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“It’s a little late for threats, Mr. Scott. The two of you have done too much damage to have any leverage. I assume you’re already familiar with our protocols. You have an hour. If you’re not here, the next phone call you get won’t be pleasant.”

“Kate. Let me talk to her.”

“No.”

The line went dead.

“Fucking hell.” My heart pounded in my chest, adrenaline swimming. “He’s going to kill her.”

“We have an hour. They’ll be here by then.”

He was right, but that would be cutting it very, very close. I wasn’t going to risk him hurting Kate. “All right,” I said. “I’ll wait. But if they’re not close enough in forty-five minutes, or there’s any sign that she’s in any more danger, I’m going in.”

Liam looked at me in the dying light, studying my face. “All right. We’ll go in then.”

That was that. We flattened ourselves to the hill to wait as long as we could, and to pray the others drove fast.

Chapter 29

Noah

Fifty minutes passed. The others were still on their way. It was full dark, and we couldn’t afford to wait anymore.

The vans behind the house had left, and new ones had taken their place. They were filling the second set now. More guns, more drugs, more animals.

A gunshot rang out, and the world seemed to freeze. My heart stopped. It hadn’t been an hour yet. That wasn’t Kate. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

Dread pooled in my stomach. The odds were against us, but we had to do this. “I’m sorry,” I said to Liam.

“I’m fucking not. We’re in this together, no matter what.”

I nodded once. “Together?”

“Together.”

The darkness made our second approach easy. We went down the side of the hill I’d scouted, down toward the weapons. My mind narrowed in pure focus. Air moved in and out of my lungs, and every breath drew me closer to my target.

Another gunshot, and another. What the fuck were they doing? It was a double-edged sword. Every gunshot brought a wave of fear I had to fight back, and yet every gunshot made it easier for us to approach without being heard. Covered by the noise, I took out the camera with a quiet shot before we struck.

We waited until they were carrying a crate and jumped. They didn’t have time to drop the crate and draw their weapons. I clubbed one over the back of the head, and Liam matched me, taking down the other one.

The crate crashed to the ground. Nothing we could do about that sound, but we ducked inside the shed housing the guns, taking down two more surprised guys. I wasn’t using deadly force if I didn’t have to—I knew how to put a man down hard enough that he’d be out for a few hours.

I also knew that if the man on the phone—Simon—threatened Kate’s life in front of me, I wouldn’t hesitate.

Outside there was a shout. Someone discovering the crate and the guys. Bad luck that they’d noticed so soon. “Doors.”

Liam and I each took a side, waiting for them to come in. They did exactly what they shouldn’t have, rushing through the door without clearing the side, and two more went down, groaning.

We needed to move. We couldn’t get pinned in this place. I flicked the lock as we slipped out, ensuring that it would take them a few minutes to escape if they woke. But they wouldn’t.

“Noah,” Liam called, and I dropped. A shot bounced off the shed where my body had been. Liam fired toward the house and covered me as we got up, moving to the main wall and circling. They knew that someone was here now. We couldn’t take the back way in.

More gunshots that weren’t aimed at us. The panic welling inside me was almost impossible to ignore, but I shoved it down. We were around the side of the big house now. “Front door?” I asked. “With the boarded windows, that might be the easiest place.”

“Sounds good to me,” Liam said, eyes darting back the way we’d come.

The sound of rattling metal in front of us gave them away. Three came around the corner, and I reacted. A shot in the knee took one down, and the next got an elbow to the face while Liam dealt with the third.