Chapter 33

chapter

thirty-three

The Creastline Resort had been abandoned for as long as Izzy could remember. Kids in school used to dare each other to sneak into the dilapidated building, spinning tales of ghosts and grisly murders.

She’d always been too scared to try.

But, now, as she approached the crumbling building, those childhood fears seemed laughably trivial compared to the very real danger that waited inside.

She reached into her pocket and closed her hand around the flash drive, making sure it was there. It wasn’t really Monica’s files. She’d taken it from her father’s office at the garage and had no idea what was on it. Most likely pictures of cars.

But she was banking on Julian Graves not having a computer on hand to check right away.

If he did, she was dead.

Izzy’s phone buzzed in her pocket, the vibration jolting her already frayed nerves. She answered quickly. “I’m here.”

“Good,” the cold voice replied. “Enter the lobby. Hands visible. And, Delgado—if you’ve brought friends, your brother dies.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m alone.”

The line went dead. She slipped the phone into her pocket, inhaling deeply to steady herself, and stepped through the warped double doors into the lobby. Thanks to all the broken windows, it was just as cold inside as it was out. Wind howled off the ocean, making the old building shutter and moan.

The grand entryway of the once-luxurious resort was now a skeleton of its former self. She’d heard it finally sold to a real estate developer recently, but there were no signs of construction or any kind of improvements underway.

Her footsteps echoed through the cavernous space, dust motes swirling in the weak moonlight filtering in. The musty smell of decay and mildew assaulted her nostrils. She fought the urge to cough, not wanting to make any sudden movements.

“That’s far enough,” a gravelly voice called out from the shadows.

Izzy froze, then slowly raised her hands, palms out. “I’m here, just like you asked. Where’s my brother?”

Two thugs with guns moved out of the shadows near the grand staircase at the back of the lobby and flicked on a flashlight. She swallowed down a semi-hysterical giggle when she saw their clothes, their faces. They were both laughably stereotypical wannabe mobsters.

A third man stepped out from behind a crumbling pillar to her right and the laugh slipped past her defenses because he looked like a Wall Street broker in his suit, with his unnaturally black hair slicked back from his face.

It was all so absurd.

“Julian Graves?” she guessed.

He frowned. “I fail to see what’s funny about this situation.”

God, she had to get a grip. She forced her face into a neutral expression. “Nothing. Just nerves, I guess.” She glanced around the decaying lobby. “Where’s my brother?”

Julian’s lips curled into a cold smile. “Where are my files?”

She shook her head. “Let me see Mateo first.”

“That’s not how this works.”

Her hand trembled slightly as she reached into her pocket. She pulled out the flash drive, holding it up. “It is if you want this.”

Julian glanced at his thugs, motioning toward her with his chin. The two stepped forward, and her heart lodged in her throat. She took a large step back. “I copied everything on this drive and have an email set to go to Ash Rawlings if Mateo and I don’t make it out of here.”

“Wait,” Julian growled, and the thugs stopped moving. “How do I know you didn’t already send it?”

“Do you see any cops here?”

Julian’s lips flattened into a grim line. “No.”

Yeah, and where the hell were they? Callahan and her partner were supposed to be right behind her.

Stall, stall, stall.

“Let me see my brother.”

Julian studied her for a long moment, and she worried he could see right through her lie.

And his next question made her realize maybe he could: “Where did you find the files? Did you speak to Monica?”

“No.”

“Then where did you get the drive? I didn’t give you much time.”

Fuck.

Think.

“Her son. She hid the drive in his teddy bear. I lied earlier when I said I didn’t have it. I’ve had it all along.”

“And you didn’t turn it over to your former boss?”

“No. I was worried about what would happen to Monica.”

Julian’s eyes narrowed, his gaze boring into Izzy as if trying to peel back her layers of deception. She fought to keep her expression neutral, her hands steady as she held the flash drive.

“Interesting,” Julian mused, taking a step closer. “You’re quite noble, aren’t you? Protecting Monica, risking your life for your brother.” His lips curled into a cruel smile. “Or perhaps you’re just a very good liar.”

Izzy’s heart hammered so hard she was sure he could hear it, but she held her ground. “I’m not lying. You want proof? Let me see Mateo, and I’ll give you the drive.”

Julian considered her for a moment, then turned and walked back in the direction he’d come from. “This way.”

She trailed slowly. The room he led her into used to be the resort’s lobby bar, with its long mahogany bar still stretching along one wall, now covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs.

And there, tied to one of the grand marble pillars decorating the space, was Mateo. He was still in his blue fire-rescue uniform, though he was missing a boot. His lip was split open, and he had a bruise on his cheek, but he was alive.

“Teo!” She rushed forward, but Julian’s hand shot out, gripping her arm tightly.

“Not so fast.”

Mateo’s head jerked up at the sound of her voice, his eyes wide with a mixture of relief and fear. “Issa! What are you doing here?”

“Saving my big brother.” She winced as Julian’s grip tightened on her arm.

