Page 83 of Grim

Empty cages. Waiting cages.

She’d never been alone like this. Not truly. Not without a voice, a hand, a presence. The emptiness felt like it was swallowing her whole.

Her stomach dropped. “No—no, please—don’t—”

They threw her inside one and slammed the door shut. The lock clicked with a finality that made her knees give out.

Sophia scrambled to the bars and gripped them with shaking hands. She’d spent her whole life reaching for others, and now her hands closed around nothing but cold steel. “Let me out. Please.”

Viper stepped into the doorway, silhouetted by the flickering light.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said coldly. “Not until the Saints come crawling.”

He turned away.

The lights dimmed. The door shut. Sophia was alone.

Her breath came in ragged gasps as she pressed her forehead to the bars, tears slipping down her cheeks. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t helpless. But she was terrified.

Her voice failed her, but the thought didn’t. Maddox… please find me.

Chapter 27

Grim

The clubhouse was silent.

Smoke curled lazily through the air, clinging to the walls like a ghost that refused to leave. The floor was still warm in places, the heat of the explosion lingering like a warning. Bullet holes pocked the walls. Blood stained the floor where Switchblade had fallen.

Someone had tried to scrub it, but the stain remained, dark and stubborn and refusing to fade. Switchblade’s absence pressed against the room like a physical weight.

Grim stood in the center of the wreckage, chest heaving, fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white. His cut was torn. His face was streaked with soot. His eyes were wild.

He looked like a man who’d been hollowed out and filled with rage.

Even Havoc, who feared nothing, shifted his stance. Rook’s jaw ticked, eyes flicking between Grim and the bloodstain on the floor.

Stone approached slowly, hands raised like he was approaching a wounded animal. Rook and Havoc stood behind him, both tense, both watching Grim like he might shatter or explode.

“Grim.”

“Don’t.” Grim’s voice was raw and shredded. “Don’t tell me to calm down.”

His breath came in short, sharp bursts, like his lungs couldn’t decide whether to work or collapse.

Stone didn’t flinch. “I’m telling you to breathe.”

Grim let out a sound closer to a snarl than anything human, raw and furious and shaking. “She’s gone. They took her. They took my…” His voice cracked, and he turned away, slamming his fist into the wall so hard the plaster split.

Rook took an instinctive step forward, ready to catch him if he went down. Havoc’s hands curled into fists at his sides, fury and helplessness warring in his eyes.

Havoc stepped forward. “We’ll get her back.”

Grim spun on him, eyes blazing. “You don’t understand. I felt her fear before. I felt it. And I wasn’t here.”

Rook’s jaw tightened. “You were saving lives. That matters.”

Grim shook his head violently. “I should’ve been here. I should’ve—”