51. Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-One
Wrenley
“LIAM!” His name tears out of me like it rips something from my chest. The SUV goes dead silent except for my ragged breathing and the echo of his scream still ringing through the speakers.
“Max—” My voice breaks. “Drive. Faster.”
Max’s knuckles go white on the wheel. “I am—”
“FASTER!” It comes out feral, unhinged. “He’s alive. He’s alive and he needs us—”
The comms crackle. Torque’s voice bursts through, raw and breathless. “Wren—Max—turn around! His bike is here! Hidden off the service road—we almost missed it!”
For a split second I can’t breathe. His bike. His bike.
“He’s close,” Max mutters, shifting gears. He slams the brakes. The SUV fishtails, tires screaming against the asphalt. The whole vehicle lurches sideways, my shoulder slams into the door, Wrecker swears behind us, Riots bike narrowly avoids clipping the bumper.
Max wrenches the wheel, whipping us around so violently the SUV lifts onto two wheels for a heartbeat before crashing back down. My palms hit the dashboard hard enough to bruise. “Max!” Elias shouts over the comms. “Watch the—”
Max floors it. Gravel spits out behind us, peppering Elias’s SUV as we barrel back down the service road we passed moments before.
Headlights slicing through the dark like blades.
My pulse is a war drum in my throat. My chest hurts.
My fingers shake so badly I have to curl them into fists to keep them steady.
Torque’s voice comes through again, tight with urgency “Left side—trees—fifteen yards off the road—look for the cedar. It’s behind it.”
Max veers off the pavement, the SUV bouncing violently as we hit uneven ground.
Branches whip the windshield. Then headlights catch something metallic under the brush.
A gleam of black chrome. My breath stops.
His bike. His fucking bike. Camouflaged under branches and debris, like he didn’t want anyone to find it.
Max slams the brakes again and the SUV skids to a stop sideways. I’m already unbuckling, ripping the door open, stumbling into the brush. Torque and Riot appear seconds later from opposite directions, their headlights from their bikes slicing across the clearing.
Torque shines a flashlight on the bike, Dust-covered. Hidden with intent. Abandoned by force or by choice. I don’t know which is worse.
Riot crouches beside the bike, brushing branches aside. “It’s cold,” he says, checking the engine casing with the back of his hand. “Been here a while.”
My heart twists. He left it here on purpose. Hid it. Covered it. Walked into whatever trap Sebastian set… willingly. Torque steps around the bike, jaw clenched so hard the muscle bulges. “He didn’t want us to follow him. He hid it like he thought he was protecting us.”
Max swears under his breath. I swallow past the burn in my throat. “He thought he was protecting me.” The clearing goes silent.
Riot stands, dusting off his palms. “But this means he wasn’t taken out here. He walked in.”
Elias comes over the comms immediately, “Two buildings match the power draw on the feed. He’s close.”
Hope and dread crash through me like twin storms.
“He left the bike,” Max murmurs, mostly to himself as he steps beside me. “He left a trail.”
My fists clench. I turn toward the convoy, breath shaking, heartbeat like a war drum. “Let’s move. Now.”
Headlights sweep across the clearing as Elias’s SUV skids to a halt beside us.
The rear door swings open, and Margot jumps out, a tablet clutched in her hands, hair whipping in the wind.
“We got the two buildings Elias mentioned,” she says, breathless as she brings the screen up between us.
“They’re nearly identical—power signatures, layout, even location. Could be either.”
The map glows pale blue in the dark. Two warehouses. Two possibilities. Two chances to be wrong. I step closer. My pulse slows. Focus sharpens. Everything else goes silent. I look at the two structures on the screen. I point to the left one without hesitation. “He’s here.”
Max glances at me. “Sparrow… how do you know?”
Wrecker shifts beside me, arms crossed. “We should split up and hit both. Cover more ground.”
“No.” The word blasts out of my mouth, sharper than gunfire. Everyone turns. “It’s this one,” I say again, tapping the left building. “This is where he is.”
Torque frowns. “Wren—”
Max steps closer. “How can you be sure?”
I swallow once, hard. “Because I know that building,” I say quietly. “My father owned it. It was part of the Ashford holdings when I was a kid. Sebastian would use that.”
A ripple of understanding passes through the group. Elias nods first. Then Margot. Then Torque. Then Riot.
Wrecker blows out a long breath. “Okay… yeah. That tracks.”
Max lifts his chin, looking at all of us. “Then we stick together,” he says, voice commanding. “We go in as one unit. Stay on comms. No one breaks formation. No one plays the hero.”
