Chapter Thirteen
Berkley
By the time we zigzag the city enough times to shake off any potential tail, ditch the torture-van, and switch into a new one—another dented, rust-eaten tin that smells faintly of mold and old cigarettes—the sky is paling.
Dawn creeps across the horizon like someone dragging their fingers through wet paint.
The air tastes tiring. The world feels too quiet for what we’ve just done.
My first instinct is to bolt straight for the war room, rip Bryce’s phone open, and start tearing through everything he’s ever touched. I can practically feel the data pulsing under my palms already. Answers. Leads. Breadcrumbs to Kimber. Every second we waste feels like a match held to my skin.
But I don’t make it three steps inside the house before I feel them behind me. Three walls of heat and muscle. Three sets of eyes pinning me in place.
Rowan leans a shoulder against the wall, arms crossed, jaw tight enough to crack teeth.
Emerson looks like he’s trying to decide whether he should pick me up and physically haul me to bed.
Ronan… Ronan is the worst. He watches me like a wolf deciding whether he needs to bite the back of my neck to make me stay put.
Before any of them unleash the lecture I can see building, I lift my hand.
“I’m not going to fight you,” I say, though exhaustion crawls beneath my skin and my brain is still buzzing like a live wire. “Just let me set up an auto dump from his phone first.”
Their expressions shift—three men trying not to explode. I push on.
“If Dean attempts to contact Bryce, or if anything important hits the device, we won’t miss it. I’ll give you four hours of sleep. Four. Then I’m getting back up and diving in.”
A low rumble echoes between them. The sound is part frustration, part fear, part protective instinct they don’t know how to switch off.
Rowan’s brows knit, the possessiveness in his eyes flaring before he reins it in. Emerson drags a hand through his hair, exhaling hard like he’s wrestling his own instincts. Ronan’s jaw flexes, and I know he’s imagining tying me to the damn bed if I even look like I might push my limit again.
They hate this. Every part of it.
But they also know me.
They know I’m past the point of “resting for my own good.” They know sleep feels like surrender when Kimber’s life ticks down one heartbeat at a time.
Ronan moves first, shoulders dropping even though his eyes still burn. “Four hours,” he says quietly. “Not three hours and fifty-nine minutes.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Deal.”
Emerson steps closer, brushing his knuckles along my arm in a gesture that is half affection, half grounding. “We’re not trying to cage you, baby. Just trying to keep you breathing.”
Rowan nods once, slowly, like he’s stamping the agreement into place. “We’ll take your four hours. Then we hunt.”
A breath leaves me I didn’t know I was holding.
They step aside, letting me into the war room, letting me do what I need to do. Not because they approve. Not because it’s safe. But because they understand the fire inside me is bigger than their fear.
And because deep down, all four of us know one thing.
Kimber doesn’t have time for us to fall apart.
She needs us sharp.
She needs us relentless.
She needs us whole.
So, I set the auto-dump.
I track the incoming pings. I prepare for whatever the next four hours will bring. And when I finally return to them, letting their warmth wrap around me, one thought pulses in the back of my mind, fierce and unshakable.
I will burn my entire past to the ground before I let another sister die.
Once that’s done and before any of us even think about bed, we all know what comes next.
The smell of smoke, sweat, and blood clings to us like a second skin—heavy, metallic, suffocating.
It’s a reminder of what we just did, what we’ve become, and what we’ll keep doing until Kimber is home.
But I refuse to let Bryce linger on me. Not on my body.
Not on my soul. His death might have been deserved, but I won’t carry the stench of him into the one place that still feels sacred.
Our shower is massive—another intentional choice from a life built to survive—and the second the bathroom door closes behind us, the atmosphere shifts.
The air is warm, thick with steam already curling around the vents, and my guys move me with a kind of unspoken choreography that settles low and warm in my chest.
Ronan pulls towels from the cabinet, stacking them neatly like he’s preparing for some ritual.
Emerson leans into the shower, testing the water, adjusting the knobs with meticulous care that makes my throat tighten.
Rowan steps behind me, brushing my hair off my neck before kissing the exposed skin—first one kiss, then another, each softer than the last, grounding me.
None of them speak. They don’t need to.
