Chapter Twelve #2
Five minutes crawl by as if the universe is holding its breath. I crouch in the shadow of a rust-stained window, gun steady in my grip even though my pulse is an earthquake. Through the comm, Berk is quiet, too quiet, and that kind of silence from her is a storm waiting to break.
Then her whisper cuts through the static.
“Time. Give me updates.”
Her voice is sharp, threaded with a focus that makes even my bones listen.
I scan the stretch of second-floor hallway again. Exposed pipes. Peeling paint. A buzzing fluorescent that flickers like it’s losing a fight. Two doors cracked just enough to show black nothing.
“No movement,” I whisper. “Left corridor’s dead. Two rooms. Both empty.”
A beat of quiet. Rowan comes in next, his voice a controlled blade. “Bryce’s still in my window. He hasn’t moved an inch. Still alone.”
I grit my teeth until my jaw pops. Bryce—sitting relaxed in his little hideout like the world doesn’t want his head on a spike.
Ronan breathes into the comm, frustration leaking through. “Top floor on my side is clear too. If Kimber’s here…” His voice frays a little. “She isn’t upstairs.”
It punches a hole through my chest. I swallow it down because panic won’t help her, or us.
Berk draws a quiet breath, but even that carries an edge. “She could be below. Storage. Holding areas. But Bryce comes first. We lock him down, we get answers.” Her voice is tempered steel—fury restrained by discipline. That’s how I know she’s right on the brink.
I sweep the ground below, watching shadows slide and reset. A warehouse operating too quietly. Too orderly. Too controlled.
Ronan speaks again, quieter now, but the tension hums beneath every word. “Once we breach, stealth’s over. This place is too old for pressure sensors or glass-break alarms—but not so sealed that sound won’t travel. There are guards posted downstairs. Someone’s going to hear the first step.”
My grip tightens. I picture Kimber—my baby sister—in some dark room, terrified, holding herself small the way she used to when our father would raise his voice. My heartbeat goes savage. She’s in this building, or they know where she is, and Bryce is going to sing before he dies.
Berk exhales once—steady, controlled, lethal. “Hold your positions. We wait for my mark.”
My eyes cut across the warehouse. Every shadow feels like a threat. Every second feels like we’re losing her.
Rowan whispers, “Copy.”
Ronan murmurs, “Locked in.”
I answer, quiet but certain. “Ready.”
Ready to kill every fucking man in this building.
Ready to get my sister back.
Ready to end Bryce.
The silence stretches so thin I swear I can hear each of our heartbeats ticking through the comm. My palms sweat inside my gloves. Every shadow in this goddamn place feels like it’s leaning closer, watching us, holding its breath.
Then Berk whispers the word we’re all dying to hear.
“Go.”
Her command slices clean and sharp, and the world moves.
I don’t hesitate. None of us do. Glass shatters under my elbow with a muted crack, and chilly night air whips in as I slip through the window frame.
The metal groans under my boots. I land softly, gun raised.
Across the building, I hear the muffled breaks of glass from Ronan, Berk, Rowan—four restrained intrusions hitting the top floor all at once.
We sweep the hallway like a single creature, converging without ever seeing each other. My footsteps barely whisper over the dusty floor. Every door I pass I clear fast, efficient.
Empty room.
Empty office.
Empty storage closet.
Rowan’s voice murmurs through the comm, “Bedroom. He’s inside. Moving.”
I’m already turning toward that side of the hall, pulse pounding, breath sharp.
We stack outside his door. Ronan and Berk position across from me, all of us flanking my brother, who’s ready to breach.
We surge in.
Bryce jerks in a drunken, startled gasp, blinking blearily at the four of us closing in on him. He’s sprawled on a mattress that looks too expensive for the rat he is, shirt half open, belt undone. His hand fumbles at the nightstand, desperate for his gun.
Rowan kicks it away before he can reach it.
Bryce’s eyes widen when he sees our faces. His mouth twitches, trying to form words, excuses, lies.
He never gets the chance.
Ronan slams him back against the headboard with one hand around his throat, pinning him like the pathetic insect he is. “Move and I’ll break your fucking neck.”
Bryce pisses himself.
No metaphor. No exaggeration.
A yellow stain blooms across the sheets, and a grim, venomous satisfaction floods my veins.
Good. Let the bastard know fear for once in his miserable life.
Berk slips in behind us, eyes icy calm as she assesses the room.
I help Rowan haul Bryce out of the bed and onto the ground, where Ronan cuffs his wrists behind his back with zip ties strong enough to restrain an animal three times his size. Bryce whimpers and tries to buck.
