He was lying. If Kyle came up here, he would shoot the woman in front of him in a heartbeat. Especially if he saw how fucked up MaeBe was.
“I’ll worry about that,” Julia replied.
“Just kill her, Deke,” MaeBe said. “She’ll do anything to hurt Kyle. Take her out.”
Maddie had made her way across the big office and handed the laptop to Julia.
Any minute Boomer would be up here, and it would be two on two. He liked those odds. The minute he realized Julia and her guard wouldn’t be stupid enough to get in front of the window again, he would come running.
“Maddie, get behind me,” Deke ordered.
“I can’t leave MaeBe,” Maddie said, her voice shaking.
“Deke, Byrne has a panic room. The door is right behind me.” Despite the bullet in her shoulder, Julia’s voice was steady as a rock. “John and I are going to get in it and then you can call anyone you would like.”
If she was right, they would be trapped. They wouldn’t have to go through with Kyle’s insane plan. “Move slowly. I swear I think for a second you’re going to pull that trigger, I’ll take you out myself.”
Julia nodded and started to back up. “MaeBe, you need to think about the fact that you’re willing to give your life for a man who doesn’t even care enough about you to show up. Deke’s here but Kyle is far more concerned with pulling some shady shit to get me than he is about taking care of you. Grow a backbone, sister, because we’re not done yet.”
She put her palm against the wood of the wall and a panel opened, showing him a hint of the panic room inside.
Except it wasn’t a fucking panic room. It was an elevator.
“Stop right there,” he shouted and then pain flared through him because the guard had taken a shot as he’d closed the door behind them.
“Deke!” Maddie ran across the room as it registered what had happened.
He’d taken a bullet and Julia was getting away.
He touched his earpiece. “Kyle, we’re moving out right fucking now. Julia is in an elevator that wasn’t in the schematics Drake sent. It likely goes to a basement. I don’t know. If you’re going to blow this place, give us one minute and then do it.”
Boomer rushed in, checking around the room for threats. “She moved at the last minute. I had her. Where did she go?”
“Byrne had a secret elevator. She and that guard of hers went down it.” His left arm was going blissfully numb. “Kyle’s going to blow the place. We have to get out of here. Carry Mae out.”
“What the hell did she do to you?” Boomer easily lifted MaeBe into his arms. “I’m sorry, honey. This is going to hurt, but we have to move.”
Boomer jogged out with Mae.
Maddie ran back to the desk.
“We have to move,” Deke commanded.
Maddie pulled a small metal box from under the desk, holding it up triumphantly. “She doesn’t have shit. I erased everything I’d done the minute you shot Byrne. I probably got rid of most of my own work. There’s a backup hard drive that we now have, but there’s nothing on that laptop.”
She’d always been the smartest person he knew. “Baby, you just saved the day. Let’s go.”
She nodded and ran back.
“Kyle, she’s got nothing,” Deke explained. “Stand down. We’ll get her later.”
“You’ve got forty-five seconds, Deke. I already set the timer.”
“Then unset it. We don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do this,” Deke pleaded.
“I do.” Kyle’s voice sounded hard over the line. “I have to do it. She’s going to get away. You think she’s trapped but she’s not. She always wins. I have to stop her. I’m sorry, Deke. It’s done.”
Fuck. “We have to go, Maddie. We have to run. This whole place is about to explode.”
“What?” Maddie hustled to his side.
He took her hand and ran for the stairs. “We have to get away from the house. We’re going for the trees. When we get out, you jump for cover, understood? Boomer will take care of Mae. If I fall, you keep running.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
He stumbled on the stairs, but Maddie held him up. He forced himself to move, feet pounding on Byrne’s hardwood floors and then the marbled entryway. The door was open, the bodies of the guards he’d killed still lying on the gorgeous porch.
He ignored them, the only thought in his head, getting as far away as possible.
“Where’s Kyle?” MaeBe was shouting. “He can’t go after her.”
Boomer kept moving.
“Where’s Kyle?” Maddie asked.
Deke simply ran, holding her hand.
He was still holding it when the world exploded around them.
Chapter Sixteen
“You know I’m usually the one who gets hit on the head,” Boomer remarked, sitting back in the chair that Maddie had slept in the night before. She’d been with Deke through everything, holding his hand when the ambulance had come, sitting by his bed after surgery had fixed the bullet wound in his shoulder, calling his parents to let them know what had happened.