His eyes sweep over each of them before landing on me. “We kill anything that gets in our way.” He pauses for a moment. “And we bring our brother home.”
The Serpents answer in unison, low and lethal, “Always.”
We fan out toward the warehouse, moving like shadows, silent, deliberate, every step a blade’s edge of restraint. Max raises two fingers, and the Serpents tighten formation, aligning on either side of him. Riot moves ahead, scanning for movement. Torque covers our rear.
I’m running point. I don’t breathe normally anymore, I breathe with purpose, every inhale a countdown, every exhale a vow. We slip through a side door half-buried in rust. Max shoulders it open quietly. Inside, stale air hits us, metallic, cold, faintly sweet, like chemicals and rot. No one talks.
This building is a maze, twisting hallways, rusted stairs, catwalks that vanish into shadow. The same maze Liam walked into alone. Max taps my shoulder twice. And motions, slow, quiet. Watch everything.
I nod, even if my blood is screaming to run.
Riot holds up a fist, movement ahead. We freeze.
Two guards turn a corner, laughing about something.
They don’t laugh for long. Torque sweeps silently behind the first, arm locking around his throat before the man even realizes he’s dying.
Riot slips a blade between the ribs of the second, a clean, surgical insertion.
Not a sound. Bodies lowered gently to the floor. Riot wipes the knife on his pants and nods. We move on. We take out four more the same way, quiet, controlled, no alarms tripped. But the deeper we push into the warehouse, the more wrong it feels.
The more… curated. Like someone built this place to be walked through. Like someone wants us here. We follow a hallway that turns sharply right, then right again. Then opens into a room that makes my heart stop.
It’s a perfect replica of a living room. Not ours. Not his. Mine. Not exact, but close enough that I feel sick. The dusty pink rug. The crooked-framed picture on the wall. The lamp with the chipped base. It’s my childhood living room.
“Fuck,” Riot breathes. Max stiffens beside me. Wrecker mutters what sounds like a prayer in Italian.
I swallow bile. Sebastian is playing with us. Bread crumbs of memory. Pieces of a life I don’t even remember fully. Pieces Liam never should have walked through alone. Max squeezes my shoulder. “Stay focused, Sparrow.” He whispers. I nod, but I’m shaking.
We exit the room and continue down the corridor. Another turn. Another whisper of movement. Another guard is silently taken to the floor. Then a door. Partially open. A faint glow spilling out. My heart begins to hammer so hard I can taste metal.
I know this light. This color. Max and Riot flank me instantly, like they feel it too. I step closer. The air changes, colder, sharper. My breath feels wrong in my lungs. We breach the doorway and everything inside my chest tightens.
It’s my childhood bedroom. Or some sick twisted recreation of it.
Small bed. Stuffed animals on the shelf.
The wallpaper with faint lavender vines.
I feel my knees almost give out. And in the center of the room, tied to a cross-like structure, head slumped, blood running in streaks down his chest, some of it dried.
Liam.
My voice breaks before I can stop it. “Liam—”
I take two steps forward and Riot tackles me around the waist. We crash to the ground, breath knocked out of me. “What the—RIOT—GET OFF—” I shove at him, wild, furious, feral.
He grips my arms, holding me tight. “You were about to hit it!” he hisses, pointing ahead.
That is when I see it. A tripwire. Thin as a hair. Stretched low across the floor, inches from where my foot had been. My blood goes cold. Max is already beside us, hauling me to my feet as Riot scrambles up.
“Okay,” I breathe, chest heaving. “Okay. I’ll watch where I step.”
But when the three of us look up again, everything stops. Riot swears loudly. Max goes rigid beside me. Torque whispers curses behind us. And me, my lungs stop working.
“Please,” I whisper, voice cracking. “Please tell me that is not a bomb strapped to my husband.”
But it is. A vest. Wires. Metal casing. A timed device strapped across Liam’s torso. And a light is blinking softly. Slow. Patient. Waiting.
Riot moves closer, eyes narrowing, scanning the vest, the wiring, the floor, the ceiling, everything. He’s gone deadly quiet. When Riot is quiet, it means we’re in real trouble.
Max steps toward him, “What do you see?”
Riot doesn’t answer at first. He crouches, eyes locked on the floor just in front of Liam, and then the wall.
His voice, when it finally comes, is calm in a way that makes my stomach drop. “This room is a kill box.”
Torque swears behind us, vicious. Max goes still.