Chapter Twenty-One
CORVER’S VOICE CRACKLES through the comms. “Snipers down. You’re clear for entry.”
That’s all I need.
“Go.”
We hit the doors like a thunderclap. Boots slam.
Metal screams. The echo ricochets off concrete, folding into the deafening pop of gunfire.
The air fills with shouting—guttural, desperate screams that barely register as human—and muzzle flashes strobe across the room like hellish lightning.
Smoke billows thick enough to chew, a suffocating gray blanket that burns my lungs with each panicked breath.
I can taste copper and dust on my tongue, metallic and gritty, while fine particles of debris coat my teeth and throat, turning my saliva to paste.
The deafening thunder of gunfire reverberates through my bones, each blast sending tremors through my chest.
The first man through doesn’t make it to the second step. A shot snaps past me, catching him in the shoulder and spinning him sideways. Stefan’s men flood in after, shouting positions, but it’s chaos—our carefully built plan disintegrating the second we hit the floor.
I move on instinct. Head down, gun up, scanning. Every shape, every flicker of movement could be her—or him. My heartbeat is too loud in my ears, a drum drowning out the rest.
She’s here.
She has to be.
Someone yells “clear!” from my left, but it’s a lie. A shadow rises behind him, knife flashing, and the scream turns wet and short. I spin, fire, drop the man. No time to think about names. No time to breathe.
“Two on the left!” Joshua shouts through the comms.
I pivot, covering him. I squeeze the trigger—three, four shots—and they’re down. We press forward, edging toward the center of the building when I hear it.
Gavin’s voice cuts through the mess like glass.
“Come to find the little bird? Bad news, the bird is home, right where she belongs. Now come out and FACE ME!”
My blood runs with ice. The sound of him crawls straight up my spine. Too close—he’s in the open, taunting, somewhere beyond the fog of bullets and debris.
I catch movement up ahead. Men in dark gear, moving too cleanly to be improvising. Trained. Waiting. A trap within a trap.
Stefan curses in the comms, accent thick with fury. “They knew we were comin’!”
I don’t answer. Can’t. My focus narrows. I push forward, firing at the shapes ahead. Two go down, but three more surge forward to take their place. Gunfire tears across the room, hammering the walls. Shells rain on the floor like coins.
Every step forward is through bodies—ours, theirs, I can’t tell anymore.
The noise blurs into something unreal. My pulse and the gunfire are one sound now. My breathing syncs with it. In, out. In, out. Move. Keep moving.
A body crashes into me from the side, all muscle and momentum.
The impact steals my breath, sends me flying.
A flash of white light explodes behind my eyes as my shoulder blade connects with the wall first, then my skull.
The crack of bone against cement reverberates through my skull—hot, jagged pain blooms outward from the point of impact, electric currents of agony shooting down my spine and into my fingertips, which tingle and go momentarily numb.
I stagger upright, gun clattering from my grip. My hands find it, slick with blood, I can’t tell if it is mine or someone else’s.
Everything doubles again. The world lurches like it’s underwater. Two Stefans, two Joshs, two of everything. I steady on one image and aim for that.
Through the haze, a flicker of movement.
A figure slumps in a metal folding chair next to Gavin, head bowed, wrists bound with zip ties that bite into flesh.
My brain misfires like a faulty engine. My chest stops mid-breath, lungs frozen in panic.
Surry. The silhouette, the curve of the shoulders, it’s a woman.
I think, no—as the smoke thins, I see older features, deep lines etched around the mouth, silver-grey hair falling in limp strands across a face that holds the ghost of someone I once knew.
Bridget.
The edges of her shape shimmer and split. Two of her, side by side. I blink hard, once, twice. Still two. Fuck.
Gavin steps into the light, calm and steady, like he planned this all along. My throat locks. Nothing comes out.
My legs move before my brain agrees, trying to reach her.
Josh grabs my arm. “Wait, Bren—”
I rip free.
“Now, now, Brenden. Stop right there, or you won’t see poor Bridget alive again.” His eyes are wild, stretched wide and gleaming.
I glance around, head clearing just enough to see it—we’re being funneled, trapped between pillars and machinery. The air stinks of cordite and sweat.
Bridget meets my gaze, gives a small, sad shake of her head. She looks wrecked—face bloodied, hair matted, still wearing the same clothes she left the island in.
I freeze. I know I have to try to save her. Surry would never forgive me if I didn’t. I holster my weapon and step closer, hands raised.
“What do you want, Gavin? Bridget’s innocent in this. Let her go, and we can talk–just us men. I know you prefer it that way. Women are only good for two things. Food and fucking.”
