Page 24 of Hide or Die

“No,” I whispered... but there was no one left to hear it.

There was...no one left.

The gunfire came again—therat-a-tat-tatof a fully automatic rifle answered by the slower retorts of something semi-automatic. I caught my breath, trying to make sense of the sounds. It would only have taken two bullets to finish Leo and Jax. Unless Jax had woken up from the tranquilizer... maybe grabbed a weapon and started fighting back?

But try as I could, I wasn’t able to make the scenario fit what I was hearing. He’d been down for the count. Even if he’d regained consciousness, he would have been sluggish and uncoordinated from the drugs.

The weapons fire stopped. I sat frozen on the ground next to the shit pit, the astringent taste of bile coating my throat and tongue.

“Clear!” called a distant voice, speaking English.

“Clear!” came a different voice, closer this time.

The shuffle of boots moving fast—but with an attempt at stealth—approached my cell door. A face appeared in the small, barred window, silhouetted from behind by the light bulb hanging in the corridor. I still sat unmoving, in plain view. My mouth was hanging open.

“Target Two located!” snapped a low, female voice.

A few moments later, the lock clicked and the door swung open. Three figures in dark military garb and balaclavas swarmed into the cell, fanning out to cover every corner of the small space with their weapons. My vision blurred double, images of the day my family was massacred overlaid with images of the present. I still couldn’t move—all of my muscles were locked solid with tension.

Cell secured, two of the figures lowered their weapons.

“Shit,” said the tallest one. “You can smell that, right?”

The female—the femalealpha—who’d first peered into the cell gave a sharp nod of confirmation. Then she turned on her heel without a word and went to guard the entrance, weapon held at the ready. Meanwhile, the much shorter and slighter figure on the left lifted his free hand and peeled back his balaclava. I blinked as Rhys Beckett, the beta head of our security team, ran an assessing gaze over me. An ugly, half-healed cut decorated his cheekbone. His expression grew noticeably tight around the eyes as he took in the scene.

“Well,” he said, sounding resigned. “This just got a lot more complicated than I’d bargained for.”

TEN

Flynn

THE SMELL OF a terrifiedomega in heat clung to the interior of the cell, making my dick hard at the same time it roused my protective instincts. Beckett wasn’t kidding about this mess being a hundred times more complicated than we’d bargained for.

“There are two scents here,” Alex threw over her shoulder. “Besides Jax, I mean.”

Thoughts of exactly how I’d torture anyone who’d hurt or killed Jax swirled through my head, but I set them aside. I took another breath, letting the fear-tainted perfume in the air settle over the back of my tongue. Alex was right. Not a surprise, since Alex wasalwaysright about things. That was why she led our pack, after all.

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