Page 26 of Rusty's Command

She gently squeezed his arm.

He went still under her touch. “Is that what I did to you? Break something inside you?”

The question hung in the air, heavy with eighteen years of unspoken hurt. Sienna withdrew her hand, aware of how vulnerable she was in this moment. Of how drawn she was to the man who had once made her feel so alive. And how dangerous that attraction still was.

She let out a slow breath. “For a long time, I thought you had.”

“And now?”

“Now I think we were both?—”

“Shush.” Rusty yanked her against him, his grip like iron around her arm. His breath came hot against her ear. “Quick, find Pickle.”

A faint glow appeared in the tunnel’s distance, casting skeletal shadows on the curved walls.

Shit! Panic clawed up her throat, stealing her breath. They were trapped in this tube with nowhere to hide. Down the tunnel, the single light split into two, and her fear ratcheted higher. The bobbing beams were coming from the direction they’d been heading.

She scooped Pickle up, crushing him to her chest. The little dog must have sensed her terror because a low growl rumbled through his tiny body.

“Shh.” She clamped her hand around his muzzle, desperate to muffle the sound.

“Stay here and don’t move,” Rusty said, his quiet tone razor-sharp with authority.

She pressed her back against the cold wall, and her heart thundered so violently she thought her ribs might crack. The lights grew brighter and closer, accompanied by the soft scuff of footsteps.

“Soda, attack!” Rusty’s command shattered the silence. He and his massive dog charged toward the approaching lights.

The tunnel exploded with chaos as Soda’s ferocious growl merged with terrified screams. She hit the first man like a freight train, and her brute strength and fury took him down. Her massive jaws clamped onto his wrist with bone-crushing force, and as he shrieked in terror, his flashlight spun across the ground, casting twisted shadows on the walls.

Rusty slammed into the second man, and his fist connected with a sickening crunch that made Sienna’s stomach lurch. The man staggered back but returned with a wild punch that Rusty blocked. Rusty drove his knee into the man’s stomach with enough force that Sienna heard the whoosh of expelled air.

The brutal fight continued—wild punches, fierce grunts, bodies slamming against stone walls. Each impact made her flinch as she realized just how lethal Rusty could be.

Pickle snarled with a ferocity she wouldn’t have thought possible, then twisted violently and jumped from her arms.

“No!” Terror seized her as Pickle charged into the mayhem, and she sprinted after him.

The tunnel echoed with the vicious sounds of violence, every grunt and thud amplified in the confined space. Flashlights cast distorted, flickering shadows across the chaos, giving her only fragmented glimpses of the fight. Rusty’s controlled brutality was a stark contrast to the frenzied desperation of the man he was battling.

His elbow connected with the bastard’s nose, and blood sprayed across the beam of light like grotesque fireworks. A cry escaped her throat at the raw, unrelenting ferocity of their blows.

Rusty drove his fist into the man’s throat, and the attacker crumpled like dead weight, hitting the ground with a sickening, wet thud.

Is he dead?

Before she could voice the question, Rusty snatched up one of the flashlights and brought it down on the man’s temple with a nauseating crunch. The glass shattered, the bulb blinked out, and darkness rushed in like a suffocating tide.

Soda had her man pinned to the ground and her teeth locked into his arm as he screamed and thrashed. Beside them, Pickle darted in, a blur of fur and fury as he bit the ankle of the man Rusty was fighting.

The man howled and lashed out, his boot connecting hard, and Pickle yelped as he was flung through the darkness.

“Pickle!” Sienna’s heart seized as she lunged toward him. But before she could reach the dog, rough fingers wrenched her head back, and a third man pinned her to his chest.

“Don’t move, bitch,” he hissed in her ear, low and venomous as he pressed cold metal against her temple.

She froze, gasping as tears of pain blurred her vision, but through them, she saw something that shattered her.

Rusty stood over the man he’d taken down, but his eyes were wide with raw, unrestrained fear.

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