I cringe inside at my own words, but not to him.
Gavin laughs. Unhinged, too loud, too long as he stalks closer to Bridget.
“You don’t really believe that, do you, Brenden Slater?
You think you can charm me? No. I know why you’re here.
To take my wife.” His voice cracks. “But nobody leaves this building tonight unless it’s in a body bag. Or a barrel. I don’t care which.”
He presses the barrel to Bridget’s temple, leans close.
“Now, Bridget…what should we do? Keep you alive for leverage? Have Brenden hand himself over willingly?” He grins, the look on his face completely unhinged and feral.
Feral men make fearsome opponents. You never know what they are willing to do.
“No. That will never due. It sucks all the fun out of it, don’t you think?
” But she never gets the chance to answer.
He pulls the trigger.
Her head snaps back, the wall behind her painted red, blood and matter spread wide on the floor and wall behind her. Stefan’s strangled yell tears through the air. I feel nothing. Just a hollow thud in my chest where rage should be.
Before I can move, more of Gavin’s men pour in from the shadows. We never saw them. Guns raised, shouting, herding us toward the center.
Now I can see the screens, they must have a back up power source somewhere we didn’t see before.
Rows of monitors glowing in the dark. Different feeds: a man assaulting a woman in a small room, my destroyed apartment complex, Surry’s place, the Oregon compound.
Even the doors–front and back. Cameras everywhere, still running without power. He knew where we were all along.
Fuck.
“Didn’t I tell you, Brenden?” Gavin’s voice rings, manic. “She always comes back!”
He’s feral, wild-eyed, blood smeared across his jaw and white shirt.
“Corver,” I hiss under my breath into the comms, forcing breath through my teeth as we’re pushed closer to Gavin. Stefan’s beside me now. “We could use some extra help.”
“Yeah,” he answers. “On it. Hold on.”
“Hold on?” My voice cracks. “We’re outnumbered and surrounded.”
Static hums. Then Corver again: “Three minutes. Trust me.”
Three minutes feels like a lifetime.
“Copy,” I grind out, but my focus stays locked on Gavin’s face.
“Hello, Stefan.” Gavin turns from me, voice oily. “Did you like the video I sent–the one with the Russians? Should I fetch Surry now, so we can put this union back on track? She’s been performing her wifely duties so well since she came back.”
His eyes cut to me, waiting for a reaction. I grit my teeth, close my eyes for one second–and pain explodes across my skull.
“No? OKAY THEN!”
Stars burst behind my eyelids as the barrel of his gun cracks into my temple. Warm blood spills down my cheek, soaking the cotton under my vest.
“Tie him up!”
I drop to my knees, vision strobing. My stomach flips. Voices blur together, meaningless noise.
Slowly, sight crawls back. Gavin’s face hovers above me, the gun barrel inches from my left eye.
This is it.
I whisper, “I’m sorry,” to no one and everyone–to Surry, to her father, to Sam, to my brothers. For not keeping my promise. For being too slow.
Josh is beside me, also on his knees, eyes wide—not on the men in front of him, but past me.
I turn my head. And there–through the haze–she’s walking toward us. Surry.
Something dangles from her waistband; her arms cross awkwardly in front of her.
“Gavin, that’s enough,” she says, voice calm, steady, lethal. She stops ten feet away.
She’s talking to him but I can’t make out the words, just the rhythm, sharp and cutting. Gavin laughs, spreading his arms like he’s welcoming her home.
“Surry—” I rasp, but she doesn’t look at me. She takes a single step back, raises her hands.
“Iontas!” (Surprise!)
Fuck, the code word. How does sh–
She throws something small–metal flashing as it spins–and instinct takes over. I reach for my mask, but my hands are useless, trembling.
How the fuck did she get a bomb?
By the time I look back, she’s already masked, sprinting at Gavin, pistol in hand.
The detonation isn’t loud. But the world explodes anyway.
Light. Smoke. A wave of pressure that swallows everything.
The air folds in on itself. White, then gray. My ears scream with ringing.
Someone grabs my shoulder–Josh, maybe–but the world doubles again, and he’s gone.
I drop to my hands and knees, choking on the thick chemical burn of air and blood.
Through the blur, one last clear image: Surry, standing in the center of it all. Mask on. Eyes hard. Unflinching.
She’s the calm in the storm.
Then the world collapses into noise, and then black.
Surry
I tightened my fingers around the little cylinder in my pocket until the metal pin bit into my skin. Corver kneels in front of me like he’s reading from a manual, but his voice is clinical and steady, which is the only thing I need right now.