Page 72 of Unchained

A chill touched Brooks’s skin. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Leonetti swept his gaze from one guard to the next. “Should we give him a peek?”

Brooks blew his breath through his nose like a raging bull ready to charge.

Leonetti looked at the guard closest to the door. “Go get them, Ray.”

Ray turned and marched through the tent’s door.

Them?

Brooks’s blood blasted against his temples. His stomach plummeted to his feet. If Leonetti had Tess and Lexi, it was game over. None of them would get out in one piece.

* * *

Rough hands seized Cam, tethering her arms behind her back. She fought back as she was yanked away from Nash’s side. One of the men approached Nash and pressed the mouth of a gun to his skull.

“No!” Cam’s scream tore from her lips.

Crack!

The blast of gunfire echoed over the trees, sending birds fleeing from the branches. Cam squeezed her eyes shut and tucked her chin. She couldn’t look. Couldn’t bring herself to see Brooks’s newfound family murdered.

Crack! Crack!

Another blast of bullets dropped her to her knees. Her scream caught in her throat as she folded her body on the ground, covering her head. Sirens of warning blared in her skull, ordering her to get to her feet.

Run!

A heavy weight pressed down on her ankles, keeping her in place.

“Jesus! You morons. Where the fuck have you been? I almost got my brains blown out.”

With squeaky exhales, Cam lifted her face from the thicket of leaves. The scent of dirt and blood clung to her. She blinked at the men around her. Nash got to his feet, brushing off his legs, then held out a hand to her.

“What—”

Her brain worked at a snail’s pace, taking in the scene. The guard who’d held a gun to Nash lay in the dirt three feet away. Glancing over her shoulder at the weight pressing on her feet, she found the man who’d grabbed her moments ago. In the side of his head was a bullet hole.

The last man was slumped against a tree trunk, blood gushing from a wound on his chest.

“Cole? D-Dare?”

Dare came up behind her, grabbed the dead body off her ankles, and tossed it to the side. Then his hands swept under her armpits, hauling her to her feet. She winced as her weight touched her toes.

“She doesn’t have shoes,” Nash announced.

“How did you get here?” she gasped.

“We’ve been waiting for an opportunity to get you out, and taking out as many guards as we can,” Dare said, keeping a hand under her elbow, taking some of the weight off her feet. “We found some outside the perimeter of the tent, but I think we got all of them.”

“Brooks needs us,” she wailed.

“Yeah, yeah.” Cole bent down in front of her and hoisted her over his shoulder. “Let’s get you to the truck. You boys call if you need anything.” Cole turned on his heel and strode through the woods.

Cam hung stiffly on his back, her elbows pressed into his shoulder blades to keep herself upright. She combed her gaze through the darkness, expecting a shooter to pop out and gun them down at any second.

“You can relax,” Cole said, not even a little breathless. “I’ve done a head count. Leonetti had ten guards in his close circle. Three dead in the forest, three Nash just injured and killed, and the one whose throat you slashed also dead, then Leonetti has three left with him.”

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