“The drive,” Julian said. “Now.”

Oh, shit, now what?

She was out of stall tactics.

She could give Julian the drive, but if he checked it, he’d know she lied. Or maybe he wouldn’t even bother to check it and just shoot her and Mateo, getting rid of all witnesses. That seemed more likely.

She had to think?—

The sound of a footstep crunching on glass had relief surging through her.

Thank God.

The FBI to the rescue.

Callahan stepped into the doorway, her tall frame backlit by the flashlight one of the thugs had left in the lobby. Her partner, a quiet man by the name of Stevenson, followed. Both were armed and intensely focused. Callahan’s sharp eyes scanned the scene before landing on Izzy.

“Ms. Delgado,” she called out. “Step back. We’ve got this.”

Izzy broke free from Julian’s grasp and moved toward the agents. It was almost over. Mateo would be safe. Rylan would be safe. Monica and the kids?—

“Ah, the cavalry,” Julian drawled. “Right on schedule.”

Wait.

What?

She froze halfway across the space and looked back at Julian. He wasn’t worried at all. He hadn’t ordered his thugs to shoot. In fact, he looked… amused.

She turned to stare at Callahan, and her gaze dropped to the woman’s arm. The sleeve of her jacket was pushed up slightly, and there on her forearm was a fresh, angry dog bite.

Valor’s bite.

Her blood ran cold.

Rylan had been wrong. It wasn’t two men who had attacked him. It was a man and a tall, muscular woman with a smoker’s rasp of a voice.

Callahan noticed her staring, and her lips curled into a smile. She moved faster than Izzy could react. Her gun came up, the muzzle trained on her partner. Agent Stevenson barely had time to look surprised before the shot echoed through the ruined lobby, and he crumpled to the floor.

Izzy gasped and ran toward Mateo, her pulse roaring in her ears. They had to get out of here.

Callahan turned toward Julian, her expression full of disgust. “The boss is done with your fuckups, Graves.”

Julian’s eyes widened as he raised his hands and backed away. “Wait. You fucked up, too. You didn’t grab Cross.”

“I wouldn’t’ve had to grab him if you had killed him the first time he started poking around. Pills and booze? Really?” Callahan scoffed. “Why even go after him at all? You just made more problems for us.”

“H-he was looking for me. He had the tech guy of theirs run a search on me. I had to make sure he didn’t find anything.”

Callahan growled softly. “Then get rid of the tech guy, you fucking idiot.”

Julian looked genuinely confused by that idea. “But he’s blind. He wasn’t going to see anything. But Cross… I thought he was going to be a problem, so I tried to get rid of him.”

“Then you should’ve just shot him and gotten it over with. Like this.” Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger again. Julian staggered, his eyes wide with shock as blood blossomed on his chest.

“Why—” he choked out, his voice faint as he collapsed to his knees.

“Because you’re incompetent,” Callahan replied coldly. “The boss needs someone who can clean up loose ends, so you’ve just been demoted.”

She shot Julian between the eyes, and then the gun swung toward Izzy.

The abandoned resort loomed like a specter in the mist, its crumbling walls and broken windows showing years of neglect. According to Sawyer, Izzy was in that building somewhere. And it made sense—Noah was found on a road less than a mile downhill from here.

“Stay sharp,” Zak said, leading the way through the warped double doors of the lobby. Rylan was right behind him, their boots crunching loudly on broken glass. The rifle in his hands felt too heavy, his gloves too tight, too loose—wrong.

It was too familiar.

The scent of salt and mildew tickled his nose, mixing with phantom memories of scorched flesh and cordite.

No.

He was not going back there.

His chest tightened as he scanned the lobby. It had once been grand, its vaulted ceiling now stained with water damage, streaks of rust trailing like bloody fingers down the walls. A shattered chandelier hung precariously above the cracked marble floor, its broken crystals scattered across the room. The reception desk to the left of the entrance was a battered husk covered in graffiti. Straight ahead was a grand staircase with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean. The windows were broken, and the sound of the waves below echoed up through the building, sounding like distant artillery.

“Ry, you good?” Shane’s voice said in his ear, steady and grounding.

“Yeah,” he lied. He blinked hard, trying to shake the images crowding his mind. His pulse thundered in his ears, drowning out the sounds of his teammates fanning out around him. He watched Zak and Donovan disappear behind the reception desk, and the floor beneath him seemed to shift, the broken floor tiles and bits of glass turning to sand, the walls melting into jagged cliffs under the desert moon.

His steps faltered. This old resort wasn’t the compound—but his mind didn’t care.

The insurgent darted behind crates, the RPG in his hands.

The shot was there—clean, clear.

His finger on the trigger.

Hesitation.

The man turned, smiled, and lifted the launcher.

“RPG!” Jax’s voice. “Get down!”

”Clear,” Zak’s voice said through the comms after he and Donovan cleared the area behind the reception desk.

“Clear,” Connelly said as he and Pierce emerged from what used to be the lobby bathrooms.