Their hands find me one at a time, fingertips skimming the hem of my shirt, the waistband of my pants, peeling away the layers that feel heavier with every passing second.
They move slowly—not because I’m fragile, never that—but because they respect the weight of tonight, the kind of violence that leaves aftershocks in the bones even when the adrenaline fades.
When I’m bare, Emerson mutters, “Come on, baby,” and guides me under the spray.
The heat hits me like a release—washing over my shoulders, my spine, down my legs, pulling the tension from muscles I didn’t realize were locked tight. Steam fills my lungs when I breathe, hot and clean, and the last of the night’s chaos slips away.
The guys join me, surrounding me in a loose circle.
Rowan steps behind me again, gathering my hair carefully, running warm water through it before working shampoo into my scalp with slow, hypnotic movements that make my limbs go soft.
Ronan faces me, cupping my cheeks, brushing his lips over mine. A kiss meant to anchor. A kiss meant to remind me I’m still here, still theirs.
Emerson traces gentle lines down my back with soapy fingers, turning me toward him so he can wash away the streaks of dried blood clinging to my ribs and stomach. His hands are firm, sure, but never rough—not tonight.
I let out a sound that’s half sigh, half moan, because the combination of heat and hands and tenderness is too much. It undoes me in a way the violence never could.
They take their time. They clean me like they’re washing away everything that hurt. Everything that threatened to break me. Everything that tried to take me from them once already.
Only when I’m rinsed clean do they start on themselves, one by one stepping under the spray in front of me, letting me see the cuts and bruises that mark their skin from the night. They don’t hide from me. They never have.
When we’re finished, Ronan wraps me in a towel with the care reserved for a treasured relic.
Rowan kneels to dry my legs, lingering over my calves and thighs, his touch gentle—almost reverent—as if he’s making sure every inch of me is warm before he rises.
Emerson lifts me into his arms like I weigh nothing at all.
By the time they carry me to bed, the exhaustion finally hits all at once. But beneath it—woven through every breath—is a steadiness. A fierceness. A certainty that feels right.
They ease me between the fresh sheets, tucking me in with a tenderness that shouldn’t belong to men like them.
They’re weapons, blades and fists and fury, but for me they soften.
It never stops knocking the breath out of my chest, seeing these men—my men—shift the entire structure of themselves just to hold me gentler.
The contrast is intoxicating. Dangerous in its own right.
Ronan’s fingers trail down my spine as if mapping every ridge and curve, memorizing me all over again.
His touch starts light, almost teasing, before settling warm against my lower back.
Emerson moves in behind me, a low hum slipping from his throat as he presses his body to mine, solid heat aligning with every inch of me.
Rowan stands in front of me, one hand cupping my jaw, thumb brushing slow, reverent strokes across my cheekbone.
I melt between them without meaning to. Without trying. The exhaustion, the rush of surviving another night, the heady reminder that they’re here—alive, whole, mine—pulls deep inside me.
Rowan leans down, his forehead touching mine, breath warm as he whispers, “You’re shaking, baby.”
I am. Not from fear. Not from the cold. From the way they look at me like I’m sacred. From the way they touch me like I might vanish if they linger too long.
“I’m fine,” I whisper, though it sounds more like a confession than reassurance.
Ronan chuckles behind me, low and gravelly, and I feel the vibration through my spine. “Liar,” he murmurs against my shoulder before his lips graze my skin in a kiss that steals whatever reason I had left.
Then Emerson’s hands slide to my hips, his thumbs drawing slow circles there, grounding me. “Come here,” he murmurs, voice rough around the edges. “Let us take care of you.”
My breath stutters.
Because I know what that means. Not sex—not yet, not fully—not the brutal, gripping, consuming kind we shared last night. This is different. This is slow. Intentional. A closeness that strips away armor instead of clothes.
I nod before I can think better of it.
Rowan’s lips find mine first, soft at the start, then deeper as I answer him, fingers curling in the front of his shirt. His hand cups the back of my neck, tilting my head to give him more of me. When he pulls back, I’m breathless.
Emerson kisses the inside of my shoulder at the same time Ronan’s mouth brushes along the shell of my ear. Three points of heat, three currents of want, all converging on the same place inside me until I feel like I might unravel.