30. Chapter 30 #3
The man grabs for my throat, and years of conditioning rear upward inside me like a starving animal. My body reacts before thought can catch up. I smash the gun into his temple once, twice, then shove him backward hard enough that he crashes into another guard rushing toward us.
Gunfire erupts down the hall.
Rafe moves through it like death itself. One moment beside me, the next already dropping another man with a blade buried clean between his ribs. Blood sprays across the wall in dark streaks.
“Go,” he snaps.
I turn instantly toward Emma and freeze.
Because she’s gone.
My heart fucking stops.
The hallway spins as I search for her through the chaos, my gaze catching fragments instead of answers. Bodies, blood, shouting, and a guard collapsing near the elevator. Another firing wildly toward Rafe.
But no Emma.
“No,” I breathe. Panic detonates inside my chest so violently that I have to fucking swallow it. “Emma!” I shout, twisting toward the branching corridor behind us. “Emma!”
Nothing. No answer.
My pulse roars in my ears.
I shove past a staggering guard and sprint several steps back the way we came, searching every doorway, every flicker of movement through the smoke and flashing security lights. My vision tunnels hard enough that I almost miss the hand grabbing my jacket.
Rafe jerks me backward just as another shot cracks past my head. “She’s not here,” he says sharply.
“She was right behind me!”
Another guard lunges from the stairwell. I fire twice without thinking, the recoil jolting up my arm as the man crumples.
I can’t breathe.
No no no no—
I’m fucking nauseous.
Rafe sees it on my face, and his expression darkens. “We need to get out now,” he orders.
“I’m not leaving her—”
“You won’t find her dead in this hallway, either.”
The words hit like ice water.
And suddenly we’re moving again, forced backward beneath relentless gunfire as Rafe covers our escape with lethal calm. Blood streaks across the polished floors beneath our shoes while we shove through the final exit door into the freezing night air.
Snow hits my face instantly, and for a moment, I think of how good it feels on my burning skin. The parking area beyond the service entrance is pure chaos. Men shout into radios while headlights slash through the heavy snowfall in streaks of white and gold. Cars are peeling out left and right.
My gaze whips frantically across the lot, searching every vehicle, every fucking shadow.
Emma.
Where the fuck is Emma?
Then I see the van.
And the second I do, I freeze. Because Nico is outside the side door on his knees, covered in blood.
I’m moving before I fully process what I’m seeing.
I sprint across the lot, my lungs burning from cold air and adrenaline while Rafe stays close behind me.
The closer we get to the van, the worse it becomes.
The side door is hanging open. Blood streaks across the metal step beneath it.
“No, fuck—” The words burst from me.
Nico jerks his head up at the sound of my voice, dark hair soaked with melting snow, panic carved so deeply into his face that I barely recognize him. “They fucking took them!” he shouts.
My stomach drops straight through the ground.
Inside the van, Micah is slumped against the seat, his skin horrifyingly pale beneath the blood soaking through his shirt. Kieran is sprawled half across the floor near the back, one hand clamped weakly over his side while blood slips steadily between his fingers.
For a second, I can’t breathe around what I’m looking at. “What happened?”
Nico shakes his head. “Heather, Adriana, and Adela are fucking gone, man. They came out of fucking nowhere.”
Rafe immediately climbs into the van beside Micah, his expression sharp the second he sees the wounds. “How?”
“Two SUVs,” Nico says quickly, scrambling to his feet. “Masked guys. They hit us right after Adela wiped Alexei’s system.”
My vision pulses hard.
No.
No, this isn’t happening. We won. Adela cracked the files.
We fucking won.
So why the hell is my world collapsing anyway?
Micah groans weakly from inside the van, dragging my attention toward him. “Jude…”
The sound nearly fucking destroys me. I climb inside immediately, dropping to my knees beside him while Rafe tears open Micah’s jacket to assess the damage. The metallic scent of blood fills the cramped space so thickly it almost makes me vomit.
“Hey,” I say quickly, gripping Micah’s hand. “Hey, stay with me.”
His eyes are glassy with pain, but still focused enough to find mine. “They…too—took Heather…”
“I know.”
Guilt crashes into me. This is my fault. Every single fucking bit of it.
Rafe presses hard against the wound near Micah’s shoulder, and Micah curses through clenched teeth. “Bullet passed through. Missed his heart by inches,” Rafe mutters. “Lucky.”
“Doesn’t feel lucky,” Micah grits out. “Motherfucker—”
Behind us, Kieran lets out a rough sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “You’re alive enough to complain. That’s promising.”
Nico turns immediately toward him. “Please shut the fuck up before you bleed out.”
Snow swirls through the open van door while alarms continue echoing from the venue in the distance. Somewhere behind us, more shouting erupts across the parking lot.
We don’t have time.
Rafe looks up sharply. “Drive.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“You heard me.” His voice stays cold and steady while he works on Micah. “Get us out of here.”
“I can’t leave Emma.”
“You have to if you want her alive.”
The words hit like a knife straight through my chest.
“They took my fucking wife, Graves. We need to leave if we’re going to have a chance to save them.”
For one horrible second, all I can see is Emma being dragged away, her hand reaching for me. And my heart fractures.
Rafe grabs the front of my jacket hard enough to force my attention back onto him. “Listen to me carefully,” he says, eyes deadly calm. “This is exactly what Alexei wanted. He wants you irrational. He wants you suicidal. You do not get to become useless right now. Is that fucking clear?”
My jaw clenches so hard it could snap.
“You can’t kill the bastard tonight,” Rafe says evenly. “But not tonight. He’s not going to hurt them yet.”
Micah groans again as Rafe shifts pressure against the wound, and reality slams back into me enough to clear the fog for a second. They need me to be functional.
I force myself upright and stumble toward the driver’s seat, hands shaking violently as I climb behind the wheel. Snow lashes against the windshield while my pulse hammers hard enough to blur the edges of my vision again.
Emma is gone. Alexei has her. And I know exactly what he plans to fucking do with her.