“All clear, baby,” I told her and she moved forward with John and Lucas, heading to the room Paul was in.
Anxiety ate away at my insides as I watched them go into the room and the large metal door closed behind Lucas. I couldn’t see them anymore. I just had to wait.
How I hated waiting. Fucking waiting, and patience were not virtues of mine.
The anxiety continued to gnaw away at me with every second that passed and, fuck, the crackle of static in my earpiece actually made me jump.
“Xander Paul’s dead,” came Claire’s hurried voice in my ear. “Oh God. Looks like he’s been dead for a while. It wasn’t him we spoke to this morning Xander! It someone else. Oh God, he’s dead.”
Fuck!
Fuuuck!
Here we go. This was a fucking trap. “Get out of there, Claire. Get the fuck out. Claire get out.”
Bullets firing sounded in my ear.
“Xander I –” her voice snapped away.
Shit!
Fuck!
I was already moving before my brain could process the thought that I had to do something.
I ran across the roof and growled when I saw more men with guns running below on the same floor Claire was on.
This was one hell of a trap.
Fucking hell why hadn’t I been more forceful. I should have been more forceful in insisting we check this out before coming here.
And Claire…
Please be alive.
Please be alive…
I looked down through the glass. I’d just neared a section below with flooring
on the fourth floor. Shooting through the glass on the roof with one of my handguns I jumped down, tucking and rolling right into the path of another group of men who’d emerged as I landed. It was a good surprise attack accompanied by my double barreled shotgun.
A few shots took them down but more men came. I dashed and ran to the steps leading down to the floors below. Adrenaline took over when I got to the second floor and burst into the room Claire and the guys had gone in.
My gaze landed on her straight away, then John and Lucas. They were fighting off some goons who looked more in line with the Spade guys we’d seen. They wore the mark. The Spades didn’t just have the Ankh tat on their wrists, they had a spade tattooed on their cheek. Looked like a teardrop, but a closer look would confirm it.
The room was large and spacious. The kind that was good for storage. Not one you would hide in though.
The men filled the room, and bullets were flying. I took down a few with my gun as I ran over to join Claire, then fuck, my eyes landed on Paul and the sight of what they did to him made my soul shiver.
He sat dead in the corner of the room in an office chair. A bullet to his brain had taken off half his head but the way his body looked pale and decomposed suggested he’d been dead for at least a week. The week he’d been missing for.
It definitely wasn’t him we spoke to this morning.
I ran in guns blazing, taking down the Spades around me, and the ones who now came in after me.
There were too many though.
Four of us against them.
