Chapter 27
Seth
We don’t waste another second.
The gate to the estate comes into view fast. Big iron bastard, but the sensor is visible through the fence, cheap tech for rich psychos.
I shoot it twice.
Sparks fly. The gate unlocks with a hard metallic clunk.
We push through and everything goes cold.
The courtyard is lit by moonlight and security lamps. The manor rises at the end of the long gravel path, windows dark, front door looming.
Six guards.
Spaced wide. Trying to stay hidden.
Too late.
Beau moves first.
Quick, clean headshots. Two on the right drop before the others even turn.
I catch one flanking the hedges and drop him with a shot to the neck. Another crouches behind the fountain. Two to the chest. He slumps over without a sound.
A crack splits the air near my ear. Something punches hard into my side.
For half a second I think it is impact. Then heat blooms along my ribs. My body registers it as pressure, not pain. I look down just long enough to see fabric split and dark spreading through my shirt. A shallow graze.
I barely feel it.
Adrenaline swallows the rest.
I pivot toward the muzzle flash near the hedgerow and put a round straight through the shooter’s forehead. He drops mid breath.
Beau catches the last one mid sprint with a slug to the spine. His body folds like wet paper.
“Six down,” Beau says.
He jogs ahead, gun in hand, smoke still curling from the barrel.
I follow close, one hand briefly pressing my side.
When we hit the front, Beau doesn’t hesitate. He raises the gun and blasts the door straight off its hinges. It buckles inward with a scream of wood and steel, smoke curling around the frame.
That’s when I see it.
“Wait.”
I grab his arm and yank him back.
A glint above the doorway. Mounted rig. Tripwire shotgun, hidden behind the molding.
“Fuck me,” Beau mutters.
I raise my Glock and fire twice.
The mechanism snaps. A deafening boom rings out as the rig fires harmlessly into the ceiling. Splinters rain down. The hallway beyond fills with smoke.
We move in.
Gunfire erupts immediately from the stairwell.
Two on the ground floor. One on the second.
Beau dives behind a column and returns fire with his backup Glock, forcing the two downstairs into cover. I go left, staying low, my side burning now.
The guy on the landing leans out to aim.
Bad move.
One shot to the head.
Beau keeps the downstairs guards pinned while I creep up from the side and take them both out with two clean shots to the back.
“Clear.”
“Fucking amateurs,” Beau mutters.
We keep moving, clearing each room one by one.
Every door opens to nothing. Every space is empty. We check, clear, and lock them behind us.
One hallway has blood smeared across the floor, with drag marks cutting through it.
There are no bodies.
Then we find the door.
It is heavier than the others, reinforced with steel brackets and bolted from the outside, like whatever is inside is not meant to leave. I step back, plant my foot, and kick hard near the lock. The frame gives with a sharp crack, wood splintering inward as the door bursts open.
The smell hits immediately.
It is a rancid blend of iron, bile, and decay that coats the back of my throat and makes my eyes sting. It smells like something has been opened and left that way for too long, like the room itself is rotting.
A chain rattles overhead.
I look up.
A body hangs from the ceiling by the wrists, suspended at an unnatural angle.
The head lolls forward, chin dropped to the chest, mouth slack and open like she tried to scream.
The shoulders are bare and slick with dried blood.
The entire lower half of the body is gone, severed at the waist, as if someone carved away everything below and stopped when they were satisfied.
What remains of the torso is still leaking.
Blood and dark fluid slide down the abdomen in slow, uneven trails, dripping steadily into a floor drain beneath it.
My stomach drops so hard it feels like freefall.
For a split second, my brain refuses to process anything except shape. Black hair matted with blood. Tattoos. Ruined flesh where legs should be.
Brooke.
I’m too late.
My breath locks in my chest, like my lungs seize completely. Heat rushes into my face, then drains out just as fast, leaving me cold and unsteady. My hands start shaking, fingers tightening uselessly around my gun as my pulse spikes into something wild and uneven.
I see her the way she looked the last time I touched her. Alive. Angry. Breathing. I hear her voice in my head, not screaming, not begging, just saying my name the way she always does when she needs me to focus.
I’m not there.
I picture her alone in this room, looking at that door, waiting for it to open. Waiting for me. I imagine her realizing I am not coming in time. I imagine the moment hope leaves her face.
My vision tunnels hard. The edges of the room darken. The smell of blood thickens until it feels like it is coating the back of my throat. My legs feel hollow and useless. I can't feel the floor beneath my boots.
I've seen death before. I've caused it. I've watched it happen slowly, deliberately, without mercy. None of that prepares me for this moment. None of it matters when the shape in front of me matches the nightmare I've been carrying since the second she was taken.
My heartbeat slams hard enough to hurt. My knees threaten to give out.
This is not just a body.
It is the end of everything I have built my life around.
Something inside me snaps.
I am going to tear every man in this house apart.
I don't care how long it takes. I don't care what it costs. I am not stopping at a bullet or mercy. I will rip them apart with my hands if I have to. Elliot first. Anyone still breathing after him next. I will make this place choke on what it has done to her.
I want them to feel it. Every second of it.
And when there is no one left to kill, when the house is silent, empty and soaked in blood, I am going to end myself too.
Because if she is gone, there is nothing left to live for.
Beau’s voice cuts through the roar in my ears, distant at first, like it is coming through water. “Seth. It’s not her.”
I don't hear him.
My body refuses to accept it. My chest is too tight to expand, my heartbeat slamming erratically against my ribs.
Beau steps closer, firm now. “Seth. Look at the tattoos.”
I force myself to breathe. Force my eyes to focus. Force my brain to catch up.
The ink is wrong.
Heavy black script curls along the ribs. A half finished design on the shoulder blade. Lines and symbols that don't belong to her, scars that don't match the map I know by heart.
Reality snaps back into place with a sickening jolt. Relief hits hard and ugly, immediately followed by something just as dangerous.
Rage.
Then the sirens start.
Red strobes wash over the walls in harsh, pounding flashes while alarms scream through the manor’s halls.
I step into the hallway with my gun raised, heart punching against my ribs. “We need to move. We need to find her now.”
Beau steps beside me, weapon up, eyes sharp and focused. We clear each corner, check every sight line, and start kicking down doors one after another. Guards spill out of rooms and side corridors, shouting into radios and grabbing for guns they are too slow to use.
They drop fast.
Two go down in the hallway in front of us, chest shots that slam them into the walls and leave them sliding to the floor. Another tries to cut across behind us from a doorway. Beau puts a round through his throat before he finishes raising his weapon.
“Outside,” I say.
We hit the back exit and push into the night. The cold bites through the heat still running under my skin. The sirens bleed out into the open air, thin and distant over the grounds.
Two figures stand near the tree line, watching us.
One holds two curved blades in their hands, the metal catching flashes of red from the lights behind us. Beside them stands another figure gripping a chainsaw, the pull cord wrapped around their wrist.
As soon as they see us drop the last two men by the door, their attention shifts. The one in the sheep mask tilts their head, assessing. The one with the chainsaw jerks their chin toward the forest. The chainsaw roars to life, the sound ripping across the yard and swallowing part of the siren wail.
I raise my gun and fire.
The shots tear bark from the tree trunk near their shoulder. The one with the chainsaw curses, turns hard, and bolts for the deeper dark between the trees.
They scatter fast, moving in the opposite direction, vanishing into the forest on a line that doesn't lead back to the manor.
They're going to hunt.
I need to find Brooke in this forest before they do.