“I know you’re listening,” he hisses.
I hold up a hand, silencing the room.
“How astute,” I snarl back. “Speak.”
“Hand over whatever you took from Elias and the girl,” Kirill says. “I’ll give your surviving men a fast death.”
I glance back at Iris. She’s watching me.
“Why the girl?”
“The client was very specific,” Kirill explains. “No loose ends.”
The client.
It had to be someone with the money to hire a private army, someone worried about what Iris might have witnessed at the museum.
Only one name fits.
The Judge.
My jaw clenches, my grip tightening on the rifle until the plastic creaks.
“Come and get her,” I growl.
Ripping the earpiece out, I crush it under my boot.
“He’s coming,” I tell the room. “Get ready.”
I make my way over to Iris and kneel in front of her. “They’re going to breach. It’s going to get loud.”
She nods. “I understand.”
“If they get in, don’t let them take you.”
Her fingers tighten around the grip of the pistol. “I won’t.”
I give her a single, hard nod.
Outside in the hallway, heavy boots hit the marble. There’s the distinct sound of an adhesive charge being slapped against the exterior of the wood.
“Cover!” I roar, diving over the sofa and dragging Iris down with me.
BOOM.
The doors blow inward in a devastating shower of splintered mahogany and smoke.
And the wolves pour in.
19
IRIS
The world ends in a white flash.
The explosion blows the study doors inward. A wave of concussive force hits me, knocking the air from my lungs and throwing me back against the leather sofa.
For a second, there is no sound. Just a high-pitched whine drilling into my skull.
