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I stumbled but kept on my feet somehow, letting me careen down stair after stair until I staggered back into the dark.
“Are there more?” Caleb barked.
Colt swung his gun, then lunged, quickly leaving us behind.
“No.” I shook my head, the image of Ben’s unmoving body burning in my mind. “We have to go back. We have to go back.”
“Listen!” Caleb grabbed me and roared. “There could be more of them coming. Do you understand? There could be more here.”
But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t my life I thought about.
I’ll take care of you, Thomas. Ben’s words echoed. I’ll protect you.
He’d saved me from the FBI and those men who’d tried to kill me. Men dressed in leather just like they were.
“I’m not leaving him up there.” I wrenched my arm out of Caleb’s hold. “Not in that filthy place. He needs to come with us.”
I lunged for the stairs and climbed them as fast as I could.
My knees were shaking almost as much as the gun in my hand. I took aim and swiveled to the two men lying outside the office. One was slumped down, his eyes glazed and empty. The other just wheezed an awful wheeze, watching me as I neared.
His gun lay just out of reach. I kicked it away as I neared, leaving it to topple over the landing and fall to the ground with a clatter before I stepped back inside. One scan and I found Leroy Hastings dead with a neat bullet hole in the middle of his head. But I didn’t care about him. Not anymore.
Alastair was still alive, wheezing, lying on top of a mountain of files as he stared at the ceiling. He never looked my way as I neared and knelt beside Ben’s body.
“It wasn’t personal.”
I jerked my gaze to Alastair.
“Just business,” he muttered.
I rose and moved closer, to stand over the man who’d killed Benjamin Rossi. “Everything is personal,” I murmured. “But you can tell that to God.”
I lifted my gun, my hands no longer shaking as I took aim and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
His body jerked and then stilled…forever.
Ben.
I turned around and knelt, pulling him over. There was blood over the back of his head, but it was nothing compared to the massive hole in the front. Wide, unblinking eyes stared up at me as his cell rang again. Lazarus.
“Please, Father, give me strength,” I murmured.
Beep.
Lazarus: Dad, we have him. We have Hale.
Agony ripped through my chest at the sight. I reached down, grabbed his cell, and slipped it into my pocket before I gripped Ben under his arms and hauled his body upwards.
There was no way I was leaving him here.
No goddamn way.
TWENTY-THREE
Helene
