The loading dock door didn't just explode. It vaporized.
One moment it was a solid wall of corrugated steel. The next it was a storm of shrapnel and smoke, the concussion rippling through the warehouse like a thunderclap. I felt it in my teeth, my bones, the hollow of my chest. The branded men scattered, their neat formation crumbling into chaos as debris rained down around them.
Dante's hand tightened on mine. "Stay close."
"I'm not going anywhere."
The first wave through the smoke was Khalid. He moved like water, silent and inexorable, his sniper rifle abandoned for something shorter and deadlier in close quarters. Two of Webb's men went down before they could raise their weapons. Behind him came the rest—Dante's people, the ones who'd stayed loyal, the ones who'd passed every test o
