Page 77 of Ravaged Devotion

“Raided the workers rooms.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. To him, stealing probably wasn’t.

The single worker who was still with them didn’t speak up.

“How do you know they’ll fall for it?” Penn seemed doubtful.

“Uriel can see them through the fog. Well,” Ellery corrected himself with a chuckle, “mostly.”

“The three of us will try for the pool house,” Ryker said then. “The rest of you are in charge of sealing the door after us, and using the speaker to clear the path for us on an agreed upon time. We’ll check to see if there’s anything useful out there.”

“Wait.” Rue tightened his fingers around Ryker’s. “The three of you?” He vehemently shook his head. “No. You aren’t going.”

“Sweetheart—”

“No.” The fear was instantaneous and raw. “You don’t get to fuck me after all of this time and then decide to leave me right after!”

The gasps went unnoticed.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Ryker insisted. “I’m coming back.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Have a little faith.”

“I’ll go,” the worker, Fran, offered. He was only a bit older than they were and in good shape.

Rue took one look at him and nodded. “He’ll go.”

Penn snorted. “Always pretending not to be a Black Hart, yet so willing to send someone else to their possible doom. Nice one, Rue.”

“Want me to break his fingers too?” Ellery suggested, but Ryker was still focused on Rue and acted like he didn’t hear him.

“The three of us work well together,” Ryker said. “We know how to move around each other. It’s safer if it’s us.”

“I don’t care,” Rue admitted. “I only care about you, and it’s safer if you stay here.”

He leaned in, mouth at the side of Rue’s ear and whispered his next words so as not to be overheard. “We can’t trust anyone else here. Leaving you behind and in charge of working the speaker is how we ensure nothing goes wrong.”

“Or you could do that yourself.”

“The longer we stay here, the more dangerous things become. Look at them, Rue. Really look at them. They won’t last. They’re freaking out and halfway to losing their minds already. Scared people take unnecessary risks. All it takes is one of them doing something stupid to cost the rest of us our lives.”

There was truth to that, he knew it, and yet…It wasn’t enough to convince Rue that this plan was necessary.

“You don’t all need to go.”

“Help!” Thea, one of the two workers sent to look for the others, practically tumbled down the stairs in her haste to reach them. There was blood smeared across her cheek, and she was sweaty and out of breath. “He’s trying to kill me!”

“Who?” Penn asked, but the answer to that question arrived less than a second later when the other worker, Cyril crashed down after her.

He seemed half out of his mind, ignoring the rest of them as he brandished a knife and made a beeline for Thea, who’d moved behind the check-in counter. Last night at dinner, he’d been soft spoken and shy, but any traces of that man was gone, replaced with an anger that Rue could practically feel in the air.

Uriel untucked his shirt and pulled out the blaster he’d hidden—the single one the Black Harts seemed to be sharing between them—lifting it, only to stop short when his cousin rested a hand over his arm.

“Don’t waste the bullets,” Ellery said. “I didn’t bring any extra.”

Ryker let go of Rue and then snapped into motion, planting his palms on the counter and hauling himself up and over. He kicked out, using his momentum to push himself, his foot connecting with Cyril’s side.

Cyril crashed into the cabinets, the knife dropping from his hand.