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There wasn’t time, and there wasn’t room for noise.

I gave a slight nod toward the entrance, and he fell in beside me without a word, both of us clicking on our flashlights as our steps automatically adjusted to be quieter. The air shifted the moment we crossed inside, colder and damp, carrying that faint tang that settled into your lungs and stayed there. I focused on taking small breaths through my nose, trying to make sure I didn’t get a big inhale and lose my head. I looked at Ryder. His expression was tight. He was clearly struggling too.

“Fuck,” he muttered as a particularly strong draft blew by. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. We were running out of time.

What would happen if we lost control?

The light thinned the deeper we went, and the walls closed in around us, rough-cut stone giving way to older sections where the supports had warped and bowed with time. Splintered beams jutted at odd angles, some reinforced with newer wood that didn’t quite match, others left to rot where they’d been. Rusted tools had been abandoned along the edges of the tunnel—pickaxes, a bent lantern, a length of chain half buried in the dirt as if someone had dropped it and never come back for it.

There were a million stories about these mines, and I bet at least half of them were true.

Men disappearing when the tunnels collapsed. Voices heard too deep underground where no one should have been. Shadows moving just outside the reach of a lantern, keeping pace with you until you turned to look and found nothing there.

I’d never put much stock in ghost stories, or much fear, either. I was usually much more frightening than anything else out there.

But there was something about the silence down here that didn’t feel empty.

Water dripped somewhere in the distance, slow and irregular, the sound echoing through the tunnels in a way that made it hard to tell how far away it actually was. Every now and then, the air shifted just enough to carry a faint scrape or creak, the mine settling around us in small, unsettling movements.

We kept moving, our focus narrowing as the passage twisted deeper into the earth, the dark thickening ahead of us until I finally saw it—a door.

Set into the rock where there should have been nothing but stone, it was solid wood that had been reinforced with metal, too new to have been part of the original structure.

My pulse slammed hard as I closed the distance, every instinct I had screaming louder with each step that I was running out of time.

I was going to be too late. Too damn late. If I lost her, I…

Ryder shifted slightly at my side, ready. I drove my shoulder into the door, and it buckled inward with a sharp jolt⁠—

And I went through, everything in me hoping I wasn’t too late.

CHAPTER 47

SIENNA

The door at the top of the stairs slammed open with so much force that the cinder blocks on the walls rattled, dirt sifting from the seams and pattering down around me as the walls shuddered.

Harvey froze when heavy boots hit the first step, his head snapping up as shock widened his eyes.

A second later, Sterling and Ryder appeared as they raced down the steps.

I saw it happen, the exact moment Sterling registered the iron contraption in Harvey’s hands, the tears streaking my face, the blood pooled on the floor, the skeleton in a dress…and the way Harvey’s fingers were curled into the waistband of my jeans.

Sterling’s face didn’t just change. It shattered. The man I knew disappeared in a single, brutal blink. What was left was something animal, something that looked like it might never come back from this.

His chest heaved so hard I could see the frantic rise and fall even from across the room. His fists clenched until his knuckles turned white, and veins were bulging along his forearms. A crazed, choked sound ripped out of his throat like he was trying to swallow the scream that wanted to tear free. His eyes burned into mine, wild and so full of helpless fury that it stole my breath.

“Get your fucking hands off her.”

Harvey’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked almost confused, like he couldn’t quite process that someone was standing in the room with us.

Sterling took the rest of the stairs in one lunge, his boots slamming down so hard the whole staircase groaned as he launched himself toward us.

But he didn’t spare Harvey a glance.

He knocked him to the side and dropped to his knees so fast it shook the floor. His hands were everywhere at once, gentle and frantic, brushing my hair back, cupping my face, skimming down my arms like he was checking for breaks he couldn’t see.

“Hey,” he murmured. “Hey, baby. I’ve got you. I’m here.” His forehead pressed to mine, breath shuddering. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Fuck, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. I’m so fucking sorry.”