Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
“Accounting office off the records corridor,” I rasped over the channel. “Missing employee is Kendra. Approach from the east side and stay fucking clear of the controlled-storage door until Tamsin confirms the route.”
The acknowledgments came immediately. Tamsin listened with her face tipped toward my earpiece, her body still taut inside my hold, then tried to follow when I released her and started toward the smoke. I caught her wrist and pointed toward the growing group of Bellamy employees near the loading area.
“Count your people.”
“You need me inside.” Her brows drew together as she tried to pull her hand free, and frustration tightened every delicate line of her face. “I know that building better than any of your brothers.”
“I know.” I took the spare handheld from my belt, switched it to the team channel, and pressed it into her palm. “That’s why you’re gonna direct them from here.”
“I can do it faster if I’m inside.”
“Need you where I know you’re breathing.” I closed her fingers around the radio and held her gaze until she stopped testing my grip. “Account for every employee, tell us which routes put controlled material between Kendra and us, and warn me immediately if anyone else is missing.”
Tamsin’s lips flattened, but she looked toward the thickening smoke and made the smarter choice. She turned toward the employees, called for department leads, and began taking names before I had reached the rear corridor.
Heat rolled over me the moment I entered the corridor with three brothers at my back. Smoke pressed against the ceiling in dark layers while the alarm strobed red through the haze, turning every doorway and shelf into a shifting shadow. We pulled emergency smoke hoods from the wall station, and I listened to Tamsin’s voice through the comm clipped near my shoulder as she confirmed the shortest route to the accounting office.
“Records room is the second door on your left,” she directed. “Accounting opens off the far side. The steel door past it leads toward controlled storage, and it should already be closed.”
“It is,” I confirmed, spotting the intact door through the haze. “Stay with me.”
“I’m not the one who walked into a fire.”
“You fucking tried.”
A sharp breath came through the radio, followed by the kind of silence that told me she had an answer and was saving it for when I was within reach. The fire was confined to the old paper shelving rather than spreading from one of the ordinary ignition sources inside the warehouse. Sprinklers hammered water through most of the corridor, but the heads above the records alcove remained dry, and flames were chewing through the oldest files far too quickly.
Two brothers pushed toward the accounting office while I checked the steel door leading to controlled storage. It remained latched and cool enough that the fire had not breached the protected section, but heat was creeping up the corridor wall and would reach it if we let the records room burn unchecked. The rest of us pulled the portable suppression units from the nearby station and attacked the fire before it spread beyond the paper shelving.
“We found her,” one of the brothers reported through the comm less than a minute later. “Conscious. Disoriented. Bringing her out east side.”
Tamsin’s voice cut in immediately. “Is she burned?”
“Don’t know yet,” I answered as I directed another brother toward the upper shelving where flames were curling along the wall. “Just know she’s conscious and coming out.”
“I have everyone else accounted for,” Tamsin confirmed, paper rustling near her radio as she checked the list again. “Kendra is the last one.”
The brothers carried Kendra from the adjoining office with an arm beneath each shoulder. She was coughing hard and barely steady on her feet, but she was conscious, speaking, and able to tell Reaper where she hurt once he met them outside.
The fire department arrived while we were still holding the flames away from controlled storage. Their crews took over the main suppression effort, forcing the fire back through the records section while we provided the building layout and the locations of every material they needed to avoid. Water, foam, and smoke turned the corridor into a blackened mess, but the steel storage door held, and the fire never reached the company’s controlled inventory.
Several shelves of older records had burned almost to ash by the time the last flame was knocked down. Other boxes were scorched, soaked, or split open across the floor, their contents stuck together beneath dirty water and debris. Enough survived to keep the audit alive, but someone had tried very hard to erase the exact part of the company’s history Tamsin had begun examining.
I stepped through the rear exit with soot ground into my shirt, heat still clinging to my skin, and barely cleared the doorway before Tamsin reached me. Her gaze swept from my face to my chest and arms, searching for burns or blood while both hands landed against my ribs.