Page 23 of Beautiful Scars: Unshakeable

Sweat drips into my eyes. Every second stretches into eternity. The need to kill burns through me.

"Mine," Garrett growls. "Say it again."

"Yours." Her voice is barely a whisper. "Only yours."

The room freezes as the line goes suddenly silent. Seconds tick by.

"What the fuck?" Garrett's voice is angry, breathless.

My heart stops.

There's the sound of sheets rustling and a heavy thud.

"You little bitch." Garrett's voice drops to a venomous hiss. "What did you do? What the fuck did you do?"

Sunny screams.

The line goes dead.

Chapter Eleven

Zane

Myphonescreendimsto black, reflecting my stunned face back to me.

My lungs refuse to pull in air. My pulse pounds in my ears.

The room is silent and still around me.

Seconds stretch. Minutes compress.

I'm the first to break the silence.

"Tell me you got something." My voice comes out eerily calm, at odds with the inferno raging inside me. Every muscle in my body is coiled tight.

Colt's fingers continue moving across his keyboard. "Cross-referencing the coordinates… got it. Warehouse district. Just like the nurse said. Building 23 on Industrial Drive." He spins his laptop around, showing us a satellite view. "It's an old medical supply facility. Three stories above ground, two below."

"Underground levels?" Levi pushes off the wall, taking a shaky breath and wiping his face with trembling hands. "Like the guard mentioned?"

"Exactly." Colt zooms in on the blueprints he's pulled up. "Nurse's intel matches perfectly. Service entrance here, loading dock there."

I lean over his shoulder, taking in every detail.

"Security systems?" My mind races through scenarios, calculating angles and entry points.

"We have to expect top of the line. Garrett has a lot to protect." Colt pulls up another screen. "All we have is what the nurse and guard gave us. Security mods won't show up on the building plans. We know the lowest level has reinforced doors, keypad entry. That's where they're keeping Sunny.

Wolf's already working on it. Says he can loop the cameras, kill the alarms. We'll have maybe twenty minutes before their backup systems kick in. We have the codes to get into the lower levels."

Levi paces behind us, that familiar furious energy rolling off him in waves. "How many men total inside?"

"Nurse counted twelve during her last visit. Four guards, two 'handlers', medical staff, and Garrett." Colt's voice hardens on the last name. "Double that number though. There's at least two shifts, plus whatever muscle he'll have brought in since discovering the phone."

"We go in heavy then." I straighten, already mentally assembling teams. "Full tactical. No survivors. Except Sunny and any other women."

"Agreed." Levi stops pacing, his expression carved from stone. "But Garrett's mine."

"No." The word comes out sharp, final. "You're too emotional. You'll make mistakes."

---