“That’s pretty much all we can do.” Knox sighed, knowing the words applied to this shopping marathon they were on as well as to the situation he found himself in with Rachel. “Hate to break this to you, kid, but women generally hold all the cards. Guys just have to sit back and see how everything plays out.”
Chapter 6
“We’re on the move, Ethan,” Knox said into the miniature radio mic attached to the cuff of his suit jacket. “We’ll be at the service entrance in three minutes. Have the vehicles waiting for us.”
“About damn time,” his coworker from the security company said with a groan. “My butt’s numb from sitting out here so long.”
“I hear you, dude.”
Knox chuckled as he followed Rachel, Jennifer, and the kids along the first floor of the Galleria Mall toward the service corridor that would get them out of there quickly without having to mess with the crowds. Theo had arranged the clandestine route with mall security, ensuring there’d be no one back there.
“Anything outside we need to worry about?” Knox asked over the radio.
He wasn’t too concerned someone would try anything out in public like this, but he wanted to be sure.
“Negative,” Ethan said. “All clear out here. We’ll be waiting at the door for you.”
Since Alton Marshall had already shown a willingness to deploy bombs in an attempt to get to the ADA, Ethan had been waiting outside with another teammate from DAPS, keeping an eye on their vehicles. It was a threat they all took seriously, which meant vehicles carrying members of the Lloyd family were never left unguardedever.
The entrance to the service corridor was only a thirty-second walk from the dress boutique, and because there were restrooms in the same hallway, few people looked at them twice when they all turned that way.
Knox moved up to join Rachel at the front of the group as they walked through a door at the end of the corridor and slipped into the part of the mall few paying customers probably ever saw, and for good reason. While the rest of the Galleria was all glitz and polish, the behind-the-scenes part was a maze of boring passageways.
When Theo had mentioned using the service corridors to get in and out of the mall faster, Knox had pictured a few narrow hallways, but his imagination had been sorely lacking. The place was a combination of storerooms, service elevators, stairwells, catwalks, and doors leading to who the hell knew where. If Theo hadn’t provided a floor plan for them, they would have gotten lost in here for sure.
Knox led the way through the labyrinth, Addy and Ben several paces back babbling about something on Netflix they wanted to see when they got back, while Mrs. Lloyd brought up the rear, cell phone shoved against her ear again.
The silence between him and Rachel became hard to ignore, even with their footsteps echoing along the hallway, the near-constant conversation between the two teens, and the ADA snapping random questions into her phone. But since they were only a few minutes from the exit, he wasn’t sure what he could possibly say, especially in front of everyone.
But he had to say something.
“You got any plans for dinner later? I thought we could get together and talk a little more about…stuff.” He almost rolled his eyes at how unsmooth that sounded, but he was too late to take it back now. So, he doubled down. “My treat in repayment for the shepherd’s pie.”
Rachel gave him a sidelong glance. “I was planning to grab some pizza later with Diego.”
Knox bit back a growl. She’d said she and Diego were friends, but that didn’t stop the insane twinge of jealousy from surging through him. He fought it down and turned to ask if maybe they could try it again later in the week, but beside him, Rachel slowed, her eyes swirling with bright-green color.
He slowed, too, a strange tingle running up and down his spine, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
“It’s an ambush!” Rachel shouted.
Spinning around, she lunged for Addy and Ben, then slammed her shoulder into the first door she reached, dragging the two teens inside the room. Knox didn’t hesitate. Turning, he launched himself at Jennifer just as automatic weapon fire ripped through the silence of the passageway.
He took the ADA down as carefully as he could, twisting while still in midair so he landed on his shoulder with most of her weight on top of him. But there was only so much he could do to be gentle when bullets were chewing up the wall and floor around them.
Still lying down, Knox used one arm and his feet to scramble backward with Jennifer, pieces of Sheetrock and tile raining down on both of them as he propelled them into a storage room across from Rachel and the kids. Ben had his body draped protectively over his friend’s, and Knox absently wondered how the girl could possibly miss how much the boy cared for her.
Knox got on the radio and let Ethan know what was happening while Rachel did the same over her DPD channel. Backup would be there soon, but they’d have to keep themselves alive until it arrived.
“There are two in the stairwell to the right and another one on the catwalk directly across from them,” Rachel yelled as they both moved to their respective doorways and began to return fire. “You deal with the one up high. I’ll keep the others occupied.”
Knox pondered the intelligence of charging straight at three men armed with automatic weapons, but Rachel was already moving, and he sure as hell wasn’t letting her go alone.
As Knox drew his Glock and stepped out to follow, a voice in the back of his head reminded him that he’d been in a situation like this before and it hadn’t ended well. He resolutely pushed those warnings aside and forced himself to stop thinking and instead move and react.
Rachel darted down the wide corridor, heading toward a three-way intersection at the end, avoiding the incoming rounds like she somehow knew exactly where they were going to land. That didn’t keep Knox from trying to rush ahead of her, unable to ignore the protective instinct threatening to overwhelm him.
The guy up on the catwalk emptied a full magazine from an MP5 while his buddies hidden on the stairwell did the same. If he and Rachel hadn’t been moving so fast, they probably would have been filled full of holes. But while the rational part of his mind told him this was insane, another part—the part that wanted to rip the men limb from limb—assured him this was completely normal.
