Everly didn’t think twice. Hesitation killed. Her father had taught her that. Don’t ever raise a weapon you’re not w
illing to use, baby girl.
She raised the poker and whipped it down on the man’s head as hard as she could. A dull thud rose above the crackling, hissing sound of the spreading flames. Their assailant stumbled forward, falling to a heap on the floor. His gun clattered out of his limp hand.
Gabriel popped up over the desk, pointing that gun right where the thug had stood. Unfortunately, Everly was rooted there now, frozen, poker still in hand. Her fingers shook and went numb. She let the poker fall to the floor.
Gabriel’s face flushed as he lowered the gun. “What are you doing? I could have killed you.”
“Are you hurt?” Her hands were shaking, but she was pleased her voice was still solid.
He scowled. “I’m fine.”
Heat began pouring off the curtains. The smoke burned her lungs. “We have to get the fire out.”
Gabriel shook his head. “It’s too late for that. They must have left themselves a path out. We need to find it.”
“Shit,” a deep voice said. Les stood in the middle of the library, his eyes on his fallen friend.
Gabriel raised the gun again and aimed. “Don’t move.”
But the man dropped the bottle he’d been holding and ran. A crashing sound split the air and the area rug under his feet burst into flames.
There was no way out now.
Everly looked down at the man on the floor. He wasn’t moving at all. Gabriel picked up the arsonist’s gun and pocketed it. He grabbed the file folder he’d been organizing.
“Is he dead?” It was a stupid question because the man’s eyes were open and unseeing.
Gabriel shook her lightly, bringing her back to the moment. “You did what you had to do. But we’re going to join him if we don’t get moving and find a way out of here.”
Everly stood, jittery yet numb. What was his name? Did he have a family who would miss him? What had he come to Maddox’s house searching for before he set the place on fire?
“C’mon,” Gabriel shouted over the crackling din of the growing fire. “I’ll try to find a blanket or something to cover us. We need to protect our skin from the flames. Grab that box we found in the secret room.”
When she looked around, the blaze had grown to something fast approaching a conflagration. Fear slammed into her. It helped her focus on escaping . . . but only to a point. She had to decide that she wanted to survive. And that took bravery. Her father’s voice played in Everly’s head. Make the decision, Eve. Always choose to live. Shaking away her shock and terror, she nodded. If she made it out of here alive, she’d have time to sort through everything else later.
“Okay.” No matter what happened, she would fight to find a way out. With Gabriel.
She slipped back into the secret room and quickly grabbed the lockbox from the bar. The temperature felt much cooler in this brick room. While the fire was already doing damage to the house around them, she could barely smell the smoke in here. A cool breeze hit her face.
She’d found the way out.
• • •
Gabe forced himself to stay calm. He’d done it through the hour it took them to find their way to the surface. Everly had found the series of tunnels Mad’s great grandfather had used to store and transport his hooch. His secret supply route had become their way to safety.
He’d been perfectly reasonable as he’d called Connor to pick them up after they’d emerged from the tunnels. He was fairly certain he’d shown no outward signs of the rolling tension that had overtaken him the minute he realized someone was coming after them. Even through his second police interview in less than twenty-four hours, he’d maintained a level of sanity he didn’t feel.
“I’m going to get cleaned up.” Everly stood at the bottom of the stairs in Connor’s apartment. “Are you sure I’m not intruding? I can find a hotel.”
“Stay. Your room is through the second door on the left, Everly.” Gabe’s tone was perfectly normal. He wasn’t barking orders and marking his territory the way every primal instinct inside him wanted to. But he knew the adrenaline crash was coming—and fast. “There’s an en suite connected to the room. You can use that shower. In the morning, Dax will find us both some fresh clothes.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, then climbed the stairs, her weariness evident in her slow ascent and slumped shoulders. She stopped halfway up and turned back to him. “For everything, Gabriel. Are you sure we shouldn’t go through the things we saved from Mad’s house tonight?”
“Get cleaned up. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.” The order came out a little harsher than he’d meant it to, but his tone did the trick. She turned and trudged her way up the stairs.
As soon as she disappeared, Dax whistled beside him. “You’re in bad shape, brother.”
Roman shook his head as he closed up his briefcase on the nearby coffee table. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wound so tight. Is this about the cops?”
The police suspected he’d set that fire himself to cover up some clue to Mad’s murder. They were still trying to identify the man’s body inside the brownstone and figure out how he played into the scenario. The other man had apparently escaped. But that wasn’t what upset Gabe. “I’m fine.”
Connor shoved a glass of Scotch in his hand. “Sure you are. You need to calm down before you deal with her. Do you have any idea what those men were looking for?”
Gabe gratefully took the Scotch and knocked it back in one swallow. “None. They left everything of value, as far as I could tell. They seemed more interested in papers and files and books. It doesn’t add up.”
“With one thug dead and the other missing, we can’t get any answers.”
“Exactly. And Everly didn’t see or hear anything I didn’t, so she can’t provide any clues.” He sighed. “I have no idea what to do with her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She damn near got herself killed tonight. Once those assholes figured out we were in the house, they tried to kill us. She took one of them out before I could do it. I damn near shot her.”
Connor led him to the sofa and slid into the chair across from him. They were in the apartment he’d bought five years before. Gabe wasn’t exactly sure when or how Connor had come into his money. Sparks had come to Creighton on a lacrosse scholarship. He’d been brought in to captain the ailing team and he’d turned it around fast. His own family had consisted of a single mother who’d spent her life waitressing in a bar. She’d thanked God Connor was athletic and happily shipped him off to boarding school. All too often, she hadn’t picked him up for holidays. The rest of the group had split time taking him home on vacations.
But this place, while understated, bespoke wealth. It was the penthouse of an exclusive building on the Upper West Side. Clearly, his buddy was doing all right for himself.
“She isn’t the type of woman who will hide when she can fight. I’ve been studying her, asking around.” Connor had his own Scotch in hand. “Her employees really like her.”
“She honestly saved your ass tonight?” Roman asked, handling the old bottle of booze they’d saved from Mad’s house, along with the files and the metal box. Thankfully, Connor had turned up before the police so none of what they’d escaped with had been confiscated as evidence. “And this Scotch? She should get a medal for saving this. Let’s open it.”
Gabe moved the bottle of vintage alcohol out of Roman’s reach and passed him the much more reasonable twenty-five-year-old bottle. His buddy was missing the salient point. “Yes, but only after she took a crazy chance that could have ended with me putting a bullet through her heart.”
He still couldn’t get that moment out of his head. He’d crouched behind that desk, every sense he possessed focused on one thing and one thing only: those footsteps creeping closer across the floor.