Chapter 44 Ryder
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Ryder
The door doesn’t open so much as it gives way under force, metal shrieking as my boot drives through the lock, and Zane catches the edge before it can slam back down. The sound tears through the quiet, sharp and final, and then we’re moving.
Three bodies crossing the threshold in the same breath, the same intention, precise and violent, held tight beneath control.
Cole turns as we enter, already shifting his weight, already calculating, but I see the moment it lands. The fraction of a second where his expectations fracture. He thought I’d come alone. He thought arrogance would walk me straight into his hands.
Instead, he gets all of us.
The space closes in the second I step inside. Cold air, stale and metallic, clings to the back of my throat, thick with oil and a sensation that hasn’t seen daylight in too long. It’s wrong in a way that settles low in my chest, instinct pulling tight as my gaze tracks the room.
And then… honey, wildflowers. It cuts through everything else as a line drawn straight to her. I feel it before I see her, my body locking onto that scent with a certainty that drowns out the rest of the room, the rest of the world narrowing to a single point.
Aurora.
Alive.
Here… we were right, thank fuck.
Cole moves to block my line of sight, adjusting just enough to try and hold control of the space, but it’s already slipping from him. I step forward anyway, shifting my angle until I can see past him.
She’s on the floor, back against the wall, wrists bound behind her. Pale, but upright. There’s strain in the set of her shoulders, in the way she holds herself still, but her eyes…
Her eyes find mine.
Everything else falls away for half a second. The noise, the tension, the past, all of it dissolves until there’s only her, still here, still breathing, still fighting.
Relief hits first, sharp enough to hurt, and then a coldness settles over it, controlled and purposeful that locks everything back into place.
Cole cuts through the space, trying to pull it back to him.
“You always did have a problem with listening,” he says, almost amused. “I was very clear. You were to come alone.”
I don’t answer.
There’s nothing he can say that matters more than the fact that she’s here.
He shifts again, positioning himself as a barrier, as if he still owns the ground between us, as if this is something he can manage with words and posture.
“You built a whole new life up here,” he continues, pacing a step, his attention flicking between me and the men at my back. “Clean bar. Clean rules. Thought you could just walk away from everything that made you who you are.”
He wants a reaction. Wants me to argue, to justify, to step into the version of this conversation he’s already written in his head.
I don’t give him that.
I stop a few feet in front of him and look at him the way I would any problem that needs solving. Clear, direct, stripped of anything unnecessary. “You took what wasn’t yours.”
Emotion flickers across his expression. Recognition, maybe. Or the realization that this isn’t going to go the way he planned.
Then he smiles, sharp and familiar. He thinks he still understands the rules of this. “You always did think everything belonged to you.”
Behind me, I feel Zane shift, quiet and precise, already mapping the angles, already moving into position. Finn’s weight rolls forward, the energy in him coiled tight, ready to break the second it needs to.
Cole sees it. Of course he does. His hand moves, quick and instinctive, reaching for the weapon at his side.
We move first.
Zane breaks left, fast and silent, cutting around the edge of the unit toward Aurora. Finn angles right, closing off space, turning the room smaller, tighter, leaving Cole with nowhere clean to move.
I go straight through him.
The first hit lands hard enough to snap his head back, bone meeting bone with a crack that echoes through the unit. It doesn’t slow me down. It just opens the door.
Cole recovers faster than most men would. He always did. His weight shifts, his stance correcting mid-impact, and he comes back at me hard, trained, and controlled. He’s not just swinging. He’s trying to win.
He drives into me with enough force to push me back a step, shoulder catching mine, the impact sending us both sideways into a metal shelving unit that rattles violently against the wall. Something crashes to the floor behind us, the sound sharp and chaotic in the tight space.
There’s no room here. No distance to reset. Just pressure. Just movement.
I adjust faster.
Step in.
Close the space before he can.
My fist drives into his ribs, and this time I feel something give under the impact… not just resistance.
Damage.
His breath breaks on the exhale, sharp and involuntary, but he still comes back at me, fist cutting toward my jaw. I roll with it, take the edge instead of the center, and answer by slamming him backward into the concrete wall hard enough to rattle the metal frame behind him.
“This is who you are,” he manages, trying to drag me into something that looks more like a conversation. “You don’t get to pretend anymore—”
My fist cuts him off.
Once.
Twice.
The third one splits skin.
Blood hits my hand, warm and immediate, but I don’t slow. I keep him pinned there, keep him contained, driving force into him until his footing breaks, and he drops.
He doesn’t go down clean.
He twists as he falls, dragging at my jacket, trying to take me with him, trying to pull me into the kind of fight he knows how to win. His hand catches, leverage shifts… for half a second, it almost works.
I shut it down.
Drive him flat to the floor.
I follow him down without thinking, one hand locking into his collar, the other braced against his throat, not choking, not yet, but close enough that he feels exactly how little space he has left.
“You don’t get to touch her,” I say.
He laughs anyway.
Even now.
“You’re still the same,” he spits, blood at the corner of his mouth. “You think this makes you different?”
Behind me, Zane cuts through, sharp and controlled. “I’ve got you.”
Aurora.
The steely word settles into me.
Cole surges under me, a last push of resistance, trying to shift leverage, trying to claw back control he already lost.
I shut it down.
I drive him back into the concrete.
My fist comes down again, controlled, deliberate, enough to take more from him without losing hold of the line I’m walking.
Then, movement. I turn just enough to catch it. Another man, fast, weapon up, angle lined straight at me.
Finn moves first.
He cuts across the space without hesitation, intercepting the line of fire, and the impact lands into him with a sick, heavy sound that tears a sharp breath out of his chest.
Everything inside me goes cold.
I let Cole go.
I cross the distance to the second man in two steps and end it before he can recover—fast, efficient, final enough that he doesn’t get a second chance.
Then I turn back.
Cole’s trying to crawl, dragging himself across the concrete. He still believes there’s a way out of this.
There isn’t.
I catch him by the back of his jacket and haul him up just enough to slam him back down again, harder this time, the impact knocking what little breath he has left out of him.
He chokes on it, body folding in on itself.
“You think this fixes anything?” he manages.
I crouch over him, grip tightening in his collar, keeping him exactly where I want him.
“No,” I say.
And then I hit him again.
For her. For the alley. For the way she was taken. For the fact that he thought he could.
Each strike lands with purpose. The kind of violence that doesn’t spiral, it decides, and this time, when I stop, it’s not because I ran out of reasons.
It’s because I feel it… that edge.
The one that doesn’t come back from this.
One more hit, and this stops being control. Stops being about her.
Starts being something else.
So I choose to stop.
He’s still conscious.
Barely.
Bloodied, breathing wrong, no fight left in him that matters.
The room feels different now, like the outcome has already been decided and everything left is just the aftermath.
Behind me, Zane again. “She’s free.”
That’s what pulls me back.
My focus shifts without hesitation.
Not the fight. Not him. Her.
I release my grip and let him drop fully to the floor.
I’m done.