Chapter 43
Wyatt reached the bottom of the stairs. His breathing was controlled. His pulse wasn’t even close. He climbed them sideways, ready to pivot at an instant’s notice, each step placed on the outside edge where the wood wouldn’t creak.
He cleared the upper hallway.
Light spilled out from the bathroom, the door wrecked, hanging sideways. The lock was blown inward, metal shredded by a close-range shot. Wood splinters fanned across the tiled floor. The door hung drunkenly from one hinge.
No Jen.
He swept the muzzle into the room, and the smell hit him. Aftershave. Glass on the floor. Fragments of the bottle glinted in the half-light.
Blood on the tile. Not much.
Enough.
The Glock 43 lay against the base of the bathtub.
His grip hardened on his gun.
He cleared the door. The shower curtain. The tub.
He knew. His gut had known since the door slammed. But training doesn’t let you skip steps. Training makes you look even when every second costs.
He’d seen worse.
This hit deeper.
The bathroom was empty.
He crouched. Read the floor. Drag marks through the glass and blood—knees, not feet. The marks led to the doorframe, where the splintered wood was gouged in parallel lines.
Fingernails.
She’d held on. Until she couldn’t.
His chest seized. He forced it back before it became a sound. Not now. Not yet. He could break later. He could break for the rest of his life if that’s what it cost.
Right now she was alive. The drag marks said alive. The fingernails in the wood said fighting.
He slipped back into the hallway, flexing his broken hand until the pain flared white and grounded him.
The house was silent except for the small settling sounds of a building that had absorbed violence—a creak in the frame, something dripping in the kitchen.
Below. Left.
A scuff. Boot sole on concrete.
Garage.
He descended the stairs Glock up, favoring his right side just enough to keep the pull in his thigh from slowing him. His broken hand throbbed with every heartbeat. His grip held. Pain was just information. He’d learned that at nineteen, and he’d never had more reason to believe it.
The interior door to the garage was ajar. Beyond it, the garage was dark. The only light bled in from outside, a thin gray line beneath the exterior door.
A sound—short, choked, furious. The sound of someone fighting with everything they have, but it isn’t enough.
Jen.
He eased through the door. Let his eyes adjust. The garage took shape in shades of gray and black—his Volvo against the far wall, workbench to the right, tool racks along the back, shelving units creating narrow channels between the vehicle and the walls.
Movement.
Akilov had her near the exterior door, one hand fisted in her hair, the other holding a weapon at his side, angling for extraction, not a fight.
Professional to the end.
Jen was fighting him. Her hands clawed at the fist in her hair, her feet scrambling for purchase on the concrete. Blood on her face—a cut across her cheek, a dark smear at her hairline. Her knuckles were raw and torn. One eye was swelling shut, the skin already darkening.
She wasn’t limp or quiet. She clawed and kicked with everything she had, and Akilov absorbed it the way a man absorbs weather—an inconvenience, not a threat.
The sight of her, bloody, fighting, refusing to break, hit him in a place that belonged to her now.
Below rage. Below fear.
Where the man and the weapon were the same thing.
And neither would survive her loss.
He raised the Glock.
The angle was wrong. Jen was between them—not directly, but close enough that the margin for error was a margin he couldn’t afford. Akilov had positioned himself behind her left shoulder. Deliberate. Using her without putting a gun to her head. Smarter than a hostage play. Harder to solve.
Wyatt shifted right, trying to open the angle.
Akilov pivoted—fast and fluid as the geometry changed. He pulled Jen in tighter, positioning her between them, heading diagonally toward the bay door. His weapon came up over her shoulder, aimed at the dark where Wyatt stood.
“Stop.” Akilov’s voice was flat. His one good eye tracked the shadows. “I’ll kill her before you clear me.”
Wyatt inched along the wall, using the shelving unit for concealment, working the angle. Pain pulsed through his broken hand. His breathing was even but his heart was trying to tear its way out of his chest.
Akilov fired.
The shot was enormous in the enclosed space—a concussive blast that rang off concrete and steel. The round punched through the shelving unit six inches above Wyatt’s head. Metal pinged. Glass rained down.
Wyatt dropped low and came up with a clear line.
For a split second, he had it.
Akilov’s head and shoulder, exposed past Jen’s left side. A shot he’d made a thousand times. A shot he could make with a broken hand, blood in his eyes, the world ending around him.
A boot scraped concrete behind him. Too close.
Third man. Should have counted on it.
Wyatt fired as the shelving unit behind him exploded inward and a body hit him hard.
His shots went wide, muzzle flash strobing off concrete. Akilov twisted, dragging Jen with him.
Wyatt fell sideways onto the workbench. The Glock barked into the ceiling as his wrist snapped back.
The second man was meaty and fast. A forearm slammed across Wyatt’s throat, trying to pin his weapon arm. Wyatt rotated with instead of against it.
He jammed the muzzle into the man’s ribs and fired. The round thudded into body armor. The man grunted but didn’t fall.
He grabbed hold of Wyatt’s broken hand and crushed it. Pain cracked through him like voltage—bright and absolute as his attacker smashed the Glock out of his grip.
The Glock hit concrete and skidded, spinning under the Volvo.
No time.
The meaty man drove a knee toward Wyatt’s spine. Wyatt rolled, trapped the other’s arm, and used the momentum to slam him into the workbench.
Bone cracked.
Akilov’s man roared but came back—
Wyatt pivoted inside the strike and drove his elbow into his throat.
Once.
Twice.
The third collapsed it.
A gurgle. The man dropped.
The exterior door groaned. Freezing air flooded the garage.
Akilov and Jen were gone.
His Glock was under the car.
Wyatt dropped, ripped the dead man’s pistol free, press-checked the chamber—round seated—and yanked a spare magazine from the chest rig. He tucked it into his back pocket and came up running.
He burst out into the night.
Snow glare bleached the world silver and black.
Akilov was fifteen feet ahead, dragging Jen toward a mud-crusted SUV. Even now she fought him, her hands raking his wrists.
“Stop.” Wyatt didn’t shout it. He fired it.
Akilov staggered sideways, using Jen as moving cover. The round punched through his jacket, clipped his arm, and spun him. Snow kicked up around him, powder spotted red. Akilov didn’t drop.
Wyatt adjusted and fired again.
Akilov shoved Jen down hard and returned fire.
The shot split the air past Wyatt’s ear.
He moved laterally, boots slipping on crusted ice, breath cutting sharp in his throat, his thigh threatening to lock under the sudden change of direction.
He fired again—
Click.
Empty.
Jen pushed herself up from the snow.
Her face was dark and bloody. Snow clung to her hair. Blood streaked bright against it.
She looked straight at him.
Not with fear.
Decision.