Cruel Seduction (Underground Kings 2)

We all have an axe to grind. Next in line to sharpen it was me, but we might have to put my need for revenge on hold since I can’t find my brother or Gabriella.

The monitor plays everyone’s movements like a movie, and the guys meet up in the next intersection of halls before finally getting to the vault. I check the blueprint, then the wall, then the blueprint again.

Something isn’t right.

The vault is bigger on the camera. According to this newest version of the blueprint, there is supposed to be another wall. Something doesn’t feel right. My feet stomp to the floor of the van as I wrap my hand around the mic. “Guys, get the fuck out of there. That doesn’t match the blueprint. Something’s up.” Panic sets in. I flip through the pages to see if I missed something, but I didn’t miss. I never missed. Nothing looks out of place. “Get out of there, guys.”

“Why? It just looks like a bigger vault. Maybe they replaced the smaller one with this one. It isn’t a big deal,” Grayson says.

The vault is big, triple the size of the other one, the one I have the dimensions of in my hand. I have a bad feeling about this. “Jaxon, listen to me; my gut is telling me that you guys need to haul ass. Not walk, not jog—fucking run. Get out. I’m not wrong about these things, man. We have plenty of money. We can sacrifice this.” Richard would run. He’d be on the move again when he caught on to what happened in his underground warehouse. We would find him. We always did.

“Okay, Sebastian. Guys, you heard the man.”

“We didn’t come all this way to give up. We’re here! We aren’t going anywhere.” Owen places his hands on the wheel of the large vault. It’s made of ten-ton steel, and the only way in is with a code that changes every fifteen seconds, which I have on the screen. Nothing could bring down this vault. Fire, bullets, TNT—it was everything-proof.

Including us too.

A timer comes up onto my screen. One minute.

“Owen, way to go. Your stupidity has set off a timer,” I hiss into the microphone and furiously start typing to figure out a way to block the timer. A timer is never good. Things usually go boom after the clock stops ticking.

“Timer? For what?” He gulps with fear.

“Fucking seventy virgins. What the hell do you think? God, you can never listen.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t think after all the shit we’ve been through, there’d another trap.”

Thirty seconds.

“Fuck, guys. Get out of there. I can’t stop the timer.”

“What do you mean you can’t stop it? You can stop anything!” Grayson yells at me, and Owen still has his hands on the vault.

“I can’t! Go. Get out!”

Twenty seconds.

Sweat beads across my brow, and my heart is pounding in my chest, a hammer against an iron nail. Bang. Bang. Bang. The salt burns my eyes as it drips in thick drops from my brows to my lashes. I wipe them off, my fingers flying over the keyboard, but regardless of my attempts, the timer continues ticking.

Fifteen seconds.

Owen let’s go of the vault wheel, and the timer stops. Heat recognition? Fuck, there is no way in hell we’re getting into the vault right now. I’d bet anything once that timer is activated, it never truly stops. The only way to see inside the vault is death.

“Get out,” I whisper.

The guys take a step away from the door, another and another.

The explosion cracks the pixels in the screen and the force shakes the foundation. The van rattles and the guys, fuck! They fly backward and hit the wall so hard, I know there’s was no fuckin way any of them survived it.

“Owen? Jaxon? Grayson? Heaven?” I call out their names one by one, but none of them respond. I press the heel of my palms against my eyes and shake my head in denial. No, this can’t be happening. They’re fine. They have to be. “Guys, stop fucking around and answer me!” I scream so hard my voice scratches, and spit flies against the microphone causing static. “Please,” I beg. “Fuck!” I roar.

Without my brothers, I am nothing. I have nothing.

Like a true king, fire blazing in the building and all, I open the van door and run inside to get my boys out. If I die trying, so be it; at least I’ll be with them on the other side. It won’t be heaven, but it won’t be hell.

Just the space in between.

Chapter Two