I slam my boot into his spine. “Stop.”
Ronan digs a knee into his back while Berk slides her blade along her thigh, almost casually. Her eyes flick toward the hallway, instructing. “Clear the bottom floor.”
I nod once and move for the stairwell, Ronan falling in behind me without a word. Rowan stays planted beside Berk, anchoring her flank while she leans casually against the wall, her blade catching the dim light like a whispered threat.
As soon as we hit the stairs, the noise is apparent below—chairs scraping, boots stomping, muttered curses. They heard us. Good. Saves us the trouble of hunting them down.
Four men emerge from the shadows of the warehouse floor. They’re armed. Poorly trained. Too slow.
Ronan drops the first with a clean shot through the forehead before the guy raises his gun. I tackle the next, slam him into a steel beam, crack his jaw with a punch that echoes through the high ceiling.
The third lunges at me with a knife. I twist his wrist until it snaps, then put a bullet through his ribs.
The fourth makes it three steps before Rowan shoots him in the back of the head from the top of the stairs.
Silence falls. The kind that smells like gunpowder and death.
We regroup upstairs. Ronan wipes blood off his knuckles on his shirt. Rowan rolls his shoulders, breathing steadily. Berk stands over Bryce, who’s shaking so hard the zip ties dig deeper into his wrists.
Her voice drips with venom. “Looks like you’re the last one left, Bryce.”
He whimpers, “Please—”
“Get him up,” I say, my voice flat and cold. “We’re not done.”
Rowan hauls him to his knees.
Bryce is finally where he belongs.
On the floor.
At our mercy.
Terrified.
We haul him into the center of the room, but that’s not enough for any of us.
Ronan kicks the back of his spine but then forces him upright again while Rowan drags a chair across the floor.
The scrape of metal on concrete fills the space like an omen.
Bryce flinches as we strap him down, wrists bound tight behind him, ankles pinned.
He’s breathing hard, eyes shifting between us, trying to figure out who’s going to hurt him first.
He should know better by now. The answer is all of us.
We circle him, slow and deliberate. No sign of Kimber anywhere.
No muffled sounds. No locked doors. No tight shadows where a body could be hidden.
The space is wrong—too open, too empty—and dread coils hard in my gut.
My stomach knots, sharp and violent, and I step closer, already bracing for what that absence means.
“Where is she.” It’s not a question but a demand.
His lips peel back into some mockery of a smile. “No idea. Dean has her tucked away somewhere. Even I don’t get to know everything.”
Ronan laughs under his breath, humorless. I can tell he’s seconds from snapping.
Berk steps forward before any of us can stop her. The surrounding air sharpens, the way it always does when she slides into that cold, lethal part of herself. Bryce watches her approach, chin lifted, still clinging to whatever scraps of pride he thinks he has left.
Big mistake.
She runs the flat of her blade along his cheek in a slow glide, not cutting, just reminding him what is waiting. He flinches despite himself.
“Where’s Kimber?” Her voice is quiet. Deadly. A promise carved from steel.
He smirks again, blood crusting at the corner of his mouth. “I already told you. I don’t know. Dean keeps his little toys wherever he wants.”
Before he can blink, Berk drives the blade downward and buries it into the meat of his thigh. The force makes his entire body jerk. He sucks in a ragged breath that turns into a choked scream, head snapping back.
“Try again,” she murmurs.
Ronan grins, sharp and feral, like he’s finally dragged in air after being held under too long. Rowan’s jaw tightens, a small, brutal nod of approval cutting through his restraint. My pulse spikes—hot, approving, dangerous—but I keep my hands where they are. None of us stops her.
“You bitch,” Bryce spits, panting hard. “You think this scares me.”
Berk pulls the knife free with a practiced twist, steps around him, and slams it into his upper arm next. The sound he makes is something pathetic and strangled, a noise a man makes when he realizes pain is going to be his only future.
Blood runs down his sleeve, dripping onto the concrete in slow taps.
“You don’t even know the meaning of scared.” She leans in, her nose almost touching his. “But you’re about to learn.”
He whimpers. Actually whimpers.
I feel something cold and vicious bloom inside me.
“Talk,” I demand.
He clenches his jaw. “Dean… Dean has her. That’s all I know.”
Berk twists the blade in his arm just enough to make him shout again. She doesn’t blink.
“Where,” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he gasps. “I swear. Dean keeps that location to himself. I haven’t seen her. I never hear her name. He only calls her the package. That’s all. I’m telling the truth.”
Ronan steps closer, voice low and dark. “She can stab you a hundred times before she gets bored. Think carefully.”