Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Like a cruel joke, my phone started vibrating against the floor.
I’d forgotten I’d dropped it to free up my hand for the knife. Now, it buzzed loudly against the floorboards, the sound amplified like a drumbeat in the silence.
Vvvvt. Vvvvt. Vvvvt.
I snatched it up, fumbling to silence the screen before the vibration could echo again, but the damage was already done.
Because now I could hear footsteps getting closer to where we were. Slow, measured, and heavy enough to mean business.
My heart was pounding in my ears as I slid back against the wall beside the closet, gripping the knife tighter in one hand and the rolling pin in the other. The skillet was behind me, too heavy to wield easily, but I’d throw the damn thing if I had to.
The footsteps paused right outside the room. I didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, didn’t even move.
Then came the soft creak of the floorboard in the hallway—the one I knew always gave itself away, no matter how careful you were.
I couldn’t tell if it was one person or more, if they knew exactly where we were, or if they were just searching. But they were close enough now that I could feel it in my gut.
The kids were behind me, and I was all that stood between them and whatever nightmare had just walked in.
My fingers tightened on the handle of the knife.
If they opened that panel, they weren’t walking out of it.
Chapter 24
Roque
Icouldn’t believe what I was seeing.
One second, I was glancing down at my phone to check the security alerts coming through, and the next, I was staring at footage that made my blood run ice cold.
The camera on the side of the house caught it first. A dark, unmarked van came tearing into the frame, headlights off, engine growling. And then, without even hesitating, it slammed straight into the side of the house.
Right through the damn wall.
The van hit so hard that its entire frame shook. Plaster dust blasted out from the impact as the wall broke into pieces, and the metal groaned as it came to a stop half in and half out of my home where Sayla and the kids were.
I barely had time to process the impact before five figures emerged—masked, fast, and armed—and disappeared through the gaping hole they’d just created.
“Fuck—” I hissed, switching to the internal feeds, fingers trembling as I tapped through the app.
There they were, five of them moving through the house like they’d done it a hundred times before in tight formation, each man clearing a room with precise, practiced movements. There was no panic, no hesitation. This wasn’t a smash-and-grab, it wasn’t some junkie looking for cash or pills. It was organized and targeted.
They weren’t there to steal a damn thing. They were hunting Sayla and the kids.
I grabbed my radio and phone simultaneously, the pressure of both in my hands grounding me for a split second as cold sweat slid down the back of my neck. My heart hammered so hard I could barely hear myself speak over the roar in my head.
“DB,” I clipped, my voice sharp, already running on adrenaline. “Emergency at my place. Five armed suspects just breached the house. They drove a van straight into the side wall. Sayla and the kids are inside.”
There was a heartbeat of silence, and then DB came back, calm but all business. “Copy that. I’m rolling. Units are on the way. ETA ten.”
I was already throwing the SUV into gear, gravel spitting out behind me as I peeled onto the road. “I’m twenty-eight out,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I’ll be faster.”
I killed the call and floored it, the engine screaming beneath me as I pushed the speedometer well past what was legal—hell, beyond what was smart—but I didn’t care.
All I could think about was the last message from Sayla. She’d tried to sound steady even though I knew her hands had to be shaking. She had no idea what had just happened or what was coming through that wall.
God, please let them be okay.
Please let her be smart enough to stay hidden, keep the kids quiet, and hold the line long enough. Because if anything happened to them—if I got there too late—there wouldn’t be a place on this earth those bastards could hide where I wouldn’t find them.
I’d been standing in Randolph Topper’s kitchen when the alerts started coming through. We were mid-search—me, Keir, Kapono, and Imogen—turning the place over while paramedics wheeled Topper out the front door, barely clinging to consciousness. He’d looked like death: pale, sweaty, and his breathing shallow. If someone had poisoned him, it wouldn’t surprise me. He’d made enough enemies to fill a stadium.
Honestly, none of us cared much if he made it or not. What mattered was that the suspected poisoning gave us legal grounds to search his house. And Judd wasn’t wasting a second of it—he and Kai were already working through his home office and den while Imogen photographed everything.