Page 70 of When Kings Fall

My black shiny Porsche was an attention-getter of a vehicle as was Colt’s satin-blue Mercedes. Lev had brought his Harley when he’d had to drop the van back in Stonewell after transporting the mercenaries, which hadn’t been ideal for the snow. But we’d had to make do.

It had helped that Brianna’s Charger wasn’t listed to her, or her father, or technically connected to her. She’d protected herself there to minimize anyone’s ability to track her—at least via her vehicle.

Smart woman.

As usual with her.

“Yeah?” I asked, always needing to double-check with everything.

She’d been in charge of packing up all of Levi’s equipment, because she had the know-how there that Colt and I didn’t.

Meanwhile, I’d packed her clothes and supplies along with my own and Colt had packed up Levi’s along with his.

We were ready to move out.

Twenty minutes was all it had taken, because we’d worked smoothly and efficiently.

Just the way I liked it.

Colt came down from the snowy hill toward the car carrying two gym bags full of clothes, his gold puffer jacket a similar style to Bree’s swishing about him with his rapid movements and the way he swung his arms when he was hurrying along—even with bags in his hands.

“Good to go,” he told me as he reached us.

“Perfect,” I said, taking one from him as he reached us and hauling it into the trunk, while he took care of the other.

I shut the trunk, then unzipped my aviator jacket to withdraw the keys and hand them back to Bree when my phone started buzzing wildly in my pocket.

I pulled it out to see a whole lot of flashing red.

Fuck me.

“The electric fence has been tripped.”

Bree frowned. “The fence, but not the early-warning system?”

“Royce must’ve caught onto it and circumvented it.”

“Shit. Let’s go. Right now,” Colt said, heading for the passenger seat.

He didn’t even make it that far as two gunshots rang out, echoing brutally through the area.

The two front tires popped a split-second later, the car lurching.

We all spun around, following the trajectory of the shots and the sounds to see four hooded guys all in black emerging from the trees to our left.

The sounds of footsteps in the snow came from the right and we looked to see another four coming from that direction.

“On your knees, kiddos!” a voice rang out coming from behind us by the house, and there were the remaining four mercenaries striding around the side of the house.

Royce Humphrey made unlucky thirteen, leading the way.

Middle-aged as opposed to his soldiers who were in their early thirties at most, he was a tall and lanky guy. He was decked out the same as them in all black.

The twelve of them closed in around us.

When Royce reached us, he stroked his goatee and started eye-fucking Bree, so Colt and I stepped in front of her, blocking his view.

Slimy piece of shit.

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