Page 76 of His to Destroy

A single light glows in one of the windows.

He’s inside.

Waiting.

I can almost taste the anticipation in the air—metallic and thick like blood in the back of my throat.

I nod once.

Enzo slams his boot into the door, and we move.

The door crashes open with a deafening crack.

Gunfire erupts instantly.

The air fills with the sharp bark of pistols, the heavy thud of bodies hitting walls and floors.

It’s chaos—fast, bloody, ruthless.

Stark didn’t come alone. As expected.

But he showed up with more men than we thought he’d originally come with.

At least six men spring up from behind overturned furniture and crates, weapons drawn. They knew it was risky coming here, and they came ready for a fight.

But so did we.

I move through the chaos like I was born for it.

I draw both pistols and fire, clean and fast. One shot to the shoulder, another to the thigh—non-lethal but disabling. One of Stark’s men goes down screaming, his weapon clattering to the floor.

Sancia takes out another with a brutal roundhouse kick that sends him sprawling into a pile of splintered wood.

Enzo, calm as ever, ducks a bullet, rolls, and fires point-blank into a thug’s knee, dropping him like a sack of bricks.

The scent of blood and gunpowder thickens the air.

Screams echo off the cracked walls.

I barely register any of it.

Because across the room, slipping through a broken side door, I catch a glimpse of him.

Stark.

The coward is running.

A man who would leave his own men in danger and take off.

I guess leaving the syndicate has turned him to that.

My blood turns to ice.

I surge forward, shoving past the struggling bodies, ignoring the searing graze of a bullet that rips through the side of my jacket.

Nothing matters now except him.

Nothing matters except ending this.

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