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The gunshot cracked, and Cade was already moving.
He hit Mika sideways, shoulder first. The round that should've opened her skull tore through his ribs instead.
He didn't make a sound. He caught himself on the doorframe, blood spreading black across his shirt, and kept his body between her and Anna.
"Cade—"
"Don't." His voice came out flat. Wrong.
Anna racked the slide again. Her fiancé was bleeding two feet away, and she didn't even blink. "Move. I'm not asking twice."
"Put another one in me, and it goes in her too." Cade's jaw tightened. "That's how the Bond works, Anna. You know that."
Anna's mouth curled. "Then I aim for the head. Cleaner. Your Bond can't undo brain matter."
She stepped closer, gun rising. Mika had seen jealousy in Anna before. This wasn't jealousy. This was math.
Anna had decided Mika dying fast was worth losing Cade for a few weeks.
"Kill her," Anna said.
The two guards behind her didn't move.
That told Mika who actually ran this house.
Cade grabbed Anna's wrist. Fast, for a man with a hole in his side. His eyes went red around the edges—that same flare Mika had seen once, right before he flash-stepped across a warehouse to save a stranger.
"Touch her again," he snarled, "and I don't care whose ring you're wearing."
Mika understood the ugly part then. He wasn't protecting her because she mattered. He was protecting his own leash.
If she died, he died.
Same math as Anna's.
"Get your hand off me," Mika said.
Cade looked down. He hadn't even noticed he'd grabbed her wrist.
Protective. Controlling. Same thing right now.
She tore free, snatched the first sharp thing on the shelf, and closed her fingers around a broken bottle neck.
"Mika, what are you—"
She dragged the glass across her palm.
Pain flashed bright and immediate.
Cade screamed.
He dropped hard, one hand clamping around his wrist as if she'd cut him instead of herself. Anna's gun dipped. Her guards stared.
That half second was enough.
"Don't fucking move," Cade snarled from the floor. He caught Mika's ankle with his shaking hand. Sweat stood out on his face. "Do that again, and I go down for real."
"Good. Then you'll listen." Mika yanked her foot free and raised her bleeding hand between them. "Where's the tunnel?"
"You're insane," Anna said.
The fear in her voice was real now.
Mika pressed the glass against the inside of her wrist. "Takes one to marry an S-rank for the family name. Give me the code."
Anna's gaze dropped to the glass. Then to Cade. "You wouldn't."
"Put a bullet in my head, he dies with me." Mika kept her voice steady. "Make me open this vein, and he dies slower. Either way, you lose your favorite investment."
"You cut that," Cade ground out, "we die together. Both of us. You understand?"
"I understand fine." Mika didn't look at him. If she did, if she saw the blood soaking through his shirt because of her, the glass might slip. "The code, Anna. Now."
Anna glanced at the guards. Neither moved. Nobody had trained them for a hostage who held the knife herself.
"C7-19-Alpha-Blue," Anna spat. "The scanner needs his eye, too. Family lock. Only blood gets through."
Mika lowered the glass an inch.
"Anchor's a healing stat," she said. "Support class. Can I run it backward? Reverse-drain instead of push?"
Cade's face went the color of old paper.
"Don't." The word cracked through the hall. "Don't you fucking try that. Reverse-drain kills the host. Pull instead of push. Whatever you're drawing from doesn't come back."
"Wasn't planning to find out tonight." Mika grabbed his good arm and hauled him upright. "You're walking. Move."
He leaned into her more than he would've admitted. His breath brushed her temple, hot against the cold sweat on her skin.
"I can walk," he muttered.
"Then stop using me as a crutch."
"You're the one dragging me."
"Keep arguing and I'll cut myself again."
His fingers tightened around her shoulder. "You won't."
"Test me."
She got him to the steel door at the end of the hall. There was no handle, only a keypad and a black glass panel above it.
Her bloody fingers marked every number.
Seven. Nineteen. Alpha. Blue.
The panel blinked amber.
"It needs your eye," she said.
Before he could argue, she caught his face in her bloody hand and turned him toward the scanner. His skin was hot beneath her palm. His breath touched her wrist, too close, too warm.
She shoved the reaction down.
"Look at it. Now."
"Mika—"
"Look at it."
The panel beeped.
VERIFICATION PASSED.
Green letters glowed over the blood on her hand. Somewhere inside the wall, gears groaned. The steel slab began sliding open into darkness.
Mika pulled Cade toward the gap. Their blood smeared together where she gripped his shirt.
Behind them, Anna's eyes turned white—pupil to sclera, the psychic tell Mika had only seen in orientation packets.
"Cade," Anna said.
He stopped.
Anna crossed the room in a blur, a black blade appearing in her hand. Its tip pressed into Mika's back, cold through her shirt.
Then the point bit.
Cade's arm jerked around Mika's waist, locking her against him. His heartbeat slammed against her spine, fast and hard.
"Take one more step," Anna whispered, "and I cut her."
Mika felt Cade's grip tighten.
Anna cocked her head. "Pull her back, and I shoot you."
The open doorway waited inches away.
"Cade," Mika said, keeping her eyes on the darkness ahead, "which one are you going to—"