“Oh my gosh,” Kate whispers.
Directly in front of us are several rows of dark objects, shaped like...dicks. Rows and rows of them in all colors, shapes, and sizes.
“I can’t believe I never knew this was here,” Becky murmurs, inspecting the hundreds of sex toys on display.
“We need to find a place to hide. Now.”
I shuffle them into the next room right as we hear the door from the stairs into the office opening. This room is lined with shelves, holding various bottled products. We keep going, and the next door finally leads to a bigger area filled with boxes and packing supplies. It seems to extend up to the next level. Two-story-tall industrial shelves, laden with cardboard boxes, create the perfect space to hide in.
“Find somewhere out of sight,” I tell Becky.
She begins to scale the side of a shelf like an orangutan, disappearing into the maze.
“What do they want from you?” Kate whispers, reaching out to hold my hand.
“They want to find out what I know about Steelhart. I don’t have time to explain now, but...I want you to know I’m so sorry you were dragged into this, Kate. I’ll get you out of here alive.”
We slide into a sliver between two rows, hiding between the boxes and the back wall right as the door opens.
“Vy mertvy, amerikantsy!” the intruder exclaims in Russian.
He starts shooting at the boxes, the sound echoing in my ears. I pull Kate closer, wrapping her in my arms and covering her ears. My heart is thundering in my chest. She squeezes my hand.
If anything else happens to Kate, I will never forgive myself. I hug her tighter, planting a kiss on her forehead before moving toward the shooter.
She grabs for me, but I slip away. She needs to be safe, and I’m not afraid to die. I’m on the edge of the boxes, ready to stick my head through to meet him face-to-face. The cold resolve takes over me, much like it did when I was in the field on completely black ops missions with my team. Every mission felt like it could potentially be our last. I was never afraid to die, none of us were.
Maybe his shooting will give our position away to the FBI.
I’m holding my breath, gun clutched to my chest. The deafening bullets raining down on us finally halts. His light footsteps are getting steadily closer to our hiding spot. At any moment, he’ll be upon us, and I’ll have to shoot him between the eyes in the dark.
Another set of steps joins in with him. They’re speaking Russian to each other. They start moving in different directions.I hold my breath when one gets closer to me, his heavy boots scraping against the cement floor.
I glance back at Kate one last time before jumping out and grabbing his gun. He grunts in surprise, firing it. I already had control of the barrel, pointing it skyward. I hold my handgun up to his throat and pull the trigger. Blood spatters my face from the close range, the sound echoing through my eardrums.
The next thing I know, the remaining shooter is swarmed with agents, dropping his firearm almost as soon as they enter the room.
A few moments later, I hear Rick directing his team to check the rest of the building for the remainder of the mercenaries.
Kate and I emerge just in time to see Becky hopping down from her hiding place. The lights come back on, and a paramedic finally reaches us on the fifty-fourth floor.
My tense muscles relax, and I release a heavy sigh of relief when I realize that she’s finally safe.
The roomwith all the sofas and dildos has become the central hub of the FBI agents investigating the attack.
Kate’s and Becky’s wrists are being bandaged while a man in a black suit asks them both for their account of the day’s events. I can’t stop watching Kate, wishing I could erase the traumatic day out of her memory. I can’t fathom how shitty I would feel if she’d actually been seriously injured or?—
“Luke, are you listening to me?” Rick’s voice snaps me back to the present.
My eyes meet his, watching his gaze trail to where mine was stuck.
“Ah, so that’s why they finally came after you.”
“What?”
“They needed leverage.”
“They could’ve used Fallon for leverage,” I remind him.
