Page 62 of Blood Red Rage

"All accounted for. We're moving them into the safe room now."

Roman's voice dropped.

"We're coming home." Then the line went dead. I stared at the phone in Ashen’s hand. My heart was still hammering, because Roman had sounded terrifying and then another thought hit me.

Viking.

Roman would tell him, my eyes closed. "Oh, shit."

Sorcha looked at me. "What?"

I opened my eyes. "Viking is going to find out someone shot at us." For one second, nobody spoke.

Then Runa muttered, "Oh."

Layla closed her eyes. Sorcha grimaced. Even Luka looked uncomfortable, and somehow that frightened me almost as much as the bullet, because I'd already seen what happened when Viking Dragic believed someone had tried to take me away from him. This time, someone hadn't attacked just me, they had attacked his family. I hope the brothers are able to keep him calm enough not to be taken by his berserker, because Viking when losing control was a very scary thing.

And somewhere out there, completely unaware of what was coming for them, a shooter had just declared war on every Dragic brother at once.

Chapter 12

Roman

Something was wrong. I felt it before there was any reason to believe it. We were twenty minutes into a meeting that should have commanded every ounce of my attention. Five men sat opposite us around a scarred oak table in the back room of one of our warehouses, discussing shipments, territory and money.

Mafia business, Dragic business. The kind of conversation where losing focus could cost millions or lives. Yet I hadn't heard half of what the bastard across from me had said because my attention kept drifting elsewhere.

Home. Layla. My child.

A pressure had been building beneath my ribs for the last couple of minutes. Nothing sharp enough to identify. Nothing through the bond that told me Layla was hurt. Just wrongness. A disturbance where there should have been calm.

Beside me, Lucien shifted for the third time. Volken's fingers tapped once against the table. Stopped. Then tapped again. Viking sat opposite me, arms folded across his enormous chest, but there was tension in his shoulders that hadn't been there when we'd arrived.

Draugr was standing against the wall, he noticed all of us, of course he did. He leaned back against the wall, long dark hair tied at his nape, expression unreadable.

"You feel it too," Lucien finally muttered. The human speaking across from us faltered. I ignored him.

Volken's eyes narrowed. "Something's off."

Viking's head lifted, his entire expression changed. "Bryn." One word, that was all it took. I felt the atmosphere around the table shift. The men opposite us had no idea what was happening, but they knew enough about the Dragic brothers to understand when silence was the safest option.

I reached into my jacket and pulled out my phone. There were no missed calls, no messages, nothing. That should have reassured me, but it didn't.

"Call home," Volken said. But I was already doing it, not Layla. If she was busy with Aleksander, I didn't want to frighten her unnecessarily, so instead I called Ashen one of her personal vampire guard. He answered on the first ring.

"Boss?"

I stood, every one of my brothers watched me.

"Everything all right?" There was a pause, it was too long. My blood went cold. "Ashen?"

"Sir, we've had a security breach at the mansion."

The room disappeared. Not literally but suddenly none of it mattered. The warehouse, the meeting, the men, the money. All of it became meaningless noise.

"What happened?" My voice didn't sound like mine.

Ashen hesitated. "A shot was fired through the family-room window."