The bright floodlights came on, illuminating the road that ran past the outside of the semicircle of houses. A few bodies lay stretched in the gravel to show the effectiveness of the Hermitage’s defenders.

But, Jesus. Two oversized passenger vans and another four SUVs lined the road—and there was a white cargo van a lot farther away.

A shitload of PZs were using the vehicles for cover. Four dozen or so of the assholes must be out there.

Even as he started firing, Bull’s teeth gritted together. So much for getting his ass outside and searching for Frankie. Dammit. Dammit all.

He’d give his own life to save her, but he couldn’t risk the children or leave his brothers a man down. God, Frankie, be alive. Be safe.

From here, he’d do what he needed to do.

Searching for her would be a fuck of a lot easier if every PZ bastard was dead.

Where the hell were they shooting from?

Standing on one side of the white cargo van, Nabera squinted against the lights blazing down on his men who were much closer to the five two-story houses.

The amount of gunfire from the defenders was impressive.

He could see narrow windows on the first floors—smaller than man-sized—with metal grills, no less. The second-floor windows were slightly bigger, but dark. He couldn’t spot any movement.

There were no windows in the attic spaces, but before the lights had blinded him, he’d seen muzzle flashes from high up.

People were shooting from the houses. For fuck’s sake, they were more than adequately armed—and prepared. Even hosing them down with machine guns hadn’t stopped them.

Hoping to breach the houses from the lakeside, he’d ordered two men to climb the eight-foot fences between the houses. Only they’d discovered the fencing was not only electric, but high voltage. Two more men disabled.

Fucking Hermitage bastards. He’d kill them all once he got through their defenses.

Swearing under his breath, Conrad joined Nabera. “We can’t keep this up for long, Captain. They’ll have sent for the state troopers, and our roadblocks won’t hold them off forever.”

At least the plan to isolate the town had proven effective.

Since Sterling was the only road to Rescue, they’d set off explosives, creating landslides to block the highway on each side of the town. Once they had the women, the Zealots would drive up Dall Road to McNally’s Resort and leave their SUVs in the crowded parking lot. His men would scatter into the forest and make their way to a small lake and the floatplanes there. For Nabera and the captives, a rented helicopter waited on the helipad to fly them to the rendezvous point outside of Seward.