Men shout at one another, scrambling for cover. One of the overhead lights bursts, raining down sparks. Ruth dives sideways, grabbing the arm of my chair and dragging me down with her. The entire chair tips, crashing onto its side. I land on my shoulder instead of my head, but the pain is incredible all the same.
“Get her up!” Ruth screams as she scrambles to her feet.
Two men hurry to my side. One of them slices the ropes binding my wrists, the other yanks me to my feet.
“Hey! Easy!” The words barely get out. My lungs seize up. Everything feels so surreal and dizzy.
Now that I’m standing, I can see more of the warehouse floor, which allows me to see something out of the corner ofmy eye. Through one of the side entrances storms a flood of armed figures.
Peter’s men.
Peter’s plan clicks into view—come in alone, the perfect distraction. Then attack.
A moment of silence, then a goddamn war detonates. Automatic fire rattles the warehouse, crates exploding.Pop-pop-pop.Someone screams. Someone else lets out a cry silenced halfway through by a gunshot. The air fills with the horribly familiar scent of gunfire, acrid and metallic.
Before I can come up with a plan to use the chaos to get the hell out of there, Ruth grabs me, pulling me tight against her chest. She’s strong, surprisingly so.
“We’re leaving,” she hisses, her breath sharp and furious. “And you’re coming with me.”
I tense. “The hell I am.”
Her grip tightens, not hurting. “Yes, love,” she snarls. “You’re my ticket out of this mess.”
I twist as hard as I possibly can, but she’s strong. Lean muscle, adrenaline, and pure rage holds me in place. Every time I pull, she digs even harder into my skin.
“Let meg?—”
Ping!
A bullet ricochets off a steel beam in the office. The eyes of one of the goons widens, and he slowly, disbelievingly, places his hand on his chest, then drops into a heap. It’s ahorrible sight, but so is the realization that the bullet missed me by mere inches.
I glance up to see a man fall from the catwalk on the other side of the warehouse, landing with a sickening thud. Through it all, Peter remains stoic—firing off commands, returning shots, sweeping the room.
I want to scream out for him, but there’s no way he’d hear me over the noise. Ruth’s plan is obvious—even in the chaos, I realize she’s going to lead me out of there before Peter sees me, then use me as a bargaining chip.
Not a chance I’m going to let that happen. I struggle again, nearly getting loose.
Ruth screams at her goons. “Move! Hold her, you idiots!”
More hands clamp around my arms. The men begin dragging me out of the office, toward the stairs. I can only imagine what would happen if Ruth managed to get me out of here. I struggle with every little bit of strength I have left, but it’s not enough.
“No!” I scream. “Peter!”
The words are swallowed by another round of gunfire. My heart is pounding so loudly I can taste blood.
Behind us, someone shouts Ruth’s name. The men pull me to the top of the stairs, and I turn just in time to watch as a barrage of bullets rips through the office, dropping anyone who was unlucky enough to still be inside.
“Down the stairs!” Ruth shouts from just behind us. “Down and out the back! Keep her alive! If Peter gets to her first, it’s over!”
On thefirst stair landing, one of the goons shoves me too hard, and I lose my balance, falling forward, my knees slamming into the concrete. The pain is enough to make my vision blur.
“Up, up!” shouts Ruth.
The lights are shot out along the stairs, the effect making it feel as if I’m being pulled down into some dark abyss. As my knees throb, as the men push, a thought occurs to me.
Where’s Sasha? Does he know what’s going on? Did he abandon me?
More gunshots ring out; more groans of pain fill the air. The darkness is all around me, and as we reach the bottom of the stairs, I can see the chaos happening on the main floor—men firing, taking over, fighting for their lives.
