Page 285 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
The shift from the chaos of the gala to this is immediate, controlled, precise in a way that settles something in my chest even as everything else tightens. His men spread out first, moving in quiet formation, locking down exits, checking the perimeter, positioning themselves exactly where they need to be before we even get close to the door. Lucian moves beside himlike he already knows the next step before it’s spoken, Killian steady just behind them, and I fall in where I’m meant to.
Not leading.
Not rushing.
Not breaking formation.
Even though every part of me wants to.
Because I know now that wanting to surge forward is the problem. I know what happens when I let that take over, and I’m not doing that again. Not here. Not when this needs to be finished cleanly.
Christian lifts his hand slightly.
Everything stills.
And then he gives the signal.
The breach happens fast.
The door gives under force, the first line moving in clean and sharp, and for a fraction of a second it feels like we’ve caught them off guard.
Then the world fractures.
Gunfire erupts, loud enough to tear through the entire space, sharp cracks bouncing off the walls and turning everything into movement and noise and heat in an instant. There’s no hesitation after that, no pause to adjust, just the immediate shift into something controlled but violent, something that moves fast but doesn’t lose its shape.
I move in behind them, my focus narrowing automatically, everything else falling away as the space breaks down into angles and targets and movement.
A man appears from the left corridor, weapon already up, and one of ours drops him before he gets a shot off. Another comes from the right, panicked, too fast, too exposed, and this time it’s me.
I don’t think.
I don’t hesitate.
I just act.
The shot lands clean, the recoil biting into my palm, his body dropping before he even registers what’s happened, and there’s no space to process it because we’re already moving forward again.
Room by room.
Clearing.
Advancing.
The air fills with the sharp burn of gunpowder, the echo of shots still ringing through the space even as they slow into controlled bursts instead of chaos. This isn’t the docks. This isn’t reactive. This is deliberate, methodical, and I can feel the difference in the way we move through it.
And then someone goes down.
One of ours.
It happens just off to my left, a shot catching him in the chest and throwing him back hard enough that he hits the wall before sliding to the floor. It’s quick. Too quick. There’s no time to reach him, no time to do anything but register it and keep moving, because stopping here only means more of that, more bodies, more loss.
My jaw tightens, something dark and sharp pushing up in my chest, but I lock it down and keep going.
This ends here.
It has to.
We push deeper into the house, the resistance thinning the further we move, the last of them either already down or trying to fall back into whatever they thought would protect them.
