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thirty-three

Liam’s head rose, slow and sluggish. His face was bloodied, bruised, and his eyes were glazed. “Took you long enough.” His voice was little more than a harsh whisper.

“Jesus,” Bridger said and hurried to his brother’s side, crouching down. “You okay?”

“Be better when you get this thing off me.”

Davey crouched at his other side and drew a steadying breath as he studied the vest—wires, explosives, a small LED screen blinking way too fast.

Four and a half minutes.

He knew bombs. Not like Weston did, but enough to know this wasn’t a quick and dirty setup to facilitate an escape.

This was calculated. Cruel. Meant to kill as many as possible and bring down the tunnel, burying the evidence.

His pulse pounded against his skull as memories of other bomb vests tried to claw out of the lockbox in his head.

A vest strapped to a kid, too young, wide-eyed, shaking—his hands trembling over the trigger.

Fuck. Not now. No time for that.

He shoved the memories down. Locked them tight.

Rowan brushed her fingers against his arm. A fleeting touch, barely there, just a silent, I’m here . But it was enough. He wanted to lean into her, let her anchor him. But he couldn’t. They didn’t have time.

He had to think. Lead. Assess, not react.

“Where’s Brody?” he forced out.

“Set the timer and left. Knew you were coming.” Liam’s skin was ghost-white beneath the grime and blood. “He’s working with someone else. Someone who knows our movements.”

Another fucking mole in WSW?

Jesus.

Maybe his uncles had been right to pass the torch to him. Old age had made them sloppy if they’d let that many double agents onto the payroll.

Davey tapped his earpiece. “Elliot, I need to know our nearest exfil routes.”

“Give me thirty seconds,” Elliot responded.

Davey eyed the clock on the vest. “We don’t have thirty seconds.”

“Yeah, we do,” Weston said, already dropping to his knees in front of Liam, ripping open his bag. His hands were steady, his voice clipped. He was fully in bomb tech mode. “Sabin, get those cuffs off?—”

“Already on it, mon ami. ” Sabin circled to the back of the bench, pulling out a well-used leather roll of lock picks. He bent over the handcuffs and got to work, fingers moving with the kind of smooth confidence that came from breaking into far too many things. “Ooo-wee, cher . Bet ya can’t even feel them fingers no more, huh? They white as a gator’s belly in the moonlight.”

Liam exhaled a rough chuckle. “’S okay. The headache makes up for it.” His words slurred. He’d sounded weak when Daphne tapped into his implant’s audio back at HQ, but now he was fading. His eyelids fluttered for half a second before he forced them open again. “And fucking—the static…”

Tessa crouched next to him and checked his ear. “Your processor’s cracked.”

Liam muttered a curse under his breath. “Figured. Feels like a damn wasp nest in my skull, and you sound miles away.”

Bridger hadn’t moved.

Still crouched beside Liam, still holding his shoulder like an anchor.

Still too still.

Bridger thrived in high-stress situations. He didn’t panic. Didn’t break…. but the tremble in his hand betrayed him. He was feeling the stress now.

They all were.

Still, his voice was even when he said, “You’re always turning the damn thing off anyway. Thought you liked silence.”

Liam’s mouth pulled into something that might have been a smirk if he weren’t so pale. “Not when it’s permanent. If I die, there’s nothing after. Just… eternity in silence.”

That wasn’t a joke.

Liam said it like he’d thought about it before. Maybe not exactly like this, not with a bomb strapped to his chest and minutes on the clock, but Davey knew the sound of someone trying to make peace with the inevitable.

For a beat, no one spoke.

Tessa went into medic mode. “Okay, well, you’re not going to die at all. Davey won’t let you.”

She meant it as reassurance, but something about it settled wrong in Davey’s chest.

Davey won’t let you.

As if it was that simple. As if he could just will this into not being a worst-case scenario.

As if someone hadn’t already died on his watch.

As if Elliot hadn’t nearly died two days ago.

He shoved the thought down. He could do this later—process it, feel it.

Right now, Weston needed light to do his job.

“Did anyone pack an NVG-friendly light?” He wished he’d thought of it, but he hadn’t expected to find Liam strapped to a fucking bomb.

Bridger finally moved, letting go of his brother long enough to reach into his pack. He pulled out a low-intensity red LED headlamp—dim enough to keep them from being blinded but enough for Weston to see the wiring clearly.

