Page 41 of Through Any Fire (Any x #1)

“ K eane.”

My blood freezes, time somehow slowing with each breath I exhale.

“Bianchi.”

Leon Bianchi stands to Elias’s left, and a swarm of men step out of the shadows. With only Matthias, Graves, Rose, and her men, we’re outgunned, and it’s painfully obvious.

“Did you think we wouldn’t find you here?” Elias chuckles callously.

My hands itch to pull my firearm, but I hold them still. We don’t have the upper hand, so if I can deescalate the situation, that’s what I have to do.

Maybe in the past I would’ve been reckless with my life.

Back when I didn’t care if I lived or died.

But things have changed. Loren’s silken body flashes to the front of my mind, and it’s like I can still feel the heat of her against my palms. Her breathy moans ring in my ears, and I have to physically banish her from my brain to keep from sporting an erection in front of the Bianchis.

“I was hoping you might understand, given the circumstances.” The shipping containers were on Bianchi territory, but Rose said the Bianchi’s weren’t Agapov’s partners. It’s a gamble, but I have to make Elias understand.

“And what are the circumstances? You stealing product from one of our shipments?”

Rage boils my blood. I glance to where Rose stands behind Jace. She subtly shakes her head no.

I take a chance. “And what product do you think we just stole?”

My footsteps echo on the concrete as I approach the wall of Bianchi soldiers. Matthias and Graves step with me, showing a unified front, despite not knowing if I’m leading them to their death.

Elias regards me with open disdain. He snaps, and a ledger is placed in his hand. His eyes skim over the manifest, but I interrupt, my voice booming across the port. Rain steadily falls, soaking us and chilling me to the bone.

“Let me help you out: women. Women were being held inside those containers and were due to be shipped out to their demise first thing tomorrow morning. We received a tip that the missing women in Roswell were being held here, and it turns out, it was credible. The women are en route to the hospital now.” My eyes narrow, and fury surges through my body.

He might not have known what was happening right under his nose, but it’s still his fucking responsibility.

Elias’s nostrils flare, and he shoves the ledger back to Leon. “What did you just say?” He breaks from the line and strides up to me until our toes are practically knocking.

“You had over two dozen women, filthy and freezing, pissing in a fucking bucket right under your nose. You should be grateful we showed up when we did. ”

The color drains from Elias’s face, shock evident and seemingly genuine. He swallows thickly, eyes dropping to the ground when Leon speaks.

“And you just had to be the one to swoop in and save them? Don’t you have your hands full with your burning warehouses and whore of a wife?”

A killing calm slices over me, and I turn the full force of my fury to Elias’s younger brother.

He’s practically a child, can’t be older than twenty-one, and yet, here he stands with his chest puffed out like some prick.

He has the nerve to act tough when all along he’s been texting my wife and feeding her lies.

I could make him weep for his mother in less than fifteen seconds. A red haze leeches in my periphery.

“What did you just call my wife?”

Elias goes rigid, clearly hearing the threat laced in my words.

Good.

Leon has the gall to scoff, opening his soon-to-be-wired-shut mouth, but I silence him with a single stare.

“Call her a whore one more time. I dare you.” A manic smile curls my mouth, and I drop the mask I don for polite society. It’s a chore, but necessary when dealing with all I deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Leon tries to speak again, but this time it’s Elias who silences him.

“Enough.” The single word has Leon rolling his eyes, muttering something under his breath.

Unfortunately for the Bianchis, I overhear it. Within moments, I raise my firearm. Matthias follows suit, electrifying the chilly air. In a heartbeat, the Bianchi line has their own guns. Within seconds, the night’s taken a dangerous turn.

We’re severely outnumbered, but I can’t let the disrespect slide. Not only is it a slight to me, but it’s a slight to Loren, and that can’t stand .

Elias is the only one who doesn’t raise his piece. Instead, he glances around at the amount of firepower now front and center, humming with curiosity.

“This didn’t have to take such a turn, Keane.”

“It never would’ve if he hadn’t married that whore,” Leon says.

I don’t know who gets the first shot off, but I know mine misses Leon by a hair.

He ducks at the last second, hiding behind a barrel as the men take cover.

Shots ping around the shipping containers, and I dive behind the open door from lot forty-three, Graves right behind me.

My arm stings, and I swear, a quarter-inch graze on my left shoulder.

“Why the fuck would you do that? We’re out-fucking-numbered,” Matthias shouts from beside me. He pops out to fire off a few shots and returns to cover. Where there should’ve been a return volley, there’s only silence and rainfall.

Graves dips his head out for a flash before ducking back behind the door, a shot ringing out toward him. He curses.

Rose, Jace, and her two other guys—I hadn’t bothered to remember their names—are crouched behind another container, but they don’t flee. Instead, Jace and another return fire. My respect for them rises. They could’ve left us high and dry, but they’re staying.

When I glance past the shipping container door, there’s a body lying face-down in the center of the loading zone. The flickering light above doesn’t provide much to see by, but I know he’s not one of ours.

Leon pops out, and I shoot another bullet his way. Then, suddenly, he’s turning and running. In fact, the entire Bianchi force turns tail and leaves just as fast as they came. But they leave the body of their fallen, and I can’t imagine they plan to return for him .

My steps are quiet as I cross the loading zone, head on a swivel and gun raised in case they decide to double back. When they don’t, I crouch to the body, only to swear when the chest rises with a laborious breath.

With a heave, I roll the body over. Shock courses through me as Elias’s bloodied face meets mine. His eyelids are heavy, and blood floods his mouth with each cough.

“Let’s go!” Matthias shouts from the shipping container.

A torturous feeling swirls in my chest, something I haven’t felt toward someone besides my wife in a long time: guilt.

Elias groans, and a weak hand lands on my arm, begging me to help him. I could leave him. My father would leave him.

Fuck.

I mutter something shameful under my breath before calling for Graves to help me.

“We’re not seriously taking him with us.” His tone is disbelieving.

I don’t bother with a response other than to tell him to grab his legs.

Rose drives up with the last SUV, and we load Elias into the back. Jace climbs in after him and Matthias gets in the passenger seat.

“I’ll drive.”

Rose arches an auburn brow but moves to the middle row without otherwise speaking. Graves’s gaze glues to her ass as it climbs over the seat, but Matthias smacks him upside the head. I jump in the driver’s seat, needing to feel the pedal under my foot as I press it to the floorboard.

How did that go so fucking wrong?

I don’t even question the fact that Rose and Jace stayed in the car with us. Jace watches Elias in the back with a trained eye, while Rose sits across Graves. Her two other men stay behind, working to clean up what they can and removing any evidence of our presence.

When we’re almost to the hospital, my phone dings. I pull it out of my back pocket, and ice freezes my chest. There’s a text from Everett, but more concerning, one from Loren.

Sent twenty-one minutes ago.

I love you.

What the fuck?

I open the tracking app linked to the microscopic chip on the necklace I gave her—she had a habit of running off, and clearly, it’s paying off—and find that she’s two streets over, heading in the same direction as we are.

“What the fuck?” I repeat, this time aloud.

“What?” Matthias asks. His nose is buried in his cell.

“Loren’s driving down Fifth Avenue, heading toward the hospital.”

Matthias’s fingers pause from where they’re typing on the screen. “And?”

“If she was coming from the house, she’d be driving east, not west. Why was she out this late, knowing everything that’s going on?” I keep her confession to myself, the words thawing my chest, but the peace is short-lived.

“Something’s wrong.”

I pull my gun out, and we drive toward where her dot moves. When I see the red Corvette, vengeance swirls in my chest. I raise the gun, ready to rain hell on whoever has my wife.