Page 164 of Crave

Behind us, the bodies were still warm. The cartel had come fast and hard, but they hadn’t meant to kill us. We all knew it now.

This was never a fight.

But what was it?

“Move!”Silas’s voice rang out, hoarse and ragged, but full of command.

He should have still been down. He could barely stand. But somehow, he was ahead of us, limping with fury and precision as he led us out the back.

Theo was beside him, covering their flank, his jaw tight and his movements sharp. Jude moved with a kind of eerie calm behind them.

Gabe was at my side, his hand on my elbow, guiding me through the shadows like he didn’t trust me to keep up.

Maybe I didn’t.

The warehouse disappeared behind us, swallowed by darkness and smoke. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.

The street was cold and wide and empty. Too empty. Every sound felt too loud. Every breath, every step, every click of a weapon being reloaded—it all felt like it was leading us somewhere we weren’t prepared to go.

Ahead, three black SUVs waited—silent, menacing. Marco stood at the farthest one, his expression grim. Our surviving men were there too, scanning the street, ready for another wave that hadn’t come.

Silas stopped hard, his breath ragged. “We split up,” he said.

Theo turned on him. “We don’t even know what direction they’re coming from.”

“We’ll find out soon enough.” Silas didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to.

There was something in the way he stood, in the way he watched the shadows, that made my blood run cold.

“Take her,” Theo barked at Gabe, jerking his chin toward me. “Get her in the car.”

I wanted to object. To scream that I wasn’t the problem here. That I wasn’t their burden to protect or control. But Gabe was already at my side, ushering me toward the SUV.

I looked back once, just in time to catch Jude slipping into the back seat of the vehicle with Theo. His eyes met mine through the open door.

He didn’t blink. Didn’t look away.

Then the door closed, and that was it.

I slid into the back seat beside Gabe as Marco started the engine.

My heart was still pounding, my hands trembling in my lap. Something was wrong. Something was always wrong.

We were running.

But it didn’t feel like we were getting away.

The SUV jolted forward, the engine growling as Marco floored it down the empty street. Gabe sat beside me in the backseat, silent, jaw clenched, one hand braced on the door like he couldn’t fully relax.

I stared out the window, trying to ignore the tremble still working its way through my limbs. The warehouse was gone now, swallowed by distance and shadow. But the feeling of being watched—that crawling sensation across the back of my neck—hadn’t left.

Something was wrong. I could feel it in my chest. In the way Gabe kept checking the rearview mirror. In the way Marco didn’t speak, his eyes flicking to every alley, every parked car.

“Where are we going?” I finally asked, my voice low.

“Safe house,” Marco answered without looking back. “One of ours, off-grid.”

Gabe’s gaze didn’t leave the road behind us. “We rotate through it every few months. No one should know it exists.”