Page 49 of Fallen Empire (The Fallen Trilogy #2)

Ben

The gunshot cracked through the air, but the sound wasn’t what gutted me.

It was the weight that hit a split second later. The truth I’d been trying not to choke on since the second Koslov took her.

The moment her smile faltered when she realized a man wasn’t just being kind and holding the door open, I realized the mistake I’d made.

I should’ve warned her more.

Should’ve told her every damn thing I knew about the kind of man we were up against, even if it would’ve kept her up at night.

I didn’t give her enough details. Never even showed her his fucking photo.

What the fuck did I do ? I’d seduced her. Took advantage of her when she was at her lowest. Fulfilled my needs, and hers, and told myself it was to take her mind off the world closing in.

It had worked. Briefly.

But when the haze cleared, nothing had changed. The danger was still there, and I’d left her exposed to it.

Worse, I’d let her walk right into the hands of a man I didn’t even know by face. I’d been protecting her from a shadow, not the flesh-and-blood monster who’d been circling all along.

And now he had her.

Because I’d been selfish.

Because I hadn’t been good enough, fast enough, ruthless enough. And worse, because I’d underestimated him. A mistake I never made.

If Mills—the only woman I’d ever loved—was on the receiving end of that bullet, I swear to God I’d tear Koslov apart with my bare hands. His death wouldn’t just be slow. It would be merciless. A front row seat to his favorite kind of hell.

We were a block away when—

One.

Two.

Three more shots split the air, stopping me for the briefest second. My gut twisted, but training forced the fear down where it belonged.

I dropped my sunglasses and flipped the thermal-vision lenses into place. The building’s front was a blind wall. Solid concrete, windows blacked out with grime and years of neglect. Through it, the thermal picked up nothing but cold surfaces.

We shifted, moving to the far side. Here, plywood panels and sheets of thick plastic flapped slightly in the draft, revealing sections of bare studs and unfinished walls.

Through those gaps, heat signatures moved above us.

Slow, deliberate shapes pacing a few floors up. Clean outlines, easy to track.

Nothing at ground level.

Which meant either it was clear, or they were waiting.

Our team fell into formation without a word, weapons ready, boots silent against the dusty concrete.

I’d already fired off a message to Jade, my emergency handler. If what we were walking into was what I thought, there’d be bodies left behind. And I needed someone on standby, just in case those bodies ended up being ours.

“You seeing what I’m seeing?” Jaxson’s voice came through the comm, tight and clipped.

I swept the building again through the thermal overlay. “One seated, heat spiking in the thigh and head. Looks injured but alive. Another body crouched low, arm extended… reads like a pistol to someone’s head.”

“No,” Jaxson said. “I mean the ones coming down the stairs.”

My focus shifted. My eyes adjusted. And then I saw them. Six bright red silhouettes charging down the stairwell.

“Third and fourth floor,” Reaper’s voice cut in. “Ten more inbound.”

My head tilted up instinctively. Sure enough, the upper levels glowed with heat signatures—sixteen in total, waiting. On standby.

Sixteen against the three of us, but the odds have been worse.

“You see the others?” Reaper said, and we looked back. “Looks like someone already took a few out.” But we didn’t have time to figure out who that someone might be right now.

The images from the stairwell had already entered the room, leaving us with a disadvantage.

“What’s our entry route?” I asked into the comm, adrenaline spiking through every vein. My grip tightened on the rifle, pulse syncing with the steady beat of boots on concrete.

We needed to move. Fast. The separation gave us just enough time to get the upper hand.

“Side entry,” Nic’s voice came through the comm. “You’re already in a good position to take it. That construction access with the scaffold and plywood. Once you’re inside, comm’s useless. I won’t be able to help anymore.”

That was our window.

“Keep an eye on us from the outside, Nic.” Jaxson said, his voice low but steady.

We started to move, closing the distance toward the side entry, boots whispering over concrete.

“Wait,” Reaper said, his tone sharp. “What are they doing?”

We followed his line of sight to the thermal display. From this angle, the ground floor was clear. Every heat signature sharp against the cooler background.

One figure was being dragged across the floor.

No… it was being pulled off another. Shoving a body aside until a single heat signature remained. Human life was nothing in their world, discarded as easily as moving furniture.

The one that had been holding the gun was now hauling a body upright. My stomach went tight when I realized what I was looking at. We all continued to watch as the smaller image was pushed into a chair, their arms pulled back and being bound behind them.

