Chapter 90 Saint
Saint
Idon’t remember pulling the trigger.
I remember stepping in front of Laney and Emmy.
Everything else is instinct.
Noise. Impact. Motion.
The hallway is a kill box. I built it that way months ago and still hate that I was right.
By the time it’s over, three men are on the floor, and one is bleeding into my tiles.
Wolf is calling it in.
Havoc is securing Laney and Emmy.
I’m standing there with my hands still shaking, and my vision tunneled, and one thought burning so bright it hurts:
They touched my family.
I saw something out of the side of my eye. And follow the last one into the back stairwell.
He doesn’t get far.
I take him apart piece by piece, not fast. Not clean.
He’s crying by the time he hits the bottom step.
“Who sent you?” I ask.
“I don’t know names,” he sobs. “Just the job.”
I hit him again.
“Who paid you?”
“Rourke— Rourke Hale!”
That name lands like a match in gasoline.
I step back before I do something that would ruin everything Marco is building.
Wolf appears beside me. “I’ve got him.”
“Good,” I say. “Because if he says that name again in my hearing, I’m going to break every bone he has left.”
I go back upstairs.
Laney is sitting on the bed, Emmy in her arms, Nora with her.
Laney looks at me like she’s trying to decide if I’m real.
I kneel in front of her.
“Look at me,” I say.
She does.
“You’re safe. She’s safe. That’s over.”
Her chin trembles. “They said… they said they wanted the baby.”
“I know.”
Rage tries to crawl back up my spine.
I crush it.
Not here.
Not in front of her.
I press my forehead to hers.
“I will burn this world down before I let anyone touch you again.”
She believes me.
That’s the part that almost breaks me.
I stand and turn to Wolf.
“Lock it down,” I say. “Full perimeter. No movement without my say.”
He nods. “Already in motion.”
I pull my phone out and call Marco.
“They made a grab,” I say. “They named Rourke Hale.”
There’s a pause.
Then: “Good. That gives me what I need.”
“It gives you a trail,” I say. “It gives me a target.”
“Don’t cross my lines,” he warns, “we don’t want to blow this.”
“I won’t,” I say. “But I will walk right up to them.”
I hang up and look at my team.
“Find him,” I say. “I don’t care where he’s hiding.”
Havoc smiles without humor. “We will.”
That night, Laney falls asleep with her head on my chest and Emmy between us.
I don’t sleep.
I lie there and plan a war.
Because monsters should have stayed in the dark.
And someone just knocked on my door.