Torch (Unbreakable Bonds 3)

Rowe directed them around barriers set up by the police to slip between a pair of fire trucks with their ladders extended toward the roof. Noah stayed a step behind Rowe, his hands out and loose at his sides, ready to grab the first person who approached Rowe, but with everyone running around, dealing with crying, soot-and-blood-covered partiers, two men who acted like they belonged there were the least of their problems.

“Where?” Noah said in Rowe’s ear when he paused to look around.

“The ambulances.”

Positioned a short distance from the nightclub, the first two ambulances were seeing to a steady stream of clubbers with cuts and scrapes. Nothing that looked too serious. But the third revealed an all-too-familiar trio. Andrei paced at the back of an ambulance, shoulders and back painfully straight beneath his heavy wool coat. Dark hair hung loose around his face, but it did nothing to hide the rage cutting harsh lines around his mouth and eyes. The man was pissed and ready to tear into the world.

Inside the ambulance sat Lucas with an oxygen mask over his face while Jude checked his vitals. The millionaire looked tired and dirty, but otherwise fine.

“You okay?” Rowe barked as soon as his eyes fell on his friend.

Lucas nodded and started to lift the oxygen mask, but Jude smacked his hand away and met his glare before answering for him.

“He’ll be fine,” Jude said. “But we’re taking him in. Between his concussion last year and the fact that he’s favoring his ribs on the right side, we’re going to run some scans.”

Lucas jerked from Jude’s touch and started to lift the mask again, but Jude easily batted his hand away.

“It’ll keep Snow happy,” Jude added, pulling out the big guns, and Lucas’s spark of temper deflated in a second.

Noah turned his attention to Andrei, who’d stopped pacing the second Jude had started talking about Lucas’s condition.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” he snapped, and immediately turned his laser focus on Rowe. “What the fuck is going on? Do you have any leads on the asshole behind this?”

“We’re getting close—”

“Close? Close isn’t going to save him from being killed!” he roared, pointing at Lucas.

Rowe jerked back at the explosion from Andrei, but the other man didn’t get any farther.

“Andrei,” Lucas interceded. “I’m fine. Safe. Please, call Snow. Tell him what happened and that we’re going to the hospital.”

Andrei glared at Lucas as if he wanted to shout some more, but he nodded stiffly and walked away, pulling his cellphone out of his pocket. Lucas sighed softly, shoving a hand through his hair to push some of it from where it had fallen across his forehead. He took a couple deep breaths from the oxygen mask before lowering it again. Jude frowned, but continued with his work, making the occasional note on a tablet.

“The fire started on the main stairs to the second floor, seconds after Andrei had gone down. He left ahead of me to start the car and check some voicemails. We…we were separated. He’s shaken up,” Lucas explained softly, his voice ragged from the smoke.

Rowe swore softly and Noah felt a queasiness grow in his own stomach. He knew what Andrei was feeling because he’d seen Rowe trapped in similarly dangerous situations. At that moment, standing on the first floor as the smoke and flames filled the club, Andrei would have wondered if he was watching the man he loved die. That wasn’t something you bounced back from after a couple minutes, even when you had that person safe in your arms again. The fear stuck like toxic soot, blackening and poisoning everything.

“George? I thought I assigned him to you,” Rowe snarled.

“Here, boss.”

Both Noah and Rowe spun around at the new voice to find a larger, somewhat older man standing just behind him. His rumpled suit was covered in soot and sweat.

“I was with Mr. Vallois the entire time,” George quickly added, as if trying to head off Rowe’s next line of questions. “Got him safely out the back exit after he finished giving some directions to his staff. Once Mr. Vallois was with the paramedics and Andrei, I was taken by the police to answer their questions.”

Rowe sighed and stepped forward, clapping his hand on George’s shoulder. “Thanks. Stick around for a bit and we’ll talk. Then I’ll take care of that one for the night,” he said, giving a jerk of his head toward Lucas.

George chuckled and it was his last breath.

Less than a second after Rowe turned away from George to shout at Lucas in the ambulance, George jerked as a bullet tore through his back and out his chest. The sound of the shot followed like a muted explosion, sending Noah into motion. He roughly grabbed Rowe, pulling him to the wet, cold ground, covering him with his larger body as he shouted for Jude.