Page 129 of Wilde and Deadly

“How nasty?” Davey asked.

“Nasty enough that I’m about to have a real bad time.”

Liam exhaled through his nose. “I think I’d still rather be you right now.” His voice was dry, edged with exhaustion. “You screw up, you break a sweat, but I break into a thousand fucking pieces. So tell me again—who’s really having a bad time here?”

Weston muttered something about punching Liam when this was over, but his fingers never stopped moving on the wires. “Sabin, how are those cuffs coming?”

Sabin stood up with a flourish, the cuffs dangling from his middle finger.

Liam exhaled heavily, flexing his stiff fingers. “Finally.”

“Don’t move yet,” Weston said. “I need to make sure this isn’t motion-act— Jesus Christ, he’s got you padlocked into it. Sabin?—”

“Yep.” Without hesitation, the former thief dropped to his knees again and started working on the line of locks along the side of the vest.

“Form a perimeter,” Davey ordered. “Let’s make sure nobody sneaks up on our ass while they get him out of that torture device.”

The team moved, shifting into a loose defensive circle around Liam, Tessa, Sabin, and Weston. Bridger squeezed his brother’s shoulder once, then let go and palmed his gun, shifting his stance slightly—protecting Liam without stepping away.

Every tick of the countdown was a hammer to Davey’s skull.

“Don’t like this,” Dominic said, bouncing back and forth on his feet. “We’re sitting ducks here with a bomb at our backs.”

“Stay cool, Dom,”Elliot said over the comms.“Focus.”

“Hate when you say that,” Dom grumbled, but he stopped bouncing.

Davey scanned the tunnel and then checked their progress over his shoulder. “How we doing?”

Weston worked fast, hands steady as he traced the wires, his expression unreadable. “There’s a secondary trigger. The fucker has a remote. Even if I get the vest off, he could still detonate it while we’re in range and bring this whole tunnel down on us.”

“Brody’s an asshole,” Liam muttered, thick and slurring as his head started to droop.

Tessa was on him in an instant.

“No, no, no—stay with me, Liam.” Her hands cupped his face, not gentle, but firm—demanding. She lifted his chin, forcing his glazed eyes to meet hers. “I don’t care if your head feels like it’s splitting in two. You do not pass out on me.”

Bridger swore under his breath, holstering his gun in a single sharp motion before grabbing Liam again, his grip tighter this time. “You hear her? You drop, you’re making West’s job a hell of a lot harder. Don’t do that to us.”

Liam’s eyelids fluttered, his breath shallow. “Yeah…” But he sagged again.

Tessa gave his face a quick slap—not hard, but sharp enough to make his head jolt upright.

“Eyes open,” she snapped. “You check out now, and I swear to God, I will find a way to bring you back just to kill you myself.”

Liam sucked in a breath, his voice weak but dry. “You sure slapping a guy with a head injury is in the medical handbook?”

Tessa huffed a laugh—half exasperated, half relieved. “Worked, didn’t it? You’re welcome.”

The countdown on the vest ticked lower, a relentless reminder that time was running out.

This wasn’t just any bomb.

Brody had set it up to screw with them, to force them into a situation where even winning felt like losing.

“How much time left on the clock?” Davey asked.

Weston’s jaw clenched. “Ninety seconds.”

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