Harry Styles, a secret service agent working for British intelligence is tasked with finding the killer after a series of brutal but calculated murders across Europe. His mind is sharp, he's smart, arrogant and works with a precision that leaves no...
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Harry Styles
The van rattled. Every part of it groaned as it drove over the terrain.
We'd stopped following anything that resembled a road almost ten minutes ago. The tires struggled to climb over thick tree roots, snapped dead branches, and the uneven earth. Every jolt stole the air out of my lungs. Every sway of the van reminded me that we were driving not just deeper into Roman's territory, but into the forest that had shaped Winter into something so fierce, and so broken.
My hands were shaking. It wouldn't stop. I stared down at them as if they belonged to someone else. It was stupid, really. I'd been stabbed, ran through gunfire, had my life on the line more times than any normal person. But the trembling? That was new. Because it wasn't me that was balancing on the precipice between life or death, it was Winter. And I had no control over what state she was in, or what they'd done to her, or whether she'd recognise me or stab me or fall apart in my arms.
"Mate." Niall murmured from the opposite bench. He was staring at me like I was a bomb that was about to go off. A rifle from his collection rested between his knees, his fingers were curled around the barrel so tightly, showing how stressed he really was. His jaw was tight. "Just breathe."
He'd supplied all of us with weapons I wasn't even sure we were legally allowed to use, ever. Even with clearance. But nothing about this mission, this rescue, was normal. We'd dragged Marshall into giving us clearance, forced him into corner after corner until he had no choice but to allow this. But even with permission, everything about this operation came from pure desperation.
I tried to breathe. In. Out. Slowly. It was useless.
Louis leaned forward, bracing an elbow on his knee. "You look like you're about to combust."
I ran a hand through my hair, lying through my teeth when I responded. "I'm fine."
I was not fine.
"Bullshit." Louis said bluntly. "You've been vibrating like a fuckin' phone on silent since we left."
I stared at the floor, watching the metal shudder beneath our boots. The van bounced as we hit another root, and the rifles clattered in the compartment up ahead. The sound was followed by the click of weapons being checked up the front of the van.
"This is it." Was all I could manage to say. "The location she sent."
Niall nodded slowly. "We know."
"I just know it was her. I know it." My voice tightened. I hated how weak I sounded. "She told me she wants out." We'd been over this. I'd told them what she said a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. But my brain kept circling back to it, obsessively, like if I said the words enough, they'd protect her somehow. "I've not heard from her since Aaron... since I told her to run." I wallowed thickly, trying not to think of that night. How Aaron had hurt her so badly. "Then yesterday... a text message?"
