Oh thankfuck.
I pull.
For one horrible second, nothing happens. The lever doesn’t move. Did I break something? Did I cut the wrong wire? Is this whole thing going to?—
The lever gives way with a heavyclunkthat I feel more than hear the sound of bolts retracting, heavy metal sliding through steel guides.
The door clicks.
No alarm. No flashing lights. No automated voice telling me I’ve just committed a security breach. Just that one small sound that means freedom.
I bolt forward, grabbing the door handle and pulling. It swings open and I nearly fall through it, my legs shaky from adrenaline and rage and however long it’s been since I spent systematically destroying a security system with medical scissors.
“Ha!” I shout giddily, breathing in the smell of Leo’s office. My hands are covered in small cuts, blood dripping from my fingers. My knuckles are purple and swollen from pounding on the door. My arm has a long gash from the wiring that’s bleeding through my shirt. There are burns on my palms from the sparking wires.
I look like I’ve been in a fight.
Good. Leo needs to know exactly what his “protection” cost.
If he’s even still alive.
The thought threatens to overwhelm me and I shove it down hard. He’s alive. He has to be alive. I didn’t just break out of a goddamn panic room to find out he’s dead. I didn’t tear apart wiring and cut my hands to pieces just to be too late.
And there’s something else. Something I haven’t let myself think about since I saw those two pink lines this morning. God, was that really just this morning? It feels like a lifetime ago.
I’m pregnant with Leo’s baby.
And both Leo and my father are out there trying to kill each other and neither of them knows. Neither of them knows thatthere’s a fourth person in this equation now, a tiny cluster of cells that’s depending on both of its parents to survive this.
The irony would be funny if it wasn’t so fucked up.
I glance down at my stomach. I know what I have to lose now.
Everything. I have everything to lose.
So I’m not losing anything.
The hallway outside is empty but I can hear it—the sounds of battle. Gunfire, closer now. Shouting. Something that might be an explosion or might be a door being blown off its hinges.
And underneath it all, the smell. It’s acrid and metallic and makes me dry heave. It smells like smoke and blood and gunpowder.
I run toward it.
The house is a war zone.
There’s a body at the end of the hallway. One of Leo’s men—Marcus, I think, though there’s so much blood I can’t be sure. His eyes are open and staring at nothing. There’s a hole in his chest, right where his heart should be.
I stop and force myself to look. I need to acknowledge that this was a person. Someone who laughed and ate breakfast and had a life, and now he’s just…gone.
My stomach churns and for a second I think I’m going to be sick. Tears blur my vision but I swallow hard and step over him, my legs shaking.
I can’t fall apart now. I can do that later.
There are more bodies in the stairwell and I flinch violently when I see them sprawled there. I have to pick my way through them carefully, trying not to step on anyone. I do my best to not look at their faces but I see them anyway. Young. Some of them are soyoung. Maybe twenty, twenty-five. One of them has a photo sticking out of his pocket—a girlfriend? A sister? I can’t tell and I don’t know if I want to.
The smoke is thicker on the first floor. It burns my lungs and makes my eyes water. I can’t see more than a few feet in front of me and I pull my shirt up over my nose and mouth and keep moving.
I need a weapon.