“West,” Davey said, forcing himself to stay level.

Weston didn’t look up. “Yeah, I know.”

Then, he got to work.

Tessa dropped her med kit and started digging through it. “Everyone except West needs to back up. Give Liam some breathing room.” She ducked so Liam could see her without turning his head. “I need to check your head wound. Is that okay? No, don’t nod.”

“Yeah. Hurts like a motherfucker.”

“I know.” She flicked on a penlight set to its dimmest setting, the small amber glow NVG-compatible to avoid blinding anyone. She tilted Liam’s head toward the meager beam, parting his blood-matted hair with careful fingers. The cut was ugly, skin split deep, already swelling.

“You’re concussed,” she said grimly, running the tiny beam over his pupils. “Slow dilation. Disorientation.”

She looked up at Davey. “I think he has a skull fracture. We need to get him to a hospital.”

Liam let out a breathy laugh. “Preferably before I blow up.”

Tessa rolled her eyes and ripped open a packet of gauze. “Preferably.”

Weston cursed softly, his fingers still working over the tangle of wires and triggers. “This setup is nasty.”

“How nasty?” Davey asked.

“Nasty enough that I’m about to have a real bad time.”

Liam exhaled through his nose. “I think I’d still rather be you right now.” His voice was dry, edged with exhaustion. “You screw up, you break a sweat, but I break into a thousand fucking pieces. So tell me again—who’s really having a bad time here?”

Weston muttered something about punching Liam when this was over, but his fingers never stopped moving on the wires. “Sabin, how are those cuffs coming?”

Sabin stood up with a flourish, the cuffs dangling from his middle finger.

Liam exhaled heavily, flexing his stiff fingers. “Finally.”

“Don’t move yet,” Weston said. “I need to make sure this isn’t motion-act— Jesus Christ, he’s got you padlocked into it. Sabin?—”

“Yep.” Without hesitation, the former thief dropped to his knees again and started working on the line of locks along the side of the vest.

“Form a perimeter,” Davey ordered. “Let’s make sure nobody sneaks up on our ass while they get him out of that torture device.”

The team moved, shifting into a loose defensive circle around Liam, Tessa, Sabin, and Weston. Bridger squeezed his brother’s shoulder once, then let go and palmed his gun, shifting his stance slightly—protecting Liam without stepping away.

Every tick of the countdown was a hammer to Davey’s skull.

“Don’t like this,” Dominic said, bouncing back and forth on his feet. “We’re sitting ducks here with a bomb at our backs.”

“Stay cool, Dom,” Elliot said over the comms. “Focus.”

“Hate when you say that,” Dom grumbled, but he stopped bouncing.

Davey scanned the tunnel and then checked their progress over his shoulder. “How we doing?”

Weston worked fast, hands steady as he traced the wires, his expression unreadable. “There’s a secondary trigger. The fucker has a remote. Even if I get the vest off, he could still detonate it while we’re in range and bring this whole tunnel down on us.”

“Brody’s an asshole,” Liam muttered, thick and slurring as his head started to droop.

Tessa was on him in an instant.

“No, no, no—stay with me, Liam.” Her hands cupped his face, not gentle, but firm—demanding. She lifted his chin, forcing his glazed eyes to meet hers. “I don’t care if your head feels like it’s splitting in two. You do not pass out on me.”

Bridger swore under his breath, holstering his gun in a single sharp motion before grabbing Liam again, his grip tighter this time. “You hear her? You drop, you’re making West’s job a hell of a lot harder. Don’t do that to us.”

Liam’s eyelids fluttered, his breath shallow. “Yeah…” But he sagged again.

Tessa gave his face a quick slap—not hard, but sharp enough to make his head jolt upright.

“Eyes open,” she snapped. “You check out now, and I swear to God, I will find a way to bring you back just to kill you myself.”

Liam sucked in a breath, his voice weak but dry. “You sure slapping a guy with a head injury is in the medical handbook?”

Tessa huffed a laugh—half exasperated, half relieved. “Worked, didn’t it? You’re welcome.”

The countdown on the vest ticked lower, a relentless reminder that time was running out.

This wasn’t just any bomb.

Brody had set it up to screw with them, to force them into a situation where even winning felt like losing.