Pierce nodded and signed, “Nothing here.”

“Keep searching,” Zak said. “Head on a swivel.”

Rylan yanked himself to the present, but the past hovered just beneath the surface, waiting to drag him under. His boots scuffed against the cracked floor as he moved deeper into the lobby, headed for the grand staircase and wall of broken windows, scanning for threats. The air was damp and cold, his breath fogging faintly in the dim light from a single flashlight someone had left on a dust-covered table.

Ahead, voices echoed faintly from the right of the staircase, and Shane turned to him, motioning toward the sound with one sharp cut of his hand. He nodded and they moved forward together, staking up against the wall, the plaster crumbling beneath his shoulder. He crept silently toward the voices and peered around a corner just as a gunshot cracked.

Izzy!

He swung into the entry, rifle up. She stood frozen near the center of a room that looked to have once been the lobby bar, her hands raised. The faint glow of a flashlight on the floor illuminated her face, pale but fierce. Behind her, Mateo struggled against a cracked pillar, his hands bound, his face bloodied. Two thugs stood nearby, their grips loose on their guns. They both looked confused and a little scared. Two bodies lay in pools of blood—one near the door and one on the floor near Mateo’s feet.

The first body had a badge clipped to his belt. And he was still alive, struggling to reach for his gun with a bloody hand. Shane stepped up and kicked the gun out of his reach. They didn’t know who to trust yet and couldn’t risk having someone armed at their backs.

They moved silently, slipping closer.

The second body had jet black hair, his sharp features now slackened in death.

Recognition flashed through Rylan. The man from The Broken Compass. The one who paid for his drinks the night after Aiden Ellison died.

“My ex is trying to ruin me. The bitch.”

Shit. That was Julian Graves. He knew he’d recognized Julian’s photo from somewhere, but he hadn’t put the pieces together until just now. Julian had been talking about Monica that night. And when he rushed out after getting a call… he was probably going to kidnap Grace and Noah.

Shit.

Rylan couldn’t have known who the man was or what he was leaving the bar to do, but guilt ate him all the same.

But wait. If Graves was dead…

Rylan focused on the man holding Izzy at gunpoint.

No, not a man.

Callahan. Her stance was casual, her smirk confident. Her badge glinted faintly on her belt when she straightened her arm, raising the gun. Her arm had a raw, red bite on it.

Callahan’s lips were moving, but the roar in Rylan’s ears drowned the words.

“You killed us.” Alejandro’s face loomed in his mind, his eyes wide with fear. The explosion flashed, fire and light swallowing the night as screams filled the air. Smoke choked his lungs, the acrid stench of burning flesh clinging to him.

He’d failed them.

He’d hesitated.

He hadn’t pulled the trigger in time.

Rylan trembled, fighting the undertow of the past. He blinked hard, focusing on the present, on the damp air that smelled of mildew and blood, on the steady crash of the waves against the cliff below the resort. This wasn’t the desert. This wasn’t the compound.

His grip on the rifle tightened as his focus snapped back to Izzy. Her chest heaved, her breaths shallow, her defiance crumbling into fear as she glanced at Mateo, then back at the gun.

Time stretched, seconds turning to eternity. Rylan’s mind screamed to act, to move, but his body refused. Memories and reality blurred, the blood-streaked marble turning to scorched sand.

Fuse’s bloodied face. “We needed you, Kentucky.”

Mack’s hollow eyes. “You killed us.”

“Six, what are you doing?” Shane’s voice echoed in his head from the past, layered over Zak’s hiss: “I don’t have a shot! Anyone have a shot?”

Rylan’s breath hitched. “I?—”

He did.

He had the shot.

His gaze locked onto Callahan, and he saw the woman’s finger move to the trigger. Izzy’s eyes widened, panic flashing across her face.

And suddenly, he wasn’t in the desert anymore.

This wasn’t the past.

Fuse wasn’t here. Mack wasn’t here. Alejandro wasn’t here. Jax wasn’t here.

But Shane was.

Zak was.

Pierce and Donovan and Connelly were.

And Izzy.

Izzy, who needed him now.

The rifle steadied in his grip. His breathing slowed. He wasn’t that green kid anymore. He wouldn’t hesitate.

Not this time.

Rylan exhaled, and his finger pressed smoothly against the trigger. The shot cracked through the room.

Callahan’s smirk vanished, and she staggered sideways, blood blooming across her chest. The gun fell from her hand as she crumpled to the floor, her eyes wide with shock.

Silence fell over the room, broken only by Izzy’s ragged breaths. She turned toward him, her face pale.

“Rylan,” she whispered.

He lowered his rifle, letting it fall as his teammates dealt with the two other goons and checked on Mateo. His hands were steady, his mind quiet for the first time in years as Izzy launched herself into his arms. He hugged her tight, and a sob broke from his chest.

She was alive.

This time, he hadn’t failed.

He hadn’t hesitated.

This time, he had pulled the trigger in time.