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Checking under all of the stalls to make sure I was alone, I pulled off my pearls and quickly slid each jewel into the air vent.
Dear God, let this work. It had to work. It was our only chance.
I walked back to the elevator bank as calmly as I could and I saw, much to my relief, that her attention was already focused on a new arrival. The elevator doors opened and I got on.
“Hold the ele—” someone yelled as the doors began to slide shut, but I didn’t bother.
“Is it done?” Liam asked in my ear.
“Yes. I’m here,” I whispered.
When the doors opened, I saw him sitting in the front hall, as agents continued to work behind a separate glass door. Behind it, rows of grey cubicles occupied the space.
“How long do you think we’ll have?” I whispered, as I took a seat beside him.
“For them to clear the whole building? A few hours if we’re lucky. Do it now.”
Pulling out my phone, I dialed 411.
“Mr. and Mrs. Callahan, can we get you anything?” a man with files tucked under his arm stopped and asked.
“No, we’re fine, thank you. You all look busy enough as it is,” Liam replied.
I didn’t pay attention to his chatter. Instead, I stared at my watch.
“It’s starting,” Liam whispered and I followed his gaze to the air vents. The white smoke started to spread like the plague. It was slow at first. Then it began to pour in through every vent. It wasn’t deadly, but they didn’t know that.
“Sound the fucking alarm already,” I hissed under my breath.
I didn’t have to wait long before it went off.
“CODE BLACK! Everyone move to the stairs!” a man yelled as the smoke now rushed in.
Visibility was almost non-existent, and Liam and I were forced to trail our way along the walls. He and I didn’t speak, choosing instead to focus on the shadows of room as we moved through the offices. Avian’s office was locked with a keypad; however, we knew most of the codes already. Entering the code, Liam held the door open for me.
Liam moved over to the desk and stood on it in order to close off the air vents within the office. Then he lifted the window open.
Sitting at his desk, I noticed all the awards and photos of him with people of prominence; presidents, world leaders, the Queen of motherfucking England, even the goddamn Pope. He was willing to throw all of this away…that was how much he hated us, how much he wanted to destroy us…insanity must really run in my family.
Self-righteous son of a bitch.
“Declan is on.” Liam came up behind me as I began the monumental task of attempting to hack into the computer.
“How’s it going, Declan?” I asked as I logged into Avian’s mainframe.
“Slow. There are too many names and not enough fucking time for us to go through all of them and stop it individually. Please for the love of God tell me that you’ve got the right computer.”
My heart began to race as I found the program. Could it really be this easy?
“I think so—”
The moment I opened it, the timer once more spun out of control. What had once been a little under nine hours, reset itself to a little over four hours. It was like being slapped in the face and having my heart ripped from my chest.
“Goddamn it!” Liam hissed beside me.
“You guys need to get out of there now, that isn’t the right computer, and all of Washington is about to descend on that building,” Declan said.
I didn’t want to touch it. I couldn’t. But where could we run to if we didn’t finish this? We had known this coming here, and yet we’d backed ourselves into this corner.
“Try again,” Liam said to me.
My hands were on the keyboard, and the lines of code streamed past the screen. It was a maze of traps, some I could see, others were hidden, waiting for me to fuck up so the damned clock would divide itself once more.
“Mel, try again,” he said.
With an almost silent click, the timer spun out. Two hours, two minutes. It was as if it knew my every move before I did. Like Avian was taunting me through the screen.
“We aren’t going to win this one, Liam,” the words came from my mouth and never in all of my life had I felt like such a failure.
There was a silence between us as the sirens blared outside.
“I know,” Liam finally said, “but we don't give up, we fight this until we can’t. Declan, can you still hear us?”
“Yes, Neal is here listening in as well.”
“Did Ethan catch the flight?” I kept my voice tight.
Stop being a coward, Melody.
“They’re all airborne as we speak,” Neal answered. And with that, the fear was gone. I’d accepted the situation and I refused to break.
“Good, you should have an hour or two after this becomes public. Pack up and leave,” I told them.
“What about Avian?” Neal shot back.
Screw him!
“Leave him there, this is what he wanted. When the police come looking, they will find him as well.”
There was a short silence before Declan spoke up.
“What about you?”
Liam pulled out his gun, and emptied the magazine until only one bullet was left. “Don’t worry about us brother.”
“Liam, we still have two hours. We can still do this!” Neal yelled as he registered what we planned to do.
Liam looked to me and nodded.
There comes a time when you have to accept your defeat and understand that you were not untouchable. That there would be someone even more ruthless than you were. That somehow, someway, some fucked up miserable way, the world had to reset. We’d had a good…a great run. We would be forever remembered. Chicago, hell the whole damned country, would never forget us.
“Mel, what the fuck are you doing?” Declan yelled as I clicked into the next trap.
“I’m ending the torture,” I told him, as I clicked on the bomb. Two hours became twenty-three seconds.
“Have you both lost your fucking minds?” Neal screamed.
“Goodbye, my brothers,” Liam told them before he cut the line.
Taking my earpiece out, I pull out my gun, as Liam had done and I took out all but one bullet as I stood up to face him. We looked each other dead in the eye, his green eyes seemed to pierce right through me.
Twelve.
“I’m not a fan of the fedora,” I said as I held the gun to his head.
Eleven.
“Brown isn’t your color,” he confessed, his gun only inches from my face.
Ten.
“When I first met you, I hated the fact that I was going to have to kill you because I thought you were attractive.”
Nine.
He grinned; I loved that grin. “I just really wanted to fuck you.”
Eight.
“I knew that already.”
Seven.
“I know you knew, I just had to state that out loud. By the way, you were the best shag I’ve ever had.”
Six.
“You fucking bastard,” I said even though I couldn’t help but snicker.
Five.
My heart sped up as the grip on my gun tightened.
“Did you ever want more kids?” he asked, swallowing slowly.
Four.
“I hadn’t really thought about it. I wanted to be a better mother to Ethan first. He was finally starting to accept me,” I whispered.
