Chapter 118 Chapter One hundred and seventeen
ARA
“My little lamb knows exactly when to act.”
Thayne’s words barely finished echoing before my body moved on instinct.
I was already at the entrance, already lifting the gun. Something else had taken over, something cold and precise, because the moment my eyes found Jimmy, my finger squeezed the trigger without hesitation.
The shot tore into his arm. He cried out, stumbling backward as the force sent him crashing to the floor.
Thayne spun toward me. He crossed the remaining distance in a heartbeat, colliding with me and shoving me aside just as a bullet sliced through the air where I’d been standing, the sharp zing cutting too close for comfort.
“You crazy, crazy woman! You will be the death of me,” Thayne growled, straddling me as if that alone could keep me safe.
“I couldn’t just sit back and wait for news that you were dead,” I shot back. “You betrayed me by disappearing! You promised—”
“Is it still betrayal if I made it easy for you to leave?” he cut in. “I prepped that SUV myself. I needed you to reach me in time.”
He looked infuriatingly proud and furious all at once.
“Thayne, watch out!”
My free arm came up on instinct. I fired without thinking.
The man sneaking up behind Thayne with a knife raised, eyes wild, went down with a heavy thud, the blade clattering uselessly to the ground.
Thayne exhaled sharply. “How exactly do I explain to the world that my pregnant wife shoots like a trained sniper?” he groaned as he hauled me to my feet.
“Jimmy might’ve escaped,” I whispered as he steered me toward the container. “We need to drag him back and squeeze him for everything he knows about your father. What about Ursula?”
“She bolted the moment we arrived. It was a trap. Sasha is here, yes, but Ursula was wired. She was wearing a tracker on her. My father’s people were recording everything.”
Why did things keep getting complicated?
“How did we not think of that?” I asked, breathing slowly so I wouldn't run out of breath before we reached our target.
“Because none of us imagined where she hid it.”
I grimaced. “Where?”
“Her thong.” He deadpanned.
“Eeeeew.”
“Well, well, well.” Slade Senior’s voice echoed through the warehouse. “Look at this expensive Hollywood setup. Armed husband and wife storm a secret warehouse on a rescue mission.”
Thayne turned instantly, shoving me behind him.
“That stunt was clever,” his father went on, almost conversational. “The mannequin in the driver’s seat. You had the whole city mourning you.”
“I watched too many John Wick movies,” Thayne said coolly. “You weren’t around to limit my screen time.”
Slade Senior’s lips thinned. “Throw your guns to the left.”
We did.
“This should be simple, son. But I plan for worst-case scenarios.” His gaze slid to me. “Move to the right. Hand over your wife.”
“You can’t even pretend to be polite?” Thayne scoffed.
“Another second and I shoot,” his father snapped. “Don’t test me, boy.” He lifted a hand, and his men raised their weapons in unison.
My chest tightened. Thayne would never give me up. He’d die first.
My eyes flicked to his plain T-shirt. The outline of a gun peeked from his waistband, barely concealed. Intentional or not, it was there.
“Fine,” I said quietly. “I’ll go on my own.”
Slade Senior’s smile unfurled like a baby serpent.
I took a step, then deliberately stumbled, clutching Thayne for balance. In the same breath, I snatched the gun from his waistband before he could read my intent.
I didn’t stop to consider my terrible aim. I fired at the stacked barrels beside his men.
The warehouse erupted into hot flames.
“Fuck!” Thayne shouted, grabbing my arm as the blast tore through the space, heat and noise swallowing everything.
The shockwave slammed into us. I was yanked backward, my ears ringing as metal screamed and debris rained from above.
Thayne wrapped himself around me instinctively, turning his body into a shield as we hit the ground hard.
Pain flared through my side, sharp enough to steal my breath.
“Ara!” Thayne barked, panic cracking his voice. “Ara, look at me.”
“I’m—” I coughed, smoke clawing at my lungs. “I’m here.”
Fire licked up the walls where the barrels had been, flames racing across spilled fuel. Men shouted, some in agony, some in fury, while alarms began to wail somewhere deeper in the warehouse.
Thayne hauled me up, one arm locked tight around my waist. “We’re moving. Now. Please, Ara, let's move.”
Gunfire erupted through the smoke. Bullets tore into crates, sparks flying as Thayne dragged me behind a steel container. He grabbed a fallen weapon without slowing, firing blind shots to keep heads down.
“You okay?” he demanded, already scanning me for blood.
“I will be,” I said, though my hands were shaking.
“Your father—”
“He’s not dead,” Thayne said grimly. “He never is.”
As if summoned, Slade Senior’s laughter cut through the chaos, low, amused, and furious all at once.
“Still reckless,” he called. “Just like your mother.”
Thayne stiffened. His grip tightened around me.
“Get her out,” Slade Senior ordered someone unseen. “Alive. I don’t care how many of you it takes.”
Footsteps thundered toward us.
Thayne leaned his forehead briefly against mine. “When I say run, you don’t look back.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I whispered.
“You already saved me twice tonight,” he said fiercely. “Let me do this.”
Another explosion rocked the warehouse, closer this time.
Thayne pulled back with pleading eyes.
“Run.”
And this time, I did. I didn’t actually run. In my condition, that was laughable.
I slipped behind the tall crates stacked along the wall instead, pressing myself into the narrow space between metal and concrete, praying no one would think to climb, or to search where the shadows pooled thickest.
I barely had time to steady my breathing when I heard it. A soft whimper.
Then a woman’s groan, raw with pain. I froze.
“Somebody… heeelp,” the voice cried, weak but unmistakable.
Sasha.
My pulse spiked. She was here. I held my breath and listened harder. When the cry came again, it was muffled, wrong somehow. Lower. Below me.
I edged sideways and crouched, running my fingers across the filthy floor, feeling for seams, for anything out of place. My hand brushed a thin outline.
A panel.
Gritting my teeth, I dug my fingers under the edge and heaved. My arms screamed in protest, my body protesting every inch of the effort, but the top layer finally gave way with a low scrape.
The smell hit me first. Then I saw her.
Sasha was tied upright to a metal pole, wrists bound, her ankles restrained. A filthy rag hung loose around her neck, soaked through and discarded like she wasn’t worth the effort anymore.
Her head lifted sluggishly when she heard the panel open.
So this was where they’d been keeping her.