He hits the elevator door, and we wait for Isabel and the guys to arrive.
The corridor is eerily empty. No nurses at the station. No orderlies pushing carts. No doctors making rounds. Just flickering fluorescent lights and the distant wail of an alarm from somewhere deeper in the building.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“Someone called a code brown,” Tank says grimly, catching up with Isabel in tow. “Whole hospital’s in emergency mode.”
“Poop?” I ask, confused.
He glances at me. “No, it’s the code for a hazardous material spill.”
My blood goes cold. “A distraction.”
“Yep. They drew the staff away. The only nurse on this floor is down the far end attending to a little old lady.” Stone’s jaw is tight. “It gave their guy a window to work.”
They’d planned this. If Isabel hadn’t been awake, if she hadn’t acted...
I’d be dead. And no one would have known.
I shiver, goosebumps raising on my arms.
“They’re getting desperate.” Stone’s arms tighten around me. “Take comfort in that. It means they’re also getting sloppy.”
I try to take comfort in it. I really do. But all I can think about is the sickly smell of the hitman’s breath on my cheek. Twice someone has tried to kill me, and twice I’ve survived by sheer luck.
How many more times can I get lucky?
Hawk arrives, pushing the unconscious guy in a laundry cart. He’s hog-tied him with zip ties and a pillow case around his neck.
We exit the hospital without any major issues. Isabel walks beside us, her expression shuttered, her eyes never stopping their restless surveillance.
I watch her from the safety of Stone’s arms and feel a strange kinship. Two women running from men who want to hurt them. The difference is, I have an army at my back. Isabel has no one.
A black SUV idles at the curb, another man I don’t recognize behind the wheel.
“Get in,” Stone tells Isabel, nodding toward the back seat.
She hesitates, one foot on the pavement, one in the vehicle. “Where are we going?”
“Our clubhouse. It’s secure.”
“And then?”
“And then you get some sleep. We all do. Tomorrow, we’ll figure out next steps.”
Isabel doesn’t move. Her hand is on the door frame, her knuckles white.
“I need to leave in the morning,” she says. “First thing. I wasn’t lying about that.”
“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“I’m not asking permission.”
Stone’s eyes meet hers. Something unspoken passes between them—a battle of wills, brief but intense.
I should be focused on their standoff. Instead, I’m acutely aware of Stone’s heartbeat against my side, the warmth of his chest, the way his thumb traces absent circles on my hip as if he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
Stop it,I tell myself.You almost died. This is not the time.
