In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)(84)

Everyone exchanged instant looks of “oh shit.”

Beau broke into a run before anyone could say anything further. “Get back to the house. Now!”

A thunderous boom sounded and echoed through the night air. Everyone dropped to the ground, instinctively covering themselves as the earth shook and rumbled beneath them.

“Fuck this shit,” Zack said, fury lacing his voice. “I’ve goddamn had about enough of this BS. It’s time to take those *s out and cover them up with six feet of dirt. Pansy-ass motherf*ckers preying on women.”

“It’s like f*cking Armageddon,” Capshaw muttered. “I’m ready to cap these bastards. Light them up and send them straight to hell.”

Yeah, well, so was Beau, though he didn’t even make the effort to say anything. His sole focus was on Ari and the fact that the explosives had gone off directly in the vicinity of the house.

Fuck!

Ari and Ramie were alone and vulnerable in that house, safe room or no.

“It was a goddamn diversion,” Beau yelled as he scrambled back to his feet. “They knew the body would distract us momentarily. The note was just intended to let us know what they’re capable of. Or maybe they thought we’d be scared and actually back off.”

“What they’re capable of is f*cking themselves,” Eliza snarled. “And I’ll back off when I have their goddamn balls.”

“Down girl,” Dane murmured, though Beau noticed his lips were in a thin line, suppressing his chuckle.

Eliza was one vicious woman when on a mission. Beau admired that about her.

Their plan, though hastily put together in light of the fact they’d had less than five minutes to come up with one, had been to fan out from the house and then come back together from different directions so they could take out as many targets as possible before launching a full-scale frontal attack.

But the single most and only important directive the entire team had been given was to keep intruders away from the house. Take the fight to them. Protect Ramie and Ari at all costs.

“We don’t split up,” Beau commanded as they ran for the back entrance to the house. “For God’s sake, don’t get separated from the group and make it even easier to pick you off.”

Always cool under fire. Unwavering. Solid. Stony and rigid. Yeah, right. He was a hot mess because he knew this was bad. The worst possible outcome, one they clearly hadn’t seen coming. Goddamn it!

There was no gunfire. No ducking for cover. The night had gone eerily silent where before it had been ablaze with gunfire and explosions and yet not a single shot had come close to them.

It had been nothing more than a f*cking distraction.

He was at full sprint when he hit the veranda and nearly tore the door off its hinges in his haste to get inside. To Ari.

They pounded into the house, guns up, spreading out as they cleared each room in a direct route to the safe room. The only place they could be assured the women were safe because they sure as hell couldn’t risk allowing them out of the house. But now Beau knew that somehow, the safe room had been breached and the unthinkable had occurred.

When they reached the still closed door of the safe room, Caleb’s face drew into an expression of confusion. With shaking hands, he punched in the security code, cursing when, in his haste, he failed to enter the correct code on the first attempt.

Zack merely shoved him out of the way and punched in the right code. The door slid open and they rushed straight into the bowels of hell.

The entire room was in disarray. There was a huge hole in the ceiling, which meant the bastards had gained entry from the attic, through the goddamn roof. The room was hazy from dust and the remnants of smoke swirling erratically. The gaping hole was large enough for a damn elephant to fit through. They would be lucky if the explosion hadn’t killed one or both women, because to force entry into the safe room, regardless of direction, it would take a hell of a lot of explosives.

“Ramie!” Caleb shouted hoarsely. “Ari!”

Caleb’s cry was echoed by Beau’s own as he yelled for Ari.

And then they saw Ramie, huddled in the far corner, her knees drawn to her chest, a vacant look in her eyes. Her pupils were dilated and her stare fixed forward unseeingly as she rocked back and forth in obvious distress.

“Dear God,” Caleb whispered as he rushed to kneel beside his wife.

Beau searched the room furiously as the smoke and haze began to clear through the now-open door, his gaze catching the rope ladder dangling through the opening in the ceiling. Already, Zack was nimbly scaling upward, pistol in one hand, rifle slung over one shoulder from a strap, securely holding it in place. Dane scrambled up behind him to provide cover, and all Beau could do was stare numbly at the wreckage of the safe room, absorbing the knowledge that he’d utterly failed to protect the woman he loved with his entire heart and soul.

Rage. Sorrow. Horror so paralyzing that he literally couldn’t breathe. He was bombarded by pain. So much pain. Terrified for Ari and what she was enduring even now. Knowing she’d trusted him. Had put her faith in him. And how frightened and alone she must feel, realizing he’d failed her.

Slowly he turned, knowing the only answers lay with Ramie, who was clearly in a stupor as Caleb touched her, talking to her in urgent tones, trying to bring her back from whatever hell she had descended into.

Tears streaked silently down her face, and like Caleb, Beau knelt on her other side, biting his lip to keep from demanding the answers he so desperately wanted—needed.