Chapter Thirty-Two
Flynn
We stay in bed until the middle of the afternoon. Declan sends breakfast upstairs, and we eat it tangled in the sheets, pretending for a few hours that today isn’t the day everything breaks.
Later will be the hit or the reveal.
We either come out of this knowing who the fuck is betraying us… or we don’t come out at all.
There’s no in-between.
I take a long, scalding shower. The heat burns across my skin like it’s stripping away old sins just to make room for the new ones I’m about to earn.
When I step back into the bedroom with a towel around my waist, Autumn is curled in the sheets, knees up, arms wrapped around them. Her eyes follow me, and fear sits there like a bruise.
“Autumn, it’s going to be fine. It’s just a meeting.” I pull my pants up, buckle my belt, walk toward her.
She frowns, lips trembling. “It’s never just a meeting, is it?”
I force a smile. “Sometimes it is.”
“Promise me you’ll be careful.” Her voice is so soft it almost breaks something in my chest.
I keep my breathing even. No fear. No hesitation. She doesn’t get to see that part of me.
“I promise,” I whisper, lifting her hand and kissing the ring I put on her finger.
I step back, grab my white shirt, button it up, slide into my suit jacket. Her eyes stay pinned to me like she’s trying to memorise every inch.
“I’ll see you at dinner.” I wink and step out before I can second-guess any part of this.
Downstairs, I pull on my black boots. Kian waits near the bannister.
“We’ve got everything set up in the garage,” he says.
We walk together, our steps echoing. My hands curl into fists without thinking.
“You sure about this?” he asks.
“There’s no other way,” I say. “We need to know.”
He nods once.
Declan and Connor are already in the garage, armed and focused.
“Viviana stays here,” Declan says. “Ten of our men too. She’ll be safe.”
“I know.” And I do. Declan would die before letting anything touch her. Same way I’d burn the world if anyone laid a hand on Autumn.
I climb into the SUV beside him. Kian and Connor get into the second vehicle behind us.
We drive out, just the four of us and three guards. Kaden will meet us at the docks office. I told him not to come, but the stubborn bastard didn’t listen. He went to the penthouse to grab his gear and promised he’d meet us there.
“This shit needs to work,” Declan mutters under his breath, knuckles white on the steering wheel.
“It will.” I elbow him lightly in the ribs, forcing a grin I don’t feel. “Have a little faith, mate.”
Silence swallows the car after that. Just the low growl of the engine and the wet slap of tyres on night-slick roads.
The building finally rises ahead of us, three stories of cracked concrete and rusted steel hugging the docks like a rotting tooth. Warehouses crowd it on every side, black water licking at the back. Our “legal” office. We’ve used it twice in two months, and both times someone bled on the carpet.
Declan pulls into the half-lit lot. Headlights catch John Flanagan leaning against his Benz, Doyle beside him, Christian and Tiernan Keeffe already waiting like crows on a wire. Their soldiers melt into the shadows. Twelve, maybe fifteen silhouettes I can count without trying.
Flanagan lifts a lazy hand. He and the Keeffes disappear inside. We climb out of the SUV.
Kaden steps from the darkness the second my boots hit asphalt. No sling, no bandage, just a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Shouldn’t your arm be in a fucking sling?” I hiss.
“I’m good,” he says, voice flat, eyes already scanning rooftops. Special forces cold.
Kian and Connor stand by the door, waiting for Rurik and his brother. Declan checks his watch. “They’re late.”
“Maybe they won’t come after last night—” Christian mutters.
“They want their guns,” I answer. “Or the money. They’ll come.”
“Cars,” Kaden snaps.
Two black SUVs tear around the corner doing sixty in a thirty zone, headlights off.
Kaden’s already moving. “Too fast—”
The first muzzle flash is blinding.
“DOWN!” I roar, slamming into Kaden, driving him face-first into the concrete.
The world explodes.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
Bullets spark off metal, shatter glass, punch through flesh like it’s paper. Kian takes the first burst centre-mass; blood erupts from his chest in a red cloud, bright as paint under the floodlights.
Declan screams something inhuman and lurches upright, reaching for his little brother. Two rounds catch him high in the shoulder, spin him, drop him hard. Blood blooms dark across his white shirt.
I lunge for cover, and fire rips across my back. Lungs seize instantly; every breath tastes like copper and smoke.
My legs fold. I hit the ground hard enough to rattle teeth.
Christian’s voice fractures the night. “NO—FLYNN! DECLAN!”
I roll, trying to crawl, trying to breathe. Blood pours hot down my spine, soaks my waistband in seconds. Vision tunnels.
Kaden drops beside me, hands pressing the wound, already slick red. “Breathe, Flynn, come on.”
“Dec—” It comes out as a wet whisper.
Kaden’s eyes flick up. I follow them. Declan’s on his back ten feet away, chest unmoving, a dark lake spreading beneath him.
“Stay with me, mate.” Kaden’s voice cracks for the first time since I’ve known him.
Gunfire echoes, tyres scream, our remaining men return fire from the warehouses, muzzle flashes strobing like hell’s disco. Someone’s shouting for ambulances that won’t make it in time.
“Autumn—” Her name tears out of me, raw.
“I got her,” Kaden swears, pressing harder, blood oozing between his fingers. “I got you both; just stay—”
Black creeps in from the edges.
Through the open door I see John Flanagan step into the light. He looks straight at me—at the bodies—at the blood painting the concrete and smiles. Slow and satisfied.
Motherfu—
Darkness swallows everything.