Chapter Nineteen
Berkley
The door at the end of the hall creaks open only an inch before the world detonates into gunfire.
Metal screams as bullets slam into the doorframe, ricocheting off steel and concrete in sharp, sparking bursts.
The sound is so violent it punches straight through my ribs.
Kimber jerks in her chair, a small helpless flinch that guts me because Dean’s pressed right behind her, one arm braced over her shoulder, his gun angled past her ear as he fires at my guys like she’s nothing more than a human shield.
Ronan shoves the door wider, just enough for us to return fire without revealing too much of ourselves.
Emerson drops low, sliding inside on his knee to get an angle under Dean’s line of fire.
Rowan takes the highest angle he safely can, diagonal to Ronan, creating three firing arcs without endangering Kimber.
My pulse spikes hard enough to make my vision pulse.
Dean is shouting orders at the top of his lungs. “Kill them, you fools! Kill them!”
Three guards surge from the shadowed corners at once.
Dean finally grows a spine, shoving away from Kimber to take a shot at Em and his sons—and the second he does, it creates an opening.
One of his men gets the same bright idea, breaking for Kimber with a knife like he plans to turn her into a shield too.
I’m already moving. I slip fully into the room and catch him before he reaches her, my shoulder slamming into his ribs with a wet, cracking snap.
The impact drives my blade forward, sliding clean between bone and muscle until it buries itself in his lung.
We hit the floor hard, his breath tearing out in a strangled choke.
Dean doesn’t look our way—too busy playing soldier in a gunfight he’s already losing.
The guard makes a desperate attempt to bring his knife up, wheezing through a ruined lung, but I catch his wrist mid-lift and slam it into the concrete.
Once. Twice. The blade slips free and spins across the floor.
Before he can suck in another broken breath, I drop my knee onto his throat.
His windpipe folds under the pressure with a muted crunch.
Another guard sprints toward me, murder in his eyes. He gets halfway before Rowan’s shot tears through the room; the bullet cutting a perfect hole through the center of his skull. He drops instantly, dead weight slamming into the floor while his gun tumbles from his hand in slow motion.
The third guard circles wide toward Emerson’s flank. Emerson rolls to the side and fires twice from the ground. Blood sprays the wall behind the guard as he folds, his gun bouncing away across the floor.
Three down in seconds.
But relief never comes. Dean has already dragged Kimber back against him, her small, trembling body locked in front of his as a shield now that he’s realized his men are dropping like flies full of shit.
Her breaths come sharp and panicked, tearing in and out of her chest. She squeezes her eyes shut with every gunshot; her face twisting with raw terror as the blasts thunder around her.
“You’re doing good, sweetheart,” I shout to her, trying to keep her anchored. “Keep your head down. I’m coming.”
“Stay back!” Dean yells, his voice hoarse with effort and fury. “One step and I put a bullet in her skull.”
He’s always been a coward—always ready to hide behind someone weaker.
Ronan reshapes his stance beside the doorframe, eyes narrowed, tracking every twitch of Dean’s arm as he searches for a window to shoot without risking Kimber. “He’s moving too much,” Ronan mutters. “I need him off her.”
I edge lower, inching across the blood-slick floor. My hands smear through it as I crawl behind the toppled crate stack on the right. The guards we dropped lie in mangled heaps around me, still bleeding, the iron smells heavy and hot.
“Berk, wait,” Rowan hisses. “If you get too close—”
“I’m not letting him hide behind her.” I growl back.
Kimber’s tear-bright eyes flick to me. She’s fighting to stay brave, jaw locked tight, her lip clenched between her teeth hard enough to draw blood.
My chest aches at the sight, but I force myself forward.
A guard appears from behind a cabinet near the back wall, raising his gun toward Ronan’s exposed side. I lunge to my feet, grabbing the dead guard’s fallen knife. I fling it across the room with a snap of my wrist. It embeds itself in the man’s temple before he can fire.
He drops silently.
Another guard emerges from behind a support beam. Emerson catches him with a burst of fire that sends him crashing into the wall.
Another tries to run for the far corner, shouting for any remaining reinforcements. Rowan tracks him and drops him with a single shot that echoes through the room like judgment.
The room goes still except for Dean’s ragged breathing and Kimber’s terrified whimpers.
Dean jerks her tighter against him, his hand shaking with effort. “You think this changes anything?” he spits. “You think you can walk out of here alive?”
My smile is slow. Deadly. My steps are silent as I move along the far edge of the room, circling.
He sees me now. And panic flickers in his eyes.
“Stay where you are, Berkley!” he barks. “I will kill her!”
“No,” I whisper. “You won’t.”
His gun trembles.
Good.
I edge closer, fabric tacky against my body from all the blood I’ve walked through, my last knife still lodged in the corpse behind me. My hand slides to my thigh, unstrapping the next blade with a practiced flick.
