Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“Give that... back—”
I forced her flapping hand onto the screen, opening the phone with her thumb.
“Stop—”
Thud!
“—nice digs.” A group of four guys and three women strolled right into the lobby, entering through the back door. “I could get used to living like a Merchant.”
“No, living like a brother,” one of the women corrected. “All of this is ours—”
I shoved the phone in my pocket and bolted up when they came into view—our eyes connecting in an instant.
“—now.” A youngish woman with a bald head covered in tattoos blinked at me. “Uh-oh, what’s this we have—?”
“Kill her,” Debra screeched.
I flung the knife at them.
“Agh!” they cried, throwing their hands up and scattering like bowling pins.
I bolted for the servants’ entrance.
“Stop her!”
“Kill her!”
“Shoot her!”
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bullets rained down around me, blowing out the door’s window. I fell against it in a shower of glass and pain—my injured arms screaming at me. The stab wounds weren’t deep, or even bleeding that much, but they hurt like a Debra. All I wanted was to jump into a tub of ice and not get out until I was pleasantly numb.
And that’s just exactly what I’m going to do when my baby is in my arms, my guys are all around me, and our home is vermin-free.
I burst through the door and locked it behind me. It was as low-tech as low-tech security came, but right then, I was very glad that no one could take old-fashioned steel and brass offline.
My attention lit on the fire alarm. I fell on the thing, jamming it down as hard as I could—
Nothing.
“Come on,” I hissed at the strobe alarms attached to the wall. “Light up! Sound off! Do something!”
They didn’t do a thing, clueing me to the horrible truth that the fire alert system was also hooked up to the main security system, and it was also offline.
Bang!
My head snapped up, getting level with the gun peeking through the busted window. The brother adjusted his aim to try again.
I took off, racing around the staircase and the little cover it provided, to fall on the elevator.
“Open!” I jammed the button.
Thud! Thud!
“Get that door open!”
Thud! Thud!
“Hurry up!”
“Open!”
The elevator dinged, chirping its arrival.
I forced inside and jammed it shut again, screaming when I heard my offline brass and steel fail me.
“Get after her!”
A flash of moving, shoving bodies appeared through the slats of the stairs. I flung back against the wall, stabbing that stupid close button like my life depended on it—because it did!
“Close!” The doors slowly inched back together. “Fucking close!”
They raced at the elevator, blasting it with their guns.
I fell to the ground screaming, covering my head as a chorus of ricocheting metal played its deadly tune.
Through my arms, I saw the tattoo lady break from the pack. Sprinting across the concrete, she jammed her hand in the way of the doors, triggering the automatic safety feature that made them reopen at the first hint of obstruction.
“Agghhhhh!”
The metal closed shut on her fingers, breaking all the little bones with audible, and horrifying, crunches.
Or not.
Her screams bounced through the stairwell and leaked into my little windowless box, stirring the faintest dredges of sympathy for her.
It looked like taking all the security measures offline really got rid of all the measures. Poor little Tattoo Lady shouldn’t have been so eager to get a gold sticker from Mom. Now all she was getting was a cast and, oh yeah, blown up—Mommy Deb’s final gift to her loyal followers.
“Wow,” I breathed, chest heaving as the elevator rose... taking her hand with it. I looked away as we left her floor behind, and took her fingers with us. “Shake it off, Blaine.” I slapped my cheeks, beating back the shock. “You’ve got her phone. Do something clever with it!”
I flicked down, wondering just what the hell that was.
Natalya clearly had time to summon the lower-tier brothers in between tying up my boyfriends and their family. Should I send them a text from Debra telling them there’s a change in plan?
I immediately rejected that idea. All it would take is another where the hell are you? text from Natalya, and they’d all hop back in their cars again. I had to do something to disrupt their plans because they already had two-thirds of what they needed before moving on to the blowing-us-all-up stage of the plan. Once they—
The answer hit me like a brick to the head.
Pulling up her text messages, I found the group message between her and her buddies easily—it was labeled The Quay Street Squad.
“Stupid fucking name,” I muttered, typing quicker than fast.
“Debra”: That fuck-toy bitch throat punched me and ran off. She’s loose somewhere in the building with a phone she stole out of the security desk.
I hit send.
A flurry of texts lit up the screen.
Wilson: What!?
Maryann: Fuck! Where is she!