The day had gone to shit. Ever since I’d left Anabeth’s place, I’d done nothing but drive and stew and grow angrier with the world. The rain fell in sheets, the ditches and creeks I passed not able to hold back the waters any longer. Not that I gave a shit. Let it flood. Let the whole damn town get washed away so we could all start anew. There was nothing I could have wanted more.

And yet, that wasn’t the truth. I didn’t want the town to flood because that would cause hardships for the residents. Alder, as the oldest Kennard brother, ran shit, but I felt the responsibility we’d been born into just as strongly. Also, I did want something more than a fresh start for the town. I wanted a fresh start with Anabeth. I wanted her to stay, to be in my bed every night, to give us a chance at the life she walked away from over a decade before.

But she wasn’t staying, which meant I wouldn’t be getting what I wanted without giving up so much. Just another thing to sour my mood and make me want to keep roaming the streets like some sort of wraith.

My phone pinged with an incoming text, so I pulled over at the next road. No sense causing accidents when the rain would be doing enough of that. Once stopped, I swiped the screen to life.

House secure, girl upset. WTF did you do?

Gage, of course. Not Anabeth. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with my best friend, so I tossed the phone across the seat and pulled back out into traffic. More driving, less sitting still.

The anxiousness, the need to run from the pain, overwhelmed me. I’d moved past those feelings, had learned to tuck my Anabeth memories away and not think about the pain she’d caused me. She’d ripped that wall down, though. Yanked the memories right to the forefront of my mind and left them there, raw and hurting.

My Firefly, the heartbreaker.

“Motherfucker,” I said as I turned back toward town. I wanted to hate Anabeth for bringing this on me, to curse her name and walk the fuck away from her for good, but I couldn’t. My heart wouldn’t let me. I knew I’d go back to her house, that I’d fight for her again and again and again. I had to—she was the other half of my soul, the one woman who’d ever seen the real me and simply loved me. I’d never give up on her.

Which, at that moment and in that situation, pissed me off even more.

Another ping for a text. I almost ignored it, almost left that phone lit up across the seat, but that sad, little weak spot inside me said it could be Anabeth. I pulled over again, and I reached for the phone. Swiped the screen that had long since gone dark back to life.

And I read the two words without comprehending them for a solid thirty seconds.

Ambush. Breached.

When their meaning finally sank in, my heart dropped. Breached. Someone had made it into Anabeth’s house. Had gotten past Gage and had my girl all to himself.

I slammed my foot down on the gas, cursing the fact that I’d again worn my dress shoes instead of my boots. I wasn’t prepared for this at all, which threw my anger into downright rage.

“Hang on, baby. I’m coming.” I performed a quick U-turn then gunned the engine, flying through the rain at a speed not safe for anyone. More than once, my tires slipped as I raced toward Widow’s Ridge, but I held on to the wheel and kept myself on the road. I had to get there; I had to make it. My god, the things they could be doing to her. And Gage, my best friend and partner. I’d left him there to do my damn job. You never left your wingman alone—I knew that. I lived that rule, which was why Gage and Rex had been living with me. Why he’d even moved to Justice in the first place.

I’d fucked up bad all around on this one.

As I turned onto the road leading up to the ridge, I grabbed my phone again. We needed backup. I had no idea how many men had breached the house, but I didn’t want to take a chance that we’d be outnumbered without sending out a call for support.

“Siri, call Alder cell.”

“Calling Alder cell,” the robotic voice returned just before the phone clicked and started to ring. One, two, three, four…voice mail.

“Shit.” I waited for the message to finish before laying out the issues. “Hey, brother, we’re going to need some help at Anabeth’s. Gage is up there alone and sent me a text that they’ve been ambushed. At least one person has breached the house. I’m on my way there, going to park by Shye’s old place and hike in so as not to be seen. Get your ass up here.”

As I hung up, I thought about calling Deacon or Camden, but I was already coming up on the overflowing creek that had created a fast-moving stream right over the road. I hit it at a slower speed than I wanted, but it didn’t matter. The water had risen deeper than when I’d come down the hill, and the current pushed my truck sideways before I was halfway across the swath.

I bit out a curse as I tried to hold on to the wheel, but there was no directing the vehicle. I was at the mercy of the water. Thinking ahead, I rolled down my window and unbuckled my seat belt, knowing if the truck ended up in a deep eddy, it would sink like a stone.

Luckily or not, the water didn’t take me far. A tree stopped the truck with a jolt, making my teeth rattle almost as hard as the metal body itself. I didn’t have time to recover, though. I was in motion before the rocking stopped, reaching for the bag of weapons I’d been carrying with me since before the grand opening at Katie’s restaurant…

And coming up empty.

“Motherfucker.”

The guns. The explosives. The night vision goggles. Even my boots. Everything sat back at Anabeth’s place. I’d left in such a hurry, I’d forgotten to take my jump or weapons bag with me. The only thing I had in my truck was my standard-issue Ontario Mark 3 knife. Black and sharp with a six-inch blade and a handle almost made for my hand, the knife had been at my side since the day I’d joined the SEAL training program. I was almost more comfortable with it than my guns.

Almost.

At least, that’s what I told myself as I shoved open the driver’s door and stepped out into the knee-high water. The rain immediately soaked me to the skin, the wall of water falling making it hard to see, and the current pulled at my feet. My shoes gave me no traction, but I pushed through. Hanging on to the truck until I could grab the branches of the tree for support. Let the water come, let the flood cover me. I would make it through because my girl needed me to. My teammate needed me to. And nothing would stop me from getting to them.

With every step I took, the water dropped lower until it finally fell below my ankles. As soon as I felt balanced and no longer fighting the flow, I started running. Racing through the dark toward Anabeth and Gage. I stayed on the road instead of heading into the forest, unafraid of being caught. No one would be coming up this way unless they were on my team…or the enemy’s. Either way, there’d be plenty of warning if a vehicle actually made it along the rocky excuse for a road. Besides, trying to run through the forest would slow me down. I’d move into the trees once I made it to the property. I wasn’t looking to be a ghost, just to sneak the fuck in and beat down whoever thought they were badass enough to go after my girl.

As I passed where the burned-out shell of Shye’s trailer sat, I started chanting in my head. One more mile, one more mile…just one more mile to go. Seven minutes or so at a full run, ten in these conditions. Fuck, too long.

“Just hang on, baby. I’m coming for you.”