Page 106 of Silver Fox Daddies

A gun fires from below. I yank Diesel and Melissa down at just the right time, the bullet missing Melissa’s head by the skin of her teeth.

She gasps, screaming when a second one is fired.

Upstairs, glass shatters. Movement. That must mean Cash is still alive.

A third bullet travels through the air. Same as before, I take hold of Diesel and Melissa, shoving them into the wall as the bullet whips past. This time, it keeps going, journeying all the way through the air until it ends upstairs.

But what follows is worse.

An explosion fills the basement, deafening me. Part of my hearing comes back, a ringing sound filling my ears along with a noise higher in pitch—Melissa’s scream.

Diesel reaches the top of the stairs just as the fire starts to catch, long tongues of it catching on the floor like a domino effect. I stand dead in my tracks, planning an exit plan, but the fire iscatching quickly, the place quickly turning orange, ablaze with danger.

It lights up Melissa’s face, her eyes reflecting the orange flames.

Jax shortly catches up to us, stopping a step below. “What have you done?”

Some kind of liquid has been spilled all over the floor, the bits that haven’t yet caught fire reflecting the chaos that’s quickly unfolding.

The flames crackle, eating up more of the room. The piles of cardboard boxes containing the fentanyl wither as the flames get hold of them, bending and contorting in shape.

In the corner of my eye, I realize what has spilled. It’s not the fentanyl from earlier, but gasoline. Under the first set of stairs leading up to the house are cans of gasoline, three of them fallen with the caps unscrewed. I steel myself, putting together an exit plan—we need to be fast before the flames block our path.

That’s when I see a glimpse of pale skin from under the staircase.

Cash.

“He’s under there,” I tell Diesel.

Diesel stands still, his body not even shaking.

“Diesel?” I shake his body frantically.

“We’re not gonna make it.”

My chest tightens. This is the first time he’s admitting defeat in all of the years I’ve known him. He’s a man who is always right, who sees the world in its true colors.

Panic grows, my heartbeat booming in my chest.

“Cash!” I yell over the flames. Already, they’re starting to roar, growing in size. “You need to get out of there. Now!”

Except he can’t.

There’s a body next to him—a Reaper Sons member. Thick sores coat his skin, his entire body colored lobster-red from the flames that start to catch, attacking his clothes, his hair.

Horror consumes me, stopping my brain from thinking properly.

Or is that the smoke?

My airways are blocked. I heave. Cough. I’ll think about how we’re going to escape when the coughing subsides.

But it doesn’t.

My throat is dry.

“We gotta save Cash,” I manage, shoving past Diesel to enter the flames.

He grabs my arm, bringing me to him like a Venus flytrap. There must be too much smoke in his lungs to speak. All he does is look at me, giving me some kind of warning.Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.