51. Felicity
FELICITY
Rain slammed against my face the second we burst out the farmhouse door.
Chaos exploded across the ranch.
Gunfire cracked through the storm from every direction while Shadow Division operators returned fire with terrifying precision.
Mercer’s men were dying fast.
Bodies lay scattered near the convoy vehicles.
Mud.
Blood.
Smoke.
Flashing muzzle fire.
It looked like a war zone.
Hersh stayed directly in front of me the entire time.
One hand locked around mine while his weapon tracked the darkness.
Every instinct he had focused on one thing:
keeping me alive.
“Move!” Rook barked.
We sprinted through the rain.
Wolf and Trigger covered our left flank while Ava stayed behind with Mia and two operators inside the farmhouse.
Another burst of suppressed gunfire erupted from the tree line.
Dirt exploded beside us.
Hersh yanked me tighter against him instantly.
“Sniper!”
Rook fired twice toward the ridge without even slowing down.
A distant body dropped from the trees.
The man didn’t even hesitate.
The old red barn loomed ahead through sheets of rain.
Lightning flashed overhead?—
illuminating bullet holes already ripped through the weathered wood.
Mercer’s cleanup crew got here first.
My pulse slammed harder.
“No…”
Hersh kicked the barn door open violently.
It banged against the wall hard enough to shake dust from the rafters.
We flooded inside.
Darkness swallowed us immediately.
The smell hit first.
Hay.
Oil.
Rainwater.
Old wood.
And something else.
Something metallic.
Blood.
Wolf swept left with his rifle raised.
“Clear.”
Trigger checked the loft.
“Top’s clear!”
Rook moved deeper into the barn slowly, flashlight cutting through shadows.
Then the beam landed on the floor.
And stopped.
My breath caught.
There were drag marks in the dirt.
Fresh ones.
Leading toward the back wall.
Hersh saw them too.
“Someone already searched this place.”
Rook crouched beside the marks carefully.
“No,” he said quietly.
His flashlight shifted.
Revealing bloody fingerprints smeared across the wood.
“Someone found it.”
Thunder shook the barn overhead.
My heart started pounding harder.
“What did my father hide?”
Nobody answered.
Because none of us knew.
Then—
Hersh suddenly went still beside me.
His flashlight had landed on something carved into one of the support beams.
A symbol.
A raven.
The same raven from the video.
The same raven worn by Shadow Division.
Rook’s expression darkened instantly.
“That shouldn’t be here.”
Before anyone could ask why?—
a weak voice came from the shadows behind us.
“Your father said… you’d come.”
Every weapon in the barn snapped upward instantly.
A figure stumbled out from behind stacked hay bales.
Older man.
Bleeding heavily from his stomach.
One of the convoy guards.
I recognized him vaguely.
Eddie.
He collapsed against the wall hard, breathing ragged.
Frightened eyes locked onto me.
“Miss Felicity…”
I rushed forward instinctively.
“Hersh,” I gasped. “He’s hurt.”
Hersh grabbed my arm immediately. “Careful.”
But Eddie barely looked armed enough to breathe.
Blood soaked through his shirt while rainwater dripped from gray hair plastered to his forehead.
Rook crouched beside him fast.
“What happened?”
Eddie coughed painfully.
“Mercer… found out Frank contacted us.”
“Us?” Rook pressed.
“Some of us stayed loyal to your father,” Eddie rasped. “We tried to protect her.”
My throat tightened instantly.
Even after Dad died…
some of them still tried.
Eddie looked directly at me then.
Eyes full of guilt.
“Your father loved you, Miss Felicity.”
The emotion hit so hard it nearly buckled my knees.
“He pushed you away to keep Mercer from noticing how much you mattered.”
Tears burned instantly.
Because deep down…
I think part of me always wondered if Dad regretted having me.
Eddie reached shakily inside his blood-soaked jacket.
Every weapon in the barn tensed.
Then he pulled out?—
a small brass key.
Old.
Worn smooth with age.
“There’s a lockbox,” Eddie whispered weakly. “Under the horse stall.”
Hersh’s arm tightened around me instantly.
“Which stall?”
“The black mare’s.”
Lightning flashed outside.
And suddenly I remembered.
Dad’s favorite horse.
Midnight.
The only horse he never sold after Mom died.
My pulse slammed.
“He hid it under Midnight’s stall.”
Eddie nodded weakly.
Then his expression changed.
Fear.
Real fear.
“Mercer can’t get what’s inside.”
Rook’s voice lowered dangerously.
“What is it?”
Eddie looked directly at him.
And whispered the words that froze every person in the barn:
“A list.”
Silence.
Rook went completely still.
“What kind of list?”
Eddie swallowed painfully.
“Everyone involved in Black Hollow.”