POV ESMERAY
The heavy iron doors of the clubhouse had barely finished echoing their final, heavy thud before the adrenaline began to drain from my limbs, leaving behind a cold, hollow terror. The room was still thick with the scent of unspent gunpowder and the lingering pheromones of thirty men ready to die for a cause I didn't understand.
Ruan didn't look at me. He didn't even acknowledge the way I was trembling against his side. He simply let go of my waist, the sudden absence of his heat making me feel dangerously exposed in the middle of the crowded hall. He began barking orders at his men, his voice a sharp blade cutting through the murmurs of the crowd.
"Double the watch on the perimeter," Ruan commanded, his eyes scanning the room like a general surveying a battlefield. "
