and ‘you’re my boy,’ and ‘make me proud.’
I can’t lose her.
I won’t lose her.
The firefighter’s grip tightens on my arm. “Sir, I understand, but—”
Behind me, engines roar. Tires squeal. My brothers have arrived.
“Nitro!” Sin’s voice cuts through the chaos. “Brother, don’t—”
But I’m already moving.
I twist out of the firefighter’s grip, a move Ghost taught me years ago, and I sprint, full speed, directly at the building. Smoke billows out of the main entrance in thick, black clouds. The heat is overwhelming, like standing too close to a bonfire, but I don’t slow down.
“Nitro!” Ghost calls out. “Stop!”
Multiple sets of hands grab at me. My brothers are trying to hold me back. Sin grips my cut, Koa has my arm, and Bear is trying to block my path.
“Let me go!” I thrash, fighting them as if they’re my enemies instead of family. “She’s in there! Queenie is in there! LET GO!”
“You’ll die!” Koa’s face is right in front of mine, and I’ve never seen him look so scared. “Brother, you’ll die,” he reiterates.
“And she will if I do nothing!” The words tear out of me with every ounce of pain in my chest. Tears stream down my face, hot against my skin. “I don’t care if I die. She raised me. She’s all I have. I’m not letting her burn.”
“Nitro!”
I drive my elbow into Koa’s gut, not hard, but enough. He releases me with a grunt, and I’m free for half a second, and that’s all I need. I break through their circle and sprint the last few yards.
“Jesus, Nitro!” Sin screams.
I hit the entrance at full speed. The smoke swallows me instantly, thick and choking.
My eyes burn, and I can’t see more than a foot in front of my face.
The heat is worse than I had imagined. It’s not just hot, it’s alive.
A living thing that sears my lungs with every breath.
I pull my T-shirt up over my mouth and nose.
It’s not much, but it’s something. My eyes water so badly I’m nearly blind, but I know this building.
I’ve walked these halls a thousand times.
I know every turn, every door, every step.
Second floor.
East wing.
Room 214.
The stairwell is ahead. I can barely see it through the smoke, but I know it’s there. I move on muscle memory, one hand on the wall to guide me. The wallpaper is hot to the touch, and I can hear the fire overhead, a roar like a living creature.
Something crashes behind me—a support beam, maybe, or part of the ceiling.
I don’t look back because I’m too scared that if I do, I’ll be terrified of what I will see.
The stairs are partially blocked by debris. I climb over it, splinters catching on my jeans, smoke filling my lungs despite the shirt over my mouth. Each breath is agony. Each step is heavier than the last.
Keep moving. Don’t stop. Don’t think. Just move.
Second floor.
The hallway is a tunnel of hell. Fire crawls along the ceiling, spreading with terrifying speed. The carpeting is starting to smolder. I hear it crackling, see it curling at the edges. The smoke is even thicker up here, a solid black wall that makes breathing nearly impossible.
But I push forward.
Room 208.
210.
212.
The heat is unbearable.
My skin feels as if it’s shrinking, tightening around my bones. Sweat pours down my face, mixing with tears and soot.
214.
The door is closed.
I grab the handle and immediately recoil because it’s hot enough to burn. I yank my shirt off, wrap it around my hand, and try again. The door is stuck, warped from the heat. I throw my shoulder against it once, twice, and on the third try, it gives way with a crack.
The room is thick with smoke but not yet fully engulfed. The fire hasn’t reached this far, but it’s close.
So fucking close.
Orange light bleeds through the cracks in the wall, pulsing hotter every second. The fire growls behind it, pounding like a pissed-off animal trying to claw its way in.
“Queenie!” My voice is barely a rasp. The smoke has shredded my throat. “QUEENIE!”
At first, it’s just the fire breathing around me, an animal gnawing through the building.
Then a different sound slips underneath it.
A cough, thin, rattled, like death clearing its throat.
My world tilts.
No fire could scare me like that sound does.
She’s huddled next to her bed, curled into herself, her tiny frame even smaller now. Her eyes closed, and she’s coughing, horrible, wracking coughs that shake her entire body. Her white hair is now gray with soot.
The terror that’s been driving me transforms into pure, crystalline focus.
I cross the room in three strides. “Queenie, I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Her eyes flutter open, unfocused. She tries to speak but can only cough. Her hand reaches for me, trembling.
“Don’t try to talk.” I scoop her up as gently as I can. She weighs nothing. A sparrow in my arms. Her head lolls against my shoulder, and her breathing is shallow, raspy, and wet.
No. No, stay with me. Please stay with me.
“We’re getting out of here.” I press my lips to her forehead, tasting soot and sweat. “Just hold on, okay? Hold on!”
I turn back toward the door, and my heart stops.
The hallway is gone.
Where there was a corridor thirty seconds ago, there’s now a wall of flame. The fire has spread faster than I could have imagined, cutting off my exit. The stairs I came up are now engulfed. The structure is starting to buckle, support beams sagging under the heat.
We’re trapped.