“How much time left on the clock?” Davey asked.

Weston’s jaw clenched. “Ninety seconds.”

Davey’s stomach turned, and sweat dripped down the side of his neck despite the cool temperature. “Elliot, tell me you’ve got something for a fast exfil.”

Elliot’s voice was sharp in his ear. “Exfil options are limited. Nearest clear tunnel is behind you, but if Brody really left a remote trigger, you’re still in blast range.”

Weston let out a low curse. “This is a bastard of a setup. The wrong cut trips the secondary trigger. I need more fucking time.”

Elliot’s voice was tense. “Daphne and I are working on it. We think we can disrupt the countdown for an extra minute—maybe two.”

“Make it happen,” Davey said.

“I’m not a miracle worker, asshole, I ? —”

“But I am.” Daphne’s voice cut in, cool and confident. “Shut up and give me ten seconds.”

Davey exhaled, blowing out a breath that did nothing to settle the tightness in his chest. His mind ran the numbers, the contingencies, every possible outcome. Even if Daphne bought them an extra minute, it still wasn’t enough. But leaving Liam to his death wasn’t an option either.

Weston stayed calm and cool as he worked. Sabin swore in a constant stream of French as his long fingers popped one lock after the next. Bridger gripped Liam like he could hold him together through sheer will alone.

This was a fucking coin toss.

And if it landed wrong?

Liam wouldn’t be the only one who didn’t walk out of here.

Davey’s gaze flicked to Rowan.

She was exactly where he’d told her to be—holding the perimeter, scanning for threats, her back to him.

And that made it worse.

He couldn’t see her face, couldn’t read her expression. Couldn’t tell if she was afraid.

He was fucking terrified, because he knew what came next if Weston ran out of time. Not from stories. Not from training videos. From experience.

He remembered the blast wasn’t a sound—it was a force. A violent, consuming thing that crushed the air from his lungs and sent him weightless for half a second before he hit the ground.

He remembered the pressure wave slamming into his chest like a freight train, his ribs creaking, his ears ringing so loud it felt like his brain was trying to escape his skull.

He remembered the heat. The shrapnel. The smell of burning fuel, burning flesh.

The way everything fractured in an instant—steel, bone, bodies.

The way his Humvee had turned into a coffin.

The way he’d clawed his way out of it, feeling pain but not understanding where it came from, knowing something was wrong, but not knowing what.

The way his teammates hadn’t crawled out at all.

And if Weston ran out of time now, Rowan would die. Just like his teammates did. Broken, burning.

He wanted to grab her, shove her out of the blast zone, force her to run, but she’d never go. She’d fight him every step of the way.

So, instead, he just gritted his teeth and forced the thought down.

No time for this.

Not now.

“West, you’re getting more time. Not much, but enough.”

Weston gave a short nod, his concentration never breaking. “I’ll make it work.”

“Got it!” Daphne said. “You have two extra minutes, West. Three at most. Work your magic.”

Jesus, it still wasn’t enough. Weston was good under pressure, but this was a goddamn pressure cooker.

Elliot’s voice came over the comms, sharp and tactical, all business. “Drone’s got movement on a railway bridge almost directly above your position. Nearest access is an old service stairwell—should be about forty meters to your right, near the west end of the platform. It’ll put you out near the base of the bridge.”

“Brody?” Davey asked.

“Confirmed. It’s him.”

Sullivan was already moving. “I’m going.”

“Fuck.” Davey looked back to where Weston and Sabin were still working methodically on the vest. The clock had stopped at forty-five seconds, but how long could Daphne hold it there?

Rowan’s fingers brushed his arm again, and, yet again, it was enough to drag him out of his own head, out of the spiraling what-ifs.

She met his gaze. Steady. Unshaken.

“Go,” she said. “I’ve got their six.”

Christ, she was perfect.

Davey’s hand found the back of her neck before he could stop himself.

The kiss was fast, desperate, full of things he didn’t have time to say right now.

Be safe.

Don’t die.

Come back to me.

“Shoot to kill, Hellcat,” he murmured when he pulled away.

“Always do.” She grinned, and fuck, did he love her for that casual deadliness. She gave his shoulder a shove. “Now, go.”

“Dom. Cade. With me.” He turned away from his heart and didn’t look back. Didn’t hesitate.

He just ran.