A low growl rumbled out of me before I even knew it was there.

“Those are our girls,” Jaxson’s voice cut through my comm, low and lethal.

We moved as one, no hesitation.

Reaper’s gaze shifted upward through his scope. “Got a body down on the second floor.”

I looked up, catching the faint, unmoving heat signature.

“Has to be Layla,” Jaxson said. “He wouldn’t take out the two most important pieces.”

I scanned again, counting. Ten heat signatures still upstairs. Not coming down… not yet. They paced in tight loops, restless and waiting.

We moved into position. Reaper took point at the top corner, angled into the hall, his rifle steady, suppressor attached. Any shot from him would be nothing more than a whisper, and whoever was upstairs would have no clue what was happening below until it was far too late.

I held at the corner wall just before the hallway opened up, keeping my sights locked ahead. Jaxson was close behind me, ready to move the second I did.

The walls inside were unfinished. The one holding our women had two exterior concrete walls, but from here we could see the images clearly through peeling paint and bare sheetrock.

A few rooms above were nothing more than four concrete slabs, some of them not giving way to anything through our thermal glasses.

“Fuck.” Reaper’s voice cut in, sharp enough to drag my focus back to the ground floor.

That’s when I saw it. An arm raised high, then swinging down like it was meant to break bone.

The scream that followed sliced through me, sharp and cracked, as if it was tearing itself free from her chest.

Every muscle in me locked. I knew that sound. I’d know it anywhere.

“Mills.” Her name left me like a growl, low and primal.

My legs were already moving before I realized it. I pushed forward, ready to storm that room and end whoever touched her.

A hand clamped hard on the back of my vest. Jaxson’s grip was iron, yanking me back so hard my teeth snapped together.

“Not yet,” he muttered, but it didn’t matter. The damage was already done. I’d seen enough. I knew exactly who was in that chair, and I wasn’t leaving without her.

“Let fucking go of me, Jax,” I seethed through my teeth.

“We can’t go in like that, brother.” His voice was steady, but I could hear the strain beneath it. “Vannah’s right beside her, and I want to just as much as you. But we can’t risk losing them—or any of us.”

“Then what the fuck do we do?” My pulse hammered in my ears. I was tired of waiting. Tired of being on the outside of every fight that mattered. Tired of someone else holding the upper hand when it came to the lives of the people I cared for.

The people I fucking loved.

Jax’s eyes cut to mine for half a second before he started signing. Move down. Wall left.

I nodded, catching the rest. Reaper ahead on the right. He slid forward in a low crouch, rifle tight to his shoulder, the suppressor dulling the faint gleam from our optics.

We hugged the walls of the hall, my boots silent over the grit-coated concrete. Reaper took each opening on his side one by one, the thermals useless against solid structure. He paused just long enough for a sweep. Two rooms cleared, and then we moved on.

Reaper crossed to the left, and we slid into his position on the right. He was already at the opening, just a shadow framed in the doorway. A quick glance over his shoulder, then his hands moved. Signals sharp and deliberate.

No eyes on him in the thermals.

Inside, our main target—Koslov, no doubt—stood with his back to us.

Reaper moved first, clearing the right with a smooth sweep. I cut left, weapon high, every step drilled into muscle memory.

The only thing Koslov saw were bodies dropping, one after another, silent except for the dull thud of gear hitting concrete.

An arm jerked up in my periphery and one sharp crack split the air. Not ours. We all had suppressors.

Then I saw her.

Her head was slumped forward, hair matted to her face, blood pooling beneath the chair. My eyes tracked it up—red pouring down her thigh in thick rivulets, darkening her jeans. The smell hit me, sharp iron in the air.

My rifle shifted, sight lining up with him. One squeeze and—

Koslov moved, jerking her upright, the barrel of his pistol pressing to her temple.

I didn’t even have time to adjust before heat and pain exploded against my chest. It was like a sledgehammer had slammed into my ribs, stealing every ounce of air from my lungs.

My vision speckled, black creeping in from the edges.

My knees threatened to buckle, but I locked them in place, forcing my weapon to stay trained on him.

A second blast ripped through the space, louder in my skull than in the room. The impact tore into my left shoulder, spinning me backward and sending my weapon clattering to the floor.

My arm went numb, fire radiating all the way down to my fingertips.