“Fuck you!” she exclaimed.
She grabbed her gun so god damn quickly that I ended up pivoting back into the hallway. Thankfully, however, she didn’t shoot. I peeked my eyes around the frame of the door and found her eyes wide. Her face pale. Her stance crooked. She was scared out of her fucking mind, but she held that gun with all of the confidence in the world.
“It’s just me,” I said breathlessly. “You almost done?”
She groaned as she lowered her weapon. “Almost. Got ninety-eight percent downloaded.”
“Check every fucking room,” Carlos growled as a door opened in the hallway next to us.
“Come on, Chlo,” I murmured.
She ripped the USB drive out of the computer tower. “Got it. Let’s go.”
She capped the charm on her necklace and I swear to hell on high, I almost told her I loved her right then and there. She scooped her gun off the table and I ushered her out into the hallway, pushing her toward the nearest set of steps. I kept my lips buttoned, providing her a model for just how quiet we needed to be with all of shit.
And as we made our way down the steps, the men above us ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.
“Boss! We got a problem in here!”
“They found the computer,” Chloe whispered.
I didn’t stop moving until we were on the main floor of the abandoned building. “Let’s go find ourselves a vehicle to hotwire. Come on. There’s a back exit over here.”
“What is there are—”
I groaned. “Would you just shut up and come on, please?”
Believe it or not, we got out of that building without having to pop off one single shot. I shoved my shoulder into the emergency exit door and the alarm sounded, and I winced at how loud it was. Carlos screamed over it, footsteps moving as quickly as they could. And with my head on a swivel, I found a shadow that didn’t quite look like all the others.
“There, you see it?” I asked as I pointed off to our left.
“The alleyway? Yeah, I see it,” Chloe said breathlessly.
“There’s a car. Let’s go.”
Without question or hesitation, she ran in front of me. We sprinted toward the shadow that was just a bit thicker than the rest of the shadows around us and the two-door car that greeted us made my heart skip a beat. Something with some kick, thank fucking God.
“Are we really this lucky?” I murmured as I reached for the driver’s side door.
And when the door opened effortlessly for me, I knew there was a God.
“Yes,” Chloe hissed.
We dropped onto the buttery leather seats and I knew whose car this was. It had to be Carlos’ vehicle. It simply had to be. It was much too nice and much too souped up to be the car of someone that worked for him. I ripped out the plate beneath the steering wheel and used one of the pens as leverage to break them away from the main circuit board. I stripped a couple of the wires and twisted them together, and after that it was simply a matter of luck.
“Come on,” I grumbled as I touched a third wire to the two I had already tied together.
And after a few clicks, the car came to live.
“Yes!” Chloe exclaimed. “Holy fucking hell, that was hot, West!”
I barked with laughter. “Hold onto your tits, Chloe. We’re busting out of this joint.”
I threw the car into gear and slammed on the gas. We peeled out of the alleyway while shadows rushed around behind the cracked and shattered windows of that fucking abandoned building. I kept checking my mirrors, making sure none of those asshats followed us back to the warehouse. And while I didn’t see anyone, I knew it was only a matter of time before they caught up with us.
So, I wasted no time in speeding all the way back.
“God, I never thought I’d be so happy to see this place,” Chloe whispered.