The guards are gone.
My guys are closing in behind me.
I move toward him, inch by inch, my boots skimming the blood that coats the concrete. My clothes cling to my skin, heavy and wet, but I barely register them. My focus narrows to one thing. One monster. One final nightmare standing between freedom.
Dean’s hand tightens in Kimber’s hair, wrenching her head back as she cries out.
The sound tears through whatever patience I had left.
I feel my pulse slam into overdrive, and every instinct inside me demands I rip him off her with my bare hands.
I can feel the guys behind me, shouting, warning, begging.
“Berk—don’t!”
“Wait!”
“Stop!”
Too late. I lunge.
Dean startles, jerking his gun toward me, and for a split second I see the barrel flash.
The burn sears up my left arm as a bullet grazes through flesh, but the pain barely registers because I slam into him with everything I have, knocking us both to the floor.
Kimber is screaming. Rowan is pleading. Ronan is cursing.
Emerson is shouting my name like a lifeline.
In the chaos, Emerson tears Kimber’s chair back so hard it screeches across the concrete.
He’s frantic, ripping the restraints apart, shoving her behind him as though he can shield her from the entire world.
But no one can come closer, not yet, because Dean is still firing wildly, the muzzle snapping flashes across the room.
I pin his shooting arm down and drive my knife into his stomach.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
His gun kicks with each thrust, but he’s losing control fast. My blade sinks in, hot and deep, and he grunts wetly as blood bubbles up between his teeth. I stab again and again until the gun fires one more time and a blast of white-hot agony tears through my abdomen.
Everything freezes.
Sound caves in, leaving only a hollow hum. Dean and I are tangled on the floor, staring at each other, our breaths mixing with dust and gunpowder. His eyes are glassy—packed with hate and a glint of grim delight. Blood seeps from the corners of his mouth.
He coughs, wheezing out, “Got you.”
I laugh—actually laugh. The sound tears out of me, rattling my whole body as blood spills from the corner of my mouth, trailing in warm red lines down my chin.
I lean close, my words brushing his cheek. “Here’s a secret… I never planned to survive.”
His eyes snap open, confusion sliding into fear.
And with the last bit of strength in my arm, I slam my blade up under his chin, punching through soft tissue and bone until the hilt meets skin. His whole body jerks once. Twice.
“Got you,” I whisper back.
His pupils flare wide.
And Dean Blackthorne finally fucking dies.
The world rushes back in a violent crash.
Rowan screams my name. Emerson is pulling Kimber away from the wall where she flinched at every gunshot.
Ronan drops to his knees beside me, hands immediately pressing into my abdomen.
Blood floods between his fingers, hot and slick.
Rowan is already dialing, fumbling with shaking hands until Emerson snaps the phone from him, barking at the dispatcher for help.
Everything around me is chaos. But inside me, a strange stillness blooms. A soft, quiet peace.
It’s over.
They’re dead.
Every monster, ghost, and nightmare that haunted my childhood.
Dead.
Ronan is shaking, yelling at me to stay awake, to look at him. Rowan’s face hovers above mine, tear tracks carving into his cheeks, fury and terror warring in his eyes. Emerson is behind him, holding Kimber close, but his voice is cracking as he begs me to breathe.
I try to smile. It’s small, weak, but it’s there.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. My voice is thin, barely more than breath. “I love you.”
The words drift toward all three of them, binding us in a way blood never has.
Rowan leans closer, his forehead touching mine fiercely. “Shut the fuck up,” he snarls, voice breaking. “You promised. You promised you wouldn’t leave us again. Hold on. Do you hear me? Hold on.”
But the world is dimming, softening around the edges like watercolor bleeding on paper. Their voices stretch into echoes. Their hands feel distant. Even the burning pain in my stomach is fading into a muted and numb sensation.
A glow gathers behind them—soft, unmistakable.
A girl steps forward out of the light.
It takes a second to place her. Blonde hair. A gentle smile. Eyes that never lost hope, even when everything else was stripped away.
“Reign…” My breath stutters out, reverent. My heart squeezes so tightly it hurts. I sign with trembling fingers, “I did it. They paid for what they did to us.”
She doesn’t speak. But her smile widens, radiant and warm, and her glow brightens until the entire room seems to pulse with it. Pride rolls off her in waves. Relief. Peace.
Then she begins to fade.
“No… wait…” I try reaching for her, but my arm barely moves.
Ronan shouts my name, tears soaking his face. Emerson is openly crying, yelling into the phone. Rowan is begging, pleading, screaming at me to stay awake. Kimber is sobbing into Emerson’s chest.
But Reign keeps drifting back, her glow dissolving like mist in sunlight.
And as the darkness closes in, swallowing the edges of the world, I finally understand.
I may not be long for this world.
My breath shudders.
My eyes fall closed.
“I love y…” falters on my lips, unfinished, as the darkness drags me down.