He nodded over his shoulder at the body on the wall. “We’re doing okay so far.”
“Just because you killed him, you think you’re in charge.”
Raising his voice, he said, “It’s time to end this whole fucking thing. Centuries of people falsely imprisoned, working in deplorable conditions, suffering so a series of despots can pocket the money—”
“Okay, we’re done with your sermon, wolf. Step aside now and I’ll thank you for your service to me—and there will be no repercussion. Argue even one word and I have fourteen other guards in the wings—and another twenty-five I can call in. You’re not going to win this fight, wolf. You’re going to wake up dead.”
“Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
“No, I’m originally from Boston. It only makes sense to people from the six-one-seven. But I digress.” She smiled again, her eyes slicing into him, through him. “You three have few weapons, little ammo, and no cover. As I said, if you have a death wish, I’ll indulge it now, and then hang you and your accomplices up next to the Executioner. Or you can stand down, let me into the private quarters, and do your fucking job on the Caldwell streets.”
Lucan shook his head—and prayed Rio had done what she needed to do to save herself. “Not the way it’s going to happen.”
The head of the guards looked at the door. And smiled again, in that carnivore kind of way.
Under different circumstances, he would’ve gotten along with her better.
“Is there someone in there?” The female stepped in more closely. “Someone you’re protecting. Somebody that you have to hide because she’s not supposed to be here?”
“You’ve got it all wrong. But it’s a nice thought.”
“So you just love reeking of incense, then?” The female slashed a hand through the air. “It doesn’t matter. What does, is the fact that this isn’t a game, wolf. I’m not going to let you take over this whole operation with a human just because you’re greedy.”
“I don’t give a shit about money—”
“I know the dealer you’ve been negotiating with is here. I’ve scented her in the stairwells, and she’s under that stench you’ve doused yourself in. I think you’re looking to cut everyone out, and make a fortune for yourself—and it’s not that I can’t respect the goal, but I’m not going to allow you to take control.”
“You should write fiction, you’ve got a knack for it.”
“I’m done talking. Let me into those quarters. Or I’m going to pave the way in over a bleeding corpse.”
Rio stayed frozen where she was for—oh, maybe a second and a half. Then she frantically patted her pockets. The phone. Where was that phone.
Had he taken it, too?
Glancing around the floor, she didn’t see the thing anywhere, so she dove for the messy blankets of the bed, shoving the covers out of the way, splaying her hands wide, searching for that glossy little screen—
“Thank God,” she muttered as she found it trapped at the foot of the mattress, in the one corner of the sheets that was still tucked in.
Her hands were shaking so badly she nearly dropped the cell, and she looked to the door. Tightening her hands around the key fob, she closed her eyes and told herself she had to go.
Take care of yourself . . .
She was a fucking cop, for godsakes, and she was on the job. Everything that happened here at this site was about two things: lining up evidence to arrest and prosecute everybody in charge for illegal drug trade and staying alive to deliver that evidence into the hands of the prosecutor.
So the innocent could be cleared and returned to their families and loved ones, and the wrongdoers could go to jail for their crimes.
That was it.
And now was the perfect time to get out.
With one last look at the door Luke had disappeared through . . . she wheeled away and stumbled for the back exit. As she passed by the gun rack, she threw out a hand, grabbed one of the rifles, and slung its strap over her shoulder. Snagging a box of ammo off a shelf, she went to the numbers pad.
She punched in Mayhem’s pattern from memory and the lock unlatched.
In the end, she had to glance back one last time. No more gunshots out there, and the voices had dimmed down. But who the hell knew what was happening.
The pull to change direction was so powerful.
. . . and don’t look in the rearview.
“Shit.”
On that note, she broke out into the stairwell and rushed down the fresh pine stairs, entering the code a second time and shoving the lower panel wide. Outside, the night smelled of fresh earth and coming snow.
And soot from the fire.
There was no ambient light anywhere. All she could see were shapes within the darkness: a lineup of vehicles, the soaring flank of the building, the stick-tree forest like a sketch that had yet to be colored in. As she attempted to get her bearings, her thundering heart in her chest was loud in her ears, and her lungs didn’t seem to be working—