Chapter 103
Raine
The dock was hell lit in floodlights. Gunfire cracked, ricocheting off steel, hot brass clattering around my boots. The air stank of salt, oil, and blood.
Adam surged toward the truck, every step a target painted on his back. My heart lurched, but my hands didn’t falter. I pivoted left, sighted down, and dropped the bastard aiming at him from behind a crate.
“Not today,” I hissed.
Another guard lunged from the shadows, rifle up. I swung wide, fired—missed. His muzzle flared—too close, too fast—
“Raine!” Adam’s voice ripped through the chaos.
But I was already moving, throwing myself low as the shot cracked overhead. My ribs screamed, white-hot fire through my chest, but I came up steady, my pistol locked. One squeeze. His body jerked, collapsed.
Adrenaline drowned the pain.
I scrambled to Adam’s side, laying down fire as he slammed his shoulder into the trailer’s lock. Metal groaned. Sparks showered. The lock clattered free.
The door yawned open—and the sound that hit me wasn’t gunfire. It was the whimper of children. Women. Weak hands clawing for freedom.
My throat closed, rage flooding hot and clean. This is what they’d hidden in the dark. This is what we’d bled for.
“Cover the line!” Adam barked, already hauling the first victim out.
I planted myself in the open, wide stance, pistol raised. Hawk and Blade carved through the flank, Logan cursed steady fire behind us. Bullets whined past, but none would touch the people stumbling from that trailer. Not while I stood.
One guard broke cover, rifle aimed dead at Adam. I didn’t think—I fired. The shot cracked through the air, and he went down before his finger could twitch.
Adam’s head snapped up, eyes locking on mine. Pride. Fierce, raw, unshakable.
The world narrowed to the two of us for a breath—until Hawk shouted, “More incoming! East side!”
My lungs burned, my body shook, but I lifted my chin. “Then we finish it.”
I caught Adam’s faint smile before he turned back to the fight.
And for the first time, I knew—I wasn’t just surviving this war.
I was winning it.