Page 213 of My Unhinged Alphas
None of us says much.
There’s nothing useful left to say. We already went over it before we got into the car, once we had the address and knew we were moving without support, without backup, without trusting a single channel beyond the three of us.
Knox doesn’t show fear in ways ordinary people would recognize. He becomes more exact. More economical. His silences harden. But I’ve known him long enough to hear the strain under it, and I know Vale hears it too because he doesn’t needle him once the whole drive.
The address takes us out past nicer streets, past places still lived in, and leaves us in a section of town where houses standfar apart and most of them have already started losing the fight against weather and neglect. The one we want sits near the end of a broken lane behind a sagging fence, its windows boarded in places and open in others, one side of the porch caved low enough to make the whole front look lopsided.
Knox has barely eased the car toward the curb when I’m already opening the door.
He doesn’t tell me to wait.
That, more than anything, tells me how far gone we all are.
By the time Knox and Vale come around the car, I’m already at the edge of the property, studying the broken porch, the side windows, the line of dead grass where someone has been walking more often than the rest. There are tire marks near the back, faint but recent. One upstairs window has a sliver of movement behind it, or maybe it’s just a curtain breathing in the draft. Either way, I want inside badly enough that my teeth hurt.
Knox stops beside me and follows my gaze. “Back entrance,” he says.
“Two likely,” Vale adds, looking past the house toward the overgrown side yard. “One obvious, one not.”
“Let’s take the more obvious one.”
Knox looks at me, and for a second there’s the old familiar calculation in his eyes, the one that measures how much trouble I’m about to cause and whether he can use it.
Then he nods.
Good.
Vale moves first, peeling off toward the side of the house.
Knox angles the other way, taking the rear without breaking stride. I wait until they disappear from my peripheral vision, then cross the yard openly.
No attempt to hide.
No point.
If someone is watching, I want them watching me.
The porch groans under my weight when I step onto it. I let it. My thumb brushes once along the grip of my gun. Through the cracked front window, I catch only darkness and the stale shapes of abandoned furniture, but the house doesn’t feel empty. Places with people in them have a pressure of their own. This one is holding its breath.
I think of Lena somewhere inside, scared and furious and probably making some bastard regret underestimating her even now. The thought puts a smile on my face that has nothing to do with amusement.
Then I stop waiting.
The front door is old, the frame weaker than it looks, and surprise is only useful if you spend it before anyone has time to think. I drive my shoulder into the wood hard enough that the latch gives on the first hit and the door flies inward with a crack that carries through the whole house.
The room beyond is brighter than I expect.
Bare walls. Concrete floor. One overhead light. Lena tied to a chair near the center of it, blindfold gone, face pale except for the angry mark across one cheek.
And the man beside her, unmasked, with a knife in his hand.
Too close.
The angle is wrong. Lena is between us just enough that I can’t take the shot without risking her, and the bastard knows it. His head snaps toward me, but by then I’m already moving.
I go straight at him.
There’s no reason to be clever when speed will do. He jerks Lena’s chair sideways with one hand and brings the knife up with the other, trying to make me slow down, trying to turn her into a shield. I don’t give him the chance. I hit him before he can settle his stance, shoulder into his chest, and we go down hard enough to rattle the